Kymaera FE, Version 1.23 now Available!

[PacManFan]

To all who have pm'd me and volunteered to test and generate skins, The inital ALPHA release of Kymaera is now available at the Emutron download page on my web site. The direct link is:

http://www.pacmanfan.com/download/kymaera.zip

[disclaimer]
As stated , this is an Alpha release of Kymaera, this means that if you are looking for a 100% working and bug-free front end, this is not it. I have decided to make this release of Kymaera available for bug testing and for skin creation.
[/disclaimer]

I would like to thank everyone who pm'd and emailed me volunteering to test Kymaera. With your help, I know we can make this a great front end. Now is your chance to provide some feedback on features and bugs you may(and will) encounter.

If you decide to create a skin for Kymaera, or port a skin from another FE to the Kymaera skn format, please email it to me so I can post it to my web site for all to download.

A few notes about the skinner:Save all resources(images) for the skins in a sub-directory under the skins directory. Kymaera uses relative paths wherever possible, so if you stay under the Kymaera directory, all the resource should be fine when you zip up the skin.

Bug Reporting

If you encounter a bug, please post it to this message thread, and I will attempt to resolve it immediately.

Feature list

If you would like to see a feature incorporated in Kymaera, speak up, and I'll probably put it on my to-do list.

Questions
Currently, there is NO documentation provided with Kymaera. Hopefully, a few of you can take some screen shots and write down what does what and save it to a html doc, this would help me immensely. I can fill in any blanks if you don't know what a button does or how a feature works.
Feel free to ask any questions, and I'll try to answer them.

Thank you to everyone in advance.

-PMF

[Jakobud]

Bug post:

Immediate ran into a couple bugs.  First of all I just fired it up.  Immediately I got crazy flickering on the screen. But I could see the FE.  I exited, changed the resolution to 800x600 in the config program and tried again.  That got rid of the flickering.

Another bug is when I scroll through the list, the names and words don't seem to refresh properly and sort of stay on the screen making things eventually unreadable. This bug happens whether i'm in 800x600 OR the flickery 640x480 res.  Below are some pics:

ATI Radeon All In Wonder 9700 Pro (Catalyst 3.8 drivers)
Windows XP Pro
1280x1024 LCD screen

[Jakobud]

Kymaera_bug_01_before.jpg  -  What i see when I start up the FE
after.jpg - What i see when I start up the FE and then press down or up or something to scroll thru the list.

[Jakobud]

Kymaera_bug_01_after.jpg - What i see when I start up the FE and then press down or up or something to scroll thru the list.

[Howard_Casto]

I have the same bugs these guys are describing.  

It's usually caused by an improper geometry/texture setup that causes your render loop to skip over the clear screen call.  If you are resizing the window then you need to wait until the window is maximized before you start the render.  If that's not possible then you need to reload every single texture after things are ready to go.  

Of course I'm just guessing here.  

Hope that helps.  

[cdbrown]

Can confirm tha flickering also - i exited and changed to my desktop settings of 1024x768 32bit.  The list on the screen does blur at that display setting as well when trying to move up and down the list.

[PacManFan]

Kymaera_bug_01_after.jpg - What i see when I start up the FE and then press down or up or something to scroll thru the list.

It's looks like the background image in the skin is not set to a vaild picture. When Kymaera starts up, it clears the Screen with white, Then every time it draws the skins, it first blits the background image defined in the skin, It looks like there is no background image set.

1)Run KymaeraConfig,
2) select emulators\mame.emu and click configure
3) select create/edit skin
4) click on "background" at the top of the list
5)click the edit button to bring up the properties for that image
6) use the browse button to select a valid image
7) click OK, then click the preview button to see if it works.
click file->save skin , and save it out

[Fandenivoldsk]

Looks nice so far! Great with the avi support! I'll try to make some cool graphics for it this weekend...!

Got a few questions for the next/upcoming version:

1). Any chance that the gamelist could run more smooth when scrolling up and down?

2). The pictures look very blurry to me. Any chance to have a more pixel sharp video mode?

3). In the skinner mode: would it be possible to place the objects more precisely? In a pixel by pixel grid, and also be able to give the objects a type in pixel size?

4). Would it be possible to place avi movie clips behind the gamelist? Now it is alway on top...

Anyway, I know this is early beta... I'm looking forward to whatever you plan to do next!

[PacManFan]

1). Any chance that the gamelist could run more smooth when scrolling up and down?

I hope so, right now, I've got a lot of debug code in place, so it's not quite running full speed, Also there is a glitch with the gamelist, on the last frame of animation, it jumps a little.

2). The pictures look very blurry to me. Any chance to have a more pixel sharp video mode?

The blurriness occurs when you are running a skin that is a differant resolution from the screen mode. Kymaera will stretch or scale the image to fit onto the screen, This makes it look blurry. There is also a speed degradation when doing this. For best visual quality, and best speed performance, use a skin that is designed at the same screen resolution that you plan to run it at.

3). In the skinner mode: would it be possible to place the objects more precisely? In a pixel by pixel grid, and also be able to give the objects a type in pixel size?

It's on my to-do list right now, I plan to put in a snap-to-grid function, along with a display of the x-y position and width and height of the currently selected rectangle.

4). Would it be possible to place avi movie clips behind the gamelist? Now it is alway on top...

Currently, the draw order is defined by the order of items in the list on the right. I plan to put an up and down arrow buttons next to the list so you can select an item and change it's z-draw order.
 
Thanks for the feedback!

-PMF

[JoyMonkey]

Looking good so far!
Any chance of adding a couple of controls images to the skinner? An image of the game's main control and an image of buttons would be great-
So if the selected game uses an 8-way joystick and 3 buttons an image of an 8-way joystick with an image of 3 buttons beside it could be displayed. You could have a collection of images for all the different controls and images of button layouts with different amounts of buttons.

[PacManFan]

Sure,

Inside the XML game list, I've got a control type field with that info, Do you have any art for Controls, The buttons may have to wait until I get detailed info from controls.dat, but I could put in a picture of a spinner, trackball, 4way or 8way stick, and lightguns based on the control type in the XML gamelist.

If you have art of any of these items, send it to me or post it, that should be easy to put in.

-PMF

[JoyMonkey]

I'll have a look for some control artwork when I get home from work. Shouldn't be too hard to knock out.

[PacManFan]

Here's a skin that JoyMonkey sent me. Looks great!

A note to everyone about getting images from the art directories to appear:


Kymaera looks for GAME_IMAGE1 , and if it finds it, it uses the 1st art
path, appends the game name onto the end, and then looks for that file using a list of art extensions, the art extensions are mpg, avi, png, tga, and bmp. If an image file is found, it is loaded into GAME_IMAGE1.

Then Kymaera moves onto GAME_IMAGE2 and uses the 2nd art path, this process continues through art path / image 16.

Basically, don't rename any of the text / images , or else they won't work. You can rename the text/images that you create using the add button

[Fandenivoldsk]

2). The pictures look very blurry to me. Any chance to have a more pixel sharp video mode?

The blurriness occurs when you are running a skin that is a differant resolution from the screen mode. Kymaera will stretch or scale the image to fit onto the screen, This makes it look blurry. There is also a speed degradation when doing this. For best visual quality, and best speed performance, use a skin that is designed at the same screen resolution that you plan to run it at.

Well, I made an image in Photoshop (1024x768, 16 bit) and saved it as a .jpg and a .png, but both look a bit blurry in Kymaera when run in 1024x768, 16 bit mode. I'm sure I saved it in the correct size, so it should show up exactly the same way as in Photoshop, but it dosen't... I wonder why?

[JoyMonkey]

Here's an updated grab of that skin. Having a little trouble positioning the GAME_PREVIEW area correctly and the year is displayed incorrectly, but other than that it's not looking too shabby.
This skin is 800x600 but it works well at 1024x768. At 640x480 the GAME_PREVIEW at the bottom of the screen disappears.

[PacManFan]

2). The pictures look very blurry to me. Any chance to have a more pixel sharp video mode?

The blurriness occurs when you are running a skin that is a differant resolution from the screen mode. Kymaera will stretch or scale the image to fit onto the screen, This makes it look blurry. There is also a speed degradation when doing this. For best visual quality, and best speed performance, use a skin that is designed at the same screen resolution that you plan to run it at.

Well, I made an image in Photoshop (1024x768, 16 bit) and saved it as a .jpg and a .png, but both look a bit blurry in Kymaera when run in 1024x768, 16 bit mode. I'm sure I saved it in the correct size, so it should show up exactly the same way as in Photoshop, but it dosen't... I wonder why?

Well, you may have made a 1024x768 background and run Kymaera in 1024x768, but did you use a create a new skin that was 1024 x 768, or did you use the 640x480 that I set as the default?

You can create a new skin by clicking on file->new skin on the skin editor screen.

-PMF

[Howard_Casto]

I haven't gotten a chance to really go over it yet, but so far it's working pretty well.  I have more of a comment than a bug.  

I think the emu-spefic skins are a good idea, BUT only if they are just an option.  I personally think they are annoying, but even more annoying is the fact that if I had 30 emus runing I'd have to make sure each one has a skin and bg image defined.  

I also don't like the game_image1  game_image2 stuff.  I think some generic slots are necessary for flexibility, but for stuff that everybody should use (snaps, titles, flyers, cabinets videos) it's much less confusing to call the slot what it'll be used for than to make sure you've put them in the proper order.  Right now it'll be fine, but if skinners get creative then it might become a nusance as different skinners will use different directories in different orders.  

[PacManFan]

I think the emu-spefic skins are a good idea, BUT only if they are just an option.  I personally think they are annoying, but even more annoying is the fact that if I had 30 emus runing I'd have to make sure each one has a skin and bg image defined.  

If there is interest, I can make it a global option, instead of a emu-specific option. I think currently, it's not too difficult to set a skin when you define a new emu to use. Multiple emu's can share the same skin.

I also don't like the game_image1  game_image2 stuff.  I think some generic slots are necessary for flexibility, but for stuff that everybody should use (snaps, titles, flyers, cabinets videos) it's much less confusing to call the slot what it'll be used for than to make sure you've put them in the proper order.  Right now it'll be fine, but if skinners get creative then it might become a nusance as different skinners will use different directories in different orders.  

I debated about that for a bit, I was going to name the images SNAP, MARQUEE, etc.., then I realized that that was kind of specific to MAME and arcade machines. You're right about the directories being defined in a different order on peoples machines though, I still need to resolve that.

-PMF

[cdbrown]

I seem to have a problem when trying to use the config program.  I was originally able to configure the mame.emu file using the program but now I try to go into it again by selecting "emulators\mame.emu" from the list and clicking "configure" button, but there isn't any of the saved information on the configuration page.  The mame.emu file does contain all the info, but the config program doesn't seem to be calling it up.

I also input all the info in it again through the config screen, pressed ok and then went back in to check to see if anything changed, but it came up again with blank fields.

[PacManFan]

That's really weird, I'll definately have to check on that. Did you change the location of the mame.emu file? the main kymaera.kfg file may have been pointing to a file that didn't exist, or the emulators\mame.emu file may have become corrupted somehow, try first deleting the mame.emu file and try again. If that doesn't work, try deleting the kymaera.kfg file.

-PMF

[PacManFan]

I'm going to be posting a new download hopefully tonight. This includes several new features, a couple fixes, and a 40% speed increase. I've removed the debug code from several portions in the display routines, and switched to a release build instead of a debug build. I'm going to include a new skin from JoyMonkey that really shows off what Kymaera can do.

A few new features:
-A new Image "CONTROL_IMAGE1" shows the type of controller used in the game, joy4way,joy8way,spinner,trackball, etc..
-Ability to change the z-order of images /text in the skin
-speed improvements.
-A few things I've forgotten about..

-PMF

[RetroBorg]

I seem to have a problem when trying to use the config program.  I was originally able to configure the mame.emu file using the program but now I try to go into it again by selecting "emulators\mame.emu" from the list and clicking "configure" button, but there isn't any of the saved information on the configuration page.  The mame.emu file does contain all the info, but the config program doesn't seem to be calling it up.

I also input all the info in it again through the config screen, pressed ok and then went back in to check to see if anything changed, but it came up again with blank fields.

I've also had the exact same problem as cdbrown, other than that, the front end looks really promising and is really user friendly, which is especially good for people like myself who have had trouble getting other frontends up and running.

[PacManFan]

Has anyone tried to make thier own gamelists yet? I feel this is one of the weakest points in KymaeraConfig. I know the grid controls have some issues with selecting rows/columns.
I'd like to make this a strong point, and cut down on the confusion on how to do it.

-PMF

[Jakobud]

I had the same problem with the Emulator config window coming up with all blank entries.  I will figure out how to reproduce the bug.

[Jakobud]

I had the same problem with the Emulator config window coming up with all blank entries.  I will figure out how to reproduce the bug.

Okay for that config bug, just open the config program, choose Mame or Z26 emu's and hit CONFIG then it brings up the window with the config info.  Then press Okay or Cancel then hit config again and it will come up blank even if you have an emu selected.

[PacManFan]

Thanks Jakobud,
I found and fixed that bug last night, I'll be releaseing a new Beta exe very soon.

-PMF

[slycrel]

  I've downloaded this but not yet tried it out.  No time for this stuff right now.  :/  Looks good so far though.

  A suggestion though -- I really like the idea of skins for individual emulators, but if you do this make it optional.  Set a "main" skin as the default and then if other emus are set for their own that's fine, but if not they will just use the default.  That would save a lot of people time and help to have your machine's software sort of improve over time as you polish your individual setup more and more.

[PacManFan]

OK, that sound like a reasonable compromise, Whenever the user creates a new emulator config, I'll have it automatically default to the skins\kymaera1.skn. That way, every emulator will be automatically set up with a skin, and the user still has an option to change it.

[JoyMonkey]

I like the way the Gamelist Creator takes info from different sources and merges them together (listinfo, catver.ini and gameplay.ini). Although at first I was using a bad catver.ini and my Category,  MNOP, NOSP and Gameplay columns all contained no data. I was using a catver.ini from http://www.mameworld.net/catlist , because no download links on catver.com were working. Eventually I got catver.com's catver.ini for .078 and used it with mame .078 and now they're all in there. I've no idea why my Gameplay column wasn't working, seems it didn't like the other catver.ini either.

But now it's not listing all the games. None of the Beatmania are listed, whereas before they were listed but wouldn't sort alphabetically with the rest of the game (see the screengrab below). They just stayed at the end on the list. And now they're gone.

Also, a lot of the time the scrollbars don't work on the 'Game Category List Creation' list creation window. Re-sizing the window gets them going again.

Is there anyway you could get it to take the <control name> fields from the Controls.Dat's xml file and use it for your Creator's  'Control Type' column? It would give the 1236 games that Controls.Dat already supports more accurate listings.

What do MNOP and NOSP stand for?


Update: Now the Category, MNOP, NOSP and Gameplay columns have gone blank again when I tried to load the same Master List that worked fine before. I tried create another one just as I did before, but it's not working again. And the Beatmania games have gone to the bottom of the list again too.  

[PacManFan]

Yeah, I've had some bad problems with that pesky grid control not responding to events. I'll see what I can do to make it more responsive. I'll check out that beatmania not appearing.

definitions:

MNOP - Max number of players
NOSP - Number of Simultaneous players

That was the important information that I pulled out of the Klov site with my Klov Parser.

Now that HC just release Controls.dat, I'll put in support right away to display the control panel definiton better than just the joy8way,joy4way,etc... commands out of mame.


JoyMonkey, I really can't thank you enough for helping me test out all these features. The next release will be the Beta, I haven't encountered any serious bugs yet (Crash Bugs), so I think Kymaera is fairly stable to move ahead.

How many emulators have you configured this for? Have you had any trouble launching / returning from games?

-PMF

[SirPoonga]

Now that HC just release Controls.dat, I'll put in support right away to display the control panel definiton better than just the joy8way,joy4way,etc... commands out of mame.

I hope you mean the controls.dat viewer  controls.dat has been available for months.

[JoyMonkey]

No problem PMF! I look forward to the day Kymaera blows my proverbial socks off.  
I hadn't tried any other emulators, so I thought I'd try out making a SNES gamelist.
I set the exe, rom path etc  and clicked Create/Edit Game List File.  Clicked Create Master List, then Other. Clicking 'Import Delimited Text File' does nothing; the button highlights but thats it.

Clicking 'Create From Rom Directories' crashes the program. A DOS box pops up for a second with an error message (see the top half of the image below) followed by the usual WindowsXP program crash.
My SNES roms directory is G:\emulators\SNES Roms
It looks like Kymaera Config is having a hard time with it.

[PacManFan]

Whoops, sorry about the crash, that "import delimited file" thing isn't working yet, but that should definatley not crash your system when you read your rom directory. I'm fixing it now, and I'll send you a set of new exe's with a ton of new features.

I'm starting to focus more on fixing up the game list imports and creating a flexible way to cross-reference imported lists or directory- generated lists with information from dat files.

Also coming very soon is the much-anticipated rotating wheel preview.

-PMF

[JoyMonkey]

After replacing the old exe's with the new ones nothing will work. I deleted all the old stuff, re-installed Kymaera and unzipped the newer exe's over the old ones. Then deleted the old emu files and made some new ones (I was unable to edit the old ones, the Art Paths drop-down wasn't working and I thought they might be the cause of Kymaera.exe's problems). Config seems to run okay after doing this, buy when I try to execute Kymaera.exe it it gives me the 'Arcade Front End has encountered a problem and needs to close' error. And if I try to run Config after Kymaera does this I get the same error and have to delete the emu files again to get Config to run at all. So Config works if there's no emu files in the emulators folder, and Kymaera is doing nothing now.

Reading the rom director works fine now, though it includes '.' and '..' at the top of the masterlist, just like a DOS directory listing. Thanks for changing the game_image names, it makes it much easier for people to correctly set up skins now, though I think maybe these changes to the emu files may be causing the problems above ?

CreateMasterList still isn't taking any info from catver.ini and gameplay.ini.

It would be nice if when saving a new file (a gamelist.xml, emulator.emu or skin.skn), if KymaeraConfig would automatically add the appropriate extension to the file, at first it was creating files with no extension and when I went to load a file nothing would show up because nothing had the correct extension.

[cdbrown]

I've found a little problem with the config editor.  I go and change the location of the Emulator Executable File to where my mame.exe file is which works fine.  Now when I go and remove the original rom path it reverts back to the old location of the executable file.  I change it back to my location and a new rom path - all fine.  Remove an art path and the executable reverts to the default path again.

[PacManFan]

Howdy all,
The latest and greatest release of Kymaera is now available for download at www.pacmanfan.com

Kymaera now has tons of new features, including the rotating preview wheel.

Included with Kymaera is a wonderful 800x600 skin made by JoyMonkey. If you downloaded a previous version of Kymaera, overwrite it with this one, there may be some incompatibilites with the skin file format and the emu file formats.

Please post all bugs / comments in this thread.
Thanks!
-PMF

[)p(]

Works great and was a breeze to setup for mame...the smooth scrolling is a nice touch and even with all the bitmpas being updated in the default skin it was still going strong :-)

I think if you keep it simple this may become the new mamewah.

I encountered one small problem. I can't seem to run it with both of my monitors on. I have to switch off the second monitor to get the frontend to run.

I am runnin xp with a geforce 4.

peter

[PacManFan]

Great to hear,
     I just put in a Texture Manager and a Movie Manager class so that images and movies can be shared resource between multiple bitmaps, and they don't have to be re-loaded if they have already been loaded once and are still visible.

I think I know what was going on with your multiple monitors. I had started to put support in for multiple monitors, then I decided to take it out, but there are still a few remnents of the code that initializes the multi-monitor system.

[Buddabing]

How do you pronounce "Kymaera".

1) ky - MERE - uh
2) ky - MARE - uh
3) KIM - er - uh
4) KY - mare - uh
5) Whatever the user decides

[PacManFan]

#2  is about the closest , But you can call it anything you'd like.

Do you know how hard it is to find a new name for a piece of software?
 I came up with a whole document of mythical creatures to pick from, and all the spellings of "chimera" were taken already.  I liked the whole "ae" thing, so it stuck, A Kymaera is a 2-headed dragon. I picked the name because I like I thought it sounded "kewl", and it's sort of an in-your-face to a certain "Burger King"(no name's mentioned) cheesy and difficult front end.

I try never to miss a chance to pi$$ off a certain member of this board because of his rude attitude.

If You do a search for "Kymaera", you'll find:

1) a mythical land
2) a female superhero
3) a 2-headed dragon, or 2 headed goat-lion
4) a few other bizzare references.

-PacManFan

[Buddabing]

To all who have pm'd me and volunteered to test and generate skins, The inital ALPHA release of Kymaera is now available at the Emutron download page on my web site. The direct link is:

http://www.pacmanfan.com/download/kymaera.zip

This URL is wrong: http://www.pacmanfan.com/download/kymaera_setup.exe

Should be downloads plural.

Bug Reporting

If you encounter a bug, please post it to this message thread, and I will attempt to resolve it immediately.

The scrolling list looks great. But MAME doesn't launch for me when a game is selected.

There is no help file, as noted. I couldn't create a master game list since I don't know what "gameplay.ini" is.

It'd be nice if you kept old dialog box data around.

Put an error notice if the game list doesn't create.

After a game is played, set the scrolling game list back to where it was before MAME was launched.

If a letter is pressed, skip to games starting with that letter. (?)

Make the "tick-tick" scrolling sound optional. It's not my personal taste to have a sound play unless something important happens.

Support wheelmouse.

Make a cab-friendly option, have games start by pressing 1 as well as enter.

Good work so far!

[PacManFan]

Budda-budda-budda-BING

I'm working on some docs now that should help people. Gameplay.ini is included in the distribution, and it's not completely neccessary to make a gamelist. Gameplay.ini provides information from the KLOV site about # of simultaneous players, Max number of players, and a few other things.

If you don't like to hear the sounds when you scroll, take them out, sound is configurable.

If you don't like to keys I've defined to launch a game, change them, all inputs are configurable.

As far as a game not launching, check your rom paths you've defined, and the launch command settings. Try changing some settings, you'll get it to work.

-PMF

[Howard_Casto]

Why use klov?  Why not use controls.ini or controls.xml?  We use klov for a base when starting to look up a game for the database and I can tell you first hand, it's horribly inaccurate.  I've found it has about a 50% success rate.  

[Buddabing]

If you don't like to hear the sounds when you scroll, take them out, sound is configurable.

There's no <none> option on what WAV to play when the list scrolls.

[PacManFan]

No, there's not a <none> option for sounds. I suppose you could type in a non-existant filename for none. I'll put a button in that says "Clear" for the next version.

-PMF

[mazur]

Nice work!
Some questions:

1) U can ad more joystick inputs? some ppl made all cabinet inputs with joystick interface (like me), i think J1,J2,J3 and J4 with 8 buttons each is enough

2) The favorites is working? i assigned a key to the favorites, i saw no effect.

3) The XML editor is not working for me, i cant edit or select fields (but sometimes i can), strange..

4) When games starts loading, a gray screen comes, its possible to change it? with a loading.. image (p. example)

4) maybe its tooo early for that, but its possible to make a "on screen" mp3 player? maybe with new skin

5) Continue the nice work, thx

[PacManFan]

Nice work!

1) U can ad more joystick inputs? some ppl made all cabinet inputs with joystick interface (like me), i think J1,J2,J3 and J4 with 8 buttons each is enough

Currently, I support 2 joysticks with (I think) 4 buttons each. Putting in 2 more shouldn't be too hard.

2) The favorites is working? i assigned a key to the favorites, i saw no effect.

Nope, the favorites list isn't hooked up yet, It will allow you to add a game from any emulator into a single game list. It's on my to-do list for the next version.

3) The XML editor is not working for me, i cant edit or select fields (but sometimes i can), strange..

The grid controls on the gamelist generator are a little twitchy. I used a freeware grid control project from source forge for it, and sometimes it doesn't respond to click events. Currently, you cant click on a row to edit it. I plan to put in a single row edit soon for customization of the fields.

4) When games starts loading, a gray screen comes, its possible to change it? with a loading.. image (p. example)

Sure, I can make that an optional image when launching an emulator's game.

4) maybe its tooo early for that, but its possible to make a "on screen" mp3 player? maybe with new skin

I plan on making Kymaera into a full-fledged mp3 jukebox as well, but that might not happen immediately.

5) Continue the nice work, thx

Will do,

-PMF

[Fandenivoldsk]

How do I make different gamelists? Is it possible to navigate between different emulators/gamelists from inside the frontend, or do I have to have a frontend for each emulator?

[str1der]

How do I make different gamelists? Is it possible to navigate between different emulators/gamelists from inside the frontend, or do I have to have a frontend for each emulator?

I'm kind of in the same boat. I've never done anything with gamelists but would like to. Is there anykind of tutorial out there?

[PacManFan]

How do I make different gamelists? Is it possible to navigate between different emulators/gamelists from inside the frontend, or do I have to have a frontend for each emulator?

I know there is no documentation out there, so I'll try to explain the best I can.
First, a couple of things:

1) Kymaera supports multiple emulators, On the main config screen, You can click "Add New" to create a new emulator settings profile. Then you can click on it and click "edit" to configure it.

2) Kymaera supports re-mappable keys. Some of the keys you can re-map are NEXT_EMULATOR and PREV_EMULATOR. These keys move you in a circular list through the emulators you have configured.

3) You can add / remove gamelists to/from an emulator in the emulator configuration screen. You can change the NEXT_GAMELIST / PREV_GAMELIST keys the same way you changes the NEXT_EMULATOR keys. The NEXT/PREV_GAMELIST keys move you in a circular list through the gamelists you have added to each emulator.

Creating a new gamelist isn't too hard. Inside the emu config screen, click the "create/edit" gamelist button. This will take you to the game list editor screen.

From here, you can perform lots of operations on game lists. The top grid is the source game list, and the bottom grid is the destination game list. To create a "Master" game list of all games for mame, click the "create master list" button, then click "mame". Set your mame exe file, and you can browse for the catver.ini file and gameplay.ini (included with kymaera). Choose a filename with a .xml entension somewhere in your /gamelists directory under kymaera.  (catver.ini and gameplay.ini are optional)

Click "create" and the master list of all mame games for your version of mame will be built and saved.

Now, click the "Load source games list" button and load up the file you just created.

From here, you have a bunch of options,
1)You can select all the games and copy them to a destination list
2) you can sort the games
3) you can create and run inclusionary or exclusionary filters and run them to move games from the source to the destination.
4) you can select and copy single or multiple games from source to destination.

Play around with the filters, they are quite powerful for creating gamelists.

After you create a list of games for a "catagory" you want, You can optionally give it a name and image that is tied to a text control and image control in the skin.

Save you game list out as a .xml file in the gamelist directory, and go back to the emu config screen and add it as a gamelist to use.

You can have as many gamelists for an emulator as you want, and you can cycle between them using the next/prev_gamelist keys you've configured.

I hope this enough to get you guys started.

-PacManFan

[str1der]

Ok I was following your directions but there is no cactver.ini or gameplay.ini with Kymaera

[str1der]

Another question. I was trying to set up my spinner to cycle through the games. I thought the spinner was based on the mouse axis but assigning the mouse_left, right, up or down only lets my trackball controll the list.

[PacManFan]

Another question. I was trying to set up my spinner to cycle through the games. I thought the spinner was based on the mouse axis but assigning the mouse_left, right, up or down only lets my trackball controll the list.

Your spinner must be mouse 2, Currently, I only support 1 mouse. I'll see what I can do about putting another mouse in.
 You can download the latest version of catver.ini from TriggerFin's web site. I don't know the address offhand, I'll check and see if I included gameplay.ini with the last release. If I didn't, I'll be sure to put it back in.

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

PacManFan,

So far I like what I see.

I like that I can assign multiple keys to the same function.  As far as I know, yours is the only frontend that does this.

I have run into the bug where the source and destination lists do not respond to clicking.  Please get this fixed.

Gameplay.ini was not in the release I downloaded.

Can i get some information on how to set up skins?

Thanks.

[JoyMonkey]

I'm thinking of putting together another skin in the same style as the first Kymaera skin, but using the rotating wheel feature. Maybe I should document how it's done while I'm at it.

PMF- will you be adding an X/Y co-ordinate display to the skinner? It would save having to go through the .skn file and manually adjust the object positions.

[PacManFan]

PacManFan,
So far I like what I see.
I like that I can assign multiple keys to the same function.  As far as I know, yours is the only frontend that does this.
I have run into the bug where the source and destination lists do not respond to clicking.  Please get this fixed.
Gameplay.ini was not in the release I downloaded.
Can i get some information on how to set up skins?
Thanks.

Thanks for checking out Kymaera, It's still very much a work-in-progress. Yeah, I know I've gotta do something about those grid controls not always responding to clicks, It makes editing gamelists a little annoying.

As far as setting up skins, It's not too difficult.
Go into the EMU config, and where it says "skin file", click "edit"
In the skin editor, you can create an new skin, or edit an existing one.
To create a new skin, clcik file->new skin.

At the new skin dialog box, you can set the skin size like 640x480 or 800x600.
NOTE: if you are making a vertical skin (90 or 270 orientation), you have to type the skin size in reverse like: 480x640 or 600x800.
Also, you should create a skin that is the same resolution you plan to run Kymaera in,  That way,the skin won't have to be stretched at all when it's displayed.

After you create the skin, you can start editing it and laying it out. I would recommend starting off by un-checking everything in the list to the right excpet for the background.

Click on the background in the list, and then click edit. You can set the main background image to whatever you want, just make sure it fits the aspect ratio of the skin.

You can hide / show and text or image by clicking on it's checkmark in the list. the current game images will be displayed in the "SNAPS" "MARQUEES" "CABINETS", etc image controls. You can move the images around, and resize the rectangle they display in.

You can click on the "preview" button to see what the skin will look like during operation.

I would suggest experimenting to see what everything does. Check on a control to make it visible, and then click preview to see what appears in it.

Let me know if you have any specific questions.

-PMF

[PacManFan]

I'm thinking of putting together another skin in the same style as the first Kymaera skin, but using the rotating wheel feature. Maybe I should document how it's done while I'm at it.

PMF- will you be adding an X/Y co-ordinate display to the skinner? It would save having to go through the .skn file and manually adjust the object positions.

JoyMonkey, Yes, It's on my to-do list with a million other things, I'll make sure it gets into the next version. I'd love to see a skin using the rotating wheel previewer. I honestly haven't event played aroud with it too much myself after I coded it. I heard a report that it only works in 16bpp mode. I'll have to make sure it works in 8 and 32bpp as well.

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

Cool,  I started playing around with the skinner and I discovered the Info screen!  

I like it, but I was experiencing some weird problems when i tried to view it in the frontend.  Some times it would not show when I hit next or previous screen.  Some times it would flicker rapidly betweeen the main screen and the info screen. Sometimes it works perfectly. At one point a flickerin menu drop down was visible at the top left corner.

[str1der]

PMF,
        I'm still having some issues. I downloaded a catver.ini for mame 73 whish is the version I'm using. I've setup all of the proper paths for my roms and supporting files (snaps...). I followed the instructions you left for creating a master list. I put in the path to my mame.exe and catver.ini. I left the gameplay.ini blank since there wasn't any. I then used the save as button to point to the gamelist directory and gave it a name of mame73list . I hit ok then the creatlist button. I get a cmd prompt window for about 30- 60 seconds. I then try to load the list but it isn't there. I've tried this several times with no luck. When I load the list that you included with the install, Kymaera comes up with the scrollable list on the right but I get no snaps/cabs/marquees etc. If I hit enter to launch the selected game Kymaera shuts down but MAME doesn't run. I've triple checked all of my pathing and it appears right. I have MAME.exe in c:\mame073b and my roms,snaps, and other files are in sub directories under there. I left Kymaera in the default install directory.
     Any ideas? I really like the look and feel of this FE but I'm not sure what's wrong? Thanks.

[PacManFan]

Let's see if I can help.
One thing I should have told you, You need to manually enter a ".xml" extension to the game list you create when you choose the filename  to save the list as, otherwise it won't show up in the open file box.

I'm not sure why the snaps, etc.. are not appearing. Just go back and triple check your paths again. In the emu config screen, set your mame exe, and then click the "quick mame setup" button to automagically set your art paths if they are the mame defualt subdirectories.

Next, go into the skin in the skin editor, and make sure the images are visible (checked next to thier names).

As far as the roms not launching, first check and make sure you have set your rom path under the "Rom Paths" list,
Next, go into the launch command for the emu.

The settings that I have for mame are :

The Program to launch is ($EMUEXE) , click the "EMU EXE" button.
The Program parameters are ($ROMPATH)($ROMNAME)

You may or may not need to send the extension for the rom.

I hope some of this helps. Let me know if it works for you.

-PacManFan

[str1der]

Thanks, I'll try adding the XML extension manually. Just a note though I went to that directory through explorer and the file wasn't there with or without the extension.

I'll check all of that stuff again but I did check all of the paths and the skin editor to make sure they were being displayed. I did use the "quick mame setup" and it grabbed the correct paths. I'll just keep checking. Looking at some of the other posts it looks like some others are having an issue with mame not launching. Thanks again.

[Paul Olson]

I tried launching games by pressing ENTER, and Kymaera exits for me too.  Games launch fine pressing SPACEBAR.  I don't know why, I was pressing random keys trying to launch, and that is what worked.

Paul

[JoyMonkey]

I'm putting together a Kymaera skinning guide at http://mame.joymonkey.com/kymaera

It's not too detailed yet, more of a beginners guide to the essentials. I still need to write descriptions of the default skin objects and I haven't even mentioned font properties... etc etc.
There's too many options to document in one sitting, when I went to write the skinning guide I realised just how much work has gone into Kymaera.

PMF- how much time would you say you've already put into making Kymaera? Well done again.  

[str1der]

Ok update time. I believe I got everything working except the spinner being on mouse 2. Let me know if you add that support. I would really like to use it instead of the track ball for scrolling through the list.

1. Manually putting the XML extension took care of my master list creation problem.
2. Didn't realize that you had spacebar set as the default load command and enter causes the FE to exit.
3. I also had to remove the ROM Extension from the load command.
4. I didn't know that Kymaera couldn't read the snaps and other graphics from a single zip file.

Hopefully this will help others

Is there a way to press a hot key to add a game to a custom (favorites) list?
Thanks again.

[Fandenivoldsk]

Instead of having to cycle through each emulator with the NEXT_EMULATOR and PREV_EMULATOR keys, would it be possible to add an option to have a list/menu to select from? It would be nice to be able to have a fancy skin for choosing emulator/game system...

[PacManFan]

Instead of having to cycle through each emulator with the NEXT_EMULATOR and PREV_EMULATOR keys, would it be possible to add an option to have a list/menu to select from? It would be nice to be able to have a fancy skin for choosing emulator/game system...

I'm putting something like that in now, If you've noticed, I have multiple "Screens" in each skin, The main screen, and info screen, and the screensaver screen. I'm also going to put in a "EMU Select" screen, and put some optional configurations for it. This way, you can either start at the emu select screen, and choose the emulator you want with a list like the gamelist, or you can start directly at an emulator like you do now, and cycle through the emulators.

     I tested out the enter key, and yes, it does make the FE exit for some reason. I need to override the default windows key handler to stop that. That should be in the next release. Also on the horizon is going to be the ability to read art files directly from zip archives.


Thanks for all the feedback people, Keep it coming!

-PacManFan.

[PacManFan]

I'm putting together a Kymaera skinning guide at http://mame.joymonkey.com/kymaera

It's not too detailed yet, more of a beginners guide to the essentials. I still need to write descriptions of the default skin objects and I haven't even mentioned font properties... etc etc.
There's too many options to document in one sitting, when I went to write the skinning guide I realised just how much work has gone into Kymaera.

PMF- how much time would you say you've already put into making Kymaera? Well done again.  

Joymonkey,
That sounds great! Thanks a lot for all your help through this. One thing to note, When you change a font for a text control, It doesn't change until you re-load the skin.    I noticed this the other day when I was setting up a skin on my new mame cab. I'll be sure to fix it by the next release along with a million other little things.

It's hard to say how long I've been working on Kymaera. I started coding it in October, but I had taken the screen functions, and video core out of EmuTron. When I originally wrote EmuTron, I think those functions took me about 2 months to get working right. So all in all, about 6 months working about 1-3 hours a day in my spare time.

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

There appears to be a problem with short game lists.

If the list does not have enough games to fill the box, then the lsit starts to repeat itself.

[ErikRuud]

Whoops, no screen shot.

[PacManFan]

Yeah, I built the game list so it is "circular" instead of linear. That way, it 'll wrap around at the bottom to the top. That was one of my biggest pet peeves about some other FE's I checked out.

There are 2 things you can do:

1) Make the gamelist rectangle smaller so it lists fewer games (move top donw a little and bottom up a little)
2) Bump up the font size

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

Niether of those solutions is really practical for me.

I have some gamelists that only have 4 games in them and others have hundreds.

It is possible to make a list that is circular without haveing it display multiple times.  I have done it in Java apps and even in COBOL.

[PacManFan]

Really, How?
Artificially inserting blank entries?

Or did you have something else in mind? I'm open to suggestion.

-PMF

[str1der]

Ok update time. I believe I got everything working except the spinner being on mouse 2. Let me know if you add that support. I would really like to use it instead of the track ball for scrolling through the list.

1. Manually putting the XML extension took care of my master list creation problem.
2. Didn't realize that you had spacebar set as the default load command and enter causes the FE to exit.
3. I also had to remove the ROM Extension from the load command.
4. I didn't know that Kymaera couldn't read the snaps and other graphics from a single zip file.

Hopefully this will help others

Is there a way to press a hot key to add a game to a custom (favorites) list?
Thanks again.

Hey PAC,
            I never did see an answer to the favorites list hot key question. Any word on whether or not you'll be able to support Mouse 2?

[ErikRuud]

There are a couple things I can think of.

You have the scrolling setup so the highlighted game is always in the middle of the list. The highlighting does not move, the list does.  

When your list is shorter than the box, you should switch to have the highlight move instead of the list.

When I display the game list with only four entries, you can see the whole list 4 times, and the selected game is highlighted in all 4 repetitions.  This tells me you have most of the logic in there already.

[PacManFan]

hmmmm,
I'll have to think about that one and see what I can do.

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

Inserting blank lines might work, as long as it does not try to scroll through them.

[ErikRuud]

Maybe I should report some of my success as well.

I have been able to set up and run MAME, Visual Pinball, and Daphne.  Visual Pinball and Daphne each use one gamelist.  Mame has several and I will be adding more.

Can I manually edit the .xml files to get around some of the problems with the grid selection.  

[PacManFan]

Yup, you can use any standard XML editor, or import into Access, Good to hear you've had some success.

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

Yeah, I like it and I am probably going to put it in both of the cabs I have built.

By the way, can you post the gameplay.ini file for those of that did not get it in the distribution?

[Paul Olson]

ErikRuud-
Would you mind posting a walkthru for setting up Visual Pinball?  I'm having a hard time getting it to work.

Thanks,
Paul

[ErikRuud]

The problem with Visual Pinball is that it is really not intended to be run from a command line.  You can get VP to load and run a table by with a command that looks like this: "Start tablename.vpt with path".  But you still have the problem that when you exit the table, it want to go back to the VP editor, so you need something that will shutdown VP completely.

Initially I was using an AutoIt script that I had written to get VisualPinball to work with GameLauncher.

I have found that Howard Castros VisualPinball wrapper works very well also.  You can get it from Howard's Dragon King site

Then you use the wrapper instead of VPinball.exe

[PacManFan]

I'm working on the 1st release version for Kymaera, after much testing and feedback from everyone, I have been able to iron out most of the bugs and add some great new features.

I would like to know if anyone has any features requests that I might be able to put in for the 1st official release.
If so, post them here, and I'll see what I can do.

-PMF

[str1der]

I'm working on the 1st release version for Kymaera, after much testing and feedback from everyone, I have been able to iron out most of the bugs and add some great new features.

I would like to know if anyone has any features requests that I might be able to put in for the 1st official release.
If so, post them here, and I'll see what I can do.

-PMF

1. A Hot key to add a rom to a favorites list.
2. Support for mouse 2

Another problem I ran into is with the skin editor. I wanted to change the skin so that the Game Previews( with 3 showing) were on the left going up and down where you currently have the cab/flyer/titles. I then wanted to put the cab and control panels along the bottom. When I tried to resize the Game Preview box for that orientation it always crashes the editor. Anyone else try this?

Thanks for the hard work

[Boris]

Videos ! As in Emutron   Really like them and with the wheel... we can have something

[ErikRuud]

I would like to have game specific options like GameLauncher does.

I have mame set up to run with -nobezels.  Bezels take up too much of the screen, but for some games the bezels are used to emulate indicator lights that were on the original cab.  Lunar Lander, Atari ootball, Space wars all benefit from this.  I woul like to be able to have Kymera start these games with -usebezels.

Here is how it is setup in GameLauncher.
########################################################################
#
# Per ROM options go here
#
# List of short ROM names followed by their options:
#
#   rom = -option1 -option2 ...
#
# i.e.:
#   arkanoid = -novsync

[PacManFan]

Boris, Hey, good to hear from you again. I've got good news, Videos are supported everywhere where images are, the currently support file formats are:

mpg ,avi, png, tga, bmp, gif

You can have a video playing as your background image, or anywhere else you use an image, just like in EmuTron.

I'm not planning on building a "scripting" language per se. All the XML config files (kymaera.kfg, mame.emu, kymaera.skn) can have "scripting" capabilites built in.

One of the first things that I'm going to do is add in animated text colors, and animated rectangles, so you can control some simple animations on the screen, and set it up against a timeline. Then, I've give the user the ability to "trigger" these animations and things to happen when certain "events" (input events and otherwise) are triggered.

I think this will sufficiently mimic the powerful scripting language that EmuTron has without all the hassle of writing a script.  

-PMF

[PacManFan]

I would like to have game specific options like GameLauncher does.

I have mame set up to run with -nobezels.  Bezels take up too much of the screen, but for some games the bezels are used to emulate indicator lights that were on the original cab.  Lunar Lander, Atari ootball, Space wars all benefit from this.  I woul like to be able to have Kymera start these games with -usebezels.

Here is how it is setup in GameLauncher.
########################################################################
#
# Per ROM options go here
#
# List of short ROM names followed by their options:
#
#   rom = -option1 -option2 ...
#
# i.e.:
#   arkanoid = -novsync

You got it, that should be simple to add in with another field in the gamelist.

-PMF

[PacManFan]

Another problem I ran into is with the skin editor. I wanted to change the skin so that the Game Previews( with 3 showing) were on the left going up and down where you currently have the cab/flyer/titles. I then wanted to put the cab and control panels along the bottom. When I tried to resize the Game Preview box for that orientation it always crashes the editor. Anyone else try this?

Thanks for the hard work

If you can repeat the crash, I can fix it. Can you preview the skin w/out resizing it? Do you have a gamelist set up? if you send me your kymaera.kfg file and the emu and skn files, I'll debug it and see what's going on.

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

I kind of thought it should be easy.

Is Emutron still available somewhere?  I would like to take a look at it.

[PacManFan]

Oh sure, NOW you want to see EmuTron, after I've already written Kymaera. EmuTron is no longer available for download, I replaced all the pages at my site with Kymaera pages. I've got the final distribution on computer at home, and if anyone is interested in the source code, I'd be willing to share.

EmuTron was the first, last and only "scriptable" FE. EmuTron by itself was not programmed to do anything. You had to write a script to tell it to load images, game lists, mp3 lists, play sounds, etc... It was based on a "Event" based methodology. You defined "events" (functions) in a script, and the "triggers" for these events (inputs like keys,joystick,mouse), Event can call other events, or be set off by a timer. In these events, you can define a series of actions like "loadlist,playsound, NextInList,etc.. "

I think I had around 25 built-in "functions" to perform actions. You could define variables in the script and use them too. some variable types were : Image, var, list, string,color.

You could chain together multiple scripts to perform complex actions. Each script acted as it's own "screen", defining all it's inputs(keys) and outputs(display).

EmuTron was a great FE, but admittedly, a little difficult for the average MAME user to set up. Some people still swear by it, saying it's the greatest thing since sliced bread because of it's flexibilty. If you really wanted to, you could write an entire video game in EmuTron, or a piece of tax software. Emutron has a compiler and byte-code interpreter built into it. For those of you who have studied compiler and language design, you know that this can be a complex task.

But all this flexibility came at a price, the scripts were difficult to write, and debug.

I started making a WYSIWYG editor for Emutron, but the code was horribly un-neccessarily complex and hard to maintain, because I had to write an interpreter for the script. I figured that If I was going to go that route, I needed a fresh start. That's how Kymaera was born.

Hope you enjoyed the background on all this. I suppose you want to see my first FE "Game Launcher Pro" too.

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

I'm a programmer! I love writing code, so scripting would probably be fun.  I was just curious about EmuTron.

When EmuTron came out I only had a 233mhz PC, so I was running GameLauncher and MAME under DOS and basically ignored all the windows FE's.

Now that I have upgraded to a 1.6 ghz PC, I am looking for a FE with a few more features.  Kymera allows multiple keys to be defined for the same function and that is a feature that I really need.

[PacManFan]

You can also use logical operators to define inputs like  SCAN_LALT | SCAN_LCTRL so that one or the other key will perform the input, or SCAN_LALT & SCAN_LCTRL so that you have to press both keys together to trigger the input. I'll probably put in a ! (not) operator to ignore keys and a -> (sequence) operator to do cool multiple combos to trigger inputs like R-R-D-U-D-L.

EmuTron would work fine on a 233, I put it on a 200mhz cocktail cab I built for my sister, with a movie as  the background, and it was still pretty quick. The bytecode interpretation at runtime was very fast. When EmuTron loads the scripts, it compiles at load time, so it's very fast. I'm using the same basic graphics core in Kymaera right now. (with some improvements for caching images and movies)

Let me know if you want to see the source.

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

PMF,

You can also use logical operators to define inputs like  SCAN_LALT | SCAN_LCTRL so that one or the other key will perform the input,

That is exactly the feature I meant. I mirrors the key assignment functioanlity of MAME and let's me get away from reprogramming my IPAC on the fly.

[screaming]

What are the software requirements for Kymaera?  I haven't been following this whole thread, but I tried searching on several terms to come up with a list.

  Here is why I ask: I tried running Kymaera and it does nothing besides bomb out. I start the program and my screen flips resolution, then flips back and I'm back at the Windows Explorer screen.

  I'm running Windows XP. Plenty of RAM, HD, processor and all the latest patches (including DX9). I configured it through the KymaeraConfig.exe, but it still happens when I run the FE. I changed my colors to 16bit (from 32bit) since that seemed like a common problem but it didn't help.

  Here's my game.log file, if this helps:

Code: [Select]

******************
        0 : Log System initted
        0 : Current working directory is H:\fes\Kymaera\
      296 : Inited mouse
      296 : Enumertateing Joysticks Devices
      296 : enumerating device
      296 : enumerating device
      296 : enumerating device
      296 : initing screen
      765 : initing screen
      796 : *** failed to set co-op level generic error2
      796 : *** failed to set display mode generic error2

I do have a dual-display setup, and I didn't try disabling the second monitor.  Could this be the problem?

/Steve

[PacManFan]

Yup, that's execatly what's going on, I had written code to work with multi-monitor systems, then I never got it to work quite right, so I stubbed most of it out. Kymaera still tries to initialize all monitors. I'll have it fixed by next version, but for now, you need to disable the second display  

-PMF

[PacManFan]

As far as software requirements go, You need DirectX 8, Everything else is included. there is 1 dll, Bass.dll in the same directory as Kymaera, but it doesn't require any registration or anything. Everything else is statically linked int the main program exe.
I'm building and running Kymaera on Windows XP machines and a 98 box, so if anyone else can tell me how it's performing on 95,98,NT,ME,or 2k, that would be great.

As far as hardware requirements go, I've got it running nicely w/ movies on a AMD k6-2 300 cabinet with a limited set of roms.

-PMF

[Boris]

Boris, Hey, good to hear from you again. I've got good news, Videos are supported everywhere where images are, the currently support file formats are:

mpg ,avi, png, tga, bmp, gif

You can have a video playing as your background image, or anywhere else you use an image, just like in EmuTron.

I'm not planning on building a "scripting" language per se. All the XML config files (kymaera.kfg, mame.emu, kymaera.skn) can have "scripting" capabilites built in.

One of the first things that I'm going to do is add in animated text colors, and animated rectangles, so you can control some simple animations on the screen, and set it up against a timeline. Then, I've give the user the ability to "trigger" these animations and things to happen when certain "events" (input events and otherwise) are triggered.

I think this will sufficiently mimic the powerful scripting language that EmuTron has without all the hassle of writing a script.  

-PMF

Great   "animated text colors, and animated rectangles" is what we need to make a great skin. We have enough static FE   I have to start playing with kymaera videos...

Boris

[screaming]

it fixed by next version, but for now, you need to disable the second display  

  Hey hey, I tried disabling the second monitor and Kymaera works!

  Thanks for your help.

/Steve

[Fandenivoldsk]

Okay, since you asked for it... Here goes...:

I'd like to be able display an avi animation once every time I press, say, arrow up or arrow down. That way I can make some fancy sliders for each game. Actually it would be nice if I was able to have two avi playing, one after each other; one that start when I press a key, and another that loop right after the first one stopped. Why? you may ask... The reason is that I could have something that pops up or goes from right to left, and then exchange it with a clip that loops. I don't know if I've made myself clear... but it would bring some life onto the screen.

Also, it would be nice to have to a vertical game_previews...

I'm working on the 1st release version for Kymaera, after much testing and feedback from everyone, I have been able to iron out most of the bugs and add some great new features.

I would like to know if anyone has any features requests that I might be able to put in for the 1st official release.
If so, post them here, and I'll see what I can do.

-PMF

[PacManFan]

Okay, since you asked for it... Here goes...:

I'd like to be able display an avi animation once every time I press, say, arrow up or arrow down. That way I can make some fancy sliders for each game. Actually it would be nice if I was able to have two avi playing, one after each other; one that start when I press a key, and another that loop right after the first one stopped. Why? you may ask... The reason is that I could have something that pops up or goes from right to left, and then exchange it with a clip that loops. I don't know if I've made myself clear... but it would bring some life onto the screen.

Also, it would be nice to have to a vertical game_previews...

Well, the vertical games preview is simple enough, I've got most of that written already, I just need to code a new layout function for it.

That triggerable animation is certainly within my sights. A few posts above, I was talking about putting in animation functions, and that could include that ability to trigger animations as well as loading movies on certain keypresses. It might not make it into the next release, but probably sometime soon.

-PMF

[str1der]

Another problem I ran into is with the skin editor. I wanted to change the skin so that the Game Previews( with 3 showing) were on the left going up and down where you currently have the cab/flyer/titles. I then wanted to put the cab and control panels along the bottom. When I tried to resize the Game Preview box for that orientation it always crashes the editor. Anyone else try this?

Thanks for the hard work

If you can repeat the crash, I can fix it. Can you preview the skin w/out resizing it? Do you have a gamelist set up? if you send me your kymaera.kfg file and the emu and skn files, I'll debug it and see what's going on.

-PMF

Yes it's repeatable . It always happens. Preview works fine and I have a gamelist. I'm not even trying to create a new skin I'm just trying to edit the default skin. Try it on yours. Grab the bottom game preview box and resize it to a vertical orientation and move it over to the far left of the layout. Let me know what happens.

[str1der]

Niether of those solutions is really practical for me.

I have some gamelists that only have 4 games in them and others have hundreds.

It is possible to make a list that is circular without haveing it display multiple times.  I have done it in Java apps and even in COBOL.

Erik,
       Couldn't you increase the PIXEL SPACING BETWEEN LINES in the game_list properties of that skin so that your 4 games fill your game list?

[PacManFan]

Another problem I ran into is with the skin editor. I wanted to change the skin so that the Game Previews( with 3 showing) were on the left going up and down where you currently have the cab/flyer/titles. I then wanted to put the cab and control panels along the bottom. When I tried to resize the Game Preview box for that orientation it always crashes the editor. Anyone else try this?

Thanks for the hard work

If you can repeat the crash, I can fix it. Can you preview the skin w/out resizing it? Do you have a gamelist set up? if you send me your kymaera.kfg file and the emu and skn files, I'll debug it and see what's going on.

-PMF

Yes it's repeatable . It always happens. Preview works fine and I have a gamelist. I'm not even trying to create a new skin I'm just trying to edit the default skin. Try it on yours. Grab the bottom game preview box and resize it to a vertical orientation and move it over to the far left of the layout. Let me know what happens.

str1der,

Thanks for pointing that out, I just did it, and sure enough, it crashed. It's the classic "divide by 0" bug. I'll fix it and put in the ability to have vertical previews for you. I'll make it so that if you stretch it taller than wide, it'll switch to a vertical layout, I'll probably put in an optional animation so the image can "slide" side to side or up/down with maybe an optional alpha fade toward the edges.

Thanks for reporting, keep 'em coming.

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

Increasing the pixel spacing would be as useful as making the list box smaller.

I would nly be able to display 4 games in the list.  That would make the long list hard to navigate.

[str1der]

Increasing the pixel spacing would be as useful as making the list box smaller.

I would nly be able to display 4 games in the list.  That would make the long list hard to navigate.

I assumed that the smaller list was for a different emulator. Couldn't you just have the skin configured differently for that emulator?

[ErikRuud]

Yes, for the short list of Daphne games, I could use a different skin.

But for MAME, where the different categories, have varying numbers of games in them, I really need to have the scrolling fixed.

[str1der]

Ok, that makes sense. I didn't know you were talking about different categories within a single emulator.

[abrannan]

What about a dynamic font/spacing resize?  For example:

X = Game list box vertical size
Y = Game list box horizontal size
Z = Pixel Height of current font size
A = pixel height of current space between items in list
B = Number of games in current list
C = Pixel width of longest entry in list at currnet font size

if X > A + B(Z+A)  //If the current box is larger vertically than the game list would display

Z++, B++ if C<Y, else B++  // Increase font size and spacing as long as longest entry will still display in list, otherwise only increase space between entries


I think that would give you a non-scrolling list of games that is resized to take advantage of the full game list box area, while still allowing the larger game lists to display in a scolling list box.  You could also keep a default font and font size for that lists, that would automatically up-adjust for shorter lists.  

The difficulty would come in with a short game list like:

Pac-Man
Frogger
Dig-Dug
*Insert ridiculously long game title here (US 940103)*

Which would result in a list of very small font size entries with an inordinate amount of space in between entries.  But I guess you could come up with a word-wrapping algorithm to handle that.

Does that sound like it would work to other people?

[PacManFan]

Abrannan,

I had no idea you were a programmer, I'll have to take a look at the psuedo-code you provided.

I think the simple solution is:

When the # of games in the list is less than the number of games that will fit in the gamelist, Don't scroll the list, only move the selected item.

As far as text being truncated at the edge of the list because names are too long, there are 3 options.
1) do what I'm doing right now (truncating the text abruptly)
2) wrap the text to the next line.
3) display an end elipsis,  ex: virtua primal mortal super street figh......

I'll put in those other 2 options (#2,and #3) into the gamelist edit box.

I don't think bumping up/down the font size would look too nice.

-PMF

[abrannan]

Programmer is such a subjective term.  I wouldn't call myself a programmer.  I'm much better with pseudo-code than actually having to deal with the warts of any given programming language (and religious wars aside, they *all* have them).  Besides, my college professors always told me that in the real world I'd never have to write real code.  All I'd have to do was write pseudo-code which would be handed off to a technician who would implement it in language X.  Ha.


And I agree that the font resize could get real ugly looking real fast.  I was just trying to come up with a way to not have a lot of blank space on the screen when you have a text box that can handle 30 games, and a four game list.

[PacManFan]

Have you checkout out Kymaera yet? I'm still looking for some feedback on current features and possible future features.

-PMF

[abrannan]

No, I  haven't gotten around to trying it out yet.  I apologize.

[PacManFan]

That's it, I'm coming down the street to your house right now w/ a cd!

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

That's it, I'm coming down the street to your house right now w/ a cd!

-PMF

Not until you finish all these updates!!!!  

[ErikRuud]

I just read this thread: http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=16076

It is one way to give individual ganes there own default options until PMF gets this feature into Kymaera.

[Boris]

Just playing with the skin editor...
Could we have an option to order the different elements in the z-plan. Look at the screenshot, I would like to put the Marquee over the game list.
Perhaps by changing the order in the .skn ?

List games creation : arrgh   Yes, the control you use (to list the games) is really buggy. For me, it hang really often and I then could not made any other selection.

Xml files... : could it be "real" xml file ? I explain : no more "<Number_Of_Entries>##</Number_Of_Entries>" and then "<Entry_#>"  

Videos : seems that the sound is not in synch with the video, the sound come something like 10 secondes later.

Folders : multi folder for an element... Exemple, if a video is not available, look in the snaps folder.

Missing element : if an element is not available, use a default one.

Good job PMF !  

Boris

[dommer]

Would it be possible to incorporate a jukebox fe into Kymaera?  

[PacManFan]

Hey Boris,

Could we have an option to order the different elements in the z-plan. Look at the screenshot, I would like to put the Marquee over the game list.
Perhaps by changing the order in the .skn ?

You can, There are 2 buttons to the right of the list of elements in the skin. Click on an element that you want to change to z-order for, them click U for up and D for down to move them up and down in the list.

Xml files... : could it be "real" xml file ? I explain : no more "<Number_Of_Entries>##</Number_Of_Entries>" and then "<Entry_#>"  

XML is a file format that defines data, Anything can go into an XML file, The program reading the XML file just needs to know what it's looking for. This is usually handles through the DTD (Document template description) . Because I'm both writing and reading the data for all the files in Kymaera, I already know the format. Is there something in the file that you would like to put in there?

Videos : seems that the sound is not in synch with the video, the sound come something like 10 secondes later.

Folders : multi folder for an element... Exemple, if a video is not available, look in the snaps folder.

I'm not quite sure why the video is not staying synced to the sound track, I'll have to check on that. Was it an AVI or Mpg?

Folders- currently, Kymaera looks at the rom name, then generates what the file name should be to load, First, it constructs the filename , then it searches for the file using the extensions mpg,avi,png,tga,bmp, and gif, in that order. So it looks for movies first. If it can't find a file matching those names, It uses the parent's rom name (if it has a parent) and does the same thing.


I'll probably put in a default file to use or the kymaera logo if a file can't be found.


-PMF

[PacManFan]

Would it be possible to incorporate a jukebox fe into Kymaera?  

Yup, but it may not happen immediately, I want to get the Game- launching aspect of Kymaera working great before I start to branch off into a JukeBox and an app more like MyHtpc.

-PMF

[Boris]

Hello.

You can, There are 2 buttons to the right of the list of elements in the skin. Click on an element that you want to change to z-order for, them click U for up and D for down to move them up and down in the list.

Ok, work great !

XML is a file format that defines data, Anything can go into an XML file, The program reading the XML file just needs to know what it's looking for.
Because I'm both writing and reading the data for all the files in Kymaera, I already know the format.

Huuum... No   . Xml files are to be used by other   . Each item in an xml file must have the same name. If you really need a number, you must add an attribute, something like this
<Entry>
<ID>#</ID>
...
</Entry>
or like this "<Entry  ID=#>...</Entry>"

Is there something in the file that you would like to put in there?

Not in that file... I'm just thinking that we can do something "standard" for all the FE, and have a generic tool to do the configuration of the different emulators, the different games lists, ... Skin and fe config are specific for each FE, but not emulator or game list, in my opinion. I'm just thinking of this...

I'm not quite sure why the video is not staying synced to the sound track, I'll have to check on that. Was it an AVI or Mpg?

it is avi. Playing them in Media Player is ok.

Folders- currently, Kymaera looks at the rom name, then generates what the file name should be to load, First, it constructs the filename , then it searches for the file using the extensions mpg,avi,png,tga,bmp, and gif, in that order. So it looks for movies first. If it can't find a file matching those names, It uses the parent's rom name (if it has a parent) and does the same thing.

This is how I see it :
1/ (foreach extension) {rom.ext, if not, then parent_rom.ext} (in the video folder)
2/ if not, (foreach extension) {rom.ext, if not, parent_rom.ext} (in the snap folder)
and so on.
As it is now, I must put all my snapshots in the videos folder. I think it is not good.
It is just my need, it's a proposition, not an order  

I'll probably put in a default file to use or the kymaera logo if a file can't be found.

I really think that it must be one default file for each type of picture. If you only have one for screenshot (exemple), if you have to draw this in the space of the marquee, it will be really bad. I don't think a generic one will be ok for each different type of picture.

Boris

[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.

[PacManFan]

Good to here that is all working now. There was a bug w/ the previous catagory , and a bug that was related to new emulator configs not being saved after they were created. After I fixed that, I think it fixed a few other things. Let me know how the rest of the testing goes.

Yeah, the source and destination game list grids are a real pain in the --I'm attempting to get by the auto-censor and should be beaten after I re-read the rules--. I'm using someone else's code for that, maybe it's got a bug, or maybe I'm not using it right.... I'll have to dig a little deeper.

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

Keep in mind that I have not tested the new version in Win98se yet.  That is the PC that is in my cab.

[PacManFan]

Good luck w/ your 98SE machine, I've really only tested this seriously with XP.

BTW, version 1.21 is up. (Minor annoying bug fixes)

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

Ok, here is an update on things that work and don't work.

This is for Win2k.

I can launch MAME, Daphne, and Visual Pinball.  I'll try O2Em at home tonight.

The Gameplay.ini information was not being added to the gamelist when it is in the Kymaera directory.  If I put GamePlay.ini in a different directory then it works.

It appears that several of the objects in the skinner are not supported yet?  ( Category Index,  )It might make more sense for the text to say "Not Supported et" instead of "Hello World".

[PacManFan]

OK, I just changed the catver.ini and gameplay.ini to be installed in the gamelists directory, that will fixe the ini problems.

I also just fixed the game_index and the catagory_index to display the proper texts.

version 1.22 is now posted.

Thanks for the feedback!

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

I'm at home now on my mame cab.

Version 1.22 is working in Win98se, except for creating a game list from MAME.  I still get the same error.

I can use the gamelist that I created in Win2k, so I'm not dead in the water.

I have discovered a new bug.  If you click on the last emulator in the listbox and then click remove it works just like you would expect.  Click on any other emulator and click remove, and it removes the next emulator in the list as well.  This happens in Win98se and Win2K

[jec993]

here are a few things i've come across while using KymaeraConfig 1.22
i haven't gotten too far into it because i can't seem to get the game list to cooperate with me.

Sound config:
Nothing shows up in the Sound Mappings window.
The browse button for "current sound file" does nothing.

Emulator config:
Art Paths ComboBox shouldn't default to empty.
The Art Paths Combo dropdown could show more than two entries.
Maybe the default browse location for Add Path in Rom Paths should be the same directory as the specified Emu Exe instead of at "My computer"?
The browse for folder dlg should tell me what I'm searching for (rom path, which specific art path,...)
It'd be nice if the Rom Path, Game Category List Files, EMU Launch Commands and ROM extensions by default, if not empty, had the first item in them selected.

Game Category List Creation:
Create MAME Game Database:
Create master list could get the mame executable from the Emulator config. Doesn't it get the rom paths from there?
Database export name. Fixup the extension. If there is no extension, add .xml
All the default browse locations should be at least the kymaera install dir if not the Emu exe path?
It'd be nice if all of the browse dlgs reminded the user know what they were browsing for

When creating the game list from Rom directories I always get two extra entries. Are these entries the directories "." and ".."? If so, they can be removed upon creation.
The listctrl for the src and dest game list just doesn?t work for me. I can click and sometimes things get selected. More often than not nothing happens.
I've gotten some pretty good controls and ideas from here
http://www.codeguru.com/Cpp/controls/

I just cant seem to get the mame master list to create. Nothing ever shows up in my .xml file.

Definitely keep up the good work. I'd like to use this in my cab!

-jimC

[TheOtherBob]

I can launch MAME, Daphne, and Visual Pinball.  I'll try O2Em at home tonight.

I wish I could get Visual Pinball to go.  Any tips?  After I create the emulator entry and the xml list.  Whenever I try and start a table it just gives me a Windows error about not being able to find the file.  I've entered the path for my tables but it doesn't seem to be using it?

Argh....

Thanks for the help!  This frontend is my fav so far.  The others I just can't seem to figure out.....  

Great work so far PacManFan!

[PacManFan]

I'll see if I can address some of those code issues 2morrow and post a new version that defaults to extensions and directories. As far as a game list not coming up, After you create the master game list, you still need to LOAD it into the source grid. Open the XML file up and see if there is anything in it. If so, you should be able to load it.

I'll remove those . and .. entries from the rom directory listing, and fix /improve a few other things.

Has anyone run into any issues with Kymaera? (not KymaeraConfig)

Thanks for all the feedback. I'll make an annoucement after I post the next version.

-PMF

[PacManFan]

I know the game grids in the gamelist creation are a little annoying, sometimes you can click on something, sometimes you can't . A workaround (until I fix it) for this is to click  lower down in the list until you select a field, then you can use your arrow keys to move around and you can use the shift and ctrl keys to select multiple game entries.

The selection works like windows explorer does.

Hope this helps.

-PMF

[PacManFan]

I can launch MAME, Daphne, and Visual Pinball.  I'll try O2Em at home tonight.

I wish I could get Visual Pinball to go.  Any tips?  After I create the emulator entry and the xml list.  Whenever I try and start a table it just gives me a Windows error about not being able to find the file.  I've entered the path for my tables but it doesn't seem to be using it?

Argh....

Thanks for the help!  This frontend is my fav so far.  The others I just can't seem to figure out.....  

Great work so far PacManFan!

For Visual Pinball, does it require you to send the rom path and rom extension?
Are you using a long file name or path with spaces?

Try making your launch command look like

"($ROMPATH)($ROMNAME).(ROMEXT)"

and see if that works. Make sure your roms paths are configured right too.

You can also test by hard-coding in a rom filename using that add text button.

[TheOtherBob]

For Visual Pinball, does it require you to send the rom path and rom extension?
Are you using a long file name or path with spaces?

Try making your launch command look like

"($ROMPATH)($ROMNAME).(ROMEXT)"

and see if that works. Make sure your roms paths are configured right too.

You can also test by hard-coding in a rom filename using that add text button.

Thanks for the tips.  Funny thing, you know in that Launch Command window you have an area where you show an EXAMPLE.  It never does show the ROMPATH from the previous window when I've set it.  It shows it for the mame.emu Launch Command, but not for my custom pinball.emu.  It actually just shows a \ I think.  Can my "roms" folder have any spaces in it?  As in c:\emu\visual pinball\tables?  I'm no expert in Visual Pinball, but I think it's better to just launch the table directly (ie: double clicking the table you want to play from the explorer).  If I include the emu exe, vpinball.exe, it basically just takes me into the pinball designer..... so to get around that in your Launch Command I'd guess I should use the ROMNAME instead.  Correct?  But it still gives me the windows can't find that file.  Interesting enough, the windows box that appears just says the first part of the name of the file as in "Comet MOD" could not be found.  Whereas the filename & path is: c:\emu\visual pinball\tables\comet mod.vpt .  It almost sounds like the path and extension are getting truncated before it gets "launched"??  Sorry for rambling.....  I appreciate your hard work and help.

[jec993]

now both kymaeraconfig and kymaera crash upon execution.

here's the kymaeraconfig game.log
******************
       10 : Log System initted
       10 : Current working directory is c:\emu\Frontends\Kymaera\
      350 : No game catagory files defined, generating from rom directories

here's the kymaera game.log
******************
       10 : Log System initted
       10 : Current working directory is c:\emu\Frontends\Kymaera\
      360 : No game catagory files defined, generating from rom directories

thanks,
-jimC

[ErikRuud]

For Visual Pinball you need to use a command wrapper.

Howard Castro has one on his site.  I had an issue with the way it worked, so I wrote my own using AutoIt.

Here is what my .emu file looks like for VisualPinball

Code: [Select]

<Emulator>
<Version>1</Version>
<RomPaths>
<ListCount>1</ListCount>
<RomPaths0>C:\Pinball\Tables</RomPaths0>
</RomPaths>
<RomExtensions>
<ListCount>2</ListCount>
<RomExtensions0>VPT</RomExtensions0>
<RomExtensions1>vpt</RomExtensions1>
</RomExtensions>
<GameCatagorys>
<ListCount>1</ListCount>
<GameCatagorys0>gamelists\pinball.xml</GameCatagorys0>
</GameCatagorys>
<ArtExtensions>
<ListCount>6</ListCount>
<ArtExtensions0>mpg</ArtExtensions0>
<ArtExtensions1>avi</ArtExtensions1>
<ArtExtensions2>png</ArtExtensions2>
<ArtExtensions3>gif</ArtExtensions3>
<ArtExtensions4>tga</ArtExtensions4>
<ArtExtensions5>bmp</ArtExtensions5>
</ArtExtensions>
<SnapsPath/>
<TitlesPath/>
<MarqueesPath/>
<CabinetsPath/>
<FlyersPath/>
<ControlPanelsPath/>
<BezelsPath/>
<BoxArtsPath/>
<CoversPath/>
<Other1Path/>
<Other2Path/>
<Other3Path/>
<EmulatorDisplayName>Pinball</EmulatorDisplayName>
<EmulatorLogoFile/>
<ExeName>c:\pinball\vp.exe</ExeName>
<Skinfile>skins\Kymaera.skn</Skinfile>
<LastCatagoryFile>skins\Kymaera.skn</LastCatagoryFile>
<LaunchCommands>
<NumberOfCommands>1</NumberOfCommands>
<Command0>
<Title>Launch Command</Title>
<ShowCommands>1</ShowCommands>
<Wait>1</Wait>
<AppPart>
<Part>C:\Pinball\vp.exe</Part>
<Type>4</Type>
</AppPart>
<LaunchParts>
<NumParts>1</NumParts>
<Part0>
<Part>($ROMNAME)</Part>
<Type>1</Type>
</Part0>
</LaunchParts>
</Command0>
</LaunchCommands>
</Emulator>

[TheOtherBob]

For Visual Pinball you need to use a command wrapper.

Howard Castro has one on his site.  I had an issue with the way it worked, so I wrote my own using AutoIt.

Thanks!  I just found his wrapper and it seems to do the trick for me....

[PacManFan]

now both kymaeraconfig and kymaera crash upon execution.

here's the kymaeraconfig game.log
******************
       10 : Log System initted
       10 : Current working directory is c:\emu\Frontends\Kymaera\
      350 : No game catagory files defined, generating from rom directories

here's the kymaera game.log
******************
       10 : Log System initted
       10 : Current working directory is c:\emu\Frontends\Kymaera\
      360 : No game catagory files defined, generating from rom directories

thanks,
-jimC

Jec993,

It sounds like you need to set up a gamelist for your each of your emulators. In the emulator config screen, Add one of the existing gamelists from the \gamelists directory , and remove that "rom directory" catagory file. That should fix it. Sorry you're having so many problems.
 
-PMF

[ErikRuud]

PacManFan,

Yes, I did find a problem with Kymaera.exe.

Short gamelists are still repeating on the screen.

[PacManFan]

PacManFan,

Yes, I did find a problem with Kymaera.exe.

Short gamelists are still repeating on the screen.

Yeah, I still haven't done anything about that yet. I think the simplist solution may be to put in a flag in the gamelist properties specifying "circular" or "linear". That way, the list will end at the bottom instead of wrapping around to the top.

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

I am going to confirm that the sound mapping portion of the sound config does not work.  The list box is empty and the browse button does not open a file browser.

In the gamelist selection, some sort of wild card support would be nice.  I would like to set a filter where category begins with Sports, instead of having to set up seperate filters for every Sports/****** category.

[jec993]

I'm not sure what I am doing wrong. I'm trying to create a mame game list and I just cannot get any games to show up in the list.

attached are screen shots of my config screens. all the paths are correct and browsed-to.

this is all that is ever in my mamegamemasterlist.xml file

<GameList>
<Catagory_Name>Game Database</Catagory_Name>
<Catagory_Image/>
<Number_Of_Entries>0</Number_Of_Entries>
</GameList>


thanks,
-jimC

[jec993]

in the skinner, when loading the default skin, whenever I single click on the GAME_PREVIEWS layout box I get a crash.

thanks,
-jimC

[ErikRuud]

After you click the create button, you then have to click on the Load Button and load the gamelist that you just created.

[ErikRuud]

We just had by daughters birthday party.  There were 50+ relatives in teh house, with at least a dozen people playng games on the MAME cab.  Kymaera ran well for the whole six hours!

I have noticed that it kind of gets hung up if a rom in a gamelist does not exist!

[jec993]

After you click the create button, you then have to click on the Load Button and load the gamelist that you just created.

the problem is that the gamelist that i just created has zero entries.

this does, however, point out a way to streamline the process. why not automatically load the gamelist after you create it? if you dont want it to automatically load, then at least ask the user if they want to load the newly created gamelist.

thanks,
-jimC

[EtherHawk]

Just tried the first release, looks like it could be great, a few things were painfull for me.
1) Game category list creation dialog is so large that the button to save your list is off the screen in 800x600 mode (highest mode I have w/o virtual desktop).  It took me a while to figure out what was wrong (manual helped).
2) As was mentioned above, selecting things in that game category create screen was challenging at best.  Row 1 & 2 and the last row would all select, but none of the others.  When I CTRL selected multiple items to copy them down to my new list it chose all between them as well, as if I had SHIFT selected.  Enter on that screen also closed the screen without saving anything, which would have been painful if I had been at it very long (I had selected a game name to edit accidently and I hit enter instead of esc, or maybe enter twice).
3) Since Mame32 is what people often start with, would it be possible to import their style of custom lists (which are just text files of rom names).  Seems like it would help people who started their customization in Mame32 before seeing the light and converting to frontend goodness.  Also would mean that people could use Mame32 to create a gamelist, where you can see screens and additional info as you make the list (something you could add to your list create, but might be easier to import them).
4) Last but definitely not least, I love the ability to use a trackball/mouse/spinner, but it would be even better if it were able to be speed sensitive, so that you could move quickly through longer lists, but then fine tune your selection carefully.

Keep up the great work, I certainly have not tried all the frontends that are out there, but this one seems like a good balance between features/customizeability and complexity.

[ErikRuud]

I mostly relied on the filters to create my gamelists.

When I needed to pick and choose, I did it the hard way, by clicking on one of the bottom entries and using the arrows keys to get to the game I wanted.  I had to click on the "copy selected game..." button for each game because the Control/Multi select part does not work correctly.

In Kymaera.exe I have also noticed that when when switching categories within an emulator, the screen shot does not refresh to show the game that is now highlighted in the new category.  f you switch emulators, the screen shot does refresh properly.

At the party some people where getting confused by the categories within emulators structure, so I have now setup a copies of the MAME emulator for each category.  This avoids the confusion, and also gets around the snapshot refresh issue.

[ErikRuud]

I decided to try something that is not covered in the current documentation.

The "Add to Favorites" key does not appear to do anything yet, however, I noticed that you can "Set Games in  Dest. to Current Emulator" in the gamelist screen.  At first it did not appear to work, because the list does not update, but I found that if you save the list, and then reload it the emulator column will be filled in.  Next I created a new gamelist, by loading a list of MAME games and copying a few to the destination, then I loaded a Visual Pinball list and copied a few games, then I did the same for Daphne.  I saved this mixed list and added it to one of the emulators.  When I brought this mixed list up in Kymaera, I was able to pick any game and launch it with the correct emulator!

[PacManFan]

Congratulations,

You found the secret hidden feature of Kymaera. I put in the "Add to favorites" feature, and I didn't document it because I needed to do some more testing. Basically, when you create a gamelist, you can assgin all the games in the gamelist to the current emulator and save it out. Then you can add a list called "favorites" to any emulator.

When you are in the FE, You can add a game from any emulator/catagory to the favorites list by using the "Add_to_favorites" key.

Then, you can use the favorites catagory just like any other catagory, except, it'll display games from any emu/catagory, and let you launch the game.

I didn't document it yet because it's still a little buggy. Maybe you could help point out some of the bugs.

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

Ah Ha!!

I did not kno that the Favorites gategory had to added to an emulator to get updated.  

I just created a mixed list manually.

I'll give that a try.

By the way, it is not entirely secret.  It has been discussed earltier in this thread as an upcoming feature.  All I did was try to figure out how it worked.

[ErikRuud]

I tried it out, and the add to favorites key does work if you have a list called favorites assigned to one of the emulators.

[silentmallerick]

I've been messing around with Kymaera but I seem to have one major problem.  When I exit a game I get a black screen.  It doesn't return to the interface or the desktop.  I have to end task to get out.

I'm using mame32 .81, windows xp prof, athlon.

[abrannan]

I've been messing around with Kymaera but I seem to have one major problem.  When I exit a game I get a black screen.  It doesn't return to the interface or the desktop.  I have to end task to get out.

I'm using mame32 .81, windows xp prof, athlon.

Don't use Mame32, use regular Mame.  The "interface" the Mame32 presents is redundant with any front end.  Let me know fi you're still having problems with regular Mame .81

[Fandenivoldsk]

Hi PMF!

Any progress in triggerable animation yet? I hope you'll include it in the next version...

[PacManFan]

Not yet, but I'm working on it....

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

I finally got around to setting up Kymaera to launch O2Em (Odyssey2)games.

O2Em requires the use of the rom path, rom extension and an option for full screen.

"O2EM C:\O2EM\ROMS\UFO.BIN -fullscreen"

I discovered that I have to explicitly add the 'dot' between rom name and rom extension.  (i.e. Click rom_path, click rom_name, tpye a period in thetext box and click add_text, click rom_extension)

I also had to make sure there was a leading space when I entered the text for the -fullscreen option.

It does work now, and it was cool to discover that there was already a logo for Odyssey2 in the distribution.
How come there wasn't one for Daphne?

[PacManFan]

I got the top level logos from stuzza's site. Does he have a Daphne logo? I'll add it to the distribution if he does. Glad to see Kymaera is working well for you. Great things are still to come.

-PMF

[EndTwist]

Any plans to make this rotate vertically? Becuase mine FE obviously doesn't want to become popular.

[PacManFan]

Kymaera can already rotate vertically. You have to set the skin rotation to be 90,180 or 270, and create the skin at resolutions like 480X640 instead of 640x480 and the such.
Try it out! I'm not sure how many Vertical Kymaera users there are yet.

-PMF

[EndTwist]

Doh! Figures I wouldn't notice that. I'm making a vertical cocktail cab, so I'm trying to decide on a good FE.

[ErikRuud]

Is there a way to change the number of games the 'Page Up' and "Page Down' scroll through?  

It appears to skip 50 games in either direction regardless of how many games actually show in the game list.

[PacManFan]

Erik,

Nope, in the current release, there isn't a way to change the pageup/down amount. It's easy enough to put in, so consider it done, I'll have it in the next release.

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

Cool.

Ideally it should calculate the page skip itself based on how many games can fit in the gamelist.

[PacManFan]

OK, I just put some code in to make it pageup/down by the amount visible in the game list. It'll be in the next release.

-PMF

[Fandenivoldsk]

I've been trying to make some cool skins for Kymaera, but it's almost killing me trying to figure out how to place items in pixel perfect size. When I try to configure a .skn file manually, the X2 and Y2 dosen't work the way I want them to. An .avi file seems to have it's own unique pixel value system, or maybe it's just me who can't figure it out... Please make a proper grid layouter for the new version of Kymaera to make it possible to place graphics more precisely on screen.

[PacManFan]

It's done, It'll be in the next release.

-PMF

[Hellmark]

Hey

Wie weit iss bereits die Neue version fertig?
warte schon sehns

[PacManFan]

I've put Kymaera on the back burner for a few days while I'm working on Vantage. The screen saver code is done. The next release will have a few more great functions added to it, but I have not had time to document anything yet. I also put Kymaera through a "Profiler" so I could begin to optimize the code.

Kymaera now runs about 15% faster than before, with optimized blitting routines. You should be able to run Kymaera on a PII 200 just fine.

I really can't say when the next release will be, but if you're really interested HellMark, I can email you new binaries, or post an intermediate release w/ no updated documentation.

-PMF

[Hellmark]

Yeah it would be great if you could email me the binary

[PacManFan]

OK everyone, I've gotten off my --I'm attempting to get by the auto-censor and should be beaten after I re-read the rules-- and got a new version of Kymaera posted on www.pacmanfan.com. This has a ton of great new features and optimizations.  Be sure to check the new Changes.txt file for a description of all the new features. It's basically every suggestion that's been posted since the last release.

A few things I'm still working on are:
-Dynamic skins with scripting control
-Better text rendering engine
-Differant rotation method
-Support for DOS and Linux by using Allegro

Post any comments / questions /suggestions/ gripes here.

Enjoy  

-PMF

[Hellmark]

hi

just Downloaded the new version of kymaera but i found 1 problem with the installation.
The Setup program needs a second setup file put there isn`t one

[PacManFan]

I just downloaded and installed it just fine from my work computer. My guess is that there was an error in the download, or it ended prematurely. Or maybe you were downloading when I was uploading a new version. The file size should be 3,499kb. Try downloading again, Let me know if you have any more problems.

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

It installed fine on my home machine.

PMF,

Which configuration files from 1.22 are compatible with 1.23?

I installed 1.23 in a seperate folder and the copied over all my Emu, Gamelist, and skin files.  At least one of them causes 1.23 to fail on startup.  I haven't figured out which one yet.

[PacManFan]

Damn, I was hoping to avoid any incompatibilities. Theoretically, everything should be backward compatible because I'm versioning all important files, and I've got separate read /write routines that should convert any old format to new formats.. It worked fine installing over my last test installation.

I would suggest copying over each file "type" separately. Like copy over all you .emu files, then if that works copy over your .skn files, then your .xml game list files. It may be just the main Kymaera.kfg file that's incompatible, or the inputs.evt or the soundmap.smp file.

It would be a big help if YOU could tell ME what you found to be incompatible, then I could fix it for future versions.

I'll do some more testing myself when I get home tonight.

Did Kymaera config run correctly?

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

PMF,

I did not try the config program yet.  That might be part of the problem.

I did not have time before to try each set of files, I am working on it now.

Erik

[DennisInMN]

I have a suggestion, unless it has already been made.  When you click the create master list button and are presented with the create mame game database dialog there is no way to cancel out, at least that I have found.  When I try to close the dialog I am presented with an Open file dialog.

I just got my cab "playable" Saturday and am looking at FEs to use.  This is a very exciting time.  

[PacManFan]

I'll take a look at that, thanks for pointing it out.

-PMF

[Hellmark]

just tried a second time and it worked, i`ve lost my connection and dL only 1,8mb

But an other problem i`ve just gave my screensaver which is a powerpoint presentation transformed with "Apex 1st Powerpointscreensaver" into a scr file. And it dosent  work with kymaera. I`ve just tried my Screensaver on windows and it worked (maybe to less ram). Than i tried an original Windows screensaver and it worked on kymaera.

But these things are peanuts i`ve just changed the screensaver on Kymaera and the program crashed. Config.exe, Kymaera.exe Error. Dont know why these problem happend.


ps. Do you know how i can deactivate the messages (not 100% video/Sound/... compatible)?? I just deactivated all possibilities on mame but these bad dumps r still coming.
I also DL MAME source and tried to deactivate these messages on "mame.c" but im to bad to check these comandos. sombody help me with these problem??

nice greetings from austria

[PacManFan]

Hellmark,
Sorry to hear your screen saver isn't working right. Kymaera seemed to work with all the screen savers I tested. Send me your screen saver via email, and I'll see if I can get it to work in Kyamera.

As far as skipping past all the warning screens in MAME, try using NoNameMame, and configuring the the config file to skip past all of these.

Hope this helps.
-PMF

[DennisInMN]

I'm getting a dialog after I leave a game and try to get back into Kymaera.  The dialog is one that mame is putting up.  It says to run mame from the command line and asks if I want to read the documentation now and has the command line options listed out.  Any ideas how to fix this?  I'm using the default run command settings.  Any help is appreciated.

D

[EndTwist]

from one developer to another: add support for custom user plugins. (activex..) it would even save you time.

(I'm adding it to VertiWAH as we speak)

[PacManFan]

So the Game runs fine, and then it brings up a dialog box after? That's odd. Check your LaunchCommand. Post what parameters you are passing to the emulator. Also, what version of MAME are you using?

-PMF

I'm getting a dialog after I leave a game and try to get back into Kymaera.  The dialog is one that mame is putting up.  It says to run mame from the command line and asks if I want to read the documentation now and has the command line options listed out.  Any ideas how to fix this?  I'm using the default run command settings.  Any help is appreciated.

D

[PacManFan]

Support for custom plugins is a good idea. I was planning on looking into that soon. ActiveX and OLE COM technology is a bad idea. I'm planning on porting this soon to Linux and DOS, so ActiveX is out of the question. There are a few other ways to make plugins that will be cross-platform compatible. I'm debating on whether or not to make Kymaera open-source and starting a SourceForge project. Very soon, I'll be releasing a version that has a MP3 JukeBox and full screen video player built in.

-PMF

from one developer to another: add support for custom user plugins. (activex..) it would even save you time.

(I'm adding it to VertiWAH as we speak)

[EndTwist]

well I'm a VB programmer, so I don't have too much of a chice   Unless you have other ideas?

Also - Competition mode! (I'm working on that too). Basically, pick games, play em, winner hits a button at the end of each game, person with most wins is the winner of the tourney.

[PacManFan]

VB is a good programming language to get started on, I find it's very easy to get something working quickly with it. The downside is having to distribute those VB runtime files, and the decrease in performance over c, c++, and asm.

I was thinking of a "competition mode" in the front end. This would be for a cocktail cabinet. Each person would have thier own gamelist and screen shots facing them on half the screen. Whoever selects and launches a game first wins!

-PMF

[EndTwist]

Not quite my idea, but not bad. Kinda like first to draw their gun & shoot.

But I guess my idea is more of a "Tournament Mode"

Player 1 picks the number of games to play.
The players pick games, cocktail style (half screen per user), until they've each picked half of the # total games to play.
They begin the first game, and whoever wins must push a button to signify that they've won.
A list/chart shows number, gamename, and winner of each.

[DennisInMN]

Yes, the game runs fine.  The dialog comes up when I exit the game and try to get back into Kymaera.  I am using 0.81 MAME.  I do not have access to my cab at the moment but I did not change the LaunchCommand from the default setting.

So the Game runs fine, and then it brings up a dialog box after? That's odd. Check your LaunchCommand. Post what parameters you are passing to the emulator. Also, what version of MAME are you using?

-PMF

I'm getting a dialog after I leave a game and try to get back into Kymaera.  The dialog is one that mame is putting up.  It says to run mame from the command line and asks if I want to read the documentation now and has the command line options listed out.  Any ideas how to fix this?  I'm using the default run command settings.  Any help is appreciated.

D

[DennisInMN]

So the Game runs fine, and then it brings up a dialog box after? That's odd. Check your LaunchCommand. Post what parameters you are passing to the emulator. Also, what version of MAME are you using?

-PMF

I'm getting a dialog after I leave a game and try to get back into Kymaera.  The dialog is one that mame is putting up.  It says to run mame from the command line and asks if I want to read the documentation now and has the command line options listed out.  Any ideas how to fix this?  I'm using the default run command settings.  Any help is appreciated.

D

I wrote down the parameters but left the paper at home today.  From what I remember the Launchcommand was something like this:

($ROMPATH)($ROMNAME).($ROMEXT)($ROMPARM)

Example: c:\mame_81\roms\mslug3.zip

The checkbox was checked for wait till finished, or something like that.  And it was set to HIDE.  This is on Win98 SE.

Let me know if you need anymore info from me.

Thanks,
Dennis

[PacManFan]

Try getting rid of that ($ROMPARM) and see if that helps.
Also, post the specs of your machine and OS.

Thanks,

-PMF

[Hellmark]

ABOUT NONAME

i didn`t found any configuration to deaktivate The noisy error logs(video, Sound not 100%...)

I just have vers. 0.83

did i need an older or other version??

[PacManFan]

You might want to ask TheGatesOfBill or post this message in the NoNameMame thread. I don't know offhand.

-PMF

[Hellmark]

hi PacMan Fan

i`ve just a error message question.

I just searched for a game in kymaera with standard key up and down and then comes the message

Kymaera version 1.22

"Kymaera.exe error
In Module "0x77f41cc5" on.... "0x00a2c4cd" The Process "read" .......

Just wrote it so because i have a german XP and dont know how its correct in english

God dammit what the hell is now wrong with my comp. It was working so fine and know.

[justinf951]

First off I just want to say that I love this front end.  But I was wondering if it would be possible for you to put a message board on your webpage.  I would love to see an open forum dedicated to kymaera.  It would make it easier for you to keep us updated on progress and for us to give you feedback.  Also it would be a place where the more advanced users can help those who are new to emulator/FE's.  Well that is just my recommendation thanks for a great front end.

[PacManFan]

Kymaera is going though a bunch of big changes right now. It's been about 1 1/2 months since my last release, and I have just ported Kymaera to work under DOS and Linux. A Mac-based version should be on the way soon too.
I've started a sourceforge project at http://sourceforge.net/projects/kymaera

which will be Kymaera's new home page. Currently, nothing is there right now, but Kymaera is definately going open-source. There is a message forum there that I'm planning on using.

I'll be posting some WIP updates and screenshots very soon showing off some of the more advanced features of Kymaera (alpha-blending, vertical and cocktail modes, new skins, etc...)

-PMF

[TheOtherBob]

Kymaera is going though a bunch of big changes right now. It's been about 1 1/2 months since my last release, and I have just ported Kymaera to work under DOS and Linux.

DOS?  Wow, that's great news.  Will it support lower resolutions for standard res arcade monitors?  Thanks....

[PacManFan]

I'm attempting to "Hack" the allegro source to work much like Advance mame and Arcade OS to support arcade modes. Otherwise, you'll have to use the ArcadeVGA to display properly on an arcade monitor in DOS.

-PMF