A follow-up to "Gamepad not working when ZSNES loses fo

[Knossus]

Hi there!

Ill keep this short, I have been using ZSNES for some time now with a XBOX 360 USB controller with great success. I have a flat-screen TV connected to my PC and can put ZSNES on the TV in full-screen with no problems. The games are great and the picture is super crisp thanks to the "Hi-quality" filter.

The only thing that bothers me is that I cannot use my PC normally while ZSNES is running, because as soon as ZSNES loses focus, the controller stops working. Thankfully, the user FenixThe3rd posted this post with a fix for the problem, which involves changing one line in the source and compiling.

I have a little experience with compilers, however, I run into problems when I compile. I do have Visual C++ 9 Express Edition, but I read on the forum that it should be easier to compile with MinGW, so I got the CVS source from SourceForge.net and followed the instructions in "install.txt".

I downloaded GNU make, MASM, MinGW, Win32API for MinGW, zlib and libpng. When I run the command "make -f makefile.ms PLATFORM=win32" I get the following error:

E:\zsnes\src>make -f makefile.ms PLATFORM=win32
g++ -O3 -s -o parsegen.exe parsegen.cpp
process_begin: CreateProcess((null), g++ -O3 -s -o parsegen.exe parsegen.cpp, ..
.) failed.
make (e=2): The system cannot find the file specified.
make: *** [parsegen.exe] Error 2

I have put the MinGW bin dir in PATH as well as unxutils bin dir ('C:\MinGW\bin' and 'E:\unxutils\usr\local\wbin')

I even downloaded the source from http://www.ipherswipsite.com/ which has a few more details on compiling, such as getting additional DirectX 8+ libraries, but I get the exact same error.

Please, ZSNES community, show me a little guidance! Thanks so much for a great SNES emulator!

My system info: Windows XP SP2

[Deathlike2]

The only thing that bothers me is that I cannot use my PC normally while ZSNES is running, because as soon as ZSNES loses focus, the controller stops working. Thankfully, the user FenixThe3rd posted this post with a fix for the problem, which involves changing one line in the source and compiling.

I have a little experience with compilers, however, I run into problems when I compile. I do have Visual C++ 9 Express Edition, but I read on the forum that it should be easier to compile with MinGW, so I got the CVS source from SourceForge.net and followed the instructions in "install.txt".

1) Don't use CVS. Whatever's there is sorely outdated so you should want to use the source code from 1.50 or 1.51 directly.

2) If you can find Zget, you should be able to compile the stuff (ignore the SVN related stuff, just stuff the source in the appropriate folders (Zget folder/zsnes/src) and you should be fine.

[Knossus]

Thanks for a swift response.

I got zget from the last page on the zget thread, but it says my MinGW is invalid and tries to download the file http://nsrt.edgeemu.com/zmingw4.7z but the site is down. Can u supply a mirror?

[Deathlike2]

No, I don't. I'll see if Nach can provide one.

[Jonas Quinn]

The file is here: http://zsnes.sourceforge.net/zmingw4.7z

[Knossus]

Thank you, it works!

I changed the lines mentioned by FenixThe3rd, compiled with zget. Now I can use my XBOX controller with ZSNES on my TV while still using the computer normally.

I'm posting instructions on how I did it so others can benefit!

1. Download ZGET from http://koti.welho.com/ahesso/Data/zget.zip. Extract it to some folder on your HDD. (I used "C:\zget\" )

2. Download the file zmingw4.7z by right clicking here and select "Save Target As". Put it in the same folder that you extracted ZGET (In my example "C:\zget\" ).

3. Create a folder called zsnes in your ZGET folder. In my example, I would create the folder "C:\zget\zsnes\".

4. Download the ZSNES source code by going to http://www.ZSNES.com -> Files -> Click "Source" at the top (Version 1.51), or by clicking here. The file contains two folders, 'scr' and 'docs'. Extract these two folders to the zsnes folder you just created. In my example, I extracted the folders 'src' and 'docs' to "C:\zget\zsnes\".

5. Modify the source files as described here.

6. Double click on zget.exe (In the ZGET folder, in my example it is C:\zget\zget.exe )

It will ask you this: Would you like to search your system for ZSNES MinGW? (y/N):" Just press N.

Next question: "Please enter path to extract/install ZSNES MinGW to." I typed in C:\ By doing this, MinGW will be extracted to C:\MinGW .

Next question: "Would you like to be able to make DOS builds of ZSNES? (y/N):" Just press N.

Next question: "Download/Update ZSNES documentation? (y/N):" We already have the docs, so just press N.

Next question: "Create/Update changelog.txt? (y/N):" There is no need, so just press N.

Next question: "Compile for you? (y/N):" Ofcourse! Press Y.

Next question: "Clean out object files from previous ZSNES builds first? (y/N):" There should be no need the first time, just press N.

Next question: "Use release grade optimization? (y/N):" There should be no need, just press N.

Next question: "Optimize ZSNES build for your CPU's architecture? (y/N):" Press Y.

It will now compile, on my 3Ghz P4 it took 50 secs.

Next question: "Compress ZSNESW.EXE with UPX? (y/N):" Press Y.

You have now compiled ZSNES, you can find the file in the 'src' directory. In my case, it's in "C:\zget\zsnes\src". Just copy the file to your original ZSNES directory, overwriting the original ZSNES.EXE.

That should be all.

[Deathlike2]

It may get added.. but certainly not the way it was implemented.