Dragon King setup?

[djbriane]

I'm wondering if anyone out there has some advice on getting DragonKing up and running. I have invested several hours into this so I dont just want to give up, although I am leaning in that direction.

I am running just standard Win98se with the VB6 runtimes (downloaded from microsoft) and the 5.6 VB script files. I installed the Dragon King 0.9 files and then added the 0.91 executable. Set up all of my ini files according to the quick start guide (which doesn't inspire confidence since its telling me to run runme.bat which doesnt exist).

 Anyway, I did all this and when I actually execute TheDragonKing.exe it just gives a windows system 'beep' and does nothing else and I eventually have to kill the processes (dragonking.exe and dumba.exe) and then kill explorer to get my status bar back. So after that I tried to run the ListGeneration executable in case it was getting hung up there and when I click the 'Generate List' button it says 'generating list' in the dialog which quickly turns into a white bar and I have to kill that process as well. I let it sit there for about 30 minutes so I know its not just taking a long time.

Anyway, does anyone have any clue how I can get past this? Its a really nice looking front end but I can't get it to run whatsoever.

Thanks,
Brian

[Howard_Casto]

Your looking at the lazarus documentation for one thing.....  

The updated dk version says something like Dragon King:  Quick start.  If you'll notice at the beginning of the docs it says that dk specific instructions are labeled in this manner and general topics with the same title should be ignored.  


You don't need vb script files, but you do need vb runtime files for windows 98 and directx 8 or higher.  

Hope that helps, please read the docs more carefully next time.  

[djbriane]

Thanks for the reply, but I did read the documentation... On the readme.html page from your site it has two different links, one to Dragon King: Quick Start and another to just Quick Start. Looking at the targets for both these links, they link to the same exact file. So while I did read the documentation carfully it was obviously the wrong doc (http://www.oscarcontrols.com/lazarus/quickstart.html).

Apart from that tho, I'm pretty sure I was able to get the configs set correctly by matching the content of the files from the Lazarus readme to the files I got with Dragon King. Pretty sure I got all the paths setup and video settings correct from what I read in the doc and what I've seen in the sticky post at the top.

Anyway, if you have any insight or can link me to the real documentation that'd be great!

Brian

[Howard_Casto]

Check the links again.... moveable type corrupted my docs.


The dumba program has nothing special in it, so if it's crashing on that I can only assume that
you are missing your vb runtime files.  Dumba is a regular "wizard type"  set of menus before you actually get to dragon king itself.  There isn't anything inside it to crash upon bootup.  

[djbriane]

Cool, thanks for the link to the correct doc.

Just to clarify, DumbA does pop up a few Yes/No dialogs which in turn open notepad instructing me to edit a few files. It then takes me to a black screen that says something to the effect of 'Generating List...' which turns into a white bar after a few seconds and then just hangs as far as I can tell (left it for about 30 mins as well and there is no HDD activity during that time that I could tell). I'm guessing it is hanging during the list generation, was hoping someone might have had this problem before...

Perhaps it is my VB runtimes tho, I got them from the MS site since the link on the dragon king site goes to download.com which doesn't appear to be offering the file. Anyone have a better link to the runtimes? I could try that out, but aside from that I'm really at a loss for what to do.

Thanks,
Brian

[Howard_Casto]

From now on tell me exactly how the error goes... i can't help you if you don't tell me everything.  

It's not the runtime files as it started.... that's basically all they are for.  

I need the exact message it freezes on to help you.  

But from what you've said so far it's hanging on mame.  Make sure the mame.cfg it opens up for you is setup properly. (found in the cfgs folder)  Also make sure you are using a valid version of mame.  Mame32 will not work, only command line versions of mame will.  

[djbriane]

Well, after spending another hour on this last night I am tossing in the towel. I tried changing the settings in my mame.cfg file and actually recieved an error so I have to assume its getting to mame alright (changing the path to an invalid one caused an error to be thrown). Of course I'm not running Mame32, but I did go through and remove mame, reinstall it clean and tried to do the list gen again with the exact same results.

I wonder if any of the two people from the sticky thread got this to work cause it sounds like they had the exact same problem. I'll have to revisit this FE sometime when its got a little better error handling and is more stable.

Thanks for the help,
Brian

[Howard_Casto]

both of those posts were resolved... mainly because they worked with me instead of trying to magically fix it on their own.    Again you never told be exactly where it was erroring out, ect... my suggestions were just guesses based on what you had posted.  

Don't try the same thing over and over for an hour.... try something, if it doesn't work post here immediately, telling me what you tried and how it errored and i'll get back to you asap.  

Check your mame path... make sure mame isn't in a crazily named path and dk isn't in a crazily named path.  Some people have reported problems with this in windows 98 only.  I reccomend dk be in drive:\dragon king\ and mame be in drive:\mame\  I also reccomend that they both be in the same drive.  These things shouldn't matter, but 98 is wierd that way.  


For the record dk is perfectly stable.... as a matter of fact it's uncrashable if configured properly.  You are having some wierd type of configuration issue or possibly a glitch in the list generator.  

There isn't any error handling and there never will be.  It's a waste of time for me as bugs seldom cause errors.  For the record all other fes are like this too.  In mamewah you'll get generic vb errors and in 3darcade you'll get "scripting error"


If you feel you want to move on then I'm sorry, but as you've yet to give me the exact stage in which it freezes you've been wasting the past few hours on speculation as to what might be wrong.  

[djbriane]

Well, I do have Dragon King in Program File/Dragon King. I will try moving it to a simpler path.

Just for the record tho, I didn't just try the same thing for an hour, I tried a multitude of different things so I could give you some more info. Problem is I'm realy not making any more progress (ie same thing is happening no matter what changes I make).

As far as error messages go, I understand your point but it is generally bad to have a piece of software just die like that. Even if it just threw some sort of message saying 'An error occurred' that'd be better than nothing. Not trying to write your code for you but it would probably be more helpfull to you when people have problems to be able to give you a specific error and not try and explain it like I have done.

Regardless, thanks for your help...
Brian

[djbriane]

Okay, I will drop all the info I possibly can on you now:

The problem happens when I click on ListGen.exe from the list generator directory (is it possible this long dir name is screwing up in win98?) and a dialog opens with a button in the lower left labeled 'Generate List'. When I click on this button some text appears to the right saying 'Parsing MAME for listinfo... ' (or something to that effect). After about 10 seconds this turns into a white bar and the process effectively dies. I've left this run for quite a while and nothing ever happens.

Here is my setiup:
Dragon King path:
c:\emu\dking

MAME Path (version 0.76b standard):
c:\emu\mame\mame.exe

My mame.cfg:
[Config]
extension=.zip
path=c:\emu\mame\
exe=mame.exe
send rom path=1
send exit keys=0
command line options=;

My dirs.ini:
[Dirs]
***Enter all your rom paths... Just like you do in a mame.ini

roms=c:\emu\mame\roms\

***Put These in as a base folder.  I.E. If your snaps are in "e:\mame\snap\"
***then the entry should be: "e:\mame\"

Primary Artwork Dir=c:\emu\mame\
Additional AW Dirs=

***The alternate elements allow you to have two more artwork elements besides the usual.
***Simply put the name of the sub folder (like "\controls\").
***Note:  Skins must have an alt-element slot defined for this to work.  

AltElement1=\cpanels\
AltElement2=\misc\

[startvd]
[path]
logo=Mame.png
caption=Mame
useclones=0
searchstrings:5=MAME
filters:6=*mature*;9=*Working No*
[/path]
[/startvd]

Thats all the usefull info I can think to give. Tell me if you want any more specifics.

Brian

[Howard_Casto]

Thanks... that's very helpful.... appears to be a listgen problem like your saying.... pm me and i'll send you a special debug version of the listgen some time this weekend.  Beleive it or not, the last time i ran into this it was due to something screwy with a person's windows 98 install.  It's fixable though.  

Sorry it's taking so long, but I'd like to definatively kill this issue if your willing to help.