Mamewah crashing with XP 64

[AMDman13]

I am desperately attempting to get Mamewah to work on my 64 bit version of XP. I had it working in the past following the steps here http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=91323.0 Unfortunetly, I have had to do a re=instal of the OS and I cannot for the life of me get Mamewah to work. I have tried everything I know. For example, I have gone to c:\windows\syswow64 directory, and then manually registered the system files using regsvr32 from the command prompt inside the syswow64 directory. That seems to be fine. Mamewah does not seem to be needing the system files. The problem is now Mamewah crashes a second after start up. Here is a copy of my log file. It appears to be an issue with the layout? I'm not sure. I know for certain that these layouts work perfectly on XP 32 bit.

I have switched to Mala, but I really prefer Mamewah. I hoping that someone here may be able to help.

Thanks in advance.

[jelwell]

First backup your config files and try the default files. It's likely your config is messing things up. Then add 1 system/layout back at a time until you find the config file causing problems.
Joseph Elwell.

[AMDman13]

Thanks jewell. I will give that a go and report back tomorrow.

Thanks again!

[haynor666]

For XP x64 I use my own install script:

Code: [Select]

@echo off
echo.
echo Copying support files for frontend
copy MSCOMM32.OCX C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64 >nul
copy PaintX.dll C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64 >nul

echo.
echo Copying support files for layout designer
copy COMDLG32.OCX C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64 >nul
copy MSCOMCTL.OCX C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64 >nul

echo.
echo registering PaintX library
regsvr32.exe /s C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64\PaintX.dll
echo.
pause

With this MAMEWAH always starts on fresh Windows XP x64 installation without any KBs.

[AMDman13]

The Haynor666! Would you mind doing me a huge favor and dumb the process down a bit for me? Im not sure how to run the script for Mamewah install. I really appreciate your help as this may mean there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I did what jewel mentioned, but ended in the same results I'll post log files later. Thanks again!

[haynor666]

I've pack all files together with script. Simply extract all files for example to D:\support_files and run script copy support files.cmd.

Works for me so should works for you. After this please use clean/default mamewah files just to make sure that problems was libraries and not my faulty mamewah files. If this not work try to use fresh Windows XP install. VirtualBox would good for testing.

[AMDman13]

Wow! Thanks! I can't wait until I get home to try!

[haynor666]

Now I have to make similiar script for Windows 7 x64 

[adder]

thanks haynor i downloaded your xp64 script also
do you not encounter any problems yourself when running mamewah on xp64? (ie. you can edit and change layout, and configs, etc  and no crashing?)   cheers

[haynor666]

MAMEWAH works fine though I never play any movies inside this frontend. As for designer - it starts, loads layouts though after I made this script I never designed any new layout.

[AMDman13]

Thanks Haynor666 for sharing the script file. I am sure others will find it handy. Although, it did not fix my problem. I wish that I could say a re-install would help, but I have already tried that once. This is a fresh install (maybe a week old). Here are my latest log files. Two different. First is Mamewah 162b with a standard brand new vanilla config. Then the next is Mamewah 170. Check out the errors message for 170.

I have tried the following versions of Mamewah with the same results:
162b13a
162b13
169
97

The odd thing is version 97 actually works. Although its so outdated I would rather use Mala

[haynor666]

Do you have default video mode 640x480i in your system?

I'll installed VirtualBox and create pure windows xp x64 install. After this I only disabled system restore and change visuals for best performance. Extracted MAMEWAH 1.69 to E:\MAMEWAH and tried run. Naturally without system files MAMEWAH didn't start, instead popop message about missing files. So I run my script and then started MAMEWAH again - naturally after script starts normally. The same goes to layout designer.

Here is my log

Code: [Select]

12/5/2014 11:03:50 AM MAMEWAH v1.69 launched
12/5/2014 11:03:50 AM Missing system file: C:\WINDOWS\system32\paintx.dll
12/5/2014 11:03:50 AM Missing system file: C:\WINDOWS\system32\mscomm32.ocx
12/5/2014 11:03:50 AM System files missing, MAMEWAH quit.

12/5/2014 11:04:07 AM MAMEWAH v1.69 launched
12/5/2014 11:04:07 AM Cursor scheme: Windows default, Arrow: (None), Wait: (None), AppStarting: (None)
12/5/2014 11:04:07 AM Desktop colour: 10841658
12/5/2014 11:04:07 AM Wallpaper filename: C:\WINDOWS\web\wallpaper\Windows XP.bmp
12/5/2014 11:04:07 AM Desktop display mode: 800x600 @ 60Hz, 32bit colour
12/5/2014 11:04:07 AM Decimal symbol: '.'
12/5/2014 11:04:07 AM Games list read: fusion-0.lst
12/5/2014 11:04:08 AM Mode 640 x 480 @ 60Hz, 16bit colour not available
12/5/2014 11:04:08 AM Layout selected: E:\MAMEWAH\config\layout.lay
12/5/2014 11:04:08 AM No. joystick devices attached: 0
12/5/2014 11:04:08 AM Ctrlr file selected: E:\MAMEWAH\config\mamewah.cfg
12/5/2014 11:04:08 AM Keyboard enabled
12/5/2014 11:04:20 AM Mode 800 x 600 @ 60Hz, 32bit colour not available
12/5/2014 11:04:20 AM MAMEWAH quit
and here log when I remove mamewah.cfg from config directory

Code: [Select]

12/5/2014 11:27:04 AM MAMEWAH v1.69 launched
12/5/2014 11:27:04 AM Cursor scheme: Windows default, Arrow: (None), Wait: (None), AppStarting: (None)
12/5/2014 11:27:04 AM Desktop colour: 10841658
12/5/2014 11:27:04 AM Wallpaper filename: C:\WINDOWS\web\wallpaper\Windows XP.bmp
12/5/2014 11:27:04 AM Desktop display mode: 800x600 @ 60Hz, 32bit colour
12/5/2014 11:27:04 AM Decimal symbol: '.'
12/5/2014 11:27:05 AM Games list read: fusion-0.lst
12/5/2014 11:27:05 AM Mode 640 x 480 @ 60Hz, 16bit colour selected after 2 attempt(s) at 1/2 second intervals.
12/5/2014 11:27:05 AM Layout selected: E:\MAMEWAH\config\layout.lay
12/5/2014 11:27:05 AM No. joystick devices attached: 0
12/5/2014 11:27:05 AM No valid ctrlr file available.
12/5/2014 11:27:06 AM Mode 800 x 600 @ 60Hz, 32bit colour selected after 2 attempt(s) at 1/2 second intervals.
12/5/2014 11:27:06 AM MAMEWAH quit
In this case MAMEWAH starts and quits in the same moment. Notice "No valid ctrlr file available." which is also in your log file 
Also "SFX_InitialiseDS" means that probably there is something wrong with your audio card. I had this problem when I simply forget to install audio driver
Check http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=39912.0

[Minwah]

In this case MAMEWAH starts and quits in the same moment. Notice "No valid ctrlr file available." which is also in your log file 

Yes, you need to make sure you have mamewah.cfg (otherwise you won't be able to control the FE at all).

Also "SFX_InitialiseDS" means that probably there is something wrong with your audio card. I had this problem when I simply forget to install audio driver
Check http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=39912.0

Agreed - definitely sound driver or DirectX issue.

Layout selected: D:\Frontend\MameWah170\config\Mame\\layout.lay

I'm not sure what is causing the double-backslashes before 'layout.lay', but that doesn't look right, there should only be one backslash.

Also try running with safe_mode (mamewah.ini) set to 1 - this will not actually try to switch screen resolution etc.

[AMDman13]

Thanks haynor666 and Minwah you are both helping me get closer! This seems to be either a DirectX Problem or a SoundCard for sure. My dxdiag crashes at directinput and asks me if I want to bypass. If I select "no" then dxdaig will crash.
Here is what I have tried so far

1. Uninstall and re install of drivers for Creative PCI Audigy 2zs, with same outcome, directinput will cause dxdiag to crash. 
2. Complete re-install of Windows XP 64 using Creative PCI Audigy 2zs drivers. Newest from Creative for 64bit.
3. Complete re-install of Windows XP 64 and removing the Creative PCI Audigy card from PC. Then using onboard sound instead.

All results in directinput crashing during dxdiag..

Same deal no matter what Can't figure out how to install Directx 9.0c without having errors with directinput..

[adder]

try a different version of windows xp64
see this link here about slipstreaming, try and do it the way krick suggests:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,142002.msg1470404.html#msg1470404

[AMDman13]

I fixed it!!!!! I can't believe what it turned out to be. During this upgrade I decided to switch to a water cooled system. The Corsair H80i. Corsair products have a feature called Link. A cable connects to your USB header on your MB. Apparently this feature is not supported by XP (I wasn't going to use it anyway). Anyway I unplugged it from the MB and Voila it works!! Everything works awesome now!!! Thanks so much for the advice and support! Long live MameWah!!

[haynor666]

How this feature conflicted with audio is beyond me but I'm glad you solve it.

[AMDman13]

How this feature conflicted with audio is beyond me but I'm glad you solve it.

It was the directinput feature that was causing Mamewah to crash. It was also causing zsnes to crash as well.  It was a directx issue. Once I unplugged the link cable from the MB USB jumper header everything worked great. Thanks again for your system file script. This is brilliant. I will hold on to this gem for future use.

I am having one more small issue. Screen saver Run Random Game doesn't seem to work correctly. It does in fact  cause Mame to run the game, but the screen will stay on the menu layout. If you hit Alt Tab you will see the game is running in Mame. The screen simply is not switching from the menu to. Any thoughts? This feature is one of my favorites things about MameWah.

[haynor666]

Works for me but MAMEWAH does not kill each game before running another. Probably my fault.

How to set this correctly?

[AMDman13]

Works for me but MAMEWAH does not kill each game before running another. Probably my fault

I've let my run long enough to confirm. I am having the same issue. Mamewah is not killing the game. I had this layout with XP32 and this feature worked flawlessly. There has to be a way. Maybe MinWah has a suggestion?

[haynor666]

Just to precise - I use groovymame64 156 with MAMEWAH 1.69. Maybe for this to work MAMEWAH require more files than my script copies.

[Minwah]

I am having one more small issue. Screen saver Run Random Game doesn't seem to work correctly. It does in fact  cause Mame to run the game, but the screen will stay on the menu layout. If you hit Alt Tab you will see the game is running in Mame. The screen simply is not switching from the menu to. Any thoughts? This feature is one of my favorites things about MameWah.

It runs the game in the same way that it does when you manually start a game (IIRC), so it's a bit odd. I would check the mamewah.log file and see if you can spot something different to the screensaver vs manually launched games.

[Minwah]

Works for me but MAMEWAH does not kill each game before running another. Probably my fault.

Make sure your quit_delay is set appropriately.

However it should never launch another game until the current one has quit, and the screensaver delay has been reached again by Mamewah...

I assume you are using saver_type run_game (as opposed to saver_commandline)?

[haynor666]

Yes, it's run_game.

I didn't install full VB6 and I didn't registered OCX files but I run my own script that copies MSCOMM32.OCX COMDLG32.OCX MSCOMCTL.OCX and copied and registered PaintX.dll. All to SysWOW64.

[AMDman13]

I didn't install full VB6 and I didn't registered OCX files but I run my own script that copies MSCOMM32.OCX COMDLG32.OCX MSCOMCTL.OCX and copied and registered PaintX.dll. All to SysWOW64.

I too used haynor666 nice script tool. I am running GroovyMame 64 custom compile version 155. My mamewah is version 162b. A little out dated I know, but I go with if ain't broke don't fix it.
Here are too sample log files. One is me selecting a game and exiting manually and the other is Mamewah running the run_game screen saver option.

Looking at these it does appear Mamewah is instructing the game to quit.  I can confirm however, that this was not the case. Gyruss and dkongjr were in fact both running in different cmd windows.

[haynor666]

Personally I prefer simple slideshow but I'm curious what caused this. Maybe Minwah will trace problem.

[Minwah]

Sorry, I'm not sure about this one. I can confirm it works properly in Windows XP (32bit) as I use it. Seems like something changed in the 64 bit version that means killing the process doesn't work.

I would use the slideshow instead

[haynor666]

I'm using slideshow actually but I was curious about this problem. Maybe my script didn't copied/registered all files after all.

[Minwah]

Maybe my script didn't copied/registered all files after all.

It's a standard Windows API that is used so that wouldn't make any difference.

From a quick read, I think it is to do with 64 bit Windows using a 64-bit handle for processes...and I'm sure Mamewah will be trying to use a 32 bit one.

[AMDman13]

It's a bummer, but not a deal breaker. I use the movie feature for the screen saver now.. Almost as good.

[haynor666]

I've updated script to copy required files for windows 7 x64.