MAMEWAH v1.5 Released (at last)!

[froggerman]

froggerman: did the lcd support work? I was planning to test it but I've not had any free time at all lately to hook up my lcd again.

There are a couple of apps knocking around for the LCD file generation. You can get mine at:
http://fp.silverfoxy.plus.com/SilverSoftware.htm
Although they are somewhat imperfect due to there be a lack of accurate button information in mameinfo.xml. ControlsDat Project has it perfect but not for all the games. This app genereates best possibile descriptions from both. (I hope)

 

Sorry Silver,

Things have been super busy at work the past few days. I haven't had a chance to try it yet. Thanks for the link to your program, I will good my LCD display up again and give it a try.

Cheers.

[Minwah]

1) OK.. I've been getting a runtime error ever since I setup the entrance audio in Mamewah. If I try and navigate through the menus by pressing player 2 button I get a 'Runtime Error 91'

If I wait until the sound is done I don;t get the error, but if I try and navigate I will get it 7 times out of 10.

2) I also cannot get zsnes to generate a list in Mamewah. I have zsnesw.ini and zsnesw-0.ini I didn;t have to change anything in the first ini and all I did was use the mame-0.ini and rename it. I have other emulators working, but I cannot get this one to generate at list. It never gives me the option to generate the main list, just to create a filtered list.

1) Interesting...I had been getting a Run Time Error 91 a few times...I *think* I have fixed it - please could you email me for a WIP version to test it out?

2) You have a custom list selected (somehow)...go Select Custom List and pick the top one.  You should then be able to 'Generate List'...

[clanggedin]

you have been PMed

[bigle]

in the old version i was able to have games listed only by their names in my custom lists.

ie arcanoid instead of arcanoid (world)

i tried disabling long names in the mamewah ini but that didn't work.

it's not a big deal but it makes things look cleaner so if anyone has any idea how to do this i'd appreciate you letting me know.

It's basically the same...your custom list ini file (eg mame-1.ini) should have:

display_clone_info                        0

...in it by default.  When you generate a filtered list the clone info will be gotten rid of

maybe i'm not asking this right.  i made 5 custom lists (classics, fighting, strategy, sports, misc) each with about 20 games and then turned off displaying the main list.  i made the custom lists by adding games to them from within mamewah.  i didn't use any filters.  currently the games display as pac-man (midway) or pengo (set 1 rev c) when i would like them to display as just pac-man or pengo.  i got this to work in the old set up but have no idea how.


also, i am getting a run time error 445 occasionally when i try to start mamewah as i'm trying different things in my ini files.  i have to escape out and restart.  this isn't that big of deal right now but i won't have a mouse once i put everything in the cab.  any idea what i'm doing to cause this?

[Minwah]

maybe i'm not asking this right.  i made 5 custom lists (classics, fighting, strategy, sports, misc) each with about 20 games and then turned off displaying the main list.  i made the custom lists by adding games to them from within mamewah.  i didn't use any filters.  currently the games display as pac-man (midway) or pengo (set 1 rev c) when i would like them to display as just pac-man or pengo.  i got this to work in the old set up but have no idea how.


also, i am getting a run time error 445 occasionally when i try to start mamewah as i'm trying different things in my ini files.  i have to escape out and restart.  this isn't that big of deal right now but i won't have a mouse once i put everything in the cab.  any idea what i'm doing to cause this?

Ah, sorry, the display_clone_info 0 option is broken when adding games one-by-one - it will be fixed next release.

You're the third to mention RT 445 to me...but I'm not sure what causes it yet.  Any info you can give me on when exactly it happens would be helpful...

[bigle]

Ah, sorry, the display_clone_info 0 option is broken when adding games one-by-one - it will be fixed next release.

You're the third to mention RT 445 to me...but I'm not sure what causes it yet.  Any info you can give me on when exactly it happens would be helpful...

ok, well then i guess i can stop messing with that.

i usually have the rt445 error when i first try to launch mamewah (clicking on the .exe from the mamewah folder) after turning on the computer (old pIII 800).  i have to hit escape to get out, then i can usually run mamewah without any problem after that.  only the one time did i get the error a couple times in a row.  sorry i can't provide any more info but i'm not that computer savvy.

[Minwah]

i usually have the rt445 error when i first try to launch mamewah (clicking on the .exe from the mamewah folder) after turning on the computer (old pIII 800).  i have to hit escape to get out, then i can usually run mamewah without any problem after that.  only the one time did i get the error a couple times in a row.  sorry i can't provide any more info but i'm not that computer savvy.

No worries, that might help track it down.  I am nearly ready for the bugfix release, so please post if the problem persists in the new version...

[liquid8]

for the problem with no option to generate a list, you may be having the same problem i did. Make sure in your emulator ini, you have it set to current_list       0

[froggerman]

If anyone has an lcd screen, please test it for me - I'd like to know if it works  

Hi Minwah, I have tested this the best that I can at the moment and I was not able to get this to work. I am also having problems creating the lcd files, but that is another matter.

I updated the mamewah.ini and the mame.ini files as you suggested. I created a single file 1942.lcd and then tested. I don't get anything on the lcd screen. I tried copying the file 1942.lcd to com1: and that worked fine. I have run out of things to try for the moment. Can you suggest anything else?

Cheers.

[froggerman]

froggerman: did the lcd support work? I was planning to test it but I've not had any free time at all lately to hook up my lcd again.

There are a couple of apps knocking around for the LCD file generation. You can get mine at:
http://fp.silverfoxy.plus.com/SilverSoftware.htm
Although they are somewhat imperfect due to there be a lack of accurate button information in mameinfo.xml. ControlsDat Project has it perfect but not for all the games. This app genereates best possibile descriptions from both. (I hope)

Hi Silver,

I have time now and I tried to get you little application to work. I was not able to get things to generate. I download and installed the support files, the controls.dat and generated the listinfo file.

I get 2 errors and then the program runs to completion but it does not create any LCD files. I will try to attach the 2 screens below.

[Minwah]

If anyone has an lcd screen, please test it for me - I'd like to know if it works  

Hi Minwah, I have tested this the best that I can at the moment and I was not able to get this to work. I am also having problems creating the lcd files, but that is another matter.

I updated the mamewah.ini and the mame.ini files as you suggested. I created a single file 1942.lcd and then tested. I don't get anything on the lcd screen. I tried copying the file 1942.lcd to com1: and that worked fine. I have run out of things to try for the moment. Can you suggest anything else?

Damn  I was pretty sure it'd work alright...other than checking the settings are right (COM port etc.) there's not much else you can do.

I'll take a look thru the code when I get chance...it's gonna be pretty tricky for me to fix without a screen to try it on tho.

[froggerman]

A simple suggestion is to connect another PC to your serial port. Use the Hyperteminal application on the second PC. Anything that comes out of the serial prot will dispaly on the second machine. You don't have to worry about any formatting just get a string to be displayed.

I am at work at the moment but the values I used were com1  and 19200,8,n,1. If I remember correctly the specification for com1 was just the nubmer 1. I don't know if it makes any difference but my lcd files are in the path d:/mame/lcd. Also I never saw the 'front end' text, which I enclosed in single quotes 'MAME - Multiple Arcade Machine Emulation'

If you have anything you would like me to try, please let me know.

Cheers.

[Minwah]

A simple suggestion is to connect another PC to your serial port. Use the Hyperteminal application on the second PC. Anything that comes out of the serial prot will dispaly on the second machine. You don't have to worry about any formatting just get a string to be displayed.

I am at work at the moment but the values I used were com1  and 19200,8,n,1. If I remember correctly the specification for com1 was just the nubmer 1. I don't know if it makes any difference but my lcd files are in the path d:/mame/lcd. Also I never saw the 'front end' text, which I enclosed in single quotes 'MAME - Multiple Arcade Machine Emulation'

If you have anything you would like me to try, please let me know.

I suspect you have it all right...you don't need the quotes around the FE text tho.

Good idea btw, I didn't think of that (I've not done any serial comms stuff before).  I don't have a serial cable tho, I'll try to get hold of one...

[froggerman]

Just remember you need a crossover cable, or a modem eliminator cable, when connecting 2 PCs together and you are not using modems. Sometimes you can get a modem eliminaotor plug and just put that on the end of a normal serial cable. Too bad you can't drop by the house, I would give you one. You are just too far away!

[Minwah]

Just remember you need a crossover cable, or a modem eliminator cable, when connecting 2 PCs together and you are not using modems. Sometimes you can get a modem eliminaotor plug and just put that on the end of a normal serial cable. Too bad you can't drop by the house, I would give you one. You are just too far away!

OK, thanks

[Silver]

Aha - apologies Minwah for not getting round to testing that LCD stuff as promised...

Right i finally have some spare time tomorrow, so I will get the LCD up and running to test, as you say Minwah if anything isn't working it will almost certainly be easy to fix - theres not much to go wrong at all....

 and froggerman - I will take a look the problems you are having. First guess is that there have been some slight alterations to the xml code from the controls.dat project - I know they completely changed the "online generation" system after I wrote the program, and I have not had a chance to take a look. Incidentally, does it error if you only use the mamelistinfo.xml?? I will test all this myself tomorrow anyway, but just trying to get a feel for it.


Cheers

[Space Fractal]

It seen that it MAMEWAH cannot execute batch (*.bat) files, but "only" support *.lnk and *.url files?

Do a wrapper exists (like that one for VPinball), so I can execute batch files (wich I use with few emulators to start these roms)?

Little Bug: In mamewah/ctrlr/default.ini, you forgot to tell users, it only support uppercase letters. If I try to use a lowercase letter, that control will not work (why dot to automatic convert it to uppercase?).

I'm using the laster (otherwice great) MAMEWAH 1.5.1.

[Silver]

Ok I've not got the LCD support working in Mamewah. I'll try and few more settings and email Minwah and see if we can figure it all out - I'll take a look at the LCD gen program too....

[wj2k3]

I am unable to get the LCD support to work either.  (not complaining, just trying to help)

I didn't get an opportunity to set up my LCD yet but I did hook a cable from my COM1 to my COM2.  The ran Hyperterminal on COm2.  

I am able to copy my sample.lcd file to COM1 and have it show up in hypertermianl, but not through MameWah.  I will keep trying different settings.

Awesome program though!!!

-wj2k3

[froggerman]

In mamewah.ini, edit these settings:

lcd_com_port (place your serial (COM) port no. here)
lcd_settings (place settings here*)

* baud rate (110/300/600/1200/2400/9600/14400/28800/38400/56000/128000/256000), parity ([e]ven,

• dd, [n]one, [m]ark, pace), data bits (4-8), stop bits (1, 1.5, 2) - eg 9600,n,8,1 (this will vary depending on your screen etc.)

I notice in your list of baud rates that you do not include 19200. Is this just a typo or do you indeed not support that baud rate. The settings that I tested for the LCD panel were 19200,8,N,1

I am just wondering if this had anything to do with the problem I am having.

[Minwah]

I notice in your list of baud rates that you do not include 19200. Is this just a typo or do you indeed not support that baud rate. The settings that I tested for the LCD panel were 19200,8,N,1

I am just wondering if this had anything to do with the problem I am having.

Good spot, I think I just missed 19200 off the list - it should work.

[Silver]

In mamewah.ini, edit these settings:

lcd_com_port (place your serial (COM) port no. here)
lcd_settings (place settings here*)

* baud rate (110/300/600/1200/2400/9600/14400/28800/38400/56000/128000/256000), parity ([e]ven,

• dd, [n]one, [m]ark, pace), data bits (4-8), stop bits (1, 1.5, 2) - eg 9600,n,8,1 (this will vary depending on your screen etc.)

Make you sure you enter them as 19200,n,8,1 and not 19200,8,n,1 ..... I thought that was the problem at first....

I notice in your list of baud rates that you do not include 19200. Is this just a typo or do you indeed not support that baud rate. The settings that I tested for the LCD panel were 19200,8,N,1

I am just wondering if this had anything to do with the problem I am having.

[Silver]

@froggerman:

I've traced the problem in program down to the superscript '3' character on "Alien³: The Gun" - it's causing the MS Sax XML parser to scream obscenities....

A quick fix would be to remove the entry for this game from the controldat.xml, although I will work on a fix for this and others asap...

[froggerman]

In mamewah.ini, edit these settings:

lcd_com_port (place your serial (COM) port no. here)
lcd_settings (place settings here*)

* baud rate (110/300/600/1200/2400/9600/14400/28800/38400/56000/128000/256000), parity ([e]ven,

• dd, [n]one, [m]ark, pace), data bits (4-8), stop bits (1, 1.5, 2) - eg 9600,n,8,1 (this will vary depending on your screen etc.)

Make you sure you enter them as 19200,n,8,1 and not 19200,8,n,1 ..... I thought that was the problem at first....

I notice in your list of baud rates that you do not include 19200. Is this just a typo or do you indeed not support that baud rate. The settings that I tested for the LCD panel were 19200,8,N,1

I am just wondering if this had anything to do with the problem I am having.

Thanks for the pointer. I had to look at it about 3 times before I could see the difference. Problem is that I didn't look at that as I am used to always entering 8,n,1. n,8,1 just seems backwards to me. I will check this out when I get home.

Cheers.

[froggerman]

@froggerman:

I've traced the problem in program down to the superscript '3' character on "Alien³: The Gun" - it's causing the MS Sax XML parser to scream obscenities....

A quick fix would be to remove the entry for this game from the controldat.xml, although I will work on a fix for this and others asap...

That is a simple fix. I will give it a try tonight.

[Silver]

Or an even simpler fix which keeps the game info in is simply to change Alien³ to Alien3...

(And I am not making ANY comment as which is actually correct, as there seems to have been a debate about including stylized names in Mame before. It just doesn't work in my program, despite people claiming that superscript works correctly in MSXML 3.0 and 4.0. I'm using 4.0 in VB6 and it's falling over. Short of using a 'proper' XML parser - any suggestions out there?)

Silver

[froggerman]

Well this if very frustrating. I removed the character after Alien, it was something like &0179; I actually changed it to just a 3. I still get the same 2 errors. What did you use to edit the file? I tried it with both Notepad and Wordpad.

I also checked my LCD configuration settings. Despite what i said earlier, I actually had the correct information entered.

So basically I am still no further ahead.

[Silver]

re:LCD prog

Hmmmm, when I viewed  the controls.xml I had an actual superscript ³ visible... which i then removed. I used wordpad, but you must not save it in RTF or anything - just plain text. It is occurring to me that we could be encountering issues about how windows is dealing with this character inside wordpad - what version windows are you using and is it in English etc...etc..?

 I've had less time than I'd like to properly sort this out, as it seems I am currently tied to the M$ parser issues... If you completely remove the entry for alien3 from <game romname="alien3"......> all the way to </game> do you still get the error.

re:Mamewah LCD support

No one appears to have got this working yet, but MinWah is on the case (as ever) and there will be some testing done within 12 hours.... ;-)

S

[Silver]

Ok, interesting.

1st off, @froggerman. The &0179 character is what comes up in mame's own listinfo for me, using the command line: mame -listinfo > listinfo.xml
However, the error you were getting comes from the controlsdat.xml which when downloaded from the controlsdat project has the proper ³.

2ndly, I think on preliminary research (although I am probably opening myself up to some 'xml noob' abuse here) that if an xml file contains characters that are outside the ANSI 0-127 - which ³ is - then they should(?) have an encoding flag in the 1st line of the xml indicating that they contain special characters. For example the first line of the controlsdat.xml is:

<?xml version='1.0'?>

However, if I change this to:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding="UTF-16"?>

AND save it as "unicode" file - then it will parse perfectly and generate a ³ no problem.

Anyway, I'm sure its a limitation with the parser to some extent, as you can't just change the encoding flag and not the file format as it will say "can't change encoding" when trying to parse.

Can anyone enlighten me as to whether the XML file should contain this flag, or is it simply rubbish parsing?

[Silver]

Woops, sorry for all the posts (off-topic too!) but just to say that you don't need to edit anything in the controls.dat xml file - simply open it in wordpad, then save it but select type as "unicode". This new file will be bigger, and parse correctly.

S

[froggerman]

I will give this a try. I was indeed looking in the wrong file, which explains why the result didn't change.  

[Silver]

Well this thread should probably be left alone (finally!)

Just to say that the parsing bug has been resolved, and controls.xml is now being encoded in UTF by the controlsDat team removing any parsing errors. (hurrah). So everything should work perfectly out-of-the-box, or straight from download anyway....

[Silver]

Just wanted to let you know that I've updated my proggy again after a rather glaring oversight - I was ignoring all the clone games from controlsDAT (as they only have info on the parents) - so you know get control info on another 1000 or so games.... (!)

Few other additions too.

Mamewah still hasn't released his bigfix version which includes the LCD support working - but if you are desperate I'm sure he can send you a working exe if you email him. Otherwise I'm sure it won't be long.....

Cheers,
Silver

[Rahzel]

Still doesn't support multiple rom paths..  

I havn' t cried in so long until now. Anyways, keep up the good work minwah, I know one day you'll add this feature  

[Minwah]

Mamewah still hasn't released his bigfix version which includes the LCD support working - but if you are desperate I'm sure he can send you a working exe if you email him. Otherwise I'm sure it won't be long.....

Yes, sorry I was meaning to post about it...

It will probably be a little while before I release the next bug-fix, as I just got an Xbox    That said, I am steadily fixing bugs and so far its going well...email me for the LCD-fixed version...

[Minwah]

Still doesn't support multiple rom paths..  

Sorry, no...but if you're using MAME you *can* use multiple rom paths, by using the verifysets_vs_listxml (or listinfo) list_generation_method .  For other emulators you'll have to wait for v2...

[soslo]

Minwah - you are the minMAN!

1.52 is sooooooooo much better than .9x....Thank you for saving me hours of my life in setup & configuration