NEWS: GameEx 11.61

[Tom Speirs]

2nd March, 2011 - GameEx 11.61

The search music feature will now additionaly search online for playable radio stations. Registered users will also be able to add found stations to favorites. Eg Example search - 80s new wave

The existing additional radio stations available to registered users have been audited and validated

New client side web api for GameExtender server. Good things coming from this soon hopefully.

[Adultery]

Thanks Tom for the update! Gonna do it now.

.:EDIT:. Crap. I hit ESC to exit Attract Mode and I got stuck on a .NET error I couldn't exit out of. I then had to turn off my computer manually, and now the monitor won't come back on. Hmm...

.:EDIT#2:. Mental note... It's important to make sure your fan is firmly connected to your CPU. *D'oh!*

[fRequEnCy]

Thanks Tom!

[bkenobi]

I just updated to 11.61 and have a question. I didn't grab the last few versions but now that I see the new overlaid game info/rating blurp, I'd like to turn it off. I don't personally have a need for that info in that location and can get the same content in the main game info screen. The other thing I notice is that there is a HUGE delay that may be related to this feature. I suspect my network access is shoddy which may be the reason for this (I assume it's going online to grab the rating). I looked in the config app and the setup wizard but didn't see anything. I also was unable to find anything that looked promising when I perused the gameex.ini manually.

FWIW, I love the idea and if I weren't using the game info screen, this would be very interesting indeed.

[mesk]

Thamks Tom! But I got to say that we really,really need these pop up descriptions to work with v1 & 4 themes!!

I have to agree with bkenobi,when using a v1 or 3 theme,there is huge delay showing video snaps,so much to the point i had to turn up show snap to fast.when using blueglass,a v 2 theme the video snaps display quickly

[Stilkdog]

I can't get GameExTender to work, when I click START MAME button in the web browser it then displays that a link has been incorrectly typed, and then GameExTender then tells me that the connection to the server is lost and I must restart GameEx to get it up again.

[bkenobi]

I am using a V1 theme if that makes a difference. I have planned on using Flash's Blue theme for quite some time, but since it was never polished, and it was so huge it hasn't happened yet (well, that and I never figured out my remote desktop issues with my cab). The pop-up info would definitely be cool for someone using a MC type theme with a much faster computer and better network connection.

[Draco1962]

Currently the ratings are only enabled for version1 and 3 themes. Would be nice to be able to have it available for V4 themes *hint - hint* with an option to turn on or suppress them in all themes (same as enable/disable for scroller).

Thanks Tom for the update, as always!

[Kustom Kid]

I am using a V1 theme if that makes a difference. I have planned on using Flash's Blue theme for quite some time, but since it was never polished, and it was so huge it hasn't happened yet (well, that and I never figured out my remote desktop issues with my cab). The pop-up info would definitely be cool for someone using a MC type theme with a much faster computer and better network connection.

I'm running GameEx on a media center right now. Phenom X3 @ 2.4GHz, 2GB RAM, ATI 5450 1GB DDR3 RAM. The drive GameEx runs off of spins at 5400 RPM. I have all the eye candy cranked up to 11, video snaps, transitions, and all that jazz. If only GameEx is running the popup descriptions are not a problem in addition to everything else. If I'm recording something, or serving up media in another room that needs to be transcoded before it reaches it's destination than GameEx slows down a bit. Not quite bothersome, but it's noticeable. My rig is pretty middle of the road, and probably closer to the bottom of the middle as far as most MC users. That being said, the popup descriptions are awesome, but we haven't used them for 2 reasons. 1: We're using Draco's Brokeh theme which is not compatable at this time, and 2: Generally we have a good idea of what games we're going to play going in. If we do fire up a random game, with the video snaps we have a fairly decent idea of what the game is about. Ok, I lost my train of thought. Keep up the good work, Tom. This is the "show stopper" program I use to end the tour of my HTPC. It always leaves them in awe.

[Adultery]

@bknobi: what did you need completed on Flash's theme? I made a ton of other emulator screens and brought it up to damn near 2.0 if you wanted me to upload what I have for you. Are there emulators in particular you would like added? I'd be happy to do it for you.

It's a V4 theme though so there aren't popup descriptions, although it does take advantage of new features (weather icon and scrolling text with emulator descriptions).

@KustomKid: does your board support dual channel memory? That would probably solve your bottlenecking issue. All you need to do is use two sticks of RAM that are the same size/brand and it will runn 100% better. Since I bought a GSkill DDR3 dual channel kit I haven't seen so much as a hiccup (I was amazed at the difference it made in my rig).

[bkenobi]

As I recall, that theme is wide screen and I'm running 4:3. I downloaded it but when I found out it didn't have 4:3 I never loaded it on my cab. I don't have any exotic emulators, it's really just a screen resolution thing IIRC.

[Tom Speirs]

I just updated to 11.61 and have a question. I didn't grab the last few versions but now that I see the new overlaid game info/rating blurp, I'd like to turn it off. I don't personally have a need for that info in that location and can get the same content in the main game info screen. The other thing I notice is that there is a HUGE delay that may be related to this feature. I suspect my network access is shoddy which may be the reason for this (I assume it's going online to grab the rating). I looked in the config app and the setup wizard but didn't see anything. I also was unable to find anything that looked promising when I perused the gameex.ini manually.

FWIW, I love the idea and if I weren't using the game info screen, this would be very interesting indeed.

Thanks for the feedback. Ill look into it.

[Tom Speirs]

I can't get GameExTender to work, when I click START MAME button in the web browser it then displays that a link has been incorrectly typed, and then GameExTender then tells me that the connection to the server is lost and I must restart GameEx to get it up again.

Please post the ExtenderLog it should hopefully have a useful error message.

[Kustom Kid]

@Adultery I do have dual channel enabled. Honesty, the ony time it slows down, and I'm only talking a 3 to 5 second hiccup, is if I'm recording more than 1 show in HD, streaming a video that needs to be transcoded on the fly (like an .AVI to .FLV to the Wii), and running GameEx all at the same time. That's writing 2GB of data an hour to one hard drive, reading either off of that hard drive or another, transcoding what's being read and sending it over the network, running GameEx off of the primary drive, and reading rom metadata off the 3rd drive. That's a lot going on. While I do like the popup descriptions, it doesn't serve a purpose for our setup at this time. If I were to drop another 2GB of ram the system would run a lot smoother, but if I spend any more money on this thing I would just assume buy a new mobo, proc, and ram. It's very rare that I'm doing all of those things at once.

[Draco1962]

KustomKId - Have you tried changing the version # in the gameex.ini? I am not sure what negative results would come of it (other than the theme editor only recognizes Version 2 or 4 themes to open directly, otherwise you have to convert an existing 1 or 3 theme to a 2 or 4 to open that way.

[bkenobi]

Could this delay be caused by hitotext? I had an issue this afternoon when I booted and the system hung at the "loading database" screen for around 20 minutes. I alt-tabbed out and found an error message about hitotext having an issue. When I closed the dialog, GameEx resumed as normal. I had this error the other day too, so this could be the cause. I'd like to get a log file out, but currently that's not possible.

[Kustom Kid]

No, Draco. I have everything dialed in exactly how I like it. I switched to a v1 theme just to check out the new stuff. I also wanted to see how much I could do before I noticed a performs hit so I recorded two HD channels, streamed a movie to the Wii because nearly everything has to be transcoded to flash video before it's sent, then fired up GameEx with the v1 theme and it was a small performance hit. Under regular usage everything works great with no problems.

[Draco1962]

I briefly played around with it by editing it to a V3 theme. I did notice a little bit of a delay at first but subsequent loads seem to be quicker (cached maybe?). Since I do most of my item placement editing with Theme Editor, I will stick with V4 as I like the recent color key changes Tom made with it.

[Tom Speirs]

Could this delay be caused by hitotext? I had an issue this afternoon when I booted and the system hung at the "loading database" screen for around 20 minutes. I alt-tabbed out and found an error message about hitotext having an issue. When I closed the dialog, GameEx resumed as normal. I had this error the other day too, so this could be the cause. I'd like to get a log file out, but currently that's not possible.

If there is any kind of delay related to this feature you would notice it just before the pop up appears and only then when you navigate the list again. It does not download from the internet or query any files in depth. It pretty much uses data that is in memory. The only possible delay could be when it is creating the graphic surface to display it. One other thing it does do is potentially load up all the systems (databases) into memory a little earlier than usual but you will see the usual please wait stuff when this happens. This only happens once.

[bkenobi]

I'll check it out when I get a chance. I think the main thing is the hitotext error though. I'm not sure what's causing it yet. I think it's kicking in on games that are supported, but I don't have the right hook in MAME to use it correctly? Anyway, I'll have to do some more playing around to see. I would like to be able to turn off the overlay though. If there's a switch in the theme, I can change it there, too.

[bkenobi]

I think the delay problems are now fixed. I disabled hiscore support in GameEx and things appear to be better. I haven't updated MAME in a while, so I'm sure the hitotext support has been updated.

Is there any update on disabling the info popup screen? I was actually wrong about the theme version I'm running. I use a V2 theme, not V1 if that makes a difference.