bkenobi

You can compile your own version. Go the the MAME Compiler thread in the stickies to get all the info.

It looks pretty good to me. I think once it's installed an you have graphics on it you will see it completely differently. Since it's already put together, I'd just install it so you can at least get an idea of how to improve it for next time. The nice thing about your setup is that the CP can be removed and completely changed without affecting anything else!

One last thing you can try that should definitely work. Turn off the joystick inputs in GameEx completely and use custom keyboard input. That's how I have my system set up and I know for a fact that it should work.

Oh really? I'm using 0.130 roms with MAME 0.130u1...

Now you know if you post this at BYOAC that one of the first comments will be "what's with the dust covers on top of the CP?" Looks nice! Are those ball tops LED?

You don't have to use all of the features provided in CPWizard. I personally have everything except the viewer turned off so it works like the built in GameEx one (except that it's correct for my cab...

Just curious if there's a way to get emulators to load in the same menu as MAME? Ideally I would have a menu for Arcade games and one for Console games. Then in the MAME menu, I would be able to list: all games CPS games NeoGeo games Model2 Games Sony Playstation games Rotary joystick games mature games etc. Right now, I cannot add anything to the standard MAME list (CPS, Model2, etc). This might be a lot of work making it not realistic at the moment. I'll work with what's available since it's already great, but I would eventually like a way to get the menu above working. Thanks again Tom!

I've seen a combination search before, but this one is much better! Are you sure you aren't behind this...TEMPEST?!

Nice

Just go into the Setup Wizard and navigate to the custom joystick input page (can't remember what it's called at the moment). You should be able to figure it out there. If for some reason you can't set it up in the Setup Wizard the way you want, you may need to use the Advanced Configuration tool. Not all options are available in the Setup Wizard intentionally to keep it from being overwhelming to new users. Again, I don't recall where the menu is located, but you will have more options in the Adv. Conf. tool than in the Setup Wizard. Hope that helps. If you want to try manually, you can always go to the c:\program files\gameex\config directory and edit the custominputs.ini file by hand. The setup tool automates this process, but you can certainly do it manually as well (that's how we did it until a few months ago). Anyway, if you need more help, just ask.

Ok, so I didn't screw things up I noticed that when the theme picker is selected that the item information gives the path to the file. I don't necessarily care, but it's info that doesn't improve the experience. No biggie though...

I'm having an issue with one of my sub menus that I can't figure out. Perhaps you could take a look at it for me Tom? I have a "System Utilities" sub menu that contains the theme picker among other things. When I enter that menu, I can't select anything but the theme picker. I press up and down but the selection remains on the theme picker item despite hearing the movement sound. Any ideas? CustomMenu.ini.txt

Nice! I'll see if I can't break that one too...

This is something that can be resolved by using custom joystick inputs in GameEx. Tom redid all of the inputs recently so you can now use a POV switch rather than a D-Pad. I would recommend checking it out.

If your roms are in GoodSets format, then each file will be a zipped archive of all versions of a single game (regions, hacks, revisions, etc.). If you have a No-Intro set, then you will have one file for each region of each game. These will not be zipped together and will contain stuff in the file names to tell you about what it is (U! could indicate a No-Intro based name). BUT, it's definitely possible that your set could be a mishmash of these standards and someone's renamed "standard". Like I said, the best thing to do is run your set through a set checker like clrMAMEpro or RomCenter. The link I provided above for the no-intro web site includes dat files to use if you want to go with a no-intro structure (that's what I use). OR, you could just use a batch renaming tool to strip off all of the parenthesis and such so that the file is just the game's name. This works, but it could have other issues. There's no simple solution...sorry. http://mamedev.emulab.it/clrmamepro/ http://www.romcenter.com/

http://www.no-intro.org/ http://www.allgoodthings.us/ These are the sites that can explain the difference between No-Intro sets and GoodSets. Basically, they are two standards projects with different goals. No-Intro only includes released titles and only the best version for each region. GoodSets include EVERY version of EVERY game (including hacks), so the sets are much larger but might include stuff you would miss with the No-Intro sets. I don't know what set you have (don't post a link, it's against the rules), but if you use one of the dat files for your set, you can convert it into either No-Intro or GoodSets.

needs joysticks

I've just used the tool to correct the mistakes I made in my hand made custom menu file. I have a few comments that probably should be addressed sooner or later: 1) In GameEx with custom menus enabled on V2 theme: When you load up GameEx the selection cannot be seen. If I press up/down, it doesn't show up. I can hear it, but can't see it. If I press right the selection shows up and I can then navigate correctly. High priority 2) In the Custom Menu Editor: If I select add a new item (menu or item) the item goes to the end of the current section. If the selected item is in a sub-menu, it goes to the end of the sub-menu. I would have expected it to go after the current selection. Low priority 3) In the Custom Menu Editor: If you select "Move Up" or "Move Down", the window is automatically scrolled all the way to the bottom. This is only slightly annoying with my setup since I have a relatively short list, but for more complicated setup this could be obnoxious. Medium priority 4) In the Custom Menu Editor: When I load the editor on my cab locally, the window doesn't display correctly. The buttons get clipped on the right and I can't see everything for the stuff below them. This is not a problem logging in remotely (running at a higher resolution). I have a similar problem with other config apps, so I typically adjust settings remotely. Low-Medium priority 5) I didn't see any way to add blank lines currently. Hopefully this can be added at some point. I tried adding an emulator with a blank title and the config tool erased it on the next load. I also tried a blank sub-menu and it was also erased. I think this is an important thing for clarity, but I don't know about other people. Medium priority I know the editor took a lot of work to put together so I don't want to sound too critical...this is intended as helpful/constructive criticism. I know if I put this together, I would still be working on things and lacking most of the functionality! I'll post other things I run across if this is well received (and of course I find anything else ). THANKS!

Your build is already so over the top anyway, it would be silly to save a few dollars now. Besides, it's a new product that sounds awesome!

GameEx uses an exact match for videos and other content. You can turn on the best match feature, but it doesn't do as good a job as I would like. I suggest you rename your roms and/or videos (and other content) to use the same file names. The best bet is to rename your roms to either No-Intro or GoodSets naming convention. There are dat files out there that work with clrMAMEpro and RomCenter. Either one will repair your set and rename it all in one step. If your videos and other content do not use either of these formats, you will probably want to rename those to match your roms. The best way to do this is with a fuzzy match renaming tool. The best one I know of right now is the FatMatch tool that's being developed in this thread: http://www.gameex.info/forums/index.php?showtopic=7020 If you have to rename all of your videos and other content anyway, it's a toss up whether you need to rename the roms to No-Intro/GoodSets convention, but if you don't then the database info won't necessarily match. Hope that gets you started!

I was just looking at the front page over at BYOAC and noticed there's an old school method for making a pinball tilt/bump mechanism for <$10USD. Basically it's a easily available Radio Shack item that detects a shock. I'm not against using the U-HID-G, but this seems like it might work well for what you want and it would be a MUCH easier and cheaper way to get the same effect.

Cool beans! I'm gonna give this a go right now since I got to work from home this morning

Wow Don't think the effort isn't appreciated! I set up a file to test things out and it looks like this should be really sweet! I noticed a couple little quirks, but I'm not sure if that's related to me defining the file incorrectly or an actual problem. I'm going to play a bit more, but so far things look awesome!

I think the log file will indicate what's going on here. We really won't be able to do anything without it. This topic is a couple days old, so perhaps the problem has been resolved?

I've been playing around a bit with the new custom menus and have a couple questions. How do you create a menu item for the special MAME lists (NeoGeo, CPS, Atari, Golden Age, etc)? Also, I see that there is a parameter that needs to be added for each item. MAME, All Games list, News, Search, etc. don't have any parameters, do they? Just curious if there's any hidden features I should search for