Zallax

I never thought about simply pushing them outside of the screen boundaries. Thanks a bunch for that idea. I just found the file custominput.ini that allowed me to turn off the left and right keys so that the top menu can no longer be accessed. Thanks, once again, for the help. I will be able to get this thing to the kids today.

ARCADEGATE AG-1 This is a bar top arcade that I started years ago, but took a long break from building because I was wanting to integrate a Traxsys 38mm trackball into the control panel. I never could design a track ball plate that was good enough to hold it. Also, the design was not as portable as I had hoped. It was heavy and difficult to throw into the back seat of a car. In my frustration, I let it sit. About a year later, my wife asked if I could finish it for her child care. So, I did but this time without the trackball. I am a huge fan of Stargate <Anything> and thought it would be fun to make an arcade build based off of that theme, just arcade sprites versus "chevrons". I found a wonderful 3D model of a Stargate on the internet and went to work replacing the chevrons with 31 arcade sprites as the new symbols on the gate. I rendered the gate from a couple of angles and that made up the majority of the artwork pieces for the cab. For the background of the cab, I downloaded different high resolution space images from NASA, thanks to the Hubble telescope. I blended a few of those pictures together as well as alter the hue slightly to somewhat match the colors I was shooting for. The theme I am using is a modified version Blue Neon LCD. I found a great picture of a Atlantis Stargate room with some HUD type overlays on it. I update the image to include the ArcadeGate I rendered and started moving pieces of the theme around to fit within the HUD locations. Lastly, I hue shift many images of the theme from the blue neon to more of the bluish-green that the ArcadeGate room had. This project took me years to complete, but in actually about 6 weeks worth of total time. The majority of that time was spent on the artwork and configuring the software. Hardware Asrock A330ION Atom processor/motherboard combo 4GB RAM 500GB Hard drive picoPSU-120 power supply Smart Strip 3.5" speakers off E-bay. Mini audio amplifier pcb off E-bay Paradise Arcade IL Pushbuttons Paradise Arcade Sanwa JLW-TM-8 joysticks with Octagonal restrictor. GroovyGameGear 4NovaGemCDR Coin Drop Replacement Pushbuttons Ultimarc i-Pac 4 Software Windows XP 32-bit Home Premium GameEx front end with a new ARCADEGATE AG-1 theme, modified from Blue Neon LCD's theme MAME 0.124 custom compiled for optimization for Atom processor Future Pinball

I am trying to finish up a bartop arcade build, but I am having a few problems with final configuration. The build I am doing is meant for children; so, I do not need many of the wonderful features that GameEx provides. I already created a custom menu to cut out only what is needed but I also need the "menu bar" across the top to go away. How do I hide this? I cannot find a Setting that lets me turn this off. I even tried playing with the theme I borrowed and making it just one pixel high and wide, but it still displays. Also, I want the weather feature to be disabled as well. Is this a setting? Does it have to be disabled in the theme? If the computer is not on the internet, will it go away? Lastly, the cab was sitting awhile before I decided to finish it up. I put its Wifi card back in it update some software. When GameEx upgraded I got the dreaded DirectX bug which I saw in someone else's post. I found the build of GameEx that I built the machine originally with and installed it over the "updated" build. That got my GameEx working again but when I was trying to configure which keys are allowed in GameEx that configuration program died. It could be a possibility that it requires a particular revision of GameEx and I reverted back to too old of a version. Where in the INI file or whatever, is this configured because I would be more than happy to configure manually? Thank you all for your time.

Ok, I turned of support for the Game Controller support, which stopped DirectInput from loaded, which fixed the stuttering problem. I am not sure this is my desire result because I occasionally use the game pads to play. Maybe there is something wrong with the dongle. Thanks for the help.

I turned of DirectInput and no change. But when I disabled DirectInput and I-Pac support the buttons worked but only occasionally. So, now I am getting a response but it is a stuttered response.

However, as I stated I have disabled DirectInput and to no avail. Thanks for the lightning responses by the way.

But why would it work everywhere else, even Notepad?

I did a long overdue upgrade to my arcade machine. However, after joystick upgrades and software upgrades the keyboard no longer works in GameEx. I use an I-Pac for the majority of my joysticks and buttons. The joysticks and buttons work fine in Windows, MAME, and other software, just not GameEx. I have turned DirectInput off and on, no effect. I have turned I-Pac on and off with no effect. I am not sure any of the following information is relevant but I am throwing it out there. I am running the latest version of GameEx. I use a Custom Menu. The only key that seems to work is Esc which does exits GameEx. Hardware changes to my arcade included replacing U360's with ServoStik's. One replaced U360 was hacked and bolted onto the bottom of my Flightstick. So, I am using the U360 plugin. Please help me Tom Speirs -- you're my only hope. log.txt config.txt

This project was inspired by a Sam Seide's mini cocktail project. I always wanted to build one of these but thought you'd be limited to vertical cocktail games. When I found out, through Sam's video, that MAME can do Cocktail mode for horizontals I was ready to start work. This project took me 4 weeks to complete. The majority of that time was spent on the artwork and configuring the software. Hardware Asus EEE PC 1201N Dual 1.6Ghz Atom, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD iHome iHM78 Speakers Ultimarc ServoStiks modded with [urlhttp://groovygamegear.com]GroovyGameGear Versa-Micro User-Adjustable Arcade Switches GroovyGameGear 4NovaGemCDR Coin Drop Replacement Pushbuttons Paradise Arcade IL Pushbuttons with Rollie Leaf Switches. Ultimarc U-HID Traxsys 38mm trackball (for system administration) Software Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium GameEx front end with a Vertical Galaga theme MAME 0.147u4 custom compiled for optimization for Atom processor MESS 0.147 for console emulators Future Pinball HeadKaze CPWizard XBMC

I found a huge array of 3d arcade cabinets online but made in SketchUp. I love Discs of Tron (Environmental) but it is not included in the collection GameEx has on their web site. So, I thought maybe I can convert the SketchUp file I found. I downloaded a Direct-X Exporter plugin and dumped the file. To be more in-line with other 3D cabinets, I converted all the jpg textures to png and renamed them in a similar fashion that I saw in other 3D cabinet dumps. I also made sure I properly updated the renamed images within the .x file. I opened up my GameEx and, unfortunately, the cabinet did not display and the video took a long time to show as well. I wondered if the polygon count might be the reason. So, I compared the dotron.x versus the dotrone.x I had converted and updated. The dotron.x file has 662 polygons while dotrone has a massive 20,552 polygons. Is the file just too massive to load?

There is a utility called ReadyDriver Plus that boots your Vista so that unsigned drivers can be allowed. It does it by sending keystrokes to the boot menu of Vista where such an option exists. This should get you by, however, at a cost of lessened security. SetupReadyDriverPlus.zip

Tried it. Didn't work. Of all the weird things, I had to reinstall my video driver.

I accidentally exited my GameEx the other day on my cab and when I tried to go back into it, I got a black screen just after the GameEx logo screen. Controls seem non-responsive as I do no hear the beeps moving from selection to selection. First, I thought it was due to my music database and just let the cab sit for an hour to make sure. When I came back I saw Attract Mode kicked on and showing various games. When I pushed a button, Attract Mode went away and I was staring at a black screen again. I thought possibly something might be wrong in my version, 10.06, and manually upgraded to 10.12. This did not solve the problem. I backed up my GameEx.ini and copied gameex.default.ini to GameEx.ini just in case something may be wrong in a configuration. This too did not solve the problem. I don't know what else to try. Can someone please help? Here is my log to assist with debugging. 10:16:06.8 6/10/2009: GameEx: Version 10.12: Starting Log 10:16:06.8 6/10/2009: Operating System Platform: Win32NT 10:16:06.8 6/10/2009: Operating System Name: Windows XP 10:16:06.8 6/10/2009: Operating System Version: 5.1.2600 10:16:06.8 6/10/2009: Checking for versions of .net Framework installed 10:16:06.8 6/10/2009: .net Framework 2.0 Installed 10:16:06.8 6/10/2009: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.20GHz, 1023MB 10:16:06.8 6/10/2009: 3.2Ghz - 2 Cores or CPU's 10:16:06.8 6/10/2009: Running Randomize() 10:16:06.8 6/10/2009: Loading PlugIns 10:16:06.8 6/10/2009: Checking for applications to Launch On Startup 10:16:06.8 6/10/2009: Running Misc startup tasks 10:16:06.8 6/10/2009: Setting Menu types 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: Opening Configuration File 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: Getting Configuration Values 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: Using Theme: Default - Media Center 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: Checking for alternate Image Directory for Theme: Default - Media Center 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: Using Images from theme: Default - Media Center V1\MEDIA\ 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: Launching HideOS.exe 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: Initialising Video/MNG DLL's 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: GameEx will check for media insertion (may affect performance) 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: Hiding Taskbar 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: Is Media Center running? 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: Checking/Creating LCD Registry values 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: Check Media Center Exit/Start Mode 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: Media Center Mode 2 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: Video previews on. Warning: Only recommended on modern systems 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: Snap Delay set to: 2 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: Get other settings 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: Desktop set to Hide ICONS and set Background to Black 10:16:06.9 6/10/2009: Set: Find emulator artwork on best match basis 10:16:07.0 6/10/2009: Start work for Form 10:16:07.0 6/10/2009: Getting Original Screen Size 10:16:07.0 6/10/2009: Opening Database Connection 10:16:07.0 6/10/2009: Initializing Component 10:16:07.1 6/10/2009: Retrieving resolution setting 10:16:07.1 6/10/2009: Initialising Windows Media Player Component 10:16:07.1 6/10/2009: MAME Path is: C:\Emulators\Mame32 10:16:07.1 6/10/2009: Cannot Find MAME Path: MAME Disabled 10:16:07.1 6/10/2009: Loading Controls.ini map file 10:16:07.2 6/10/2009: Loading Custom Emulators 10:16:07.3 6/10/2009: Using Version 3 Themes Animations 10:16:07.3 6/10/2009: Using General Font: Trebuchet MS 10:16:07.3 6/10/2009: Using Title Font: Trebuchet MS 10:16:07.3 6/10/2009: Initialising DirectDraw 10:16:07.4 6/10/2009: Applying GameEx is Loading Image 10:16:07.4 6/10/2009: Creating DirectDraw Device 10:16:07.4 6/10/2009: Using Device: Ultimarc ArcadeVGA2 10:16:07.4 6/10/2009: 499mb video memory available 10:16:07.4 6/10/2009: Setting Resolution to 1024x768 32 bit color 10:16:07.4 6/10/2009: Creating DirectDraw Surfaces 10:16:07.4 6/10/2009: Creating Primary Surface - Full Screen Mode 10:16:07.5 6/10/2009: Creating Back Buffer 10:16:07.5 6/10/2009: Loading graphic Surfaces 10:16:07.5 6/10/2009: Display is running at: 1024x768 32bit color, 43hz 10:16:07.6 6/10/2009: Creating Surfaces Flags 10:16:07.6 6/10/2009: Creating Surfaces Misc and Dialogs 10:16:07.6 6/10/2009: Creating Surfaces Volume 10:16:07.6 6/10/2009: Creating Surfaces Arrows 10:16:07.6 6/10/2009: Creating Surfaces GameEXlogo Text 10:16:07.6 6/10/2009: Creating Surfaces Toolbar 10:16:07.6 6/10/2009: Creating Surfaces Backgrounds 10:16:10.0 6/10/2009: Creating Surfaces Toolbar Controls 10:16:10.0 6/10/2009: Creating Surfaces GameEx Logo 10:16:10.0 6/10/2009: Creating Surface Unselected 10:16:10.0 6/10/2009: Creating Surfaces Home & Exit 10:16:10.0 6/10/2009: Creating Surfaces Snaps 10:16:10.0 6/10/2009: Creating Surfaces Menu and List Bars 10:16:10.1 6/10/2009: Creating Fonts 10:16:10.1 6/10/2009: Creating Game Font 10:16:10.2 6/10/2009: Creating Game Font Faded 10:16:10.3 6/10/2009: Creating Title Font 10:16:11.5 6/10/2009: Creating Font Black 10:16:11.7 6/10/2009: Creating Font Black Small 10:16:11.9 6/10/2009: Fonts Created Succesfully 10:16:11.9 6/10/2009: 440mb video memory left available 10:16:11.9 6/10/2009: Creating instance of global keyboard hook 10:16:11.9 6/10/2009: Text/Language: English 10:16:11.9 6/10/2009: Applying Language/Text 10:16:11.9 6/10/2009: Initialising Bass Audio Library 10:16:12.1 6/10/2009: MAME CMD options: -nowindow -joy -skip_gameinfo 10:16:12.1 6/10/2009: Loading last used Game List 10:16:12.1 6/10/2009: Setting Music Volume 10:16:12.1 6/10/2009: Creating DirectSound Device 10:16:12.1 6/10/2009: Trying: Primary Sound Driver 10:16:12.2 6/10/2009: Loading Sound Files 10:16:12.2 6/10/2009: DirectSound Device Created Successfully 10:16:12.2 6/10/2009: Initialising DirectInput for Gamepad support 10:16:12.2 6/10/2009: Using Device TigerGame PS/PS2 Game Controller Adapter 10:16:12.2 6/10/2009: Using Device TigerGame PS/PS2 Game Controller Adapter 10:16:12.2 6/10/2009: Using Device Ultimarc Ultra-Stik Player 1 10:16:12.3 6/10/2009: Using Device Ultimarc Ultra-Stik Player 2 10:16:12.3 6/10/2009: Initializing MCE Remote 10:16:12.3 6/10/2009: Playing intro sound file 10:16:12.3 6/10/2009: Initialization OK! Starting GameEx! 10:16:12.3 6/10/2009: Testing Main Loop Once: Processing Frame 10:17:05.7 6/10/2009: Exiting GameEx! 10:17:05.7 6/10/2009: Saving Settings 10:17:07.3 6/10/2009: Disposing Plugins 10:17:07.3 6/10/2009: Closing database connection 10:17:07.4 6/10/2009: Checking for applications to Launch On Exit