Tempest

I feel like elaborating... It hasn't been a total waste of time, I did figure out how to get my Avatar to display (I didn't even know what an Avatar was!) I have a pretty good idea on how to use Clrmamepro now (I was using Romcenter before) I kind of have a rough idea of how to use the torrents now. I also didn't know what a torrent was, I had heard of them, bit didn't understand what they could do. If I had known, I wouldn't have gotten shitlisted for downloading an entire torrent when all I needed was 400 files. I joined at 0%. (there's more to it than that ) I've repaid my debt, and all is well.... I spent two days messing with my config only to finally to find out that I had indeed discovered a bug! (I don't mind taking one for the team ) I did help Nologic with some map files. I am currently trying to do some Docs for Headkaze. ( I really am into re-paying my debts, so HK can really thank all of you guys who helped me with my stupidity, and feel free to give yourselves a pat on the back!) OK, that's enough, I was just trying to remind myself that the 7 weeks wasn't a total loss!

You are absolutely right! Don't even think of doing this inside your house (not even the basement) like I've seen pictures of. And wear a dust mask. This is by far the dustiest material I have ever worked with. You think that's hard to belive? I'll tell you what's hard to believe. I have been trying to set up emulators on my cabinet since Christmas. I already had Mame done. So in 7 weeks I have managed to get Zinc, Nebula, Raine, and Daphne running. That's probably a day or two for you software wizards (you know who you are!) List of failures? Model2, SSF, AND Epsxe. I have them all running, but too slow for my computer. I did get the atari 2600, 5200, 7800, and jaguar going, but the only games that look remotely interesting are the Jaguar games. So I consider these failures as well. I also start working on PCSX2, and I probably have it pretty close, but I stopped working on it when I read on their site that the minimum requirement was a 10 GZ processor. So what is that, about 12 days per emulator? Now, that is unbelievable! Ps. No, I'm not offended....

I know that most of the people on this site are perfectionists, but I don't think all of the pieces for a cabinet have to be cut perfectly. If you are building a cabinet without the use of a CNC, even if you have the guy at Home Depot do some of the cutting for you, (how much do they pay that guy anyway?) they are not gong to be exact. Don't get me wrong, the closer the better! The key to having it look nice when you are done?....Caulk. Using very little Premium acrylic latex caulk, run a bead along where the sides meet the front. You may also need to caulk miter joints as well. The biggest mistake most people make is using too much caulk. When you cut the end of the tube on an angle, the hole should be less than 1/8". Also a good tip is to use a $.99 paint brush and water to smooth it out. You may also have good luck with your finger (you can get it wet too if it makes you feel better) It is best NOT to soak it in cider! I prefer caulk because it is flexible, and hopefully won't crack out like spackle will. But if you have screw holes to fill, by all means use spackling. (two coats, and sand). It would be better to prime your cabinet before caulking. I Agree about the side art, unfortunately I don't have any, and my cabinet is boring. I am planning on building a new one when the weather gets better (contemplating a rotating CP), and if I like the design, (I am leaning towards Tempest this time) , I will want side art. I will probably hire one of those guys that stripe cars to do it. As I said before, there are some very good examples of what could be here, on the Gameex forums

Well, you know I'm naive, but I took a look at the Profiles that you have includud, and they look pretty simple. I am hoping to inspire people to have a look, and give it a try. One Profile from each, and they could be done by tonight! I don't know how hard it would be, but when you are done with the new way of setting up the paths in Gameex, maybe the paths in the profiles could be automatically updated as well. Just as a side note, I added this topic because of your response to me about doing the documentation. "So it would be great if people started creating profiles for different games/emulators and posting them to share"

Since I said I would help, here are some tips. When cutting the side panel, clamp both sheets together and cut them at the same time. They may not be perfect, but symmetry is beautiful in and of itself (think of breasts) To cut straight with a circular saw, clamp a straight edge to the Panels. For rounded corners, use a jigsaw, leaving your pencil line showing, and then use a belt sander to finish down to the line. (an alternate for inside corners would be to use a hole saw). I bought a piece of Lexan from home depot for my bezel, put it in place, marked the corners of my monitor, taped off the area of the screen, and spray painted the perimeter black. The only other thing I saw when looking online when researching is that some people seem to think that the T-molding needs to be hot glued. If you buy the right router bit, it works well. I have a Centipede (I know, I can't believe it's not Tempest either ) shaped cabinet, and I was able to run the t-molding all the way around without cutting it. For the outside cotners you have to cut a wedge out of the back, and we drove the inside corners in with a Chisel (not sharp). I realize that I am lucky to have most of the tools, but maybe you can borrow or rent them cheap enough for a weekend. Also, most lumber yards will do some cutting for you. For example, they could rip a sheet for you to the width of your of your cabinet. That would get you started for all of the pieces that are perpendicular to the sides. (front, back,shelves,etc.) I don't have one, but a radial arm saw would probably work best for mitering the panels if needed, but a straight edge and circular saw will do.

I've been looking around while working on the docs, and I could be way off base, I'm sure HK will correct me if I'm mistaken. It looks like all you would have to do is create a profile, and place it in the C:\Program Files\CPWizard\Data\Profiles. Then make a label configuration, and place it in the C:\Program Files\CPWizard\Data\Labels. It looks like HK has set up "Far Cry" as a game in the PC.cfg. I would assume that he would want you to add additional PC Games to that file. Create a layout file, and save it in the Layout folder. If you have CPWizard running, shut it down and restart it. Go to Edit>Options>profile, and enable the new profile and enter the name of the layout you created in the "layout" box. Obviously, for sanity's sake, the Profile,Layout,and Labels files should all have the same Name (different extentions), and the <name>"game name"</name> entry in the profile should also match. As far as I can tell, its that easy. Open the existing profiles, and label files and use them as a template. If you find that any of this is wrong, please let me know, and I will revise this part in the Docs.

I'm just creating a topic to link to in the CPWizard documentation. Unless of course you have a Profile, then what are you waiting for? POST IT!

I think Indy's only 3 or 4 hours away.....

Ann Arbor, Michigan I wish everyone (who's anyone) would put their location in their profile, We may live next door to each other for all we know!

I volunteered to come up with some documentation for the CPWizard. It never occured to me that I would have to know how to use the program to write a guide. So in the interest of me not driving HK crazy, I will be asking for some help along the way. I have learned a few things on my own. Did you know that there is a user at "midgetmadness.com" named cpwizard? First thing I can't figure out is: on the Options>Mame tab, what triggers the display of the "mame layout override"? In the readme, under command line options it says: "Load layout. This is only required to override an existing layout for an Emulator. Layouts are assigned to Emulators in Edit > Options > Mame/Emulators. This is not usually required as you can use the "Layout Override" for showing layouts for specific games." To me then the layout override should point at a directory containing layouts with names the same as the rom name of the game you want to replace, but it doesn't, it points at a single file. Maybe HK could re-write the program to match my docs.

Those look do-able, its a shame you live so far away....or we could make a trade!

Is there an eay way to generate map files from romsets? I read the other thread, and it loks like the answer is no. If there was an easy way, you probably wouldn't have generic map files in the first place.....hmmm....

No disrespect intended towards anybody, but It's funny that the cabinet part is the hard part for you guys, I (like Nologic) am a carpenter too, It only took a day for me to build mine. It definately helps to have the tools! It's this computer crap that sucks! I would be happy to try and answer questions about building a cab if I can.

My original post: "The second problem I had is that when I copied the sound and video plugins over, and renamed them as instructed, Zinc wouldn't recognize them. Since you had mentioned that they were pete's, and (insert other plugin name here), I just downloaded them from the internet. I assume that this is a file extension problem with my computer." I don't really expext a fix for this, more curiousity than anything else. Plus if somebody else runs into this problem hopefully it will help them. When you mentioned the .znc extension, it jogged my memory. I copied the file over, and renamed them with the .dll Extension. For some reason, my computer wouldn't recognize the new extensions - by that I mean that the icons for the dlls that were already in that folder were different than the ones I renamed. Also, in the drop down window for the plugins for Espxe, the new plugins didn't show up. It just seems to me that if is the case, that it could cause me more problems in the future. I am running XP pro.

This will be the first and last time I'll admit to anything....If I didn't think you guys were alright, I wouldn't have stuck around this long! I guess that what you get for keeping me entertained

Headkaze, I have to admit I'm glad you responded. I was a little confused when Nologic responded to my original post. At first I thought that maybe I was missing something, and that you had two usernames. I assumed you used one when you wanted to go off on people, and the other for everything else. Then it occured to me that you might have multiple personalities, which concerned me because you and Nologic seem to go back and forth alot! Now that youv'e responded I feel a little better.....although it doesn't really prove anything I will work on the instructions, and will look forward to everybody's input.

Now you know I get confused easy, but if this is the case, couldn't you just replace the whole file instead of the contents? I had a couple of problems with my interpretation of the instructons. Right in the beginning, it says that if you are not using xpadder, then this is not for you. So I stopped right there, and asked a bunch more stupid questions before I got pointed right back to where I left off in the instructions. Before I finally got zinc going, I had three copy's on my computer! The second problem I had is that when I copied the sound and video plugins over, and renamed them as instructed, Zinc wouldn't recognize them. Since you had mentioned that they were pete's, and (insert other plugin name here), I just downloaded them from the internet. I assume that this is a file extension problem with my computer. I think you guys do a great job of helping (teaching), its just little individual quirks like this that make it difficult.

Any time you change rom filters (adult,clones, etc) in Gameex, it is a good idea to "update list" If that feature isn't available to you in Gameex, you will have to enable it in the Setup Wizard. Just start the wizard,click on next, and search for "update list" I Can't tell you where to find "update list" in Gameex, because I let Microsoft do an update today, and now Gameex won't run! I hope this helps!

I can't speak for everyone, but I don't understand the question, could you re-phrase it please?

Headkaze, I don't know if I'm the right person for this or not, but I would be willing to try and put together at least a beginners guide for the CPWizard. Lord knows I'm qualified for the beginner part I would only do this with your permission of course... Brian, If HK gives the go ahead, I would like to know what program you are using for those neat little screenshots (Seriously)

Different versions of mame have different rom sets. If you are currently using mame 0.123 then your roms have to be mame roms 0.123. Use a program like Romcenter, or preferably Clrmamepro to check your roms. Or, use the version of mame that matches your roms.

I'm probably just being weird, but the name of this topic sort of freaks me out. Maybe Tom should have skipped over this and went to 9.12 I know nothing is meant by it....just puts me on edge.

If your not going to take the prize....Can I have it?

If you stay with a CRT, and your lightguns work from scanlines, they won't work properly with your monitor rotated. (I just thought I'd warn you) I had mine rotated originally, and it seemed to create issues....but (seriously) it could just be me. Ideally, maybe two cabinets, one for vertical, one for horizontal...Hmm....Anybody have an extra computer laying around I could have?

I don't think there was anything "problems", I believe that hiscore.dat was discontinued because it wasn't "true" to the emulation of the games. In other words, the games were doing things that they didn't do originally. But I myself could be wrong. You should consider using Gameex as a front end, most people around here like it!