CoinFX application

[Palmore]

I was bored one night and decided to write a little application to play a coin dropping sound effect when you hit either 5,6,7 or 8 (MAME coin buttons).

It's my first public VB app I've made, and well I'm pretty new to VB.net.

Thanks to headkaze for helping me out and pointing me in the right direction too on a couple items lol.

I plan to add a few functions such as choosing what sounds play.

Test it out and let me know if it works for you, I'd love to hear some feedback. (That and I wanna make sure my keyboard hooks are working correctly to pic up key hits inside MAME and other emus/games)

It can be downloaded from

CoinFX

crackedconsole.com

[Brian Hoffman]

What happens if in MAME your coin keys are not 5,6,7,8. Does it detect the mame event or simply capture the keystroke?

[Palmore]

Currently no, I'll add that to the next release (among other options) good call out, thanks!

[Brian Hoffman]

Currently no, I'll add that to the next release (among other options) good call out, thanks!

No problem, you can even use your program as a wrapper from mame.

CoinFX.EXE SF2 can effectivly run mame with that game, doing this launches your coinfx program, you can use the argument sf2 to do several things, 1) run mame with that game. 2) Log the game played 3) audit how long and how many quarters was inserted etc.. Even have a timer that kills the process after X amount of minutes.

If monitoring the mame event is too diffacult you can include an INI that your program can parse to hook the insert quarter keys. EG.. The user can specify in the INI what keys they use for MAME. This way it does not have to be fixed to 5,6,7,8.

I wrote a timer app that works the same way a while back.

[Palmore]

No problem, you can even use your program as a wrapper from mame.

CoinFX.EXE SF2 can effectivly run mame with that game, doing this launches your coinfx program, you can use the argument sf2 to do several things, 1) run mame with that game. 2) Log the game played 3) audit how long and how many quarters was inserted etc.. Even have a timer that kills the process after X amount of minutes.

If monitoring the mame event is too diffacult you can include an INI that your program can parse to hook the insert quarter keys. EG.. The user can specify in the INI what keys they use for MAME. This way it does not have to be fixed to 5,6,7,8.

I wrote a timer app that works the same way a while back.

The only issue with tracking amount of coins and also allowing it to disable or shut down MAME opens the age old can of worms of ppl using MAME to make money. I've seen before where ppl have coin trackers or other such functions and they get ripped apart by the community for that exact reason. I may not add those features =/

[Brian Hoffman]

The only issue with tracking amount of coins and also allowing it to disable or shut down MAME opens the age old can of worms of ppl using MAME to make money. I've seen before where ppl have coin trackers or other such functions and they get ripped apart by the community for that exact reason. I may not add those features =/

Im very aware of those, lol

The timer app I wrote is actually based on inactivity. Not related to credits in anyway.

[Red Menace]

Is it possible to write a command line for the advanced mame "run on launch" setting to launch and close this exe with mame games?

[bkenobi]

You could use the run also line. If you use the launch before, it will wait until the app's process ends to launch MAME, which is not what you are looking for.

[Palmore]

I use run also to load mine, its launched in a batch file that runs my pre game apps and configs.

Then I use PSKill to kill the exe on run after.

I've been finally working on updating the app, version 0.2b should be online in the next couple of weeks (alot going on at home and work)

What I've added....

An options menu (right click in the tray icon)

An option to hook into MAME and read it's coin keys (still working on this)

Custom key definitions

Custom sound effect (if you want to add your own coin or other sound)

Ability to disable any of the 3 (and custom) sound effects

Incremental or Randomized coin sound.

Incremental plays an empty style sound up to 20 coins, then plays a half full sound till 40 coins then plays a full sound 40 and up.

Currently this is only per session rather than over all coin count.

Randomized of course plays any of the coins effects randomly at key press.

Options to Load and Save a configuration file.

MAME functions are still being built on my side, per Brian's request I'm thinking of setting it up as an optional MAME wrapper (via command line). No command line options it loads as always, toss a game name at it then it will start and load MAME in the background.

Coin counters

These will keep track of total coins for each player and over all, as well as calculate cash spent 25cent increments of course.

More to come as I build it out. Ideas are welcome, while still keeping the over all app basic and functional.

[fRequEnCy]

It's looking good Palmore! Looking forward to it's release. Nice contribution to the community.

[Tempest]

Very Nice!

[Palmore]

0.2.2b is done

CoinFX 0.2.2b

I still don't have the MAME hooks working, but you can change they keys used for Coins in this version

Enjoy =)

[Palmore]

I patched up a couple reported bugs and decided to release a new version prior to hitting the sack.

CoinFX 0.2.6b

I'd recommend running this version, it fixes loading MAME from a command line, as well as adds the option to check MAME exiting and shut itself off. This is great if you are using it as a wrapper.

Full change log below.

CoinFX Changelong (www.crackedconsole.com - Palmore)

0.2.6b

Added option to monitor your MAME exe and close CoinFX when you exit MAME

_____________________________________________________________

0.2.5b

Added save options for Incremental coin values, they now are saved to the INI file.

Corrected slight display bug in windows XP (with coin logos, name and crackedconsole logo).

Updated code to make ini file ALWAYS relative to the app, rather than current working directory.

Corrected MAME wrapper function

Updated INI version handler to import coin counts from previous application ini versions

_____________________________________________________________

0.2.2b

Loading a custom wav file

Choosing what sounds are played

Randomizing or incremental sound effects

Customizing coin keys

Customizing key press listen timer

Using as a MAME frontend/wrapper via command line

Coin counters for Player1,2,3 and 4 as well as over all and money collected.

Added INI configuration file

_____________________________________________________________

[Brian Hoffman]

Wow, this is evolving quite nicely. Good job!

[Palmore]

Thanks, it appears I've already caused a stir on MAMEWorlds forums, being on the edge of a bad tool with the coin counters. I wont touch those anymore, they will stay as is (unless someone gets upset more so). I just wont add anything functionality wise to them.

Aside from that, does anyone else have ideas?

For bug reports, feature requests and contact info, please goto

CoinFX homepage on Crackedconsole.com

or email

[email protected]

[Palmore]

Tom if you are out there =) (I know you are you support these forums like no other developer I've seen lol)

Can I request a feature of GameEx I picked up on while using CoinFX?

in MAME basic

I want to set my MAME folder to

D:\Arcade\Data\emus\MAME\

Yet I want to launch MAME via CoinFX (as a wrapper). The problem is, if I enter

D:\Arcade\Data\apps\CoinFX\CoinFX.exe

As the MAME exe it reverts back to

Mame.exe

I can get it to work just by puttin CoinFX in my MAME folder, but I want to use it for other Emus and games as well, so I'd rather keep it in it's own folder.

Is it possible to update GameEX to allow for calling Mame.exe (or a wrapper) via path and file name in that field on the config editor?

Thanks!

[Tempest]

I think that you can already do what you want. Set the paths to Mame as usual, then use the 'Advanced Mame Setting(1)' to set the path, and exe for your CoinFX application.

[Brian Hoffman]

I think that you can already do what you want. Set the paths to Mame as usual, then use the 'Advanced Mame Setting(1)' to set the path, and exe for your CoinFX application.

Its really kind of a windows issue. If you launch a program from a directory other than its working directory it will expect to see its assetts in the same folder. Mame has built in solutions for this by allowing you to specify a rom directory that is not in the same folder mame is installed in.

I think you want to run this c:\program files\coinfx\coinfx.exe c:\emulators\mame\mame.exe sf2

This really will not work in gameex as it uses the working path to build the command line.

If you look at the contents of RUNITGAME.bat you will see how gameex brings up a command that will change your directory to the working directory then call the application.

Most wrappers are inserted in the working directory. I have ideas to make it work but they are not elegant solutions. Then again I am not Tom and he may have a bit more to say on the subject.

Brian Hoffman

[Palmore]

I've set my MAME paths to MAME under Basic MAME

Then under Advanced MAME I set use AdvancedMAME to on and set paths/exe to my CoinFX.exe application

runitgame.bat

@ECHO OFF
CALL D:\ARCADE\DATA\SCRIPTS\SYSTEM\MAME.BAT
D:
CD "D:\Arcade\Data\apps\CoinFX"
CoinFX.exe openice 
D:\Arcade\Data\scripts\System\unload.bat

Now with Advanced MAME off and just using MAME here's what runitgame.bat looks like

@ECHO OFF
CALL D:\ARCADE\DATA\SCRIPTS\SYSTEM\MAME.BAT
D:
CD "D:\Arcade\Data\emus\MAME"
mameuifx32.exe openice -rompath "D:\Arcade\Games\Roms\MAME" -mt -nowindow -joy -lightgun -dual_lightgun -mouse -offscreen_reload -skip_gameinfo -r 1024x768@80  -d3dversion 9
D:\Arcade\Data\scripts\System\unload.bat

My goal is to allow calling a wrapper (in this case, coinfx.exe) from another directory while still keeping my MAME directory as the working directory

i.e.

@ECHO OFF
CALL D:\ARCADE\DATA\SCRIPTS\SYSTEM\MAME.BAT
D:
CD "D:\Arcade\Data\emus\MAME"
D:\Arcade\data\apps\coinfx\coinfx.exe openice -rompath "D:\Arcade\Games\Roms\MAME" -mt -nowindow -joy -lightgun -dual_lightgun -mouse -offscreen_reload -skip_gameinfo -r 1024x768@80  -d3dversion 9
D:\Arcade\Data\scripts\System\unload.bat

If you put any paths in the mame exe section under basic settings it strips it out and reverts back to what it was last saved as.

[Palmore]

Side note, Brian (or anyone else) have any tips or link to doc for capturing MAME events? I've been troving Google, MAMEdev and a few other place but yet to find any information (at all!) on it.

Thanks

[fRequEnCy]

Only way I'm aware of to accomplish that is to setup MAME as a separate emulator. That way you can run an app from a different location than where the emulator is. That's how I work my wrapper so I can store in one location and run with any emulator I want. Don't think GameEx's MAME settings allows you to do that. That might be a feature request for Tom.

[Palmore]

CoinFX 0.3.0b isn't a major upgrade, but I decided to release what I've added and updated thus far, check the Changelog below for a list of updates.

Download CoinFX 0.3.0b

CoinFX is a small application that runs in the background of your arcade system and plays coin sound effects when you press your coin buttons.

It's configurable, and maintains a log of each players coin counts. You can choose between 3 coin sounds, or load your own personal effects.

Serveral other options are available in the options menu, CoinFX can also be luanched via Command Line to function as a MAME wrapper.

i.e.

CoinFX.exe SF2

CoinFX Changelog (www.crackedconsole.com - Palmore)

0.3.0b

Complete rewrite of main code to clean up a few items

Added online version upgrade check

Added reset defaults option (returns all controls and options to defaults. does not effect coins)

Increased default Timer tick from 150ms to 200ms

Added coin indicator lights under the keys section that illuminate when a key press is detected

Added demo 1up.wav custom sound (Thanks headkaze for your initial help and this audioclip

Changed customsound and MAMEexe input boxes, they are still read only but you can now navigate the entire string

[Waso]

could you make this work with game ex and not just mame it works only when i start mame seperately

[Brian Hoffman]

could you make this work with game ex and not just mame it works only when i start mame seperately

It should work fine with Gameex, drop the EXE in your mame folder and change your Gameex configuration to call this application rather than mame.

[Waso]

how will adding it instead of mame start up the mame emulator