*CRY FOR HELP* MESS and Errors

[slyfox299]

Hi everyone!

I've been loving my Gold membership, and I would recommend it to anyone!

Here's my problem. I've been trying to use MESS as my emulator for Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, and TurboGrafx16(no comment). Oh, and for GCE Vectrex too.

I just updated my MESS to the latest version and updated the bios files appropriately. Yes, I am using mess.exe to load the roms, but to no avail. When I set it up, it seems like it is going to load, I see a "black flash" which looks like MAME or MESS just loaded, then it closes rapidly within 1/2 a second, and I am back to my wheel.

I think everything is setup properly. I am attaching my Hyperspin.ahk file as a txt document for debugging. All help would be really appreciated! I'm a techie so I like juicy details on the errors, don't worry about "trying to make it so I can understand". lol...

Oh, btw, I have "show file extensions" on in my windows shell(windows 7, 64bit) so I don't know if that is a conflict...

Thanks all!
:party:
:withstupid:


(BTW, again! I am only attaching the emulator code in the file, as that is all that has been edited. Nothing else, so nothing else should be changed or incorrect...)

[fubar168]

I have the same hyperlaunch code as you and it seems to work for me (win XP). I do not have any experience with Win7 but sure somebody can get it for you.

Here's my settings for GCE that work:
[exe info]
path=C:\Hyperspin\Emulators\mess0138b\
rompath=C:\Hyperspin\Emulators\mess0138b\roms\vect rex\
userompath=
exe=mess.exe
romextension=bin
parameters=
searchsubfolders=
pcgame=false
winstate=HIDDEN
hyperlaunch=true


Did you manage to get the artwork showing out of interest with mess0138b. I have all the Vectrex overlays, created a folder in mess0138b/artwork called vectrex yet it doesn't display them..
Any ideas on that one?? (apologies for the hijack)

[aloner187]

here is the script i use for windows 7, i also noticed that your first system atari 2600 starts with else if, the first system in your script should start with if, and everyone after should start with else if, so that may be your problem right there. i use stella for atari 2600 so i will post that script, and i use magic engine for TG-16 which imo is the best, and i posted the script for that as well

;**********************************ATARI 5200***********************************
if (systemName = "Atari 5200" && (executable = "messpp.exe" || executable = "mess.exe"))
{
hideDesktop()
Hotkey, %exitEmulatorKey%, CloseProcess
RunWait, %executable% a5200 -cart "%romPath%%romName%%romExtension%" -skip_gameinfo -nowindow -nonewui, %emuPath%, Hide UseErrorLevel
}

;***********************************ATARI 2600*********************************

else if (systemName = "Atari 2600" && executable = "stella.exe")
{
hideDesktop()
Hotkey, %exitEmulatorKey%, CloseProcess
RunWait, %executable% "%romPath%%romName%%romExtension%", %emuPath%, UseErrorLevel
}

;**********************************ATARI 7800***********************************

else if (systemName = "Atari 7800" && (executable = "messpp.exe" || executable = "mess.exe"))
{
hideDesktop()
Hotkey, %exitEmulatorKey%, CloseProcess
RunWait, %executable% a7800 -cart "%romPath%%romName%%romExtension%" -skip_gameinfo -nowindow -nonewui, %emuPath%, Hide UseErrorLevel
}

;**********************************TurboGrafx 16********************************

else if (systemName = "TurboGrafx 16" && executable = "pce.exe")
{
hideDesktop()
Hotkey, %exitEmulatorKey%, CloseProcess
RunWait, "%EmuPath%%Executable%" "%romPath%%romName%%romExtension%", UseErrorLevel
}

[slyfox299]

I appreciate the response but nothing seemed to work.

I am beginning to believe it is MESS .138 causing my issue. I didnt have problems running Atari 5200 with messpp.exe(mess 0.137) but I have issues with mess.exe(mess 0.138). I'm going to revert back to .137 and I'll post my update later on...

[aloner187]

yea i use .137

[shateredsoul]

just to be clear, you do have it working outside of hyperspin right?

I don't know if this is relevant and i'm only sharing because it wasn't all that clear but for mess the bios go in a folder named roms and the games go in a folder named software.. witithin the software folder you have to create a folder that matches the bios name and put your roms in there for that emulator. I'm not sure if this is as relevant for hyperspin.. but it doesn't hurt to try.

[culpster]

This is for my Colecovision, but you could use similar settings for your Atari

path=L:\ArcadeMachine\Program\HyperSpin\Emulators\ Colecovision\MESS\mess0138b\
rompath=L:\ArcadeMachine\Program\HyperSpin\Emulato rs\Colecovision\MESS\mess0138b\roms\
userompath=true
exe=messui.exe
romextension=rom,zip,col
parameters=
searchsubfolders=true
pcgame=false
winstate=HIDDEN
hyperlaunch=true



if (systemName = "Colecovision" && executable = "messui.exe")
{
hideDesktop()
Hotkey, %exitEmulatorKey%, CloseProcess
RunWait, %executable% coleco -cart "%romPath%%romName%%romExtension%" -skip_gameinfo -nowindow -nonewui, %emuPath%, Hide UseErrorLevel
}

Use 138B and make sure that you only put messui.exe as the executable. Forget about mess.exe and mess.pp

Make sure you recompile the Hyperlaunch



Your info would look like this:

;**********************************Atari 2600***********************************
else if (systemName = "Atari 2600" && executable = "messui.exe")
{
hideDesktop()
Hotkey, %exitEmulatorKey%, CloseProcess
RunWait, %executable% a2600 -cart "%romPath%%romName%%romExtension%" -skip_gameinfo -nowindow -nonewui, %emuPath%
}

;**********************************ATARI 5200***********************************
if (systemName = "Atari 5200" && (executable = "messui.exe")
{
hideDesktop()
Hotkey, %exitEmulatorKey%, CloseProcess
RunWait, %executable% a5200 -cart "%romPath%%romName%%romExtension%" -skip_gameinfo -nowindow -nonewui, %emuPath%, Hide UseErrorLevel
}

;**********************************ATARI 7800**************
else if (systemName = "Atari 7800" && executable = "messui.exe")
{
hideDesktop()
Hotkey, %exitEmulatorKey%, CloseProcess
RunWait, %executable% a7800 -cart "%romPath%%romName%%
romExtension%" -skip_gameinfo -nowindow -nonewui, %emuPath%, Hide UseErrorLevel
}

[slyfox299]

Well, to be honest, it turned out to be a few reasons. The first was that I have never compiled the HyperLaunch script. I've never had errors before when editing the .ahk with Notepad++ so I never bothered to compile. However, compiling showed me a few coding errors and I fixed those.

I reverted back to MESS 0.137 only to find I was having BIOS issues. I thought so, and I copied all my bios files to both a Bios and a Roms directory. A mistake! Turns out that this caused even more problems.

I deleted the roms folder leaving only the bios folder. I recopied all the MESS 0.138 files back into my directory and double checked my ahk script. That had errors referencing MESS too!

To sum it all up, I was a little negligent and I didn't learn how to do it right. Now I know the hard way. However, it is good, too! Now I have Turbografx16 loading through MESS - problem free! Same with the atari saga, and also GCE Vectrex.

Thanks to all who stepped up to lend a hand, and I hope this thread will be useful to someone one day...

***ANCIENT CHINESE PROVERB: It is wise to compile the script as the sun sets east in the west and I am not a priest so don't listen to me.*** --- Keep that in mind...

[culpster]

Great to hear that you got it working