NEWS: GameEx 5.92 Released

[Tom Speirs]

19th April  2006
- GameEx 5.92

• First of all I'd like to give a
  huge thanks to Headkaze, for all his help on this
  release and for all his work on the theme editor. We
  worked together a lot the passed couple of weeks and
  he contributed massively.
• There's been too many fixes too
  mention, including minor cosmetic fixes, and attract
  mode runs smoother. I won't list
  them all here and I'll just focus on the enhancements and
  new features.
• GameEx has been optimized a fair
  bit again, and this version runs
  significantly faster.
• I've also shaved a bit of the
  EXE image size.
• The biggest new feature in this
  release is support for vertical rotated displays.
  There's a few restrictions on the resolutions you can
  use with this, but turning on this one setting will
  also automatically configure MAME for vertical games
  only, and also automatically configure ArcadeVGA for
  vertical resolutions when running MAME. There is a
  screenshot here
• The other big thing is that this
  release includes HeadKaze's Theme Editor version 1.51
  which now allows the image display to be positioned separately
  from the menus in GameEx, and includes various other
  fixes and updates. There is still some functionality
  to implement
  in GameEx for the editor, but there should not be any outstanding
  issues, and it is now possible to change the font
  colour.
• There's a new setting to Show
  Buttons, allowing complete removal of both the Home
  and Exit buttons.
• A new setting to not display the
  title text.
• There's a new GameEx logo. Again
  thanks Headkaze.
• A new feature for the Attract
  Mode/Screensaver. There's the ability to play a sound
  file when exiting attract mode after its been running
  for over 6 minutes. The idea is to make it fun when
  the cabs been running a while, and someone walks up to
  use it. 
• Much like how GameEx can
  dynamically use Zinc to launch MAME games based on PSX
  hardware it can now do the same and has support for
  Model 2 hardware and the Model 2 emulator. Most of the
  work for this is done in the background, and there's
  only two settings to set to get this up and running.
  Note after setting it up you'll need to update the
  list again.
  

---

[headkaze]

Great update! I've just turned off the buttons on the Soul Calibur theme and it looks alot cleaner now

There is one small issue with this release. It's the outline colour. My Soul Calibur theme uses mainly black for the background. It seems you have now changed the font background to blue to match the default theme. Now I see blue artifacts around the font outline.

Also I noticed on some capital letters for the Title area eg. "MAME", the A and E have a one pixel line across the top of them. My guess is the characters above these letters are changing the blue to be slightly darker so it's not the exact blue the colour key is using.

EDIT: Another minor issue seems to be with the focus.wav file. It will play fine until you hold down the up or down cursor keys to scroll quickly, then the sound never seems to trigger again. It only seems to occur in the Start.. menu.

[fattmarrell]

Both you guys rock

[zarouk]

                          The biggest new feature in this

                          release is support for vertical rotated displays.

                          There's a few restrictions on the resolutions you can

                          use with this, but turning on this one setting will

                          also automatically configure MAME for vertical games

                          only, and also automatically configure ArcadeVGA for

                          vertical resolutions when running MAME.

   

That's great !!!!!!!!!!!

[EMKO]

nice update. thnx guys

[night]

im looking forward to try the theme editor alittle more and see what Game-Ex can do now

tho i noticed gameEx crashed with my v2 theme but after i loaded in the theme editor and didnt change anything just hit save and ran gameex again all worked fine

great update GameEx are getting better and better each time i guess thats the purpose with a update

[Tom Speirs]

Great update! I've just turned off the buttons on the Soul Calibur theme and it looks alot cleaner now

There is one small issue with this release. It's the outline colour. My Soul Calibur theme uses mainly black for the background. It seems you have now changed the font background to blue to match the default theme. Now I see blue artifacts around the font outline.

Also I noticed on some capital letters for the Title area eg. "MAME", the A and E have a one pixel line across the top of them. My guess is the characters above these letters are changing the blue to be slightly darker so it's not the exact blue the colour key is using.

EDIT: Another minor issue seems to be with the focus.wav file. It will play fine until you hold down the up or down cursor keys to scroll quickly, then the sound never seems to trigger again. It only seems to occur in the Start.. menu.

Hi, I can't reproduce either of these problems. The font colouring has always done that as far as I know, and the focus.wav seems to be fine to me. its always been set to a light blue by default, which has an alpha, and when you apply the outline fonts setting it changes to grey because of the alpha. Is this a new issue?

Could you try reexplaining the outline issue? Do you actually have an outline colour set in GameEx or is it not used for your theme? Ie using the default? Which as I said appears to work as it always has. What resolution are you running GameEx at and are you using a V2 theme?

EDIT: The fonts don't do true anti aliasing, they just use a lighter blue background, as I said I dont think this a new issue, it's always done that. You can turn off the Antia Aliasing if its bugging you, or if you set a font colour it automatically turns it off.

[Ricci]

Hi, I can't reproduce either of these problems. The font colouring has always done that as far as I know, and the focus.wav seems to be fine to me. its always been set to a light blue by default, which has an alpha, and when you apply the outline fonts setting it changes to grey because of the alpha. Is this a new issue?

Could you try reexplaining the outline issue? Do you actually have an outline colour set in GameEx or is it not used for your theme? Ie using the default? Which as I said appears to work as it always has. What resolution are you running GameEx at and are you using a V2 theme?

EDIT: The fonts don't do true anti aliasing, they just use a lighter blue background, as I said I dont think this a new issue, it's always done that. You can turn off the Antia Aliasing if its bugging you, or if you set a font colour it automatically turns it off.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Alright!! Nice work again guys!! Thanks for the continued great work on this!!

[LochNess101]

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

I'll be installing the new version tonight.

I've been using GameEx on my Horizontal MAME machine for a long time and love it and can now finally put it on my Vertical machine too.

Also Thank You for all the work and support you put into the project it is truly appreciated.

[fjser]

Awesome work guys. Small question, I haven't udpated in a while so this may have been done prior to this release. Do we have ability for custom backgrounds for different emulators yet?

[Tom Speirs]

Awesome work guys. Small question, I haven't udpated in a while so this may have been done prior to this release.  Do we have ability for custom backgrounds for different emulators yet?

Yeah since a long time ago, even before the theme editor.

[fjser]

Fantastic. Thanks Tom.

[Tom Speirs]

Great update! I've just turned off the buttons on the Soul Calibur theme and it looks alot cleaner now

There is one small issue with this release. It's the outline colour. My Soul Calibur theme uses mainly black for the background. It seems you have now changed the font background to blue to match the default theme. Now I see blue artifacts around the font outline.

Also I noticed on some capital letters for the Title area eg. "MAME", the A and E have a one pixel line across the top of them. My guess is the characters above these letters are changing the blue to be slightly darker so it's not the exact blue the colour key is using.

EDIT: Another minor issue seems to be with the focus.wav file. It will play fine until you hold down the up or down cursor keys to scroll quickly, then the sound never seems to trigger again. It only seems to occur in the Start.. menu.

Hey, I know what this is I forgot, but I set the antialiasing to high quality when creating the fonts for this release. Thought it would be an improvement

I still cant really duplicate it here, so could you send me a screenshot, and let me know which resolution and font name and sizing options your using?

Cheers.

[Vynce]

I just updated from 5.84 to 5.94 and GameEx is crashing on startup. I looked through the settings, but I don't think I changed anything significant. I've tried restarting the computer. Any idea what could be wrong?

log.txt

[Tom Speirs]

I just updated from 5.84 to 5.94 and GameEx is crashing on startup. I looked through the settings, but I don't think I changed anything significant. I've tried restarting the computer. Any idea what could be wrong?

Its your V2 theme, themes have changed in the latest version. Load it into the theme editor and modify it and save it.

[Vynce]

Ok, I tried editing the "Default - Custom V2 Default 640x480" theme and saving it. I'm still getting exactly the same error. I do have this theme selected in the GameEx config. The old V1 themes aren't working for me either.

[Tom Speirs]

Ok, I tried editing the "Default - Custom V2 Default 640x480" theme and saving it. I'm still getting exactly the same error. I do have this theme selected in the GameEx config. The old V1 themes aren't working for me either.

Can you try without using Ultramon and also at a standard windows resolution. (To help me troubleshoot).

[mnel22]

What is Model 2 hardware, and what uses it? sorry if its a dumb question, just never heard of Model 2.

[Tom Speirs]

What is Model 2 hardware, and what uses it? sorry if its a dumb question, just never heard of Model 2.

Its Sega Model 2 hardware used in not too old Sega arcade games such as House of the Dead.

[Vynce]

Can you try without using Ultramon and also at a standard windows resolution. (To help me troubleshoot).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Removing the Ultramon commands fixes the problem. All that Ultramon is doing is making the second display primary when GameEx starts and then making the first display primary again when GameEx exits. If I change the primary display manually before starting GameEx, then it starts fine. So it must have something to do with the timing of the display switching while GameEx is starting.

[Tom Speirs]

Removing the Ultramon commands fixes the problem. All that Ultramon is doing is making the second display primary when GameEx starts and then making the first display primary again when GameEx exits. If I change the primary display manually before starting GameEx, then it starts fine. So it must have something to do with the timing of the display switching while GameEx is starting.

I think it might be initialising directdraw too soon. Ill take a look. Should be fixed in next release

[evh347]

Where do I turn off that annoying "Pacman" theme after exiting out of the screen saver mode?

[Vynce]

Should be fixed in next release

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks!

[evh347]

Where do I turn off that annoying "Pacman" theme after exiting out of the screen saver mode?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Nevermind...found it. It might be fun to some, but I found it annoying. Thanks for a great update otherwise.

[Vynce]

5.96 fixed my crashing problem. Thanks for the quick fix!