Vectrex Emulation Made Easy With ParaJVE

[FlightRisk]

You are right. I think this works just fine as it is and does anything you would want it to. No sense using the ParaJVE in RetroArch and having to figure out how to get the bezels and shaders working. It would be nice to have the RA menu, exit, and universal controller setup, but that is a minor thing. I like emulators that can duplicate the original look of the game, especially for vector games. I have a standup Tempest left over from the Arcade I owned in the 80's and 90's and had a full upright periscope battlezone and a sit down Red Baron. So I spent time in another emulator making a Retropie setup look like the real thing for Arcade games. ParaJVE does a great job of creating the flicker, the bloom, shading and everything else exactly the way I like it! Thanks again for the help.

[JamesBond@ge]

On 11/7/2017 at 8:55 PM, Zombeaver said:

I had posted some instructions on this a while back but realized this is probably worth posting into a separate tutorial thread for future reference rather than leaving buried in another random thread.

Sheet bro, this worked! I got this running today.

Thanks for doing this mate. I had ParaJVE working years ago, on the last front-end I used to use but I could never get the games to run in LaunchBox. I did endless amounts of reading of the command line documentation and searching on Google to no avail so I put it on the backburner which WAS a shame because the Vectrex versions of Berzerk and Scramble are my favourites. The RetroArch implementation of Vectrex is not great either.

Now I have GCE Vectrex in my LaunchBox library running sweeeet. Thanks Zombie Beaver.

Edited July 23, 2018 by JamesBond@ge

[JRavens]

I know this is an older post, but I wanted to stop in and give thanks. I just followed these instructions and now my Vectrex runs soooo so much better and LOOKS much nicer than the way I had it setup by default through RA.

Thanks to @Zombeaver for taking the time to do this tutorial and provide the game folder "links" ? ?

[DaveC1964]

Overlay editing?  I want to edit the overlays that are included.  For some weird reason they are all locked into some weird format and can't be changed (I don't know why they did that, it is annoying).  Are there any overlays that are just as good but are available with the proper format with alpha channel etc?

[CharlieFoxtrot]

Thank you for this easy setup! ParaJVE integrated with LB is just awesome!

It is a shame that ParaJVE developement has pretty much halted a long time ago, though. Most games I have played work just fine, but for example, Clean Sweep doesn't render graphics correctly.

[DaveC1964]

I did everything that was in the instructions but I can't get this to work. It just tells me it can't find the game when I select one.   It imported all of the box art as you can see.  What can be the issue?

Edited July 1, 2019 by DaveC1964

[Zombeaver]

I would have to see the rom path for a game, the emulator tab, and the emulator entry for ParaJVE.

[DaveC1964]

[Headrush69]

You do have the actual roms required in the ParaJVE/data/roms folder?

[DaveC1964]

5 hours ago, Headrush69 said:

You do have the actual roms required in the ParaJVE/data/roms folder?

Yes they are in data/roms/cartridge just as they were by default when the emulator was installed. I didn't change anything there.

[Headrush69]

5 minutes ago, DaveC1964 said:

Yes they are in data/roms/cartridge just as they were by default when the emulator was installed. I didn't change anything there.

Strange, mine is a standard install as well, no cartridge folder though.

Trying moving them up a directory.

[Zombeaver]

You're missing the "no space before rom" checkbox in the emulator entry.

[DaveC1964]

41 minutes ago, Zombeaver said:

You're missing the "no space before rom" checkbox in the emulator entry.

Duh!  Thanks, yes I missed that.  It seems to work now.

[Headrush69]

17 hours ago, DaveC1964 said:

Yes they are in data/roms/cartridge just as they were by default when the emulator was installed. I didn't change anything there.

That is the right folder, mine are there as well.

Too many windows open, I was looking where I stored the copies I use with MAME, sorry.

 

A while back I looked for information on the artwork file format as well, but didn't find much. Hence why I was using MAME as well. In the end, I just used ParaJVE as is. 

[ARoth]

(ParaJVE)

I can't seem to follow your instructions.  I have created the emulator part with no problem.  The ROMs section is where I don't understand.  I have the rom files and I downloaded the GameIDs.zip  -  How to I proceed from here?  Do I use Tools->Import->Rom Files as usual?  and what do I do with the GameIDs.zip files?

A little confused.  Thanks in advance for help.

ARoth

Edited November 9, 2019 by ARoth

[Zombeaver]

All you have to do is setup the emulator like I have in the opening post:

And then import the Game IDs like you would any other rom:

Make sure you check the "use folder names" box in the importer like I show in the video.

The games themselves are already included with ParaJVE. The only thing the Game IDs are doing is telling ParaJVE which one of them you want it to launch.

[nearvanaman]

Funny this thread got resurrected as I've been having a "controller" issue. It's not a Launchbox issue but just want to run it by the brains-that-be to see if anyone would have an idea. 

My Xbox controller works fine on my desktop.

When I run ParaJVE, it does not recognize that there is a controller plugged in.  

However, if I copy the ParaJVE folder to my laptop and plug the same controller in, it recognizes it fine. On both computers the Xbox controller is showing up in the device manager, operates 100%. 

It's just weird. Posting here to see if anyone has seen such a thing? I have tried both an older USB and newer Bluetooth Xbox controller as well as a USB Buffalo. 

Gracias.

 

[ARoth]

Got games to work finally!!  Now my Xbox One Elite controller isn't being recognized ether.  Any Ideas anyone,

[nearvanaman]

On 11/10/2019 at 3:51 PM, ARoth said:

Got games to work finally!!  Now my Xbox One Elite controller isn't being recognized ether.  Any Ideas anyone,

Hi.

Did you check the log file in your emulator folder under data\temp? 

On my desktop, I see the below error that I assume is the reason my controller is not being recognized. This error is not in the log of my laptop (where my controller is recognized). 

I have no idea how to resolve though!

Attempting to use default windows plug-in.
java.lang.NullPointerException
    at net.java.games.input.RawMouse$Button.<init>(RawMouse.java:197)
    at net.java.games.input.RawMouseInfo.createControllerFromDevice(RawMouseInfo.java:83)
    at net.java.games.input.RawInputEnvironmentPlugin.createControllersFromDevices(RawInputEnvironmentPlugin.java:160)
    at net.java.games.input.RawInputEnvironmentPlugin.enumControllers(RawInputEnvironmentPlugin.java:176)
    at net.java.games.input.RawInputEnvironmentPlugin.<init>(RawInputEnvironmentPlugin.java:123)
    at net.java.games.input.DirectAndRawInputEnvironmentPlugin.<init>(DirectAndRawInputEnvironmentPlugin.java:46)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(Unknown Source)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.Class.newInstance(Unknown Source)
    at net.java.games.input.DefaultControllerEnvironment.getControllers(DefaultControllerEnvironment.java:157)
    at frc.input.JInputManager.getControllers(JInputManager.java)
    at frc.input.JInputManager.gatherValidControllers(JInputManager.java)
    at frc.input.JInputManager.<init>(JInputManager.java)
    at frc.input.JInputManager.getDefaultManager(JInputManager.java)
    at frc.emul.vectrex.swing.menu.UIGamePortMenu.populateControllersMenu(UIGamePortMenu.java)
    at frc.emul.vectrex.swing.menu.UIGamePortMenu.populateMainMenu(UIGamePortMenu.java)
    at frc.emul.vectrex.swing.menu.UIGamePortMenu.getMenu(UIGamePortMenu.java)
    at frc.emul.vectrex.swing.menu.UIMenu.getControlsMenu(UIMenu.java)
    at frc.emul.vectrex.swing.menu.UIMenu.getMenuBar(UIMenu.java)
    at frc.emul.vectrex.swing.UI.<init>(UI.java)
    at frc.emul.vectrex.ui.opengl.Display.buildUI(Display.java)
    at frc.emul.vectrex.ui.opengl.Display.<init>(Display.java)
    at frc.emul.standalone.VectrexEmulator.createEngine(VectrexEmulator.java)
    at frc.emul.standalone.VectrexEmulator.run(VectrexEmulator.java)
    at frc.emul.standalone.VectrexEmulator.run(VectrexEmulator.java)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at ParaJVE.mainImpl(ParaJVE.java)
    at ParaJVE.main(ParaJVE.java)
- Creating UI window
 

[nearvanaman]

@ARoth, well I solved the problem for myself. Not sure if this is going to be your issue too. I switched out my Corsair keyboard and mouse for a Logitech (wireless) keyboard and mouse. Lo and behold, it's all working. 

I got the hint from this thread: https://github.com/jinput/jinput/issues/14 

Might just be an incompatibility with that particular product or type of product. 

** So what I ended up doing is unplugging the mouse and using the keyboard to launch ParaJVE and select the options - the controller still works. Whatever weird stuff that's happening is due to my mouse. 

Edited November 16, 2019 by nearvanaman
New information!