Kymaera FE, Version 1.23 now Available!

[Boris]

One little thing I forget to write since one week : my skin is 1024x768 with a background picture of the same size. When running Kymaera, the last bottom horizontal line blink between black and grey  

Boris

[PacManFan]

Yeah, I'm working on that last line flickering problem. Hopefully it'll be fixed this next release.

-PMF

[Hellmark]

Hi,
I'm just a nap. and dont know anything about that programm but it looks pretty good. But i have there some questions

I use MAME32+76
But i  dont know what "ini" i should take from my mame folder

 -Gameplay.ini and Catver.ini

ALso it doesn't work to create an XML file.

Could sombody plz help me?

Sorry for my bad english > just from austria

[PacManFan]

The ini files, Gameplay.ini and Catver.ini provide extra information about games. Catver.ini defines waht catagories games fall into. You can get it from Triggerfin's web site (I don't have the link handy). Gameplay.ini is some information that I distilled from the KLOV web site. I thought I have it included inside the Kymaera release, but I accidently left it out. you can downlaod gameplay.ini from www.pacmanfan.com/downloads/gameplay.ini

As far as setting up a game list, I laid out some details in post #55 of this thread (page 2)

Let me know if you have any specific questions.

-PMF

[Hellmark]

 ;DThx for that informations

but your download link doesn`t work

[PacManFan]

My bad, that's www.pacmanfan.com/downloads/GamePlay.ini
I forgot everything was case sensistive.

-PMF

[Hellmark]

no prob.

No its working thx

ps. When did the Full version coming out??

[Hellmark]

hi, could sombody give me a turtorial in "GERMAN"
from installing kymaera until runnig that programm.

I just tried it but i doesnt look trought.

I mean a detailed instruction which settings i should make in which folder and what file locations i should take. Which ini files and so on.
Because my english issnt so good i cant understand many instructions of that forum.

This FE is great and i want use it.

[PacManFan]

They full version of Kymaera hasn't come out yet. Kymaera is still very new, and it's in Beta development at the moment. I'm planning on releasing the 1st release version very soon with lots of good new features and fixes.
I'm sorry, I can't help you with the German translation, it's been years since I've been to Hamburg und Wundstorf.

Try Babelfish to do the translation.

-PMF

[str1der]

Hey Pac,
              Never did hear from you as to whether or not there was a way to hit a key to add a game to a favorites list.

[PacManFan]

str1der,

Currently, there isn't a way to add a game to the favorites list. I was working on that last night. Basically, your favorites list (or any list) will be able to contain games from any emulator that you've got configured. You'll be able to go to any emulator, any gamelist, hit a key, and have that game added to your favorites list. So if you want a gamelist of just PacMan from 20 differant console / arcade systems, you'll be able to do that.

Hopefully, I'll have the 1st Release version ready very soon.
-PacManFan

[Chapel]

Hi,
Love Kymaera, found it after I gave up trying to MameWah to work.

had a question though, how do I add command line
to skip copyright and disclaimer when a game loads up?


Thanks

Chapel

[PacManFan]

You can set up command line parameters inside the launch command, or I would suggest setting up the mame config file to skip disclaimers.

There will be a new release soon, so keep checking back!.

-PMF

[screaming]

There will be a new release soon, so keep checking back!.
-PMF

  PacManFan,

  I started doing some testing in Kymaera. So far it looks great! LOTS of flexibility! I love it!

  Since I *just* started looking at Kymaera today, please take this with a grain of salt. I'm sort of rushing them because I know you're on the verge of releasing a non-beta release...

  Also, I just want to say right off the bat that I'm in no way critisizing your great front end or excellent programming abilities by this long post.  I'm just trying to make you at least aware of some of the problems I had with Kymaera and/or some suggestions on how I personally think Kymara could be improved.  While I'm interested in finding out if you agree or not, I do not want this post to turn into a p*ssing match.

  Anyway, on with it.

- Quick MAME setup changes don't show up right away. If I have Snap selected, it doesn't show any changes to the snapshots path when I click the quick MAME setup until I select something else then re-select Snap.  SIDE NOTE: Is there some way for the Quick MAME setup button to use a base path then add the appropriate paths instead of using the emulator path? For example, what if I clicked the Quick Mame Setup button and it prompted for a path, then added \artwork, \snap, \titles, etc to it for all the appropriate art paths?  That would allow me to have all my artwork in a separate folder than MAME and still have the quick setup work.

- It's hard to select games in Game Category List Creation screen. I can click until the cows come home on a game, but it won't actually highlight one until I do something like sort by game name (which selects everything), then I can select only 1 rom. Is there something I'm missing here? Also, this might be related, but I can't seem to select more than one at a time.

In the skin editor:
- It doesn't seem to be saving my font size settings. it saves the colors okay, but not the size.

- It would be great to be able to see how what element I'm moving around in relation to the backround. Maybe a preview toggle that stays toggles for than a mouse click?

- having a numerical input for positioning the elements would help get things lined up and sized correctly.

- my PNG file that I set for my logo is showing up all black. It has alpha values, but no matter what I set the transarancy and alpha values for in the EMULATOR_IMAGE screen it still shows up black.  If I change it to a .GIF, it seemingly just doesn't show up at all!  I can email you the two images I'm using if you need them. I'm sure I'm just messing up the transparancy or alpha values somehow...

That's all for now.  Like I said though, I haven't donee too much digging into these so there very well might be stuff I'm missing and/or you've aleady talked about these things.

  So far it seems like a great font end!  Have you had many takers on the doc writing?

/Steve

*edit* Made the post a little more wordy.. because I feel like I want to type.

[PacManFan]

Hey screaming,
        Thanks for checking out Kymaera. I've been looking for this sort of feedback from everyone, so thanks for taking to time to post. I've been able to address a lot of things that you mentioned, including the font size, and the x,y display of both the size and position of controls when you are laying them out. I also took care of the transparency, which had a bug with various screen bit depths.

      Kymaera supports a single value for alpha, not an entire alpha channel in a bitmap. Likewise for transparency, that may be the problem you're having with alpha blending using that png.

         I'm still trying to fix the gamelist grids, that's been a real pain, I'm using a 3rd party freeware grid control, and it seems to work fine in the example program supplied, but it ignores mouse clicks in KymaeraConfig.

I'll put in the separate path prompt for the quick mame setup. A lot of people keep their art paths and rom paths separate from the main mame path. (I do...)

I haven't had too many takers on writing docs for me. Joymonkey did a wonderful job (check page 2) posting a link to a web page he set up on skinning in Kymaera (much applause!)

If you have any more comments, make them soon, so I can get the changes into the next version of Kymaera. I'm planning on making the 1st Release version available later this month.(Kymaera's still in Beta).

So beat it, abuse it, step on it, try to get it to crash if you can, then tell me what you did. I'm really trying to find anything that'll make Kymaera crash before the 1st Release.

-PMF

[PacManFan]

Screaming,

Oh yeah, In the gamelist creation screen, to select more than one game, hold down the shift key and click, or hold down the ctrl key and click to select a range of games.

Hope this helps.

-PMF

[screaming]

     Kymaera supports a single value for alpha, not an entire alpha channel in a bitmap. Likewise for transparency, that may be the problem you're having with alpha blending using that png.

  Possibly. I am trying to use the whole alpha channel instead of a single value.  Are there any plans to add this functionality?

  I'll work on verifying this is my problem.  I'm sure it is though.

        I'm still trying to fix the gamelist grids, that's been a real pain, I'm using a 3rd party freeware grid control, and it seems to work fine in the example program supplied, but it ignores mouse clicks in KymaeraConfig.

  I'm sure that's what my problem is with selecting more than one, too.

If you have any more comments, make them soon, so I can get the changes into the next version of Kymaera. I'm planning on making the 1st Release version available later this month.(Kymaera's still in Beta).

So beat it, abuse it, step on it, try to get it to crash if you can, then tell me what you did. I'm really trying to find anything that'll make Kymaera crash before the 1st Release.

  Okay, here's a couple more things that I've come across. I might get a little pedantic so I apologize in advance ("You want a solid app, right?", as my PM would say.... ).

In KymaeraConfig:

  - Click Create New, type in a filename and click Save. In the Emulator Configuration screen, if I type in something for Emu Display ('Arcade') and click any of the top three Browse buttons, select a file and click Open, the text I entered in Emu Display gets reset back to nothing.

  It seems to just reset the form to the last saved state because when I type in an Emu Display name and click OK, then go back in and follow the steps above, it resets it to whatever was in there before I clicked OK.  Does any of this make sense?

  <edit>It seems to happen when I click Remove Path and Remove from the Rom Paths and Game Category List Files as well..</edit>

- When I click Browse to select a skin and type in a file that doesn't exist ('asdfadsfa.skn') and click Open, then click Edit, KymaeraConfig exits without warning.

- Is there anyway to associate .skn files with the Skin Editor piece of KymaeraConfig so I can double click on them in Windows Explorer?  Would this be more trouble than it's worth?

In the Kymaera Skin Editor:

  - I can make the SKin Editor crash if I load up my skin that I'm working on and set the EMULATOR_IMAGE size to be big and move half of it off the editor screen and click Preview. It crashes with:

Code: [Select]

Main Kymaera Configuration: KymaeraConfig.exe - Application Error

The instruction at "0x00434c68" referenced memory at "0x00000908". The memory could not be "read".

Click OK to terminate the program

In my skin, I just have BACKGROUND, SNAPS, MARQUEES, GAME_GAMELIST and EMULATOR_IMAGE checked.  Everything is in thier default place, except that I moves EMULATOR_IMAGE all the way to the bottom of the list.

Background is just a plain old PNG file, while EMULATOR_IMAGE is a png with a transparent value of 0 (black). I can email you my skin and see if it crashes on your system.

- When I'm editting the parameters of an image I check Has Transparancies then Edit Color. When I select a color and click OK, the Has Transparancies checkbox becomes unchecked.

- Delete all the elements in a new skin besides BACKGROUND and EMULATOR_IMAGE, then add a text 'Art Element'. Click on the New Text element in my list and name it 'GAME_GAMELIST'. The name in my list still says 'New Text', but when I check it, it shows up in my palette as GAME_GAMELIST. Also, it won't let me edit any parameters if I click on 'New Text' on my list and click Edit. Also again, when I load up Kymaera with the new skin, no gamelist shows up. If a user deletes a pre-defined element, how do they get it back?

/Steve

[PacManFan]

Hey everyone, I've got a request for someone with a vertical setup and an ArcadeVGA card. Can someone try to set up a Kymaera skin to work vertically at 640x288 screen resolution using a 288x640 skin?

I'm trying to verify a problem / find a solution someone is having with thier setup.

So if anyone has an ArcadeVGA card, please try this out. I'll even put a feature in Kymaera for you upon request (within reason).

-PMF

[Chapel]

Hi,
I need a little bit of help with Kymaera,
Ive set everything up and things are running fine except for my gamelist,
im confused on how to do the filters
like for example i want a list in alphabetical order
and another sorted by category.
also how do i get the year to pop up also, i have game year checked off and a window for it but it just sits at 288 when i scroll thru the games.

Thanks
Chapel

[PacManFan]

An alphabetical order list is simple, Copy all the games from the source list to the destination list, and click the "Game Description" column header in the destination (bottom list) to re-sort into a-z order, then save your gamelist out.

To create a game list based on catagories, Create a filter for each catagory you want, and then move the filter to the selected filters list and click "run filters" to move games from the source to the destination list. You can repeat this process for all game catagories you want.

Just remember to use the catver.ini file when you create you master game list so your games will have catagorical information.

Let me know if you need any more help.

-PMF

[Chapel]

ok I did that, but how do i save my gamelist out?

Chapel

[Chapel]

nevermind I figured out most of my problems, I couldnt see the bottom of the screen with those buttons/options cause i was in 640x480, once i changed to 800 x600 I could see them all.

Duh

Chapel

[chris_lemasters]

Anyone make a vertical skin yet?  I tried, and I am not up to the challenge -- my Photoshop kung fu is weak (!)

THANKS PMF for a really nifty FE!

[screaming]

Hey everyone, I've got a request for someone with a vertical setup and an ArcadeVGA card. Can someone try to set up a Kymaera skin to work vertically at 640x288 screen resolution using a 288x640 skin?

I'm trying to verify a problem / find a solution someone is having with thier setup.

So if anyone has an ArcadeVGA card, please try this out. I'll even put a feature in Kymaera for you upon request (within reason).

-PMF

  I have no problem making a skin, but I just have a plain ol' ATI video card with TV out. If I made a skin that was 640x288 I don't even think I could test it out since when I try and set the resolution Kymaera runs at to 640x288 and try and run Kymaera, it just exits without warning right away.

  Would that help you, chris_lemasters? Like I said.. I wouldn't be able to test it so you would have to be willing to work with me to work out the bugs...

  On a different note, I'm still working on setting up Kymaera for my arcade and I ran across a couple things.

Bugs:

- In the Main Kymaera Config screen, it doesn't seem to be saving the Hide TaskBar setting

-  In the Input Config screen, whever I click Add or Clear, it adds a whole set of keycodes in the Input pulldown menu. As I was goingg through and remapping my keys I ended up with 10 or repeating lists in that pulldown menu.


Problem:  Since my arcade 'monitor' is a TV, I keep it set at 800x600 resolution so I don't have to do any resolution switching when Kymaera starts. When I got to the game list config screen, the screen is a little too big for my resolution and it won't let me scroll down to get to the save button.  It's not a big deal, but an inconvenience.

  Let me know about the skin..

/Steve

[chris_lemasters]

Steve -
I'd be happy to work with you bug-testing a vertical skin -- I have a couple of machines that should be capable of that resolution (although I run my cocktail machine on an old Sun monitor at 800x600).
Let me know where/when to grab the skin and I'll test -- you can email me at chrislemasters AT yahoo

[Chapel]

Hi,
im having problems getting the info from the catver.ini file to be included in my romlist.xml
anyone else have this problem?


Chapel

[PacManFan]

chapel,

When you build the master game list, are you including the catver.ini file? I've had a few problems with it not reading the info correctly when the catver.ini file is in the same dir as Kymaera.

Let me know if this helps.

-PMF

[screaming]

Any status updates that you're willing to share?  I don't want to bother you none, I'm just excited to see *the* Kymaera!

/Steve

[PacManFan]

I don't have anything to release quite yet, Currently, the features I'm working on are:

-Screensaver
-Multiple information screens
-emu select screen
-bug fixes
-Creation of skins
-better gamelist support
-jukebox support (and windows media player playlist support)
-Favorties list (this is a big one where you can lauch a game from any emu from a single list.)
-Documentation
-New Skins
-Rom resource copy
-Animations (color and rectangle)
- Internal Action Binding and animation <- This is a really big one, Just like in Emutron, you can create new "Events" that can be triggered by Inputs like keystrokes, joystick,mouse. You can then give each Event a list of "Actions" to perform, like starting animations, switching screens, launching games, tons of stuff.

Tons of people have be emailing me about documentation. I think I'll have to dedicate some serious time to write all this stuff up before the next release.

I may release another intermediate Beta version before the 1st true release soon with some partial features from this list.

The game list format may change too

-PMF

[Chapel]

im having some trouble configuring Kymaera,

I installed the mame res tool on mame32 and i thought mame windows command line.
I can launch all games in mame32 with no problem, it comes up in original resolution but when I select games in Kymaera which is using the windows command line of mame alot of games come up on my D9200 "OUT OF RANGE"
Anybody have any ideas what i'm doing wrong?

Thanks,

Chapel

[PacManFan]

It sounds like you're trying to set a screen resolution higher than what your monitor can support. In the mame config file, you can specify a fixed resoltuino for all games to run at, like 640x480 or 800x600, but that sort of defeats the purpose of having an arcade monitor....

-PMF

[screaming]

I don't have anything to release quite yet, Currently, the features I'm working on are:

  Thanks for the update!  I didn't realize there was so much still to do.. Kymaera seems so great as it is!

  Once the skinner thing works for me I can start helping out in contributing to a skin library. I can help out as far as documentation goes too, as long as the screen layouts configuration processes are going to stay the same (i.e. as long as my documentation will still be relatively accurate by the time Kymaera gets released)...

/Steve

[screaming]

Woah. I just had an idea... This may be completely impossible, but if it's doable it may save you some time and help make the jukebox part of Kymaera the phattest on the planet.

  WinAmp has a really cool feature for Win2K/XP that lets you use the current visualization as a desktop background while a music file was playing...  When I set up my computer for parties, I play all my MP3s while my desktop background makes all psychadelic waves and patterns. In addition to looking really cool, it still allows the computer to be used for other things like music browsing, internet chatting, webcamming, etc..

  Okay, so I did a little WinAmp visualization research a couple years ago and I remembered there being a pretty decent SDK that you can get for WinAmp...  I just looked again and it seems like they revamped the SDK to work with the new WinAmp 5.02. They claim it can be used for anything (a can opener), so I wonder if Kymaera can use WinAmp (and the WinAmp SDK) to not only play a ton of different music formats out of the box, but to gain the functionality and visualization plugins as well?

What do you think?

/Steve

[PacManFan]

Hey everyone,
The first official release of Kymaera is now available for download at:
http://www.pacmanfan.com/

This release has lots of new features and bug fixes. I've tried to document as much as I could. There are a few things that are not in the doc's yet, so feel free to ask any questions here.

Kymaera could still use a few more default skins, so If you have the inclination to do so, please create some and post them here! I could really use a verticle skin.

I would like to say thank you to eveyone who helped beta-test, especially JoyMonkey for some great skins and art, and 1HookedSpaceCadet for the documentation.

I look forward to lots of feedback / bug reports from you all.


-PMF

[ErikRuud]

And so it begins......


I can hit the key for Next_Category and it will cycle through the categorys and loop from the last to the first.  Going the other way with Prev_Category works until you go past the first category.  It crashes(exits?) instead of looping to the last category.

Kymaera config crashes when I.....

Try to create a master list. It works up until it executes MAME to build the list.  I see the DOS box for MAME then the box goes away then I get an illegal operation error.

KYMAERACONFIG caused an invalid page fault in
module KRNL386.EXE at 0002:00005c83.
Registers:
EAX=35770000 CS=0167 EIP=00005c83 EFLGS=00000202
EBX=00000007 SS=356f ESP=0000a352 EBP=0000a356
ECX=00000000 DS=0177 ESI=0000416f FS=0000
EDX=00000000 ES=40a7 EDI=00000000 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
26 88 05 f7 d9 03 cf 58 5f c9 c3 55 8b ec 57 33
Stack dump:
00000000 5962a364 15ff416f 00000000 a4845824 03ff5209 327f0000 40a70000 2a2f0000 35770000 018715ff 3a430187 4e49575c 53574f44 6d61675c 616c7065

I get the following error when trying to ADD a launch command to new emu. (I can edit or add a command to an existing Emu)

KYMAERACONFIG caused an invalid page fault in
module KYMAERACONFIG.EXE at 017f:0040ac00.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=017f EIP=0040ac00 EFLGS=00010206
EBX=0040ae30 SS=0187 ESP=0070edc4 EBP=0070eee0
ECX=004ca73c DS=0187 ESI=0070f160 FS=38ff
EDX=00000000 ES=0187 EDI=0070f244 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 48 08 85 c9 74 59 8b 4e 7c 8b 71 14 85 f6 74
Stack dump:
0000249f 0070f160 0070f160 0070edf0 0049e1e8 ffffffff 0040adbf 0070f160 0070f160 01834370 004ca73c 0070eed4 0049e2c0 ffffffff 0040ae4f 00000000

[ErikRuud]

I should let you know what the system is>

Windows 98se
1.6 Ghz AMD Duron
256 MB RAM
ATI Radeon 7000 AGA video card
On-Board Sound (C-Media AC97)

[PacManFan]

ErikRuud,
Thanks for the quick feedback, I fixed the previous catagory crash bug as well as the Add Launch command to a new emu. I wasn't able to replicate the crash when generating a master gamelist.
Did you fill out the "save as" field? Or fill in the catver.ini or gameplay.ini? What steps did you take?

I'm posting a new version right now with the fixes for further testing.

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

PacManFan,

I filled in all the fields (catver.ini, gameplay.ini, save as) and the clicked create.

I tried to use the modified catver.ini that I had and the catver.ini that came with the distribution.  I made sure I used the gameplay.ini that came with the new release instead of the old one from the beta release.

Like I said, the dos box appears, then disappears and then the config crashes.

[PacManFan]

What version of mame are you using? I'm trying to recreate this. Are there any spaces in the path name?

I just uploaded a new version (1.2) that has a few fixes.

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

There are no spaces in the path. ( c:\mame )

I tried NoNameMAME 76u2.11 and Mame V 0.76 and got the same results from both.

I just tried out the 1.2 version on a Win2K machine, and everything in the config program that I had trouble with worked OK.

There is still a problem with the source and destination lists. In the source list, I can only click on the top two visible entries and the last four visible entries.  In the destination list I can only click on the last seven visible entries.  Oddly enough, I can click in one of the rows that works and then drag the pointer across entries that I can't click in, and they are selected.

The Prev_Category problem is working under Win2K as well.

I will have to test the new version on the Win98se machine tonight.