Arcade cabinet running GameEx on GroovyArcade?

**magenois** · March 30

Hello!

I built my mame cabinet in 2010 with Windows XP, Soft15k and GameEx. I am using a wells gardner D9800 27" arcade CRT monitor.

Now, I need to do a hardware refresh (new mobo and cpu) and I would like to use GroovyArcade as the operating system this time. It's a customized version of Arch Linux with patches to support arcade CRT native resolutions.

I would also like to continue using GameEx as my frontend.

The only emulators I am using at this time are mame and daphne.

What's the best way (if there is one at all) to run gameex on groovyarcade?

The multi-platform version of gameex is still in alpha so I dont think it's wise to use it at this time.

Anyone has been successful in using gameex on groovyarcade?

thanks in advance!

**Tom Speirs** · March 30

If you want to stick to Linux you are out of luck with GameEx for now. Sorry. It shouldn't be long though.

Im not sure GameEx looks so good at low resolutions either these days but it does support it.

Is CRT support on windows with ATI cards still a thing? Again, its been a while for me. I did have a medium res Arcade Monitor but lost it in a flood unfortunately.

Is Windows still possible?

Id be very interested if you could at least see if GameEx Linux runs on it. Again, its not that far off

**magenois** · March 30

19 minutes ago, Tom Speirs said:

If you want to stick to Linux you are out of luck with GameEx for now. Sorry. It shouldn't be long though.

Im not sure GameEx looks so good at low resolutions either these days but it does support it.

Is CRT support on windows with ATI cards still a thing? Again, its been a while for me. I did have a medium res Arcade Monitor but lost it in a flood unfortunately.

Is Windows still possible?

Id be very interested if you could at least see if GameEx Linux runs on it. Again, its not that far off

My CRT is triple sync so, on windows at least, I ran GameEx at 640x480p and when launching a game groovymame would switch the resolution to the original game resolution. GameEx is looking good at 640x480 at least on the version I have. I haven't updated in many many years.

Not sure about running 15khz resolutions on Windows 11. I would have to make some research but I really want to ditch windows. With XP we could hide it quite well but I'm not sure we can do the same with recent versions.

I might as well wait until the multiplatform version of GameEx is ready.

**magenois** · March 30

26 minutes ago, Tom Speirs said:

Id be very interested if you could at least see if GameEx Linux runs on it. Again, its not that far off

I did a quick test and no luck. I get this output then it stuck there forever.

image.png.3fca1b05f84b0c442b7c62f6ab7a0d77.png

**Tom Speirs** · March 30

is there a log file?

**magenois** · March 30

31 minutes ago, Tom Speirs said:

is there a log file?

no. I have looked in the directory where I have Gameex and into the subdirectory, nothing.

Edit: If you want me to do some troubleshooting or test more recent builds, let me know how I can help.

**Tom Speirs** · March 30

Thank you. You dont need to spend lots of time of it. i have tested it under Arch but it would have been the latest

**magenois** · March 31

20 hours ago, Tom Speirs said:

Thank you. You dont need to spend lots of time of it. i have tested it under Arch but it would have been the latest

Thanks Tom.

I am doing testing at the moment with Windows 10 if I can get 15khz resolutions to work so I can keep on using GameEx following my hardware upgrade.

I have a brand new install of windows 10, I have installed the latest version of GameEx. When I launch GameEx I have the following error. I assume it's a missing dependency but cant figure which:

Quote

15:40:41.68 2026-03-31: Opening Database Connection
15:40:41.68 2026-03-31: Data Source=C:\GameEx\DATA\data.db3;Pooling=true;FailIfMissing=true
15:40:41.70 2026-03-31: --**--
15:40:41.70 2026-03-31: Error: Unable to load DLL 'SQLite4.Interop.dll' or one of its dependencies: The specified module could not be found. (0x8007007E)
15:40:41.71 2026-03-31: at System.Data.SQLite4.UnsafeNativeMethods.sqlite3_config_none(SQLiteConfigOpsEnum op)
15:40:41.71 2026-03-31: at System.Data.SQLite4.UnsafeNativeMethods.sqlite3_config_none(SQLiteConfigOpsEnum op)
15:40:41.71 2026-03-31: at System.Data.SQLite4.SQLite3.StaticIsInitialized()
15:40:41.71 2026-03-31: at System.Data.SQLite4.SQLiteLog.Initialize(String className)
15:40:41.71 2026-03-31: at System.Data.SQLite4.SQLiteConnection..ctor(String connectionString, Boolean parseViaFramework)
15:40:41.71 2026-03-31: at System.Data.SQLite4.SQLiteConnection..ctor(String connectionString)
15:40:41.71 2026-03-31: at o.a(Boolean A_0, String A_1, Boolean A_2)
15:40:41.71 2026-03-31: at o.eu()
15:40:41.71 2026-03-31: Disposing Plugins
15:40:41.71 2026-03-31: GameEx is exiting with errors

**Tom Speirs** · April 1

is that an old version of GameEx or a special Windows 10 build? i cant duplicate that here even on a fresh win 10 21h1 build. i did remove visual c++ 2010 runtime from the installer. i wonder if that is why. if not please provide the full log. it tells me more than you may realise.

vcredist_x642010.exe

**Tom Speirs** · April 1

Wait i get the error now. hold on a minute.

**Tom Speirs** · April 1

yeah, its vc++ 2010 runtime. im working on it. thanks for letting me know

**Tom Speirs** · April 1

i will have a new release out in about 10 minutes. Sorry about that. was definitly me.

I got this on Windows 11 support.

**magenois** · April 1

Thanks very much Tom!

**magenois** · April 1

4 hours ago, Tom Speirs said:

i will have a new release out in about 10 minutes. Sorry about that. was definitly me.

The latest version work perfectly. thanks for the quick update!

Quote

I got this on Windows 11 support.

I'll have a look at this. thanks for sharing.

**Tom Speirs** · April 13

Hey,

I was very curious how you got on?

i installed groovyarcade on a virtual machine with an aim to testing GameEx but looks like it needs a bit of effort to get it on there (typing, curl etc) so i put it off for now.

Anyway, please let me know.

Thanks,

Tom.

**Tom Speirs** · April 13

Ps: I persisted with it. GameEx does work but you have to launch it from an x window manager (run startx from the shell).

There are workarounds to not need x windows.

**magenois** · April 13

6 hours ago, Tom Speirs said:

Ps: I persisted with it. GameEx does work but you have to launch it from an x window manager (run startx from the shell).

There are workarounds to not need x windows.

I appreciate the testing. I had to put my project on the backburner for a little while. I'll try that when I get back to it.

Thanks Tom!

**Tom Speirs** · April 16

im sorry you dont have the time but i made good process with the linux version this week and MAME is working perfectly now. you motivated me buddy.

**magenois** · April 16

7 hours ago, Tom Speirs said:

im sorry you dont have the time but i made good process with the linux version this week and MAME is working perfectly now. you motivated me buddy.

oh nice 😊 Do you mind sharing on how you got GameEx to launch without the window manager?

I should get back to my project sometimes next week. I was able to get all the 15khz resolutions to work fine.

**Tom Speirs** · April 16

According to what I read you need to set the unity build to run at a fixed full screen resolution.
Not ideal but happy to test with you.

Arcade cabinet running GameEx on GroovyArcade?

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