T-Jay

Blimey, I've used Game-Ex on and off for seven of the eight....!

Ah, your first always staands out! My is Baker (Tom), he's my first! then Troughton/Tennant only because if the series were given to lesser actors the show would have died TWICE! Ok... back on track regarding a Whovian theme- My first thought would be the background being the 'vortex' the use of the Seal of Rassilon, as I was thinking of the theme name to be 'The Theme of Rassilon' and use TARDIS and iconic enemies of the Doctor, as sad as I am I also have the SFX of Doctor Who - the temptaion of Game-Ex opening up with the TARDIS landing (brakes on obviously) is too much! Even sadder - I also have the list of fonts used by Dr who since 1963, I need to get out more. In regard to image/theme editing were is the best place to look for PSD effects?

As you said in the 'Cabinets running GameEx' topic - Yup, Damn you!!!!!!!!! The great thing is with psd's, the arcade art library (spritesheets included!) and Google is you can add/change stuff! Now...where do I stick 'snonicd' for others to see? (CLEAN ANSWERS ONLY! ) On a side note, a doctor who theme for Game Ex? Ooh... (wheres my doctor who photos?) is this allowed? <OFF TOPIC> Well, if we are going by Rory, Amy and their 'child' River Song they already have made the 'Light-Year High Club'! (in a bunk bed, a bed with a ladder - almost as cool as bow ties)

I 're-imaged' adultery's mega mame theme, as I thought 'what-the-hell' and as his was mario based, I went for a certain hedgehog based theme. (my first 'full' theme) I call is 'Sonicd'. What I found brillaint with Draco & Adultery is that with thier PSD's, you can re-use layer effects for your own themes. Also by using the 'bounders' layer made the theme look more polished.

The MCEfix.exe has to run on every startup so that win7 doesn't break mce studio. Also that is actually the last update until the website fell into the ether. It ain't the best, as mce keeps breaking the software (mcefix EVERY time you move something just to be sure!!!) It seems that the guy who came up with it has taken down his site/ran out of bandwidth/got bored/add another comment and the code with him, and has left a lot of people in the lurch with it. (no-one knows where he is When it comes down to software creation and keeping up with the community some guys have got it....and errmmmm some guys do not Did you create the apps\2.0 folders before putting in the unzipped folder (named $%^^^&^^8whateverthesymbolswehre) into \users\USERNAME\appdata\apps\2.0? I had to create those, run the fixmce.exe tomake sure, and it worked. That was on the second go though...

I found this workaround here: - http://www.hack7mc.com/2011/11/media-center-studio-installation.html as if you are like me, once you have a working setup you don't tend to need to update/use it until you actually need to download it again! I have posted a topic here - http://www.gameex.info/forums/index.php?showtopic=10687 so to keep this topic on-topic

As some of you may/maynot be aware, media center studio (a proggy for themeing your mce7) hasn't been updated for a while. I have found news of a workaround, the details can be found here: http://www.hack7mc.com/2011/11/media-center-studio-installation.html and here http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1366982 I have tried it myself and it does still work (Yay!) At least this is workaround until some-one might take over as dev.

I suppose its because I was an early adopter of MCE (xpmce2005!!!) and have seen this excellent piece of software go from strength to strength - it fitted a need then, but it's only since my cab I have been a more active member on the forum tho! Probably why I have said what I said

In regard to this feature/enhancement request, I know that there are some users who use 'mediabrowser' for thier video/dvd collections and as this new view is like the 'pearl theme' in Media Browser I can see themes being ported from mediabrowser to game-ex and vice-versa. With Game-Ex being more game focused, media brrowser video/dvd focused, and with media center studio dropped in the mix I can see in the future a 'more integrated' solution with HTPC's - something at the moment is missing which is no-one's fault by the way!! Also - the next generation of retro gamers are going to be more console based then I also see that this should bring in new users for Game-Ex especially since they would have no interest in cabinet building (unilke us old farts over 30!). I can see the reasoning behind the new GUI, and if my console games were still on my htpc, then I too would be creating a theme for the new interface. Finally - as Microsoft are going down the Windows Embedded route, I can see standalone HTPC's with modded MCE GUI/Game-EX GUI/Mediabrowser GUI all done for the end user in the future, we have already seen this happen in our own niche market with ready built cabs with embedded Frontends. With these feature enhancements it will be a positive step towards more creativity from us users which can only be a good thing Basically - I could have just said 'Adultery, I agree!!' which would have been a tad shorter

Just an opinion here... If I was running Game Ex on my htpc I would look at the default view, on a cab I wouldn't. But then it could be that we have got used to the original UI. The thumbnail views are good for favourites/photos, I know this may be in the wrong place, but could there be a setting on which views you would like enabled/disabled in the setup wizard? That would be kinda cool.

Cheers Tom! - <sneaks to emumovies....>

Draco - You been reading the back of my cabinet haven't you... I got a sticker on the back of it saying - 'Rick Astley is never gonna...' in big letters, you know the rest LOL (methinks I need to move my cabinet back so I don't get Draco peering behind it...)

I have 8 DWJukebox setups on my cab, all different genres, pop are in both singles and album mode, again friends say, 'why do you wanna do that' then promptly go onto pop singles mode and play Chirpy chirpy cheap cheap! Methinks there is a bit of jealosy going on whith all our friends 'Once you run out of money you'll turn to skinning, then you'll resort to tweaking... It's a vicious cycle my friend' Tell me about it - in between buying and waitng for parts I have done that already, it's the same with an HTPC!! I think the only computer in my flat that hasn't been tweaked to death is the bedroom desktop, probably coz it runs boring sh*t like outlook and Word!

I am now wondering whether this is a forum for game-ex or a support group for people with arcade cabinet addiction!!! Maybe Tom should stick a warning on the homepage of this site saying 'Building cabs seriously damages your wallet!' needlenuff, I know what you mean regarding changing stuff, is it part of the building process that one must change thier mind at least 6 times before it is 'completed' - I know that mine is finished, but you can almost bet your ass that something else will be added/changed in oh....a weeks time What I am thinking of doing is build a controller with a 4 way joystick and trackball with a fire button and player button which would connect by the usb at the back, also on the controller list is a light gun. Going back to the build, the software side along with Game Ex, I use Headkaze's Mame Compiler (no nag screens YAY!) Tom's Instant sheller (XP is the best operating system to use on a cab, small footprint, easy to shell) and the custom menu editor. For DWJukebox - I connected it to my Hi-fi, which is a 1980's stacked unit comlete with recrod player and tape deck, with one of those new fangled cd players. (they won't catch on as we cannot copy our record collection onto them - damn! I am showing my age ) So yeah...more cool stuff to do on it, along with the next cab to build

OK, here goes - Parts I had sitting around at home: 19" LCD Moniter, keyboard and mouse a 2TB HDD, and a technet account! The Bartop was a flatpack from Tiny Arcadeswhich was £149 The buttons and joysticks was a bundle from Ultracabs which were £19.99, the ball-tops were £7 for the two. The Arcade stickers were from Arcade Stickers which came to £15.09. Black Sticky back plastic from Homebase which was £7.49. The motherboard was an Asus Mini ITX Bundle which included 2GB of RAM, 120GB HDD, 1 Slim DVDRW (unused)the itx board has an Intel Atom D410 Processor whiohwas £60. The backpanel was all bought from ebay, which cost no more than a tenner. The back has an ethernet socket, a power switch (PC boots straight on!)and a USB socket, the ethernet/usb I felt was a neccesity, as I can network drives so I can update roms/music etc. The usb for maintenance and other controllers. I also installed on the back PSX to USB controller sockets for console games.(Sat on the back, glued in means that the front still looks like a cab, without PSX controller sockets intruding) Marquee light were cold cathode tubes (ebay as well) for £6. The Marquee was printed by Jessops on poster paper for £8, while the control panel overlay and moniter bezel came from Game on Grafix. (£90 including shipping. Oh, and lastly the minipac (£49ish) It runs Game Ex obviously, I have been using this software since 2007 on my HTPC, and for the jukebox I use DWJukebox, which I have skinned and set up for different genres. It is using Adultery's Megamame 2.2 which compliments the cab really well. The marquee/bezel I 'designed' in Adobe Illistrator. The grand total of the cab was (gets calcalator out) £575.45! Ok,it was £75 over budget but what the heck! It has took me 3 months to build, with all my friends saying, 'your spending too much on ya cab' before they go off and play pac-man...hmmm I think what has made it for me was the 7 years of loitering around the internet before plungingt in, as I was able to see some great looking cabs and err...some not so great looking cabs. I went down the flatpack route as I am utterly crap at woodwork, but thinking about my next cab, it's probably going to be a jamma conversion (from a generic cab) full sized upright. So I guess the tip/trick is don't build a cab because all it's going to do is set you on a downward slant to making more cabs! But it's been great fun and challenging - not only that, but when you have finished certain parts of it...you can play games