Completed Feature Requests (Moved)

[Tom Speirs]

That would be a nice feature, but I don't think it's something Tom would be responsible for creating. The descriptions of the roms come from a database file compiled from somebody else. I think it's called history.dat. I think that file is updated whenever MAME is, and Tom's program just calls it. For pinball the same would be true here. Somebody would have to make a database for Tom's program to call. It's not something internal to the program.

Databases are supported in GameEx, and theres a bunch of them included. But yes someone would need to create a database for Visual Pinball

[Tom Speirs]

I like what you've done, but I have one tiny little request...

Your database files open up with my Microsoft Excel but I can't edit them. Would it be possible to make them easy to change? I noticed alot of the ROMs in my games list don't have descriptions and some emulators don't have a DB at all.

Just for your info the databases are microsoft Access 2000 files. Should work with Access 2000 and above, and probably a few othe office suites.

[TimeBandit]

For us novice GameEX users, it would be wonderful if there was an installation suite package for GameEX.

Have GameEX bundled with proven and safe game emulators & MAME and have all the common configuration and settings applied. Possibily have a wizard that can walk a user through some minor configuration changes (joystick control, screen output, etc).

I can only guess that a majority of GameEX users use similar emulators, MAME and configuration settings. I can see that throughout the posting on this board. Additionally, this would make GameEX more appealing to new users and users that have to reinstall GameEX.

Just a thought.

[Adultery]

For us novice GameEX users, it would be wonderful if there was an installation suite package for GameEX.

Have GameEX bundled with proven and safe game emulators & MAME and have all the common configuration and settings applied. Possibily have a wizard that can walk a user through some minor configuration changes (joystick control, screen output, etc).

I can only guess that a majority of GameEX users use similar emulators, MAME and configuration settings. I can see that throughout the posting on this board. Additionally, this would make GameEX more appealing to new users and users that have to reinstall GameEX.

Just a thought.

I'm currently working on a web si6te which will have user friendly zips and emulators with pre-configured .ini files. Just gonna take some time is all.

One thing I think would be cool...

Maybe offer a link in each emulator page for the music rips?

Like, for example - NEStopia has a .nsf player built in, VirtuaNES has an external NSF player (virtuaNSF). If one had the .nsf file for Zelda - it could say 'Play NSF' on the Zelda game screen if they had the appropriate player installed...

Just a thought.

[Tom Speirs]

i dunno if this have been requested or is possible somehow i looked but couldnt find anything there hinted it was possible so i think it could be cool to go little futher with the Video and enable a database like on emulators

just this could contain "actors/actress in a movie a discrition of the movie or type of movie Fantasy/drama/horror ect ect." and so on

You read my mind!

[daveortiz2004]

Once again, very impressive program and support.

I noticed you can sort games that use light guns and multiplayer games but how about being able to sort games utilizing trackballls or spinners.

That way, you wouldn't have to search to find out what kind of controller is used for a specific game.

I think that would be a nice enhancement.

[hansolo77]

I second that... After taking time to build a spinner (cause I'm cheap), I only play like 3 games that I know work with them. Arkanoid, Cameltry, and Tempest. I know there's got to be more games than that. I don't have a trackball, but the only games I can think of that would use that (off hand) would be bowling games, some golf games, and missile command. Sorting using those controllers would be awesome.

Something else you could sort by, along the same line, would be joystick (4-way vs 8-way) and maybe the number of buttons. I seem to recall a message from people asking how many games support 3 buttons, 4, 5, 6, etc... If you could sort by that, it would make it easier. I make the suggestion of the 4/8 way because some people only have 4 ways, and to play an 8 way game with it is impossible.

[nullus]

Hi Tom,

after testing this and that for a while I would like to draw a suggestion for the jukebox in GameEx.

Me personally I would prefer to have an additional sorting option.

--by album

-------- by artist

---------by name

For now if you choose "by album" all albums are listed alphabetically wich is confusing and a little bit inconvenient when you have a few hundred albums on your HD (means a lot of scrolling and you have to remember all the album names exactly which is not easy for an old guy like me ). It would make things so much easier and more transparent to have all albums from one artist at a glance.

Secondly, as already mentioned elsewhere, I'm asking myself why GameEx starts to play automatically when entering the jukebox? Especially because you can not influence the song it starts to play. It's simply the first song in the list (wich I do not want to listen to every time I fire up the jukebox ). Wouldn't it be better to give it a manual start, especially as it is not so easy to stop the jukebox from playing for those of us that do neither have a MCE remote control nor a keyboard but instead a cabinet with a limited amount of buttons and joysticks... .

My last point for today deals with a potential bug (?!?):

Not all (music) albums show up in GameEx.

I'm using ID3 tagging for my mp3 and I checked a dozen of times that the albums that don't show up in GameEx are properly tagged. I already tried to delete the JukeboxData.dat and JukeboxFiles.dat with no effect. I did a retagging of the affected albums with a slightly different tag ==> also no effect. They simply don't show up in my GameEx list wich drives me mad... .

Any idea on that?

Any comments highly appreciated,

nullus

[lingpanda]

Winkawaks and or finalburn emulator integrated into Gameex. (ex. Zinc in GameEx)

http://cps2shock.retrogames.com/

[Judgelord]

It would be great to have Winkawaks and Final Burn integrated into GameEx.

I am trying to run them from GameEx since I discovered this amazing front end, but until today I have no luck making it.

I remembered once I asked on the forum about it and Tom replyed asking me if I had an old PC.

My Pc is pretty new and with decent hardware, but still I would like to run Winkawaks and Final Burn on my cabinet. They work better than Mame in my opinion. It would surely be great using them.

Anyway, thanks for your time and attention.

[hansolo77]

Ability to filter extracted 7-zip files. IE; When 7zipping cd-images (sega cd for example) in iso/mp3 or bin/cue format, have GameEx use an additional filter to only look for the iso or cue files. This would help eliminate the showing of multiple files once games are extracted. This is a difficult "bug" in that the files are extracted and displayed without their file extentions. So if we could get an "ExtractedROMFilter" that would really be great.

This would also help with Pinball tables that I'm 7zipping. Some tables require extra vbs files, that are the same names as the vpt files. Telling GameEx to only look for *.vpt files after extracting would be awesome.

[Adultery]

Amen!

The 7-zip/GoodMerge intergration is so near perfect... Just one more teeny tiny step...

[Marker0077]

I have a feature request/bug report & a feature request.

#1) The emubak & mamebak files don't display in GameEx, fixing that would be great.

LATE EDIT START:

I'm referring to using these as a mame background & a background for the emulators menu. For some reason, these only work as video files, not .PNG's (haven't tested out JPEG).

LATE EDIT END:

#2) Anyway to associate .rm files to RealPlayer or *preferably* Real Alternative for the Videos section?

Winkawaks and or finalburn emulator integrated into Gameex. (ex. Zinc in GameEx)

http://cps2shock.retrogames.com/

The only problem I see with adding WinKawaka is people are going to start getting picky, i.e. "well I want WinKawaka to run this game but I want MAME to run that game, but I HAVE to have finalburn run those games...". I understand from a users end, certain games just run better in certain emulators (and sometimes those opinions vary) but from a developers end - it's a pain in the arse.

We need some sort of concept design as far as how it's going to be set up in the GameEx configuration program. Personally, I'd just let people edit the whatever .ini files but integration in the configuration utility would obviously be outstanding.

Ability to filter extracted 7-zip files. IE; When 7zipping cd-images (sega cd for example) in iso/mp3 or bin/cue format, have GameEx use an additional filter to only look for the iso or cue files.

Couldn't you just add .cue or .bin to the excluded files list? Actually, it would just be .cue since you only really need the .bin.

[zolakk]

One thing that I thought would always be nice is the ability to sort the emulator list when displaying it. It's kind of annoying to have to juggle the whole list around in the config just to add in one emulator in the middle for example. Other than that, I love it so far, keep up the great work

[amos_82]

One thing that I thought would always be nice is the ability to sort the emulator list when displaying it. It's kind of annoying to have to juggle the whole list around in the config just to add in one emulator in the middle for example. Other than that, I love it so far, keep up the great work smile.gif

There's an easier way to shuffle your emulator order;

if you open your 'gameex.ini' in the "C:\Program Files\GameEx\CONFIG" folder. Scroll down to the emulator section (about half way down). Then change the emulator numbers:

[Emulator_1] could become [Emulator_5] for example. This will re-order the emultors in gameex and in the Config app.

remember to copy your 'gameex.ini' first to avoid any mishaps.

[zolakk]

that's a good point, but still can be a bit of a pain.

[Marker0077]

I'd like the ability to have 2 different copies of GameEx installed & have it work 100% correctly. Perhaps give the option to use an existing user profile or create a new one & have it tied to the user account.

Currently, I set up a fake drive (X:) & mount whichever folder to that, this way no matter what copy is in use, the paths match up. Lately changed settings made in 1 copy have been showing up in the other. I'm now removing all my saved stuff & reinstalling again.

[gtcobra]

I would like to add pinball icons like mame.

[Marker0077]

Video Feature Request: Support for mounting images to drives with Alcohol 120 or DAEMON Tools. This would be useful for DVD's & for Video CD's.

Video Feature Request: Real video format support.

Currently, I am going to have to set these 2 up as emulators in order to make it work.

[Adultery]

I think it would be groovy if the screensaver also included my emulators, although I'm not sure that would even be possible.

[hansolo77]

I think it would be groovy if the screensaver also included my emulators, although I'm not sure that would even be possible.

It would probably be possible, but highly impractical. If you have a bunch of roms (like I know you do, as do I) it takes nearly a minute to load a game when you press the [RANDOM GAME]. The screensaver would have to go through your whole list every single time to change games, and it would take a minute each and every time.

Now, if there was some way to store a list of the games you have somewhere so GameEx doesn't have to refresh it's list every time, then it might not take as long.....

[Tom Speirs]

It would probably be possible, but highly impractical. If you have a bunch of roms (like I know you do, as do I) it takes nearly a minute to load a game when you press the [RANDOM GAME]. The screensaver would have to go through your whole list every single time to change games, and it would take a minute each and every time.

Now, if there was some way to store a list of the games you have somewhere so GameEx doesn't have to refresh it's list every time, then it might not take as long.....

Not so. If GameEx is refreshing the list each time than it is in fact a bug. GameEx should only refresh the list once per session, and Random Game should only be slow the first time it is selected in a session, as it loads all lists and should then cache them. So the Screensaver should in fact only be slow on the first game it selects. Only seems mildly impractibale to me, not highly, and I could always load the emu lists on a thread, and play a MAME game or video first.

If its a bug let me know.

[hansolo77]

Not so. If GameEx is refreshing the list each time than it is in fact a bug. GameEx should only refresh the list once per session, and Random Game should only be slow the first time it is selected in a session, as it loads all lists and should then cache them. So the Screensaver should in fact only be slow on the first game it selects. Only seems mildly impractibale to me, not highly, and I could always load the emu lists on a thread, and play a MAME game or video first.

If its a bug let me know.

It takes a long time for me to load up a list of games on every emulator. Its like it doesn't cache any of the lists. Don't get me wrong though, once the list has been opened, it seems to work fine until I change emulators or close GameEx. The way I run it, I have MCE and access GameEx through the "MORE GAMES" option. When I'm done playing and quit GameEx, it goes back to MCE like it should. But when GameEx closes, it doesn't look like it stores any kind of cache of games. The only list/cache that DOES seem to save is the MAME list. None of the other emulators do. So for me, whenever I choose to do a random game, it takes forever for it to load up. If I decide not to play it, I usually just go back to the menu of that emulator and choose a different game or something. I've never actually tried doing a random, then going back and doing another random...

So if thats a bug, there ya go. If it's not, then it's a feature that needs tweaked somehow. I'm not complaining because it DOES work the way it is, just not all fast, and definately not fast enough to screensaver all games (but that would be a really cool idea).

[EDIT]

Perhaps you could code a way to use the [update List?] option for all emulators. Just have it show on the main game list for each emulator. That way it stores a file listing somewhere, and only updates that list to that emulator when the user decides to update it. You could then have it save a list for every emulator to make loading that much faster. Then for the screensaver, just have it merge all the lists and work from that. I think that would be very useful. I know for myself, once I get all the roms working, and they're goodmerged/etc, I wouldn't be updating the list again. But to have GameEx refresh the list every session seems to be overkill. Don't you?

[END EDIT]

[Marker0077]

I don't have any problems with any of the console emulators loading game lists or loading games, although I do not have any of my console games compressed. I also run 2 different copies of GameEx, both run with no problems.

879 SNES, 757 NES, 329 N64, 356 Master, 992 Genesis, 422 GBA, 981 GB/GBC, 229 GG, 143 Coleco & 496 Atari 2600.

The only time I experience a somewhat long wait time is when I load larger filesize games in MAME such as Samurai Showdown 5 Special; But I figure this is solely because the game is compressed & I have my romsets split. Aside from that, smoother than a silk babys bottom.

[popcorrin]

I was hoping for built in support for the new ultimarc ultrastik. It is a programmable analog joystick that is much like the gpwiz49. I am including a link that describes exactly how it works. http://www.ultimarc.com/ultrastik_prog.html

Hopefully it won't take much to add this to gameex since the gpwiz49 functionality is already there.

Thanks