Emulaxian stealing my sanity... help...

[grafixmonkey]

Ok, I've been beating my head against this prog for days...  I can't get much out of )p('s instructions or the other tutorial, and I searched and couldn't find anything, so somebody please help!

First off, I'm using version 083.  (3DArcade...  that's the same as emulaxian right?)
Second, I bet I'm an idiot and there's a simple solution I'm just missing, but I'm stumped.

Problem number one:
I got it up and running, playing games, and showing custom models even, with the Scapino Arcade.  But, it still shows cabs for ALL the arcade games, not just the ones I have.  Even has blanks here and there (ultimate MK3 isn't on its list but I have it).  Can anyone tell me what I have to do to list only the games I have, while still having the categories (fighter, puzzle, shooter) working properly?

I tried using the built in menu configuration system (the one you get to when you run "go directly to configuration menu.bat"), and found an option to automatically generate a gameslist, but when I did that I got to a point where it asked for a "catver.ini' file, with no supporting explanation...  so I found one in one of the program's subdirectories and gave it that, and now I get a script error as soon as I run the program.  And that's where I currently am in trying to figure it out.


Problem number two:  
It doesn't seem to want to pass any of the command line options I give it to Mame.  I just want Mame to always start with certain options, like -mouse and a few others, but I can't figure out how to get this to happen.  Anybody able to help?


Problem three:
How do you get at the config menu from within the front end without quitting and restarting?  can you, or is the batch file the only way?


Thanks to anyone who can help!

[)p(]

1. that was the right way for updating mame gamelists. there is also an alternative parser in the utilities folder you can try if the normal one gives you problems

2. you can add these in the listmanager by clicking on the mame emulator and choose edit or add it directly by hand  to cfg\emulators\femamecloptions.txt likse this:
10|mame|-mouse|
or enable the mouse in mame.ini

3. you can set any key in the general cfg menu to show the cfg menu. it is kcfgmenmu in section 1 --go to different menus. By default it is set to the page down key.

edit: oh and if have still problems with the gamelist after updating with one of the parsers...then enable debug mode: debugmode|true| that will check for gamelist erros and report them

peter

[grafixmonkey]

Thanks for the help )p(.  I seriously spent a couple weeks getting as far as I could without bugging the forum.

So if I'm using Mame 072 and 3DArcade 083, why would the gameslist corrupt itself when I used that method of updating it?  You mentioned in your howto that I might need a new version of catver.ini from some guy's site...   was this the problem?  if so where is his site exactly?

[)p(]

Thanks for the help )p(.  I seriously spent a couple weeks getting as far as I could without bugging the forum.

So if I'm using Mame 072 and 3DArcade 083, why would the gameslist corrupt itself when I used that method of updating it?  You mentioned in your howto that I might need a new version of catver.ini from some guy's site...   was this the problem?  if so where is his site exactly?

I am not sure, i have not heard lately of any proplems with the internal mame parser. I am interested in what went wrong. if you zip up cfg\lists then i will take a look at the lists. you can upload it here http://www.i-modernist.com/uploader.html
also as mentio0ned try enabling debugmode, i am curious if it will catch your cfg problem. i hope so that's it's purpose :-)

triggerfins catver
http://www.mameworld.net/catlist/
use the normal catver there not genrev as is mistakenly mentioned on the his site to use with emulaxian. both work but catver has much more detailed info in it

peter

[grafixmonkey]

oops, I already restored the /lists folder from the original zips...   if it happens again though, I'll upload them to you.

I did notice that I had some roms that weren't in the original gameslist, like ultimate-mk3.  I dunno, maybe that had something to do with it.  Or corrupted files, there seem to be plenty of those.

[grafixmonkey]

Nice little upload thingie you've got there.  Wish everyone had one o' them, it'd save me lots of hassle sending files in AIM.

I tried doing exactly what I did before, and the same thing happened so I sent you my lists.  I tried enabling debug mode, but at the point I tried that it was giving script errors on launch and at every sub-menu in the config screen, so I'm not sure if it turned on correctly...  but it didn't report anything except script errors, after restarting the prog, in either the cfg-mode or the frontend mode.

I'll try with the updated catver.ini and see what happens.

[grafixmonkey]

ok, the exact same thing happens with the updated catver.ini.  Still playin' around with it...

[)p(]

not surprisingly that you get an error...the lists are empty!

only the All lists with all games if full...

looks like it does not find your rompaths...and therefore does not find any games...i think if you don't choose to only add available roms your lists will be full.

the fe looks for the rompaths in mame's ini file...what does it say there? also whule parsing the fe shows below in the message part which rompaths it checks

peter

[grafixmonkey]

Perfect!  That was the little piece of information that I needed.  I checked mame.ini and found an absolute path to the roms (c:\...\...\roms).  I put the rom folder in the mame folder and changed that to a relative path instead (so mame.ini's rompath was just 'roms' instead of 'c:\....\roms') and all of a sudden it worked.

Now the only problem I have is that the marquees that don't have a bitmap display as random colors, which is fine, except it often chooses an almost-white color as a background for the white text on the cabs.  I can't seem to find the setting for that.

[)p(]

Perfect!  That was the little piece of information that I needed.  I checked mame.ini and found an absolute path to the roms (c:\...\...\roms).  I put the rom folder in the mame folder and changed that to a relative path instead (so mame.ini's rompath was just 'roms' instead of 'c:\....\roms') and all of a sudden it worked.

Now the only problem I have is that the marquees that don't have a bitmap display as random colors, which is fine, except it often chooses an almost-white color as a background for the white text on the cabs.  I can't seem to find the setting for that.

as that is a setting on the 3d models it is handled in the arcade cfg files...it's the dummymqcfg property in there...that has a lot off options how to handle the creation of dummy marquees...just click on the property in the cfg menu and it will popup a list with options you can try. i use a default backdrop bitmap with random colored text over it myself...

peter

[grafixmonkey]

Thanks for all your help.  I got the arcades showing only the available games just in time for my college graduation party.  (as in 3:30AM the night before it)  Anything I can help you out with?  lol

I'm building a motorized metal tray system to slide a keyboard in and out of sight on my cab using a pushbutton...   I'll send you the plans when it's done if you're interested.

[)p(]

Thanks for all your help.  I got the arcades showing only the available games just in time for my college graduation party.  (as in 3:30AM the night before it)  Anything I can help you out with?  lol

I'm building a motorized metal tray system to slide a keyboard in and out of sight on my cab using a pushbutton...   I'll send you the plans when it's done if you're interested.

 

motorized...hehe...people are crazy here...i like that
not for my cab though...don't want to make changes i can't reverse on a clasic cab  

(I also found why it did not find your rompath correctly. I accidently commented out for absolute paths the lines were it checks if the path ends with a "\" and if not then add "\" to it...)

peter