ANN: mednafen frontend / launcher

[MonkeeSage]

Hi folks,

Here is a simple mednafen frontend / launcher, written in python and GTK+. No .debs yet (I'll make some soon...promise).

Screenshots:

http://sourceforge.net/dbimage.php?id=174635

http://sourceforge.net/dbimage.php?id=174633

http://sourceforge.net/dbimage.php?id=174631

In planning (or at least up for consideration) are an input configuration dialog and a cheat code editor. But those are prolly still a ways off. See the INSTALL file in the tarball for install instructions (standard python distutils installation), but installation is not required; it should run from any directory in which you unpack it.

Get it here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mednafenfe/

[disturbedite]

OMG! awesome! i can't till you make deb packages. i await in anticipation.

i know this is a far shot, or a shot in the dark.....but do you think you could also make a qt4 version of your frontend?

[MonkeeSage]

OMG! awesome! i can't till you make deb packages. i await in anticipation.

Alright, a deb is up at sourceforge. :)


i know this is a far shot, or a shot in the dark.....but do you think you could also make a qt4 version of your frontend?

I've never used pyQt, so I'm probably not going to make a QT version (unless a lot of people want it). But the source is MIT licensed (which is basically just public domain with a legal disclaimer), and people are welcome to hack it all they like. It should be fairly quick and easy for someone familiar with pyQt to knock out a GUI in Designer and change the glade / gtk stuff in mfe.py.

[acoustibop]

Alright, a deb is up at sourceforge. :)...

To be found here (https://sourceforge.net/projects/mednafenfe/). ;)

[MonkeeSage]

Slight bugfix up (ver 0.1.1).

* Fix spacing issues with glade widgets (minor)
* Trap signals (SIGTERM, SIGINT) and exit cleanly
* Fix code to de-/sensitize "Force Mono" checkbutton on init

New deb up at SF.

[MonkeeSage]

To be found here (https://sourceforge.net/projects/mednafenfe/). ;)

Thanks. :)

[FranMichaels]

Very nicely done! :KS

[Occasionally Correct]

I had just started working on a similar frontend for Mednafen a few days ago. Now I don't have to! :p

Nice work.

[DoktorSeven]

1) I would made the window resizable since I have issues with options spilling down over the elements below them.
2) Change your source package to extract to its own directory, instead of the current directory.
3) The ROM selection should be made a bit more obvious; being at the bottom of the second tab is a bit odd.

Just constructive criticism, nice work so far.

[disturbedite]

dang! i test intrepid & there are dependency problems, so i can't install this package. :(
(python conflicts & whatnot).

[MonkeeSage]

1) I would made the window resizable since I have issues with options spilling down over the elements below them.

Done. New tarball and deb up (I didn't bump the version, still 0.1.1).

2) Change your source package to extract to its own directory, instead of the current directory.

It should have, I accidentally uploaded wrong tarball. Fixed now.


3) The ROM selection should be made a bit more obvious; being at the bottom of the second tab is a bit odd.

Eh, doesn't seem like a big deal to me, but I'll keep that in mind.


Just constructive criticism, nice work so far.

NP :) Thanks for the feedback, it is welcome.

[MonkeeSage]

dang! i test intrepid & there are dependency problems, so i can't install this package. :(
(python conflicts & whatnot).

Hmmm...what is the error message? AFAIK, intrepid should have python, python-gtk2, and pyton-glade2 installed (since update-manager needs them). So maybe I botched the dependencies. Please attach (or post, if it's short enough) a log of your console output when you try to install the deb.

[disturbedite]

@ MonkeeSage
sure, no problem, here is the message(s):

sudo dpkg -i /media/disk/software/gaming/mednafenfe_0.1.1-0ubuntu1_all.deb
Selecting previously deselected package mednafenfe.
(Reading database ... 146323 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking mednafenfe (from .../mednafenfe_0.1.1-0ubuntu1_all.deb) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mednafenfe:
mednafenfe depends on python-configobj; however:
Package python-configobj is not installed.
mednafenfe depends on python-glade2; however:
Package python-glade2 is not installed.
mednafenfe depends on python-gtk2; however:
Package python-gtk2 is not installed.
dpkg: error processing mednafenfe (--install):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
mednafenfe

so:

sudo apt-get install python-configobj python-glade2 python-gtk2
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
python-gtk2: Depends: python-cairo (>= 1.0.2-1.1) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: python-gobject (>= 2.14) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: python-numeric (>= 24.2-3) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: python2.4-cairo
Depends: python2.4-gobject
Depends: python2.4-numeric
Depends: python2.5-cairo
Depends: python2.5-gobject
Depends: python2.5-numeric
Recommends: python-gtk2-doc but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

btw, i didn't mean that you goofed up the dependencies, i meant the dependencies are goofed up in the ubuntu repo right now, for intrepid at least, as evidenced by the latter message.

[MonkeeSage]

@ MonkeeSage
sure, no problem, here is the message(s):

sudo dpkg -i /media/disk/software/gaming/mednafenfe_0.1.1-0ubuntu1_all.deb
Selecting previously deselected package mednafenfe.
(Reading database ... 146323 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking mednafenfe (from .../mednafenfe_0.1.1-0ubuntu1_all.deb) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mednafenfe:
mednafenfe depends on python-configobj; however:
Package python-configobj is not installed.
mednafenfe depends on python-glade2; however:
Package python-glade2 is not installed.
mednafenfe depends on python-gtk2; however:
Package python-gtk2 is not installed.
dpkg: error processing mednafenfe (--install):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
mednafenfe

so:

sudo apt-get install python-configobj python-glade2 python-gtk2
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
python-gtk2: Depends: python-cairo (>= 1.0.2-1.1) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: python-gobject (>= 2.14) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: python-numeric (>= 24.2-3) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: python2.4-cairo
Depends: python2.4-gobject
Depends: python2.4-numeric
Depends: python2.5-cairo
Depends: python2.5-gobject
Depends: python2.5-numeric
Recommends: python-gtk2-doc but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

Hmmm...something definitely seems screwy...according to packages.ubuntu.com[1 (http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/update-manager)], update-manager (which is part of the base system, so it's gotta be installed!) depends on python-glade2. But apt is saying that python-glade2 isn't installed??? Huh?

Hmmm...is update-manager installed in intrepid? What do you get when you run:

apt-cache policy update-manager 2>&1 | awk '/Installed:/ {print $2}'

And what do you get from a dry run (no-op) of apt with the -f switch?

sudo apt-get --dry-run -f install python-configobj python-glade2 python-gtk2


btw, i didn't mean that you goofed up the dependencies, i meant the dependencies are goofed up in the ubuntu repo right now, for intrepid at least, as evidenced by the latter message.

Hey, no worries. I'm new to debian-based systems. I've only been running Ubuntu for about 6 months. Previously my experience is with source-based distros like Slack, Gentoo and Arch, and before that, rpm / yum based systems. So this whole deb thing is new to me. I'll prolly goof-up from time to time. ;)

[disturbedite]

maybe it is due to the fact that i use kubuntu?... (kde 4.1b1)

[Cresho]

just to help fix an issue, first launch mednafen and then mfe in terminal for new users who never used it. If you launch mfe first, you get an error missing ~mednafen/mfe.ini so launching mednafen first in terminal puts it in here and you wont get the error

[MonkeeSage]

just to help fix an issue, first launch mednafen and then mfe in terminal for new users who never used it. If you launch mfe first, you get an error missing ~mednafen/mfe.ini so launching mednafen first in terminal puts it in here and you wont get the error
Thank you, I just fixed the problem. Now it should work whether you have a ~/.mednafen directory or don't when you first run mfe (or any time after that as well). New tarball and deb at SF.

[MonkeeSage]

maybe it is due to the fact that i use kubuntu?... (kde 4.1b1)

Hmmm, actually I think that is why. I think Kubuntu does use a different package manager / update notification system, now that I think about it. Sorry about that.

When I have time tonight, I'll try to figure out what kubuntu needs to run mfe on intrepid and get the deps straight in the deb so it will automatically pull in whatever it needs (and those packages will be marked as auto-installed, so if mfe is removed, they can be removed automatically).

[Cresho]

another problem that i see..in ubuntu hardy heron, I have a problem with mfe in the start menu. It will not start up. If I do it from the terminal, it launches fine with mfe. sometimes it will start and when i select rom, it ill not launch the actual game rom but stay hanging in the mfe front end. If I do mfe from terminal, there is no problems what so ever.
location: /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9b5/libxpcom.so
before 3
/usr/games/mednafen -path_snap /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/snaps -path_sav /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/sav -path_state /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/sav -path_movie /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/movies -path_cheat /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/cheats -path_palette /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/palettes -vdriver opengl -glvsync 1 -pce.pixshader none -fs 0 -sound 1 -soundrate 32000 -sounddriver alsa -soundvol 100 -pce.forcemono 0 -cheats 0 -autosave 0 -pce.xscale 3 -pce.yscale 3 -pce.xres 800 -pce.yres 600 -pce.stretch 1 -pce.videoip 0 -pce.vblur 0 -pce.scanlines 0 -pce.special none /home/ranxerox/Installed_Programs/roms/turbografx16-unzipped-mednafen/devilcru.pce
Starting Mednafen 0.8.7
Loading settings from "/home/ranxerox/.mednafen/mednafen.cfg"...
Compiled against SDL 1.2.12, running with SDL 1.2.12

Initializing joysticks...
Loading /home/ranxerox/Installed_Programs/roms/turbografx16-unzipped-mednafen/devilcru.pce...

ROM: 384KiB
ROM CRC32: 0x157b4492
ROM MD5: 0x92fbe89d4c87bf283dbfbeac69a64e6e

Loading cheats from /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/cheats/pce.cht...
Error opening file: No such file or directory

Initializing sound...
Using "ALSA" audio driver with device "default":
Bits: 16
Rate: 32000
Channels: 2
Byte order: CPU Native
Buffer size: 1024 sample frames(32.000000 ms)
Initializing video...

Signal 11 has been caught and dealt with...
Iyeeeeeeeee!!! A segmentation fault has occurred. Have a fluffy day.


i did a sudo mfe in a script to see the error. HOpe this helps.

[Cresho]

Here is an update to the top post. In order for me to run the game front end and the game from the start menu, I changed the execute from mfe to "gnome-terminal --execute mfe" without quotes. Now it launches with terminal and have no problems at all

sorry, it works better this way

create a mfe.sh and give it execute rights

now but this code in it
#!/bin/bash
gnome-terminal --execute mfe
and in edit menus and launcher mednafen front end, direct executable to the mfe.sh file. it will work then.

hmm did not work either

[MonkeeSage]

Cresho,

Signal 11 is SIGSEGV, i.e., "Segmentation Fault" -- it means mednafen is crashing because it tried to access a protected memory address. It has nothing directly to do with mfe (though, indirectly, it may be caused by some combination of settings to mednafen). Try running the same command directly from a terminal that mfe was running.

I.e., The line right after "before 3" and before "Starting Mednafen 0.8.7". E.g., in your post:

/usr/games/mednafen -path_snap /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/snaps -path_sav /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/sav -path_state /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/sav -path_movie /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/movies -path_cheat /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/cheats -path_palette /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/palettes -vdriver opengl -glvsync 1 -pce.pixshader none -fs 0 -sound 1 -soundrate 32000 -sounddriver alsa -soundvol 100 -pce.forcemono 0 -cheats 0 -autosave 0 -pce.xscale 3 -pce.yscale 3 -pce.xres 800 -pce.yres 600 -pce.stretch 1 -pce.videoip 0 -pce.vblur 0 -pce.scanlines 0 -pce.special none /home/ranxerox/Installed_Programs/roms/turbografx16-unzipped-mednafen/devilcru.pce

Run it several times and see if you get the same error. ("Signal 11 has been caught and dealt with...
Iyeeeeeeeee!!! A segmentation fault has occurred. Have a fluffy day.")

mfe should be polling the subprocess running mednafen, and should detect if it returns (whether from a segfault or being closed manually or whatever); so, if when you get that error on the console, the "Stop" button doesn't return to "Play" and the window become sensitive again, that may be a bug. So let me know about that.

As for launching in a terminal, just edit /usr/share/applications/mfe.desktop (with superuser privs.) and change "Terminal=false" to "Terminal=true". Using a terminal shouldn't make a bit of difference in how mfe behaves though.

[disturbedite]

Hmmm, actually I think that is why. I think Kubuntu does use a different package manager / update notification system, now that I think about it. Sorry about that.

When I have time tonight, I'll try to figure out what kubuntu needs to run mfe on intrepid and get the deps straight in the deb so it will automatically pull in whatever it needs (and those packages will be marked as auto-installed, so if mfe is removed, they can be removed automatically).
well, it isn't the package manager that is causing any problem whatsoever, it is the dependencies. (kubuntu uses the same repos as ubuntu). but i do look forward to you resolving the issue, perhaps by tweaking it's dependencies, or the ubuntu packagers getting the dependencies straightened out.

[Cresho]

Cresho,

Signal 11 is SIGSEGV, i.e., "Segmentation Fault" -- it means mednafen is crashing because it tried to access a protected memory address. It has nothing directly to do with mfe (though, indirectly, it may be caused by some combination of settings to mednafen). Try running the same command directly from a terminal that mfe was running.

I.e., The line right after "before 3" and before "Starting Mednafen 0.8.7". E.g., in your post:

/usr/games/mednafen -path_snap /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/snaps -path_sav /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/sav -path_state /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/sav -path_movie /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/movies -path_cheat /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/cheats -path_palette /home/ranxerox/.mednafen/palettes -vdriver opengl -glvsync 1 -pce.pixshader none -fs 0 -sound 1 -soundrate 32000 -sounddriver alsa -soundvol 100 -pce.forcemono 0 -cheats 0 -autosave 0 -pce.xscale 3 -pce.yscale 3 -pce.xres 800 -pce.yres 600 -pce.stretch 1 -pce.videoip 0 -pce.vblur 0 -pce.scanlines 0 -pce.special none /home/ranxerox/Installed_Programs/roms/turbografx16-unzipped-mednafen/devilcru.pce

Run it several times and see if you get the same error. ("Signal 11 has been caught and dealt with...
Iyeeeeeeeee!!! A segmentation fault has occurred. Have a fluffy day.")

mfe should be polling the subprocess running mednafen, and should detect if it returns (whether from a segfault or being closed manually or whatever); so, if when you get that error on the console, the "Stop" button doesn't return to "Play" and the window become sensitive again, that may be a bug. So let me know about that.

As for launching in a terminal, just edit /usr/share/applications/mfe.desktop (with superuser privs.) and change "Terminal=false" to "Terminal=true". Using a terminal shouldn't make a bit of difference in how mfe behaves though.

OKAY PROBLEM SOLVED!

I did as you asked and still saw some the same error. NOW totally made sense when you directed it to be a memory error segmentation fault and a setting. under general, i played with the settings and came to the conclusion that playing with cheats and openGL and vsync in different combinations, unticking Vsync fixed my problem

So unticking Vsync and OpenGL and Cheats works just fine. Even Unticking all works fine. and leaving fullscreen ticked works fine at all. Vsync is the cause of the segfault 11 error I posted. Having compiz-fusion on or off has the same behavior. I am using an 8800gt btw with a modified thermaltake fan on the video card. Now I am wondering if I have lost a heatsink from the memory chip.

Thanks

[MonkeeSage]

well, it isn't the package manager that is causing any problem whatsoever, it is the dependencies. (kubuntu uses the same repos as ubuntu). but i do look forward to you resolving the issue, perhaps by tweaking it's dependencies, or the ubuntu packagers getting the dependencies straightened out.

Sorry I didn't get around to it last night. I started working on a joypad configuration frontend for joy2key (also possibly serving as a basis for a future input config tab for mfe).

Try this dry run (it won't actually install anything, just do the depgraph and brokeness checking and such) and tell me if apt-get still complains about dependencies:

apt-get --dry-run install python-configobj python-glade2 python-gtk2 python2.4-cairo python2.4-gobject python2.4-numeric python2.5-cairo python2.5-gobject python2.5-numeric

Ps. Yes, oddly, python-gtk2 really does depend on both the 2.5 and 2.4 versions of those packages[1] (http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/python-gtk2)

Thanks.

[MonkeeSage]

OKAY PROBLEM SOLVED!

Glad you got it sorted! :)

Ps. I'm using an ATI card with fglrx drivers, and I also get glitches and wierd stuff from time to time. Darn their proprietary drivers, I say. ;)

Also, when you get the segfault when running from mfe, does the interface become responsive again after the console message about the error? The Stop button goes back to Play and so forth?

[MonkeeSage]

Hmmm...the buttons next to the Extra Options entry on the General tab, were supposed to have tooltips...coulda swore I added 'em, but maybe I should really quite drinking, heh. Anyhow, they are there now (in svn, will be up in tarball and deb next minor release). Just for reference, the first button next to the entry (lil' broom thing) clears the entry for the current launch, and clears any any saved values; the second button saves the current values for this and future launches; the third button opens the mednafen docs (in a pygtkmozembed widget if supported, otherwise in external browser).

[Cresho]

Glad you got it sorted! :)

Ps. I'm using an ATI card with fglrx drivers, and I also get glitches and wierd stuff from time to time. Darn their proprietary drivers, I say. ;)

Also, when you get the segfault when running from mfe, does the interface become responsive again after the console message about the error? The Stop button goes back to Play and so forth?

everything is very responive! even after closing the main game window. I can launch a second game with no problem after closing the first one. no corruption. Just vsync causing problems.

[slave-zeo]

I get an error when starting mfe.

jeremy@pikachu:~$ mfe
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/mfe", line 6, in <module>
mfe.MednafenFE()
File "/home/sage/mydocs/devel/projects/mfe-0.1.0/mednafenfe/debian/mednafenfe/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mfe/mfe.py", line 29, in __init__
File "/home/sage/mydocs/devel/projects/mfe-0.1.0/mednafenfe/debian/mednafenfe/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mfe/mfeutil.py", line 175, in __init__
NameError: global name 'CreateConfigPathError' is not defined


I'm running 8.04 with latest updates. Geforce 7900gs with nvidia's driver. Nothing else special hardware wise.

Any thoughts or suguestions?

[MonkeeSage]

I get an error when starting mfe.

[. . .]

I'm running 8.04 with latest updates. Geforce 7900gs with nvidia's driver. Nothing else special hardware wise.

Any thoughts or suguestions?

Oops. Two bugs there. The first is a scoping issue -- I raised the exception without "self.". The second is that os.makedirs excepts when the target directory already exists. I thought it behaved like mkdir -p. My bad. New tarball / deb at SF (0.1.3), fixes these bugs.

[slave-zeo]

Man this front end is so kick butt. It is exactly what I need to actually enjoy Mednafen. BTW, it works like a charm now. Thanks.

Now to go thru the config file and get my gamepad working. Yikes!

[FranMichaels]

Now to go thru the config file and get my gamepad working. Yikes!

Or press alt + shift + 1 in mednafen :)

[slave-zeo]

Or press alt + shift + 1 in mednafen :)

Fran, you are my new personal hero. It worked like a CHARM.

BTW, thanks for stopping by my news site and signing up for an account. I appreciate all the support I can get.

[MonkeeSage]

Man this front end is so kick butt. It is exactly what I need to actually enjoy Mednafen. BTW, it works like a charm now. Thanks.

Now to go thru the config file and get my gamepad working. Yikes!

Glad you're enjoying it! :)

I'm planning (and doing some rough test implementation of) an input editor for keyboard / gamepad. Currently, mednafen has built-in, on-the-fly input configuration (i.e., press ALT+SHIFT+1 to configure input 1 for the current system), but it would be cool to have a nice GUI configuration I think.

Edit: Oops. Hadn't refreshed the page. Didn't see that FranMichaels already mentioned mednafen's built-in input configuration.

[MonkeeSage]

Hmmmm..."/home/sage/mydocs/devel/projects/mfe-0.1.0/mednafenfe/debian/mednafenfe/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mfe/mfe.py"

I wonder why the error message included that path...that's the path on *my* computer where I was tracking the source ("/home/sage/mydocs/devel/projects/mfe-0.1.0/mednafenfe"). I can't figure out why it would appear on your computer. It should have looked like "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mfe/mfe.py"....hmmm. What version of mednafenfe were you using and was it the deb or the tarball?

[ikki_72]

a feature on button config would be nice.

[slave-zeo]

Hmmmm..."/home/sage/mydocs/devel/projects/mfe-0.1.0/mednafenfe/debian/mednafenfe/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mfe/mfe.py"

I wonder why the error message included that path...that's the path on *my* computer where I was tracking the source ("/home/sage/mydocs/devel/projects/mfe-0.1.0/mednafenfe"). I can't figure out why it would appear on your computer. It should have looked like "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mfe/mfe.py"....hmmm. What version of mednafenfe were you using and was it the deb or the tarball?

I was running version 1.2 I think. It was the one that was released before you did the fix up. I got the same error message from both the tar ball and the deb.

hope this helps.

Also, I may be a bit on the dim side, but how do you tell mednafen to load PC Engine CD games via mfe? or can you yet.

thanks again for the great work on this front end.

[Bill_Gates]

Nice Frontend. But a QT4 version for Kubuntu users would be fantastic.

[ikki_72]

Nice Frontend. But a QT4 version for Kubuntu users would be fantastic.

not after he did those button config thing :)

:popcorn:

[VicAlpha]

a feature on button config would be nice.

I agree

[slave-zeo]

While not frontend related there was a new release of Mednafen today! version 0.8.9

[MonkeeSage]

Sorry for the delay in responding, my internet b0rked (oh noes!). Gophers or moles or something chewed up the co-ax underground. Cable guy came out today and ran a new line.


@slave-zeo:

Weird...I'll have a look and see if I can figure out what the deal with that is. There are no embeded paths like that, so that is very odd.


@ikki_72:

What is button config? Can you give me an example of another app that has this feature, so I know what you mean?

Edit: Do you mean a GUI to configure the buttons on a gamepad? If so, I'm working on something along those lines, but it won't be ready right away. I already have skeleton GUI for it and some of the logic done (I'm prototyping it by making a joy2key frontend. screenshot (http://mednafenfe.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/*checkout*/mednafenfe/screenshots/gjoy2key.png?revision=35) [active button on gamepad in green])

Edit: If this is what you mean, then as has been mentioned, you can currently use mednafen's built-in input configuration feature by pressing Alt+Shift+N, where N is the number of the input device to configure (so pressing Alt+Shift+1 configures the first input device). While a GUI config will be slightly nicer, the current method works just fine.


@Bill_Gates:

As I said previously, I have no experience with pyQT, so I probably won't be porting it to QT. Someone with knowledge of pyQT / Designer could do so easily (and I'd be glad to host it with this project on SF); it's basically just a bunch of buttons and checkboxes, and a bit of wrapper for callbacks and formatting the options to pass them to mednafen. The config file stuff and the stuff to run mednafen is in a separate module and shouldn't need anything done to it for a pyQT port.

[MonkeeSage]

Also, I may be a bit on the dim side, but how do you tell mednafen to load PC Engine CD games via mfe? or can you yet.

thanks again for the great work on this front end.

Don't worry, it's not (too) hard....

Under the "General" tab, enter a path to the CD BIOS in the "Extra Options" entry (like "-pce.cdbios /path/to/SYSCARD3.PCE").

Then under the "Engine" tab, choose "PC-Engine (TurboGrafx-16)" for the Backend.

Then, in the "ROM file" dropdown, select the .CUE sheet / .ISO file to load.

It should start the PCE CD bios, and then the game. :)

[MonkeeSage]

You still here disturbedite?

[disturbedite]

yeah. what's up?

[Cresho]

nevermind

[BigSilly]

Holy cow!

Just downloaded your .deb from Source Forge, and wow! Fantastic achievement. Just wanted to add my thanks for this, and post up my gratitude. I love Mednafen. It's one of the very best emus for Linux, but boy, did it need this wonderful frontend!

My thanks again for making this. Well done MonkeeSage!

:guitar:

[MonkeeSage]

Hi peeps.

Sorry for the delay, but this time my freakin hard drive started to die on me. The heads started clicking and it would spin up and down really fast and make a whining noise. Then it started getting file system errors. Then kernel panics. Then not even being detected by the bios. :( I finally got another drive and got everything reinstalled, and luckily got my old drive to run as a slave for long enough to pull all my important stuff off it (whew!).

So, yeah...anyway:


@BigSilly:

Glad you're enjoying it. :)


@disturbedite:

Try this dry run (it won't actually install anything, just do the depgraph and brokeness checking and such) and tell me if apt-get still complains about dependencies:

apt-get --dry-run install python-configobj python-glade2 python-gtk2 python2.4-cairo python2.4-gobject python2.4-numeric python2.5-cairo python2.5-gobject python2.5-numeric

Ps. Yes, oddly, python-gtk2 really does depend on both the 2.5 and 2.4 versions of those packages[1] (http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/python-gtk2)

Thanks.


@KDE users:

You guys may be interested in the gtk-qt-engine (http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=gtk-qt-engine)(-kde4 (http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=gtk-qt-engine-kde4)) package. It's a GTK2 theme engine that uses QT3 (or QT4) widgets; so, in theory, your GTK2 apps (like mfe) will look the same as your KDE / QT apps. I assume that you just apt-get install it (or use synaptic or whatever), then use the gnome / xfce utilities for setting the GTK theme (or a stand-alone program like the one from the gtk-chtheme package).

[disturbedite]

@ MonkeeSage, i already use gtk-qt-engine & know about gtk-chtheme.

i recently jumped ship to opensuse though. it is a billion times better than (k)ubuntu in some ways.

[MonkeeSage]

@ MonkeeSage, i already use gtk-qt-engine & know about gtk-chtheme.

i recently jumped ship to opensuse though. it is a billion times better than (k)ubuntu in some ways. i do hope at some point someone can package your frontend for opensuse.

Ah, well no worries.

You can also just run mfe directly without installing it (you still of course need the dependencies: configobj, pygtk, ...).

To run it directly, get the tarball and extract it somewhere, cd into the directory and run ./__init__.py. The only thing it will touch outside of that install directory is to write a config file to ~/.mednafen/mfe.ini, so it won't hurt anything to run it this way.

[fktt]

ooh, nice, just what i was looking for, wonder if the deb works on feisty.. :/

[MonkeeSage]

ooh, nice, just what i was looking for, wonder if the deb works on feisty.. :/

Haven't tested it, but if the requirements are met (should be, I think), it will install fine on Feisty. Please let me know if it doesn't.

[hernyman]

Great software, simple and makes easier the use of Mednafen (another great software!)

Thanks!

[cova]

love this sweet little gui. cant wait for versions with things like cheat codes on too! keep up the good work!
Ben

[MonkeeSage]

love this sweet little gui. cant wait for versions with things like cheat codes on too! keep up the good work!
Ben

Thanks! Glad you're enjoying it. Since I'm working on several other projects as well as this one (and also getting ready to relocate), it will probably be a couple weeks before I integrate the input configuration stuff, and even longer before I get to the cheat code editor.

Ps. If anyone wants to contribute to the project, I'll be happy to grant SVN rights.

[abelthorne]

Hello,
I just tried going to the project web page on SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/mednafenfe/) and I get an error message "Invalid project".
Has it been abandoned or is there a problem with SF ?

[DoktorSeven]

Hello,
I just tried going to the project web page on SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/mednafenfe/) and I get an error message "Invalid project".
Has it been abandoned or is there a problem with SF ?

Works fine here, maybe it was a momentary glitch with SF.

[disturbedite]

i don't suppose anyone could package this for opensuse 11 i586?

[MEGAMANULTIMATE]

Hi, I'm having a problem with mfe, and I can't fix it for the life of me. It happened recently...any ideas? Here's what happened:

matthew@matthew-laptop:~$ mfe
location: /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.0.3/libxpcom.so
before 3
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/mfe", line 6, in <module>
mfe.MednafenFE()
File "/home/sage/mydocs/devel/projects/mfe-0.1.0/mednafenfe/debian/mednafenfe/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mfe/mfe.py", line 36, in __init__
File "/home/sage/mydocs/devel/projects/mfe-0.1.0/mednafenfe/debian/mednafenfe/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mfe/mfeutil.py", line 58, in __init__
File "/home/sage/mydocs/devel/projects/mfe-0.1.0/mednafenfe/debian/mednafenfe/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mfe/mfeutil.py", line 69, in locate
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/usr/local/bin'

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated. (Oh, and distubedite, thanks for the directions.)

[fatblueduck]

Hi there,

I've been using this program for a while on Ubuntu. Its very useful.

I just wanted to let you know that it is not compatible with python 2.6. Please add the code that allows operable 2.6 syntax for pre-2.6 python and update the syntax.

Thanks :)

[buckeyered80]

Awesome front end. I am surprised that mednafen was able to get the fullscreen video scaling correct without any tweaking....very cool!

[MonkeeSage]

@MEGAMANULTIMATE:

That is funky. You get weird paths (paths from *my* computer) and I can't find anything that hardcodes any paths (let alone '/usr/local' paths). What version of mfe are you using? Is it the .deb version or the tarball?


@fatblueduck:

What breaks with python 2.6? Can you post a traceback, please.

[Mega_Mike]

Just try this out on a fresh install of Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid. Works flawlessly and I am up in playing in seconds. Excellent work man!

Now I just gotta figure out how to remap the keyboard layout...

*EDIT*
Just figured out to map inputst. Just press alt+shift+1 while in game
F5 to save, F7 to load. thats all I need to know to game!


Question. I'm playing Dracula X now. The emulation is great but the music is really fast. Anybody have a fix for this?

*EDIT*

Figured out the music sync/fast problem. I encoded the wavs for the game inproperly. This command fixed it.
sox Track01.mp3 -r 44100 -c 2 Track01.wav resample

[Mega_Mike]

Throwing in one more feature request. It would be nice to be able to point to the system card bios (for PCE CD emulation) through the gui (i.e. set the pce.cdbios variable in the mednafen.cfg file).

[MonkeeSage]

Throwing in one more feature request. It would be nice to be able to point to the system card bios (for PCE CD emulation) through the gui (i.e. set the pce.cdbios variable in the mednafen.cfg file).

In the first tab, at the bottom, is an entry box to set any extra options to pass to mednafen on the command line. You can save them so that every time mfe starts it loads them, and you can clear them from memory (use the buttons right next to the entry box--hover them for tooltips). There is also a button at the far right that will load the mednafen documentation (where the keybindings and command-line options and so forth are given). For your case, use something like this in the extra options: -pce.cdbios "/path/to/bios", and press the save button.