CharlesLam

well this is a bit interesting. i was able to get a dual core AM2+ system with nvidia integrated graphics. technically this system is supposed to be inferior to this atom board and cpu...but gameex works just fine. intel atom processors or their integrated gpus must REALLY be horrible with gameex. not going to lie i am really surprised.

I definitely have the passion for many things, but finances make me weigh in alot of what i can and cant do. unfortunately i dont have the tools necessary for the woodworking to start scratch. ever since i got this behemoth of an upright arcade cab i have always wanted to do a cocktail cabinet with glass and use it as a living room table. Thanks for the compliment stigzler. as of late my motivation has been running on Empty. every bit helps

i've been more of a HTPC enthusiast than i have been an arcade builder. i've found that the HD graphics just dont cut it yet for me with all the HTPC software floating about needing blending. i have a amd 5770 jaguar out of an HP, and works very well. borderlands 2 plays fairly well and most of my content is displayed well.

i was more focused on getting the intel 330 atom to work. but i loaded it up, configured it even to a ridiculously low resolution. i hadnt even tested the emulators yet. i was browsing through the menus and the intel atom was just painful. tap down, wait a full second, eventually it would go. im guessing atom processors just arent up to snuff. the s939 i thought about it, but if its running this slow on a 1.6ghz with hyperthreading, i wonder if it would be even worse with just a dual core amd. even with the 200mhz jump in clock speed. figured someone would know of a no-brainer that i forgot to check off for older hardware in the configuration wizard or something.

Drat, I was hoping to resell the machine. Well Thank you for your input. I just dont remember it being this slow on the s939 opteron. only thing im missing with that setup is a gfx card. but if thats how the new software works, so be it. Part of me wants to experiment with a 2009 version of gameex and see if i can get it to work, the other part of me really wants to see what is improved with the newer version. i love my sister, but im not sure if i want to put her on a Intel SSD or not. I will post up pics later of the setup. im sure you all would love to see it.

i never upgrade the emulators unless i am running into issues. creates more work than it is worth. if you are upgrading just to upgrade, i would advise against it. especially with emulators like MAME where it can change the name of the rom sets. gets so annoying having to rename them. my conclusion is, if you set it up as a standalone box, why upgrade when everything else works? but if you have it in a media-center like configuration, double or triple check to make sure everything works after the upgrade is installed. sometimes having things upgraded is important for security reasons, etc. it all depends on how you use the machine.

Hello all, Typically i have stayed away from this forum. mainly due to time, but i figured i would start a build thread. i do have some questions but im sure i will figure it out. Backstory: way back in my college days i always wanted an arcade cabinet. but never had the funds or necessary tools to buy/build one. A buddy of mine was an avid craigslist free/freecycle guy. He went to a house one day for a futon bed, which had already been picked up. but the lister stated that the "Gamebox" was still available. not knowing what a "Gamebox" was he decided to take a look. It was a repurposed standing arcade cabinet, with X-arcade sticks, 4 channel speakers, and 22" CRT monitor that had been scratched up due to a drunken night of gaming and frustration. He decided to pick it up, sold it to me for $125 because of hauling it around and delivery. I can tell it was a repurposed one as it had the original coin doors, but the coin mechs were removed. it had an old penitum 2 system in it running a custom live linux distro with games on the disk. as you can imagine this thing was slow. could not even play TMNT turtles in time. The wiring was rather simple. it had a junction box and a switch on top that would turn off and on the whole thing, marquee and all. for a linux live distro this worked fine. but going with a more traditional setup would be trickier. I replaced the motherboard with a amd 64 s754 system and thats when i found out about gameex. i used the free version from that time till i broke down and purchased the lifetime license. replaced the monitor with ironically an identical monitor (who has spare 22" crt monitors? my professor at college did and wanted to get rid of it. what luck right?) Put a hard drive on there and a cage. i really didnt want to add a smart strip for simplicity sake so i was turning off the system cold. this worked for about 6 months. HDD's dont like being shut off like that. Replaced system again with a spare amd 64 s939 system, replaced HDD and away i went again. figured i might have had a bad hdd to begin with as i was just throwing in spare parts i would get over the years. this lasted about 8 months. still same cold booting and shutdown. eventually the system had enough and the brand spanking new 320gb IDE drive bit the dust. at this point i was pretty sure that cold power on/offs was the problem. I then decided it was time to move out of my dad's place and the thing sat for 2 years non-functioning. I have since then got an intel atom 330 integrated board. and novagem CDR buttons to fill the coin doors to turn on and off the system. The problems i am running into now is the intel atom bored is dog slow. it almost feels slower than the s754 setup! i went through and changed configuration items to show gameex in a lower resolution, and it helps. but it is still unacceptable. as i dont have the room for this anymore, i gave it (when it was functioning) to my sister as a wedding present. well, she moved some stuff around and she wants it now. i do have a core i3 2120t setup and i still have the s939 dual core opteron@1.8ghz. in terms of performance with the newer features gameex has, what should be my build direction in terms of pc hardware? will the i3 2120t HD graphics be enough for your common mame emulation? I'd prefer not to use the i3 setup, and antivirus is not needed as they dont have internet where they live. Sidenote, im still getting the nagscreen to register. even after i put the reg file from years back in the gameex directory. Mods:redirect thread as needed, was unsure where to put it.