Lazarus: Tons of Problems - Help!

[bdp]

Well I finally took the time to sit down, read the docs and configure Lazarus, and I'm having a TON of problems.

I'm on a Windows 2000 machine.  Using default skin.

First off - The configuration box.  Sometimes it shows up, sometimes not.  Almost never just by pressing TAB.  Sometimes I press TAB and then ESC to get it to show.  Sometimes I press TAB and move the mouse and click and then it shows.  Sometimes I press TAB and it's invisible, and I move the arrows and press select and stuff happens (even though the menu wasn't there).  So that's the first really annoying bug.

Second, it seems only the first entry in dirs.ini is showing.  Whatever I put first works. Change path will not work, I can only view the first path I list in dirs.ini.  I am 99% sure the file itself is correct.  Maybe I missed something.

Finally, the first entry with Mame worked, but when I put Gens in there, it didn't find my roms at all.  I did create the cfg file as well.  But no roms were found.

Howard (or someone else who experienced this), here are my files, maybe you can see something wrong:

[dirs.ini]

roms=d:\mame\roms\;d:\genesis\roms\
Primary Artwork Dir=d:\mame\
Additional AW Dirs=

[startvd]
[path]
logo=sega.gif
caption=Sega Genesis
useclones=1
searchstrings:5=Genesis
[/path]
[path]
logo=mame.gif
caption=Newest Games
useclones=1
searchstrings:7=.61
[/path]
[path]
logo=mame.gif
caption=MAME (All)
useclones=1
searchstrings:5=MAME
[/path]
[/startvd]


---

[genesis.cfg]

extension=.zip
path=d:\genesis\
exe=wgens.exe
send rom path=1
send exit keys=0
command line options;


--BDP



If these are right, I'm stumped.  I have tried 2.0 and the 2.3 beta.

[Minwah]

I find that when I press TAB the items in the menu don't show up (apart from the selected item).  This is on a Win98 machine.  In fairness I haven't had time to play around a lot to try and fix it - I have sorted the option in the config which applies to graphics in XP tho.

[bdp]

I don't see any menu or text at all (even the selected item).

Howard, also I did see your earlier post about the menu not coming up right away when you start.  I can't get the menu to come up at all, even if I wait, or I've been in there a while and try to bring the menu up again (after playing a game, for example).  There's definitely a bug there with the menu and the video.  Could be a combination of program, OS (Win2k), and driver.

Like I said, I can live with that really, though it is a bug for sure, the other problems I mentioned above are much more annoying.

By the way, I tried to import a different font in (still using your skin) and I'm not having any luck.  Does that need to be an installed font or can it just be a .ttf file I drop into the lazarus directory?  This was after all the other problems of course, the problems listed above did happen with the default Lazarus font.  I was just curious if there's anything special I need to do to change that font aside from changing its title in the skin.ini file.

[)p(]

did you refresh your masterlist after adding genesis and adding the filter for it?

peter

[bdp]

Indeed I did -- I ran both the rescan and the refresh and still got nada.  So something's up.  And the paths I have in those files are definitely full of roms (zipped).

I wonder what's wrong?  I'm still fuzzy on the whole searchstrings:5=genesis thing.  Is that where I define what the name of the .cfg file is?  I'm having trouble making the connection between Lazarus and that cfg.  How does lazarus know what .cfg file to look for?

By the way, even with just MAME (new) and MAME (all) in my dirs.ini, the switch paths option STILL would not work.  I expected to be able to switch between 2 lists, mame .61 and mame (all) and it would come up with only the .61 list and allow no switching.  Gotta be a bug.

Brad

[Howard_Casto]

Indeed I did -- I ran both the rescan and the refresh and still got nada.  So something's up.  And the paths I have in those files are definitely full of roms (zipped).

I wonder what's wrong?  I'm still fuzzy on the whole searchstrings:5=genesis thing.  Is that where I define what the name of the .cfg file is?  I'm having trouble making the connection between Lazarus and that cfg.  How does lazarus know what .cfg file to look for?

By the way, even with just MAME (new) and MAME (all) in my dirs.ini, the switch paths option STILL would not work.  I expected to be able to switch between 2 lists, mame .61 and mame (all) and it would come up with only the .61 list and allow no switching.  Gotta be a bug.

Brad

You haven't read the manual or your don't understand it then.  

First off did you get a crmamepro dat file and install it in the dats folder?  Inside that dat file you will see a "name" entry in the initial header.  that is what lazarus actually calls the emulator.  Your config file, catverfile and any other files pertaining to that emulaor should be named after this.  

Secondly do the names of your genesis roms actually match the names of the roms in the dat file?  Lazarus skips crc checks so if they aren't named correctly then it won't work. If they don't then your going to have to generate your own dat using izaram's tool or my own at the site.

The path switching works, trust me.  I have so many emulators with so many filter combinations if there was a bug that bad i would have found it by now.  I could be wrong but I seriously doubt it.  Remember you have to hold down the key for a second to switch paths, tapping it won't do.  That's purposeful for kiddies with twitchie hands.


For those of you with the menu problems.. your going to have to send me a screen shot or something.  Saying something doesn't work won't really help me find bugs, I need to see it.  (or not see it in this case)  Also some video cards simply are too old or wierd to support alpha values, in which case you need to revert to the 98 style windows.    In 3.0 there will be a third menu option to leave them solid without any effects.  

[SirPoonga]

I'm wodering if the scconfig menu is what I had.  Remember HC, I had to hold the button down abit first for it to show up.  I had to change the timings in the lazarus.ini file.

[bdp]

Howard,

I must have missed the area of the manual where it tells me I need to supply a dat file for each of the emulators.  So if that's in the docs somewhere and I didn't see it I do apologize.  It was like 2 AM last night.

So there's not a dat included for mame either?  If not, then maybe that's what I'm missing.  I'll give it a whirl and let you know my results here.

The menus could be a video issue.  I am using a Geforce 2 MX card under Win2k though -- I figured that could handle pretty much anything.  I do have some pretty recent Detonator drivers, too.  Is anyone else having problems getting the menu to pop up?  I mean most of the time it IS there, I just can't see it.  I don't know how to show you a screenshot though.  You just don't see it.  

OHHHH - Holding down a KEY to switch paths.  Well is there a way to turn that off?  I wanted to use the right hand josystick of my hotrod to navigate, I guess I can still do that -- With Emuwizard though, a tap will do.  An option to turn that delay down would really be appreciated.

What about the font issue?  Am I missing a step that is not properly handling the fonts I'm trying to add?  Do I need to actually install the font in the windows/font directory?  I noticed your default font just is happy to sit in the Lazarus folder.

Brad

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah there is a mame dat included.  (At least I think)  You need to go to the section regarding adding new emus for information of the useage of dat files.  This is the easiest and most universal way of getting rom data (such as the game name, year, ect)  and is thus why I use it exclusively. Remember quick start will only get you up and running with mame in the 5=mame list, anything else requires the reading of the entire manual.  

Your fonts need to be installed.  I could add code to do it automatically but it's really a bad idea as it might overwrite fonts, which is bad.  I'm pretty sure that is also covered in the manual but don't hold me to that one.  

The speed is adjustable as sirp said, you have to adjust the aw and regular scroll rates...  The path switching is hard coded to be half as fast as normal list navigation.  You have to do this as any faster (regardless of the settings) and the lists switch too quickly to be accurate for stopping on the wanted list.  I might tweak it a bit but it's something that has to be hardcoded for now.