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I thought I would attempt to post a step by step (somewhat at least) detail of my cabinet build. Maybe people will see something in this that helps them with their future build. I've learned a bit more since my build and I've changed a few things too. My first step was .... I knew I wanted to build an arcade cabinet.. But how. I turned to a book called "Project Arcade." The book helped me a out great deal and it helped me in avoiding my first mistake. DON'T BUILD A CABINET THAT YOU CANNOT GET THROUGH YOUR DOORWAYS! haha http://www.amazon.com/Project-Arcade-Build-Machine-ExtremeTech/dp/0764556169 Ok, I knew I wanted a 4 player cabinet, because two of my favs were 4 players. TMNT and NBA JAM. I decided the best thing to do would be to build the control panel first and then build the rest of the cabinet around the panel. I made a cardboard design of the top of the panel first. I made the template and used the exact dimensions for each item, joystick, trackball, push button, etc.

UPDATE : Now updated VIDEOS to the 1st test point, Please check out my build a pinball machine and leave a comment and please SHARE. https://youtu.be/32ox8uRJp58 Many Thanks.

...how many times have you had to enter your cabinet activation code (the one that would have been emailed to you)? On my cab, after every reboot or switch-on, I am asked by Pinball FX3 to (re)enter the activation code. Never had this with PBFX2. It'll play all day once entered and I can exit the program and restart it without being prompted for it again but if I reboot the PC, it wants the code again. This can't be the norm, can it?!? Seems kinda ridiculous for 'cabinet mode' where I don't have a keyboard handy...

ExaDrive 2 Case: Apex MI-008 (Mini ITX) MB: ASUS P8H61-I Rev 2.0 CPU: Core i3 2120 @ 3.3GHz RAM: 8GB Dual Channel DDR3-1333MHz GPU: GeForce GT 1030 HDD: WD Blue 2TB 5400RPM/64MB Cache SSD: WD Blue 500GB SATA III Optical: Samsung 48X DVD+RW Slimline 802.3: Realtek Gb NIC 802.11: Rosewill 150-N USB WiFi Bluetooth: Targus BT 4.1 USB PSU: 230W ITX OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (Custom) Interface: GameEX v13.10 Inputs: (2x) Sony Dualshock 3 This is the continuation of a Linux based HTPC system I started last year (ExaDrive) and originally used Kodi and Mah!Cade for interfacing with games and media, even when switching to Windows 7 x64 as the primary OS. Recently I replaced that with GameEX. It emulates 33 systems in addition to running 80 DOS and Windows games currently. Games as recent as Skyrim, Bioshock Infinite, Doom 2016 and Wolfenstein - The New Order are all very playable at 720p on the budget level GeForce card it has. Also, despite the CPU being a budget level model that's over six years old as of this writing no MAME game I've tried runs less than 100% and PSP, PS2, Dreamcast and Saturn emulation is just as good. The OS is extremely ripped down and customized for speed. Using NTLite and dozens of manual tricks and optimizations I was able to patch the OS to current levels then rip its install size down to 6GB. It has no support for printing, international languages, entire classes of hardware the machine will never have, tons of core Windows features/components and many other things a typical PC would need. It also runs BBLean as its shell and has dozens of services disabled. POST to usability takes about 40 seconds. Used RAM on a cold boot is around 700MB. The Dualshock 3s are driven by SCP Toolkit, which presents them as XBox controllers to the OS. Rumble is fully supported, even for DirectInput games by using a passthrough driver for XInput rumble. Most things are controlled by them via a program called AntiMicro, which allows them to send keyboard and mouse inputs to the machine. Arcade, 8bit, 16bit, 32X, GBA and N64 games are 7zipped. ISOs and Nintendo DS games are NTFS compressed and Sega CD + Turbo CD games are in ISO+MP3 and ISO+OGG format, respectively, to further save space. Handling of decompression and running games is handled by a huge batch script I wrote that GameEX points to (It also supports Zip, RAR and NanoZip archives for ROMs). Web browsing and WiFi management are possible using gamepads in spite of the lack of both functions in GameEX via Antimicro and a few AutoIT scripts I wrote. It's kind of clunky, but it works! Emulated Systems PC Games

Hi all, Figured seeing as though I signed up I should do the intro. Built my cab well over 10 years ago - well the shell, control panel, primed in beautiful white MDF primer, all the wiring, buttons, joysticks, PC and 68cm fat back tv and that's how it remained up until recently. Not sure why but decided 10 years was more than enough time for the primer to cure and give it a lick of top coat. So a few weeks ago I stripped it all down, pulled it into the carport, cut about 30cm off the back (originally needed the depth for the tv, but have swapped it for a flat panel), cut some holes for speakers and then painted it. Put it all back together and back into the bar. Next was to give it a nice FE as mameUI64 is only good for trying some games out, not really nice when people come over. Stumbled on GameEx and the limited time I've tried it's been really good. Anyway the cab is a 4-player beast, based around NBA Jam which was a big favourite of mine and does get a bit of playtime on the cab when friends are around. Ultimarc 64 does the buttons and joysticks, connected to a pc sitting in the bottom of the cab. Audio is four 6x9" 3-way speakers powered by Sony Xplod amp (which is turned way down). Still in the process of setting up GameEx to work how I want it - there's a lot of options to play with so going to try some of them out. I do have to sort out the control panel image which get's displayed as I don't have my buttons set up that way. Anyway I've been out of this game for a while, and just easing back in so please go easy on me if I ask a stupid question. Cheers -cdbrown

Sorry guys, i've spent hours sifting through the different topics on this, messing around with mappings and have attempting every solution mentioned. Attaching my configs. Here's my deal: Hitting P on the keyboard during game to pause and hitting P again does resume... no problems. When i use a button on my cab assigned to P, the first time I hit the button it does take me to the pinballx menu giving me the option to stop playing or go back to the game..... However, when i attempt to go back to the game i see the vp "resume, quit, edit script" menu and can do nothing at this point. Also worth mentioning, the button #'s inside the pinballx setup end up showing different than what's assigned in vp keys settings. As an example, if i assign a cabinet button to a key in VP it shows up as Button 8, but when i assign same cabinet button inside PinballX it will appear as Button 7. Any ideas? PinballX.ini

Hi all and seasons greetings! This is my first post and i wanted to share my cabinet and the story of how i came to love GameEx! I've been into MAME and emulation for as long as i can remember, it's always fascinated me and is one of the primary uses for my PC. As a kid i often got overly excited by Arcade games, i remember playing Toki in a pub and was amazed by the graphics. As i've grown up i've always toyed with the idea of owning an Arcade machine, however living in the UK our house sizes are generally pathetic so collecting cabs is not currently an option. About a year ago i started looking into building an arcade cab for myself and quickly found the BYOAC forums which i read religiously for months before starting my project. Initially after seeing a youtube video demonstrating HyperSpin i fell in love. It seemed amazing, all the flash graphics and the wheel system but months on after building my cabinet and adding various emulator systems to it i have soon discovered it's shortfalls. I don't like how the XML system works and relying on tons of AHK scripts and various work arounds for the shortfalls started to get annoying and not to mention that if you had ANY missing art for a particular wheel it just looked terrible. At this time i had become aware of GameEx but had not investigated it. The final thing that convinced me to give it a try was HeadKaze's quick response to some CPWizard issues i was having and i thought, "if his support is this good then i can imagine GameEx is going to be awesome". I am now in love with GameEx, it's so easy to use - no messing about with loads of stupid tools just to get basic things set up. I especially love the "Recommended Game" feature for mame. My cabinet also features a dynamic marquee system which i had to write custom AHK scripts that intercepted commands to LEDBlinky. Now i use gamextender! Job done! Here's my cab on IMGUR, i hope you all like! i'm going to make a predator theme at some point for GameEx just to blend it all in. http://imgur.com/y1lCkjK,LAwY5bE,x7en0E4

Hi Guys, I'm building a minicabinet with a 1080p 23" monitor and a 17lcd as backglass. I've installed the latest Pinballx 1.72 and with Future Pinball it works correctly (excepr for temporal desktop view during loading process..but this is OT for now) Visual Pinball doesn't load at all, and every time you choose a vp table Pinballx start to loading and exit with a not specified error. This is part of the settings in Pinballx: [FuturePinball]Enabled=TrueWorkingPath=C:\Games\Future Pinball\BAMTablePath=C:\Games\Future Pinball\TablesExecutable=FPLoader.exeParameters=/STAYINRAM/open "[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]" /play /exitLaunchBeforeEnabled=falseLaunchBeforeWorkingPath=LaunchBeforeExecutable=LaunchBeforeHideWindow=FalseLaunchBeforeWaitForExit=TrueLaunchAfterEnabled=FalseLaunchAfterWorkingPath=LaunchAfterExecutable=LaunchAfterHideWindow=FalseLaunchAfterWaitForExit=FalseMouseClickFocus=TrueFPRAMPath=C:\Games\Future Pinball\fpRAM [VisualPinball]Enabled=TrueWorkingPath=C:\Games\vp2TablePath=C:\Games\vp2\TablesExecutable=VPinball920.exeParameters=/play -"[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]"LaunchBeforeEnabled=falseLaunchBeforeWorkingPath=LaunchBeforeExecutable=LaunchBeforeHideWindow=FalseLaunchBeforeWaitForExit=TrueLaunchAfterEnabled=FalseLaunchAfterWorkingPath=LaunchAfterExecutable=LaunchAfterHideWindow=FalseLaunchAfterWaitForExit=FalseNVRAMPath=C:\Games\VP\nvram [ExitScreen]Enabled=TrueEnableExit=TrueEnableShutdown=True Where's the mistake?

It has the following goodies: 21.5" LED 2 TB Hard Drive FX 4130 Quad Core CPU 8 GB Ram GTX 650 Ti Video Card Windows 7 64 700 Watt PSU The arcade goodies are the following: Zippyy Arcade Joysticks I-Pac encoder LED Buttons LED-Wiz Control Board Spin-Trak Spinner Dial w/ Blue&Sliver Knob & Energy Cylinder 2X Xbox 360 Wireless controllers Buliding the following machine as we speak should have it ready in a few days (Justice League) Quad Wide Body with a 42" LED

Hey guys this is my Arcade Cab I made about a month ago. Using GameEx for the front end interface. Here is a progress video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amc7OnGl2EU

So I felt that I should show off the Arcade that I have been building for years. All of our cabinets use the GameEx front end software. So here are our 3 machines. The ? Box is called "Game Random" and it contains about 200 of the best, worst, and joke games around. There is only 1 way to select a game and that's through the "Play Random Game" The purple cabinet is called the "King-Kade" This one was built by Scoobie Snack but it lives at my house and is a part of the Artcade. It specializes in 3 and 4 player games, plus those games that utilize light guns. Now the bizzare Domo looking cabnet is "Guitar Fighter" It's set up face to face, and you play fighting games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter on it using Dance Dance Revolution pads for movement, and Guitar Hero guitars for attacks.

Here is a Super Smash Bros themed 2 player bartop I just finished.

EDIT: Tspeirs: Most of the posted images are in the gallery now. Click Gallery link. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Share pictures of your cabinet running GameEx by Replying to this topic. This topic should be for info about your cabinet project only. If you wish to comment on a cabinet, please post a new topic. Thanks.

Here is a build using a Marvel collage theme. It was a blast to build.

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

Back in December I got the urge to put together my own custom cabinet. No wife to stifle the manic desire to relive the golden age of wasteful spending at the local "wonderland" (they took Nickels). As a result this was born: $500 - Custom built PC (AMD phenom x2 unlocked to x4, 120GB SSD OS drive/640GB Data HDD) $250 - Building materials & marquee printout. $250 - Vertically mounted Visio 32" TV hooked in via RGB $200 - X-Arcade tanksticks w/ trackball (works great as the mouse!) $50 - Coin door (accept quarters) $25 - Smartswitch power strip switches on marquee light, coin led, and exhaust fan when computer on. $1275 - Approxamate total cost. I already had the TV and replaced it earlier with a better one. I also had many of the computer parts laying around from previous custom PC builds and was planning a mini ITX built anyway. So the real cost was more like $525 over a few months time. So it was not too bad. The real issue has been integrating the software for a screen in portrait.

Here's a write-up on my GameEx based cab called the Project X Arcade that I built last year. I just finished a fairly major overhaul that you can read about in Part IV. Project X Arcade

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

Hello and Good Morning/Afternoon! I'm not 100% sure if this belongs in the "Future Enhancements And Requests" topic, and I apologize in advance if it does. I'm not sure where this would fall under lol, but I'm gonna "spell it out" anyway . I've got enough projects going on to last me throughout this and probably next year. I'm almost finished with my cab (will be finalizing by adding the trackball, lightguns, and retro controler usb inputs/support eg. https://www.google.com/shopping/product/6766076433581566767?q=nintendo%20usb%20controller&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=kom&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1357700187,d.aWM&biw=1280&bih=617&sa=X&ei=ohz0UJTpN8GZqAGat4GwAg&ved=0CFIQ8wIwAA , later next month). During the beginning of March, I am planning to start building a racing cabinet, for all the racing arcade games such as pole position, crusin usa, etc. (I decided to push the visual pinball back a little) In theory, this should work out considering what all I read up on about adding a steering wheel and pedals to a standalone mame cab. Everything is still in the works, but so far, I'm planning on adding surround sound, radio buttons (for crusin usa etc), to name a few. All in all, this is what I want it to do: When you first sit down in the cabinet, you would scroll through a horizontal list of games using the steering wheel and press the "start game" button which GameEx would launch the game, as it would in a regular cab. Now for the question (lol sorry for the rambling) - Would GameEx be able to handle this, as for using the steering wheel to navigate smoothly; or would there be a need for a separate version of GameEx as a "Racing" front end? (As Hyperpin is related to Hyperspin). If GameEx now would be able to handle this, how would I set it up? Or if another separate version of GameEx were to be developed for this need, I would gladly purchase a separate licence for it. Thanks in advance! LC

Heres Mine. I Still havent Got The Marquee Or Bezel Done Bcuz I Dont Know Where To Get Any Custom From

[media=] My mame cab so far - lol, its like my extra kid . It still needs a little more work (tee-moulding, marquee) I made this to post on my facebook page, and thought I would share part 1 here...I realized after uploading to youtube, I made a little "boo-boo" - when talking about the smart surge protector, I said the word "constant" instead of "controlled"...ya will know what I'm talking about when ya see it lol. And I apologize for the jitterness in this - I'm not really good at making videos ....stage fright Anyway, enjoy!

Arcades were at one time always crowded and filled with gamers. It was a fun experience to shoot for the top score or go head to head in the latest arcade brawler. Things have changed though since the explosion of home consoles and gaming PC’s. Their emergence have all but slowly extinguished arcades from malls and outlets. While gaming consoles and PC’s offer incredible performance for the price, there is something missing. Part of the exciting arcade experience is lost when you throw a standard controller in the mix and game from the comfort of the couch. While I love modern gaming I still heavily enjoy the retro titles from the past. To recapture this lost era and overall experience I began researching in great detail about arcade cabinets. This included the different types and styles available and their varying price range and overall offerings. Multiple vendors offer prebuilt units but usually this meant they only played one certain game from a particular genre. While those machines are still nostalgic and enjoyable in their own right I still wanted more. It was at this point that I realized that a custom build would be ideal. This would cut cost and open the door for endless options in regards to the cabinet’s design and its configuration. Luckily, I am good friends with an excellent carpenter that was even more excited than myself to get started on the project. Once the design, features and specs were mapped out we set off to buy and order the needed supplies. After all the parts and materials were in place the actual build took roughly 5 full days. If you wish to have your own personal arcade cabinet, contact Chris at [email protected]. He will be happy to discuss the different plans available, prices and options. Each unit can be completely customized to your liking making it truly one of a kind. Below is a video of the finished work, materials, tools and a short preview of playable games. Materials/parts: Viewsonic VA2703 27″ 1920×1080 3ms DVI LCD Monitor X-Arcade Tankstick + Trackball Arcade Coin Door With Coin Mech Custom Built Gaming PC with GameEx Front-end Altec Lansing 5.1 Surround Speaker System 3- 3/4 4×8 sheets of hardwood plywood 4- 1x2x8 5lbs box of wood screws 1 5/8 long Wood glue 1/4 x 2 x 8 pine Gallon of gloss black paint Wood filler 2x6x8 12 volt fan for cooling 12″ light Plexiglass 1/4 thick 25 foot roll of 14/2 wire 2 electrical boxes 1 light switch 1 outlet and a GFCI outlet adapter to 6 plugs Appliance cord Wire nuts 120 to 12 volt converter 8 – 12 volt red LED lights Reflective tape Furniture gliders for bottom Tools: Cordless drill Countersink bit Table saw Compound miter saw Palm sander Hole saw Jig saw Air nailer [media=] Please visit my site BootHammer.com for the full article and many more pictures of the build! http://boothammer.co...arcade-cabinet/

Hey GameEx'ers, I just wanted to let you all know that I finished my first cabinet! I posted some pics over at the Arcade Controls forum. I just wanted to thank everyone in the forums for all the help you gave me in setting up GameEx. I love the software, and it is part of the inspiration that drove me to build the cabinet. I'm still tweaking my setup so I'm sure you'll continue to hear from me. Koopacade

For those of you who built an actual arcade cabinet to house their GameEx machine, I was wondering what special "administrative" buttons you included on your control panel (or elsewhere on the cabinet). These are all the buttons that are NOT used during gameplay. Buttons I'm definitely using: Insert Coin 1-4 Start Game 1-4 Exit (quit game) L/R Flippers volume control for speakers (not really a button) I'll also have a wireless keyboard that I can grab while doing heavy duty administering Buttons that I've thought about and are considering: Back (for GameEx menus) Pause 3 Mouse buttons Some sort of button that brings up the emulator menu to access save states (haven't researched if it's possible to standardize all the emulators this way) Some of this depends on what you designed your cabinet to play. I'm not set in stone yet, but my cabinet will primarily be designed for MAME first and foremost. I also want to be able to play Atari 2600 and NES games which I think will be simple considering their simple controllers. Others like SNES and Genesis should be doable, but not a priority. N64 should be playable because I plan to build a 2 player cabinet with 2 USB ports to plug in 2 Xbox 360 controllers, so I can use those controllers for the N64 games. So, any recommendations? I thought about posting this in the BYOAC Forum, but I wanted to get the opinion of someone who is using GameEx. Real quick, this is what I plan to have on my control panel: 2 joysticks (4/8 way switchable) 6 buttons for each player (should I have 7 or 8? I can't think of a game that uses that many) Trackball 2 spinners (I'm assuming these can double as steering wheels) 2 USB ports to add 2 Xbox 360 controllers for the 3rd and 4th players I appreciate the advice.