Setting zinc as a seperate emulator

[Queeg]

Hello all,

I have zinc running fully outside of game ex, and now I want to have it run in GameEx as a separate emulator, as I have done with my naomi and atomiswave games. This would mean zinc will display as its own entity rather than be a part of the mame list.

I have it set to use zenith (zinc front end) as the launcher. However when I select a game the program just opens, displaying the list of all games but not loading the one I chose through GameEx. I can exit back to GameEx just fine, but I want to be able to fully load the game rather than just get dropped to zenith and then have to select the game a second time.

I do not need to use zenith at all, but this seemed like the easiest option for me and my weak programming skills.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[fRequEnCy]

  On 12/20/2009 at 6:31 PM, Queeg said:

Hello all,

I have zinc running fully outside of game ex, and now I want to have it run in GameEx as a separate emulator, as I have done with my naomi and atomiswave games. This would mean zinc will display as its own entity rather than be a part of the mame list.

I have it set to use zenith (zinc front end) as the launcher. However when I select a game the program just opens, displaying the list of all games but not loading the one I chose through GameEx. I can exit back to GameEx just fine, but I want to be able to fully load the game rather than just get dropped to zenith and then have to select the game a second time.

I do not need to use zenith at all, but this seemed like the easiest option for me and my weak programming skills.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

The zinc front end doesn't have a commandline interface I believe. I would use the front end just to set up and then call on zinc using the correct switches wanted to run the game. Then use the supplied map file from GameEx ([Arcade] ZiNc) which handles the naming of the roms. So you're commandline would be:

ZiNc.exe [ROM] <options>

Depending on how you wanted loaded then you can add the options required. I'm sure you can find these options in the ZeNith.ini. I had it setup like this at one time before I redid my system and haven't done it again. Although I never did try the ZeNith frontend. But give it a go. If you need help then let us know.

[Queeg]

  On 12/20/2009 at 8:31 PM, fRequEnCy said:

The zinc front end doesn't have a commandline interface I believe. I would use the front end just to set up and then call on zinc using the correct switches wanted to run the game. Then use the supplied map file from GameEx ([Arcade] ZiNc) which handles the naming of the roms. So you're commandline would be:

ZiNc.exe [ROM] <options>

Depending on how you wanted loaded then you can add the options required. I'm sure you can find these options in the ZeNith.ini. I had it setup like this at one time before I redid my system and haven't done it again. Although I never did try the ZeNith frontend. But give it a go. If you need help then let us know.

Thank you for the quick reply. I never even bothered to look for a map file and that really helped to sort my roms out. I tried launching with your command, making sure all the paths were correct, but gameEx goes to black for a second and then just jumps back into itself. Show desktop is set to true because I have had similar problems that a false show desktop has caused.

I am curious as to what the

<options>

command does? I have an extremely limited knowledge of GameEx.

Thanks again, I really appreciate the forums dedication to helping others use this great program!

edit: I just noticed I spelled separate wrong in the title

[fRequEnCy]

  On 12/20/2009 at 10:39 PM, Queeg said:

Thank you for the quick reply. I never even bothered to look for a map file and that really helped to sort my roms out. I tried launching with your command, making sure all the paths were correct, but gameEx goes to black for a second and then just jumps back into itself. Show desktop is set to true because I have had similar problems that a false show desktop has caused.

I am curious as to what the

<options>

command does? I have an extremely limited knowledge of GameEx.

Thanks again, I really appreciate the forums dedication to helping others use this great program!

edit: I just noticed I spelled separate wrong in the title

Sorry! <options> are the other commandline settings needed to run zinc. So you don't actually put that in GameEx. I'll give you the exact settings when I get home and have the correct settings for you. Give me some time to get home and to try that frontend to see how it works. As far as the map file goes, what it does it passes along the rom number instead of the rom name to the commandline so that ZiNc can run it. ZiNc doesn't work with the rom names so the map file included with GameEx takes care of this. I'll be home later tonight to give further instruction unless someone else can help till then with the commandline needed to make it work.

[Queeg]

Thanks a lot, I'll wait to hear from you. I tried some batch files that Brian had made for each game in another post but still no luck.

[fRequEnCy]

  On 12/20/2009 at 11:16 PM, Queeg said:

Thanks a lot, I'll wait to hear from you. I tried some batch files that Brian had made for each game in another post but still no luck.

Queeg! After doing some testing with that frontend here's the solution.

The ZeNith frontend can generate the command line needed to run in GameEx. Don't forget to use the MAP file which sends the rom number to the command line (very important).

1. Run ZeNith.
   
2. Change settings to your liking if you haven't already or else skip this step.
   
3. Press Ctrl+F11.
   
4. Open zenith.bat file by right clicking on it choose edit (in Windows).
   
5. Copy the contents of it into the command line for GameEx and where it shows the number after zinc.exe [Number], change that to zinc.exe [ROM] and leave everything else alone (notice changes in blue below).
   
6. Run from GameEx!
   

Here's an example of what was generated. Keep in mind that I didn't set any of it up so don't use this command line. Just here to show what you're looking for.

zenith.bat

zinc.exe 1 --use-slow-geometry=yes --renderer=renderer-d3d.znc --use-renderer-cfg-file=zenith-renderer.cfg --controller=controller-winterblast.znc --use-controller-cfg-file=zenith-controller.cfg --roms-directory="D:\Emulation\Roms\Arcade\ZiNc v1.1\Roms"

change to:

zinc.exe [ROM] --use-slow-geometry=yes --renderer=renderer-d3d.znc --use-renderer-cfg-file=zenith-renderer.cfg --controller=controller-winterblast.znc --use-controller-cfg-file=zenith-controller.cfg --roms-directory="D:\Emulation\Roms\Arcade\ZiNc v1.1\Roms"

[Queeg]

It works! Thank you! For some reason, having an xbox controller plugged in conflicts with the zinc controller plug in. It took me forever to find what the problem was because it would open for a second and then quit. I finally found a controller log file and found the error. My cabinet is using a keyboard encoder anyways so it doesn't really matter.

Once again thanks for all the help, that batch file creating command is cool and will come in handy!

[fRequEnCy]

  On 12/21/2009 at 3:11 AM, Queeg said:

It works! Thank you! For some reason, having an xbox controller plugged in conflicts with the zinc controller plug in. It took me forever to find what the problem was because it would open for a second and then quit. I finally found a controller log file and found the error. My cabinet is using a keyboard encoder anyways so it doesn't really matter.

Once again thanks for all the help, that batch file creating command is cool and will come in handy!

Yeah. I found it in the readme after wondering why it wasn't loading my roms at first. I found that this frontend didn't add quotes around the rom path for those of us who keep them in a path with spaces. So after finding that out, I discovered that it showed all the settings for that particular frontend. Other ones i've tinkered with just generate a config file that can be called so that the command line could be smaller but all works the same. Was an interesting frontend so thanks for asking about it as I had never messed with it before.

Have fun!

[fRequEnCy]

Ok. I remember what I did a long time ago. Just copy that current command line and copy all the contents to a new file perhaps named zinc.cfg and then all the settings will be loaded using the following command line:

zinc.exe [ROM] --use-config-file=zinc.cfg

Now if your roms folder does have spaces in it then it will not work. The solution would be to use the short name of the path and enter that in the --roms-directory= switch. So that's a way to clean it up a bit. Has same results as what you're currently doing.