galaxypenguin

lol...

Danke!

Is there a rule of thumb for opening marquees? I have a Spiderman cab with a nice marquee that I dont want to wreck, but I want to get behind it to put in a 24" flourescent that I can plug into a power strip. I dont know if I should be coming at it from inside the cab or if I need to pry off the plastic edging and pull it from the front. Anyone done this before?

Slightly off topic for GameEx but you're the right group to ask soooo... I have a Spiderman: The Arcade Game cab that I bought off Craig's List that I converted to a MAME machine. It came with operational everything, including the coin door. I havent tried hooking up the coin door yet, but I would like to. I noticed a couple Aladin's Castle tokens inside the cab so I assume the coin slots are calibrated for these tokens, not quarters. Anyone have much experience with coin doors that can provide some insight? I would like to switch it to quarters and make use of it. Also, my coin slots can be illuminated. Any tips on how to power these up from a power strip? I am using a laptop for the internal rig so tapping into an ATX power supply is out. Same thing for the marquee bulb - can I light this too? Any help appreciated!

I'd like to start a thread about the things you're doing with your cabinet that makes it easy for all to use. I could call it how is your cab child-proof but the reality is probably how have you made it usable by drunken party'ers? For instance, how do you power on the cabinet? Have you installed an external power button or does your rig come on when it detects power to the power strip? How is your control panel set up, do you have an exit/back button programmed in? Etc etc etc... Nerdy technical descriptions welcome.

What is the best way to back up the GameEx configs? Simple copy and past to another location? What files? I've spent too much time tweaking to let it go to waste if a drive fails. Also, Thanks and good work to Tom. This is a great product, very polished and very much worth a donation.

Pic1 Pic2 Pic3 Cabinet conversion from a Spiderman: The Arcade Game. Bought on CL for 50 bucks. Core is a Compaq laptop. Games: Mame32 Daphne UrQuan Masters (look it up if you dont know - its worth your time) GTAII Super Mario War. Probably a must have for a cabinet. Extras: Karafun Karaoke Webcam - snapshots and video (not shown). Wecam records 20 seconds of video upon launch of Mame. Screen saver set to cycle though the videos. Also custom plugin to leave a video message that also gets cycled. Coming soon: Scorched Earth - have to figure out how to do this without a mouse. Full sound system redesign w/ receiver & Bose speakers. Built in Ipod dock & Itunes launcher in GameEx. Wish there was a way to have GameEx read and play from an Ipod or somehow use command line control of Itunes.

Tying up loose ends - - eventually what I ended up doing was writing a small VBS script that made my file changes and then started and stopped the service. I had too much trouble using a 'start' before the commands I was using in the batch file - each start seemed to seperate the processes so a wait (ping nul) in a batch file waited in its own process, etc. In the end VBS was able to do everything without seperating the processes as well as running nicely behind mame. So now, when someone walks up to the arcade and launches mame it will record them for 20 seconds. The process keeps a finite amount of these recordings in the video folder. The GameEx screen saver is set to only play videos - and plays through these captures. I also went the extra step in created a 'video message' in other apps so you can walk up, grab the mic and leave a message that will get cycled as well. Pretty funny actually...

Are there any extra steps to getting videos working properly on an XP machine? I have captured mpg videos (captured with VLC) that show up and play only a pink screen. I presume GameEx isnt decoding the stream properly. Do I need to install ffdshow or update it if it is installed? Is there another recommended format to record in (AVI, etc)? Thanks again in advance for any advice...

Well while we're talking about it - I am doing some more complex stuff than just executing a program. I have a section that takes, for example, file file1.mgp moves to file2.mpg, file2 -> file3, etc. Its a loop Im running with an If command in the batch. After it cycles down to 0 it then starts the recording service. If I need to do a "START" in the batch that could get funky. I was thinking of writing another batch file to call the first. Batch one = dostuff.bat, for example. Then batch2.bat contains "start batch1.bat". Could that work??? Im sure I can make it work with a start in the original before each thing, but honestly this would be simpler. -GP PS - Not vista, XP, but thanks for the tip. Others who stumble on this thread may need that.

wow - that simple hey - awesome. Will give it a try as soon as I can. Thanks a ton for the fast reply.

Hello I may be using this option wrong, but in the advanced setup for Mame there is a box to put in a program to run before mame runs. I am trying to put a batch file in this option. I have specified the batch file with a full path. While trying to get this to work, I simply created a batch file with "ECHO Hello World" in it. Putting this or any other batch prevents Mame from running properly. When I select a game from within GameEx the screen turns black and then returns to GameEx. I have checked the GameEx log and it doesnt appear to be logging any errors. Am I not properly uderstanding what this option is for or is there some precusive command syntax that I must use in this box? What I am trying to do is setup a batch that starts an ntservice when mame opens. The batch waits for X time and then stops the service. The service is an installed VLC service that records 10 seconds of video from my webcam. I wanted to set up the GameEx screen saver to then display these snips of video when the cab is idle. Any help would be greatly appreciated... Edit: Oh - almost forgot. Do you know if this program runs with mame or does the mame launcher run after this other program completes? Ideally I would like it to run side by side with mame to capture the first few moments of game play. One more thing - this works fine if I put it in the execute AFTER mame exits. But - if I leave it there, I will end up with videos of people's butts as they turn away from the cabinet. -Galaxypenguin