PC Emu Center

[Sketch]

Hey - I'm new here.

I've been going back and forth between using my old PC or using a Raspberry PI to meet my Emulation Center needs - I finally settled on using my PC for the additional power. I'm in search of a nice front end that will boot right into a screen where I can select an Emu/Rom from a menu. I stumbled onto GameEx from another forum and it appears to be exactly what I'm looking for. Any recommendations on where I can get more information to assist me in my newest venture? Thanks!

tl;dr - I need information on building an Emulation Station to be used in my living room. I intend to use my PC. Need a nice front end and step-by-step guide on how to best set up the center. Also, maybe a link to some nice cases that I can drop my current PC into, so it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb in my entertainment center.

[stryker]

Hi,

Just last week I too was new to gameEx and I must admit the one document lacking for GameEx is a "this is how to set up a typical install" doc... a doc that lists all the critical things you need to do and generally de-bemuse the initial steps for the new user.

I'm afraid I found no such document, however I can recommend reading through all the lovely details docs on the gameex site... I did, I know its a shed-load of information, I must of read some of those docs several times to get it to sink in... I also read the docs I felt were not so relevant to me (they all help) and the videos were good too which surprises me to say because I *hate* instructional videos.

So in a nutshell I can only say dive in and read, read, read. It worked for me :-)

You initial steps especially related to MAME is:

1) Go through the gameex install.

2) Install shark codecs or to be honest any of the other popular codec packs for windows (needed for preview vids etc).

3) Get a good mame rom manager and understand how it works, I use "ROM Centre" as its the only one I found which didn't nee me to dedicate a life time of study to.

3a) Organise your roms, best I found is keep your main MAME rom folder which probably contains 20,000 roms separate from the gameex mame rom folder... This is where you use "ROM Centre" to manage this. Lumping all your roms into gameex is just TOO overwhelming, just move across the ones you want... and of course own :-)

4) Run "download artwork and videos" program (in mameex programs folder).

4a) To complete step 4 sign up to emumovie, its an online database of game box art, preview vids and much more... PS: well worth paying for a subscription.

As for setting up the other emulators, its a case of using the gameex install wizard to download and initially install them for you... yes it does all that for you!! then checking they work on their own, configuring controls etc... then they should work in gameex.

ooh forgot, well worth making sure your systems drivers are all up to date. Plus if you have some xbox 360 controllers then install the microsoft driver for them and use those, they are brilliant for use with mame and all the emulators gameex supports (plenty of buttons and sticks). FYI, the cheap £5 (gbp) generic wired ones on ebay work flawlessly!!

HTH

[nullPointer]

Great advice Stryker, I couldn't have summarized it better myself. Thanks for taking the time to respond!

[Draco1962]

As for the HTPC cases, newegg.com will probably be your best friend.

[nullPointer]

As for the HTPC cases, newegg.com will probably be your best friend.

Yep this is very true. Additionally you'll want to consider your performance needs vs. your space needs. Essentially this means that the higher performance you need from your system, the more cooling you'll need which in turn means you'll need a larger case. Cooling fans, and higher performance video cards will take up more room.

FWIW I use an older version of this case (It's this one), but it's pretty large by most HTPC standards (about the size of a small subwoofer). OTOH I also have it overclocked at 4.0GHz and run a GTX 460 video card with no cooling issues. Basically you just need to figure out what your priorities are and work from there.