NEWS: Highly recommended to update to latest version

[Tom Speirs]

There was a long standing bug affecting the speed of the GameEx Menu/User interface, which I did not even know existed until last several versions.

Now it is fixed this significantly improves the smoothness and performance of the Menus.

Because of this, for anyone not keeping up with the updates, I can at least highly recommend now is a good time to get the latest version. There's also been a ton of great enhancments this last week or so, and because of the new error reporting introduced, GameEx is a lot more intuitive about common errors that may occur that would normally kick you out of the front end. In additon Screensaver/attract mode now also has some clever code to detect when the bypass disclaimer keys have been sent to MAME, meaning often pressing a control will exit the screensaver immediatly after a game is launched rather than after some time. Yourll appreciate this if your running on a Cab.

Thanks to everyone for all there feedback and feature requests. As Headkaze said the other day, this is now not software its a community.

Thank,

Tom

[bkenobi]

Much appreciated! One question/potential bug report. When in screensaver mode and a game pops up that I want to play, if I hit a credit button and then hit start, I should be in the game. For some reason, this only works some of the time. I can even hit the credit button 5-10 times and then start and sometimes hitting buttons or the joystick will kick me out of the game.

I don't know if this is a GameEx thing or MAME only, but I just wanted to throw it out there to see if it's common and if there's a known solution for it. Thanks!

[Tom Speirs]

Much appreciated! One question/potential bug report. When in screensaver mode and a game pops up that I want to play, if I hit a credit button and then hit start, I should be in the game. For some reason, this only works some of the time. I can even hit the credit button 5-10 times and then start and sometimes hitting buttons or the joystick will kick me out of the game.

I don't know if this is a GameEx thing or MAME only, but I just wanted to throw it out there to see if it's common and if there's a known solution for it. Thanks!

Thanks. Will be fixed in next release.

[katuuuz]

There was a long standing bug affecting the speed of the GameEx Menu/User interface, which I did not even know existed until last several versions.

Now it is fixed this significantly improves the smoothness and performance of the Menus.

Because of this, for anyone not keeping up with the updates, I can at least highly recommend now is a good time to get the latest version. There's also been a ton of great enhancments this last week or so, and because of the new error reporting introduced, GameEx is a lot more intuitive about common errors that may occur that would normally kick you out of the front end. In additon Screensaver/attract mode now also has some clever code to detect when the bypass disclaimer keys have been sent to MAME, meaning often pressing a control will exit the screensaver immediatly after a game is launched rather than after some time. Yourll appreciate this if your running on a Cab.

Thanks to everyone for all there feedback and feature requests. As Headkaze said the other day, this is now not software its a community.

Thank,

Tom

great update tom, super fast.

[BillyB]

I always noticed that my game preview movies, which are MNG, the sound and video would always go out of sync... I'm not sure which update did it, but it's fixed now! Thanks Tom!

[JohnH]

I am very happy to have my always-on toolbar back at the top of the screen - with the added bonus of scrolling song titles! Very nice. Thanks!

[headkaze]

Dont think I havn't noticed the speed increase Tom, it's a big one. Very cool

[bkenobi]

Just a note: I tried starting a game that was in screen saver with the version that updated on start this afternoon (v8.51 I think) and it still kicked out after pressing player buttons. I think I'm really starting to like the idea of only kicking out of demo mode by pressing whatever the quit button is in the emulator.

[Tom Speirs]

Just to clarify what buttons do you refer to as "Player" buttons?

[bkenobi]

I'm using a GP-Wiz to interface with the PC (basically a gamepad). The controller has 4 directions plus 32 buttons. I have the controls set up so that buttons 1-7 are player buttons 1-7 in MAME. When I press any of these, it kicks out. I don't think pressing the directions makes a difference. I do know that hitting coin1 and P1Start does not kick out (buttons 20 and 21). I can be more specific if necessary.

[Tom Speirs]

Yeah, im just not sure if your saying this is a new issue or not. ie it used to work.

[bkenobi]

Sorry for being unclear. I mentioned earlier in this thread (post 2) that it never worked and that perhaps it could be looked at. Then the new release indicated that the problem was fixed (I think I saw that in the release notes for v8.51). I was mainly reporting that the new version didn't fix the problem for me.

[Tom Speirs]

I reiterate to everyone, especially regulars who should know by now, please be a little careful where you post bug reports for GameEx. Posts like this waste a LOT of my time investigating, thinking I've introduced a new bug in the latest version.

[Tom Speirs]

No worries, its just a problem (gripe) for me when people post or appear to post a bug report for a release notes news post for a specific version, when the bug goes back quite a few versions.

[bkenobi]

I completely understand Tom! I only put the comments here to keep them together since that's where I originally mentioned it. I personally don't like searching through different threads to get all the info on a topic. I guess my stuff could be looked as hijacking a bit...my bad