Vertical Bezels?

[Lawrence]

I was wondering if I was doing something wrong, or if Gameex is supposed to behave this way.

I rather like the vertical bezel feature of Gameex, nice way to use wasted screen real estate, but when I turn that feature on it won't load the artwork for vertical games anymore (like Pacman). I assumed it would only use the vertical bezel for games that do not already have one. Have I setup Gameex wrong, or is it supposed to act this way?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[chriss]

I was wondering if I was doing something wrong, or if Gameex is supposed to behave this way.

I rather like the vertical bezel feature of Gameex, nice way to use wasted screen real estate, but when I turn that feature on it won't load the artwork for vertical games anymore (like Pacman). I assumed it would only use the vertical bezel for games that do not already have one. Have I setup Gameex wrong, or is it supposed to act this way?

Thanks in advance for any help.

this feature is unfortunately not working in gameex. if you turn this option on vertical games will not load anymore.

i like this feature as well... somehow i managed to set it up to only show bezels for vertical games from inside mame gui (mame plus). don't know exactly how i did it so i can't give you step by step instructions.. maybe it's a mame plus feature...

[Lawrence]

this feature is unfortunately not working in gameex. if you turn this option on vertical games will not load anymore.

i like this feature as well... somehow i managed to set it up to only show bezels for vertical games from inside mame gui (mame plus). don't know exactly how i did it so i can't give you step by step instructions.. maybe it's a mame plus feature...

That's unfortunate. I guess I'll leave it turned off.

Any chance of changing Gameex to behave in the manner I described? I would imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to implement -- would only require Gameex to check if a regular bezel is already present in the standard artwork folder, and if it is, not use the Gameex vertical one. That would rock.

[bkenobi]

I don't think Tom is aware this feature doesn't work.

[headkaze]

Does changing BezelVersion=2 in GameEx.ini fix this?

[Lawrence]

Does changing BezelVersion=2 in GameEx.ini fix this?

It's already set to bezel version 2.

I want to clarify that all the vertical games still load just fine using the Gameex bezel -- it's just that it takes priority over the regular Mame artwork (for vertical games with artwork like Pacman, Q*bert, etc.) I'm just wondering how Gameex is supposed to behave before pulling my hair troubleshooting a problem that may not exist. If this is how Gameex is supposed to behave though, I think it should be changed at least made an option to give the regular artwork priority.

[headkaze]

GameEx isn't supposed to generate a bezel if there is already one present. But it could be changing the artwork folder to artworkgameex. Check both artwork and artworkgameex folders. Perhaps you will need to copy your bezels into one of these folders.

[Lawrence]

GameEx isn't supposed to generate a bezel if there is already one present. But it could be changing the artwork folder to artworkgameex. Check both artwork and artworkgameex folders. Perhaps you will need to copy your bezels into one of these folders.

I just tried copying all of my regular artwork bezels to artworkgameex -- still getting the same behaviour.

[headkaze]

So what is happening is GameEx overwriting your bezels with the GameEx one?

If it is for some strange reason I would try setting them to read-only. To do this select them in Windows Explorer, right-click the selection the select Properties and tick the Read Only attribute.

[Lawrence]

So what is happening is GameEx overwriting your bezels with the GameEx one?

If it is for some strange reason I would try setting them to read-only. To do this select them in Windows Explorer, right-click the selection the select Properties and tick the Read Only attribute.

Doesn't appear to be overwriting them. I just opened up the qbert one in both artwork and artworkgameex and both are the regular artwork one not the gameex one. But pulling up q*bert via gameex shows the gameex bezel.

Thanks for the help headkaze. I really appreciate it.

[Lawrence]

Doesn't appear to be overwriting them. I just opened up the qbert one in both artwork and artworkgameex and both are the regular artwork one not the gameex one. But pulling up q*bert via gameex shows the gameex bezel.

Thanks for the help headkaze. I really appreciate it.

Perhaps this is relevant/related to my problem as well.

With one of the recent updates the effect I use (auto_twisty.png) stopped working (but worked fine in Mame Plus). I added the effect parameter to command line options in advance mame settings in Gameex and got it back (although not a satisfactory fix, as it then makes every game use that effect, including Vector games). Whats interesting though is that if I turn on Gameex's vertical bezels that effect won't show up, even with the command line parameter being sent. When I turn it off, the same game will show the effect again (along with the proper bezel).

I just tried deleting everything in the Gameex Artwork directory -- that didn't help either.

[Tempest]

Jellybelly - ignore what I'm about to say, it may not make any sense!

Everybody else...

Would his version of mame make a difference? I'm thinking of when they changed the command line option for artwork lately...

[chriss]

try mame plus and set up to display bezels with the mame gui

that will do what you try to achieve

when i start up a vertical game through gameex it displays the related png found in the artwork folder. it doesn't display artwork for horizontal games...

i'm using mr. do's artwork set (most recent)

[Lawrence]

try mame plus and set up to display bezels with the mame gui

that will do what you try to achieve

when i start up a vertical game through gameex it displays the related png found in the artwork folder. it doesn't display artwork for horizontal games...

i'm using mr. do's artwork set (most recent)

Everything works fine from within Mame Plus -- all the artwork options are set (full, no cropping). Works fine from Gameex too, if vertical bezels are turned off.

It's also not Mame Plus, as vanilla mame exhibits the same behaviour with Gameex. Seems that for whatever reason Gameex is just ignoring my artwork set (Mr. Do's as well).

[headkaze]

Run the GameEx Setup Wizard and take a look in "Basic MAME Settings". Check your paths.

[Lawrence]

Run the GameEx Setup Wizard and take a look in "Basic MAME Settings". Check your paths.

In the configuration utility the path for artwork is correct, and likewise in the gameex.ini. Before I run the setup wizard again -- is there any danger of that messing up my current settings (I have over 20 emus set up and don't want to redo that).

I'm attaching my gameex.ini to this post -- perhaps there's something I have overlooked in there.

[headkaze]

Running Setup Wizard does not mess with your current settings.

[Lawrence]

Running Setup Wizard does not mess with your current settings.

Thanks. I just ran the setup wizard and everything appears to be in order. The artwork path is F:\Mame\artwork as it should be.

I'm at a complete loss as to what could be causing this. Everything seems to be okay.

[Tempest]

Thanks. I just ran the setup wizard and everything appears to be in order. The artwork path is F:\Mame\artwork as it should be.

I'm at a complete loss as to what could be causing this. Everything seems to be okay.

If you will zip up your Gameex.ini, I will try it to see if I have the same results as you.

[Lawrence]

If you will zip up your Gameex.ini, I will try it to see if I have the same results as you.

Here it is. Thanks.

GameEx.zip

[chriss]

that really is a weird problem you are having...

try setting up a new directory (like mame_test or something), copy your artwork over to the artwork folder and some vertical games in the roms folder. now do all the necessary settings inside mame (or mame plus) and set the correct paths inside gameex. then have a look if there is any additional command option enabled inside the setup wizard. if this is the case, disable all additional options (like -artwork -triplebuffer -nowindow and so on) if it is working correctly outside of gameex we should be able to fix this issue easily...

[Lawrence]

that really is a weird problem you are having...

try setting up a new directory (like mame_test or something), copy your artwork over to the artwork folder and some vertical games in the roms folder. now do all the necessary settings inside mame (or mame plus) and set the correct paths inside gameex. then have a look if there is any additional command option enabled inside the setup wizard. if this is the case, disable all additional options (like -artwork -triplebuffer -nowindow and so on) if it is working correctly outside of gameex we should be able to fix this issue easily...

I downloaded a new copy of Mame Plus 0.125u6a and Gameex 9.37 and installed both on a separate drive from my regular installations of both. I copied my entire artwork directory to the new installation and the roms for Q*bert and Raiden. Same behaviour -- with the Gameex vertical bezel turned off, Q*bert shows its own artwork bezel. With the Gameex vertical bezel turned on, it shows the Gameex vertical bezel and not the Q*bert artwork.

[Lawrence]

Does anyone else get this same behaviour?

[Tempest]

Does anyone else get this same behaviour?

I loaded up your config quickly last night...It behaves the way you said, I found a post from Tom in late 2007 that said that this is the way it works. Since HK seems to believe that it should work the way you want it to, I wanted to do more investigating to see if one of the more recent versions of Gameex supported this, but I've been busy...

I may not have time today, if not, hopefully tomorrow. Unless of course somebody knows for sure, then I'll stop looking at it... (I would assume that HK is right )

BTW: I agree with Bkenobi in the post he made, that alot of the bezels seem to be made for a vertical monitor, and instead of taking up the emtpy space on a horizontal one, they just make the picture smaller.

[bkenobi]

I was playing Bubble Bobble II last night and the artwork was on. I turned it off and found the same behavior you described. The fix for this is to use the "crop to screen size" command. This is not ideal, but it will work. I'm hoping this will be addressed at some point. I suspect it has to do with keeping the original size of the game if your screen is higher resolution than the original game had.