Cabinets and HTPC Setups Running GameEx

[chris77]

selfmade mini mame bartop cabinet running gameex:

greets

Chris

[mrserv0n]

[platdaddy]

Cabinet running GameEx for about 2 years.......

[Creek]

Here's the cab i built with a few of my friends. It cost us about 1.200 euro all in all, and there's no doubt its the best money we've ever spent.

Built from scratch off Mamerooms "Ultimate Arcade Cabinet II" building plans.

It features:

- Sony Wega 29" TV

- 4 player control panel, powered by I-Pac4. (Pics and details of the controlpanel)

- Custom modified 2.1 Creative PC speakers, featuring two JVC car speakers.

- Black laminate carefully glued to all sides, except where the artwork is.

It's been running GameEx for about a year now, and I'd never consider any other front end.

[KevinPedrick]

Built mine about 3 years ago. Originally running AdvanceMame and AdvanceMenu from DOS I've recently switched to Mame and GameEx.

I really liked the cocktail cabinet designs of the late eighties, the idea being it could be a functional coffee table aswell as home arcade, but wanted bigger than 14" screen, didn't want to be forced into only playing opposite ends and wanted a four player unit. This ruled out my original idea of converting a genuine unit so a few drawings, some MDF and plenty of blood, sweat and tears later I arrived at this!

Its Ultimarc controls and the 4-player IPAC (which is awesome!!!), an AMD motherboard and processor plus typical power supply, harddrive, etc., a 17" Cathode Ray PC monitor that functions no problem and is sturdy enough to be mounted face up spray painted matt black, and a large piece of tempered glass which was probably the most expensive individual component!

Although I feel it looks fine here, it looks at its best when surrounded by mates and covered in beer cans

The incident I referred to was about a year after I originally built it, I moved house. It survived the move no problem but in its new home it kept resetting after a few minutes of play. I first felt it maybe the power pack and replaced that - still resetting. I then investigated the motherboard and ram and after my brother in law got his "expert" hands on them ( ) ended up replacing them too - still resetting. Abandoned DOS, never managed to configure soundcard with new motherboard, and went for a Windows XP install hoping Windows may tell me more - still resetting!

After probably 200 quid in components and countless hours puzzling I was still at a complete loss. Turns out, the power socket in my new living room had a dodgy connection and switching to a different socket solved the problem Amazing how you overlook the most obvious!

Still, its been interesting getting back involved in the MAME cabinet community and its been the reason I've discovered GameEx!

Although pleased with the design, for the benefit of anyone feeling inspired by this, there are a couple of minor things I'd have done differently if I started all over again. Player 1's buttons sit a little too close to player 2's joystick. Difficult to explain but a group sitting curved around a vertical mounted screen is fine but a group sitting round a horizontal mounted screen doesn't work so well - for those at the end its kinda the same effect as watching a vertical mounted screen rotated by 30 degrees, a little off putting. I also noticed that no arcade games have 3 and 4 players using more than 4 buttons, so limited players 3 and 4 to 4 buttons to save on space. This does mean that any 4 player games with more than 2 buttons results in players 3 and 4 having a different layout to players 1 and 2, and of course 4 player SNES games sometimes use more than 4.

Besdies these issues, I still love my machine

Trouble is you're using the screen in its largest plane, i.e. the whole surface is flat. There is probably an inch thickness of wood around the screen supporting it then an extra 3 to 4 inch for the controls. The surface of the table overhangs a lot more at the side without controls to maintain the symmetry, but this surface needs to lift off before it can pass through typical household doors.

There are options for reducing the width such as reducing the structure around the screen, maybe tilting the control box (which I considered but decided the necessary woodwork would be more trouble than its worth). I'm sure a bigger screen is achieveable but 17" was fine for me and I really don't think the kit, as is this design, could fit through a door with anything above a 19" screen.

This was the look like I was going (plus mine for comparrison) for and I reckon I've modernised the idea but maintained the look and feel.

[bkenobi]

Here's my babies. They've moved around since this picture and are both running different themes now, but they both proudly run GameEx!

[gerble1000]

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.

its been a while since my last pic of my arcade machine was uploaded so here it is

it has around 70,000 games

a lot of dupes though ,i aint sorted that yet

unfortunatly the guns aint working yet,usb problem on motherboard,,

they did work great a while back,(lcd topgun)

also in the pic is my fruit machine (crap)

and my jukebox,,wich im selling on ebay,,

any comments appreciated

jukebox.mpg

[iano]

Galaga & Bubble Bobble themed Mini Bartops running Gameex:

greetz

Chris

Hi Chris. This is very tasty stuff indeed ! I think you should give up your day job and start selling these. They are very slick - i haven't seen anything like this for sale !

[Brian Hoffman]

Where do I buy??

Chris77 was nice enough to provide me with these links.

http://www.katorlegaz.com/arcade_cabinets/...rquee/index.php

(Insprition page)

http://picasaweb.google.de/getmoresun/Bartop

(personal project page)

Thanks chris

[chris77]

Chris77 was nice enough to provide me with these links.

http://www.katorlegaz.com/arcade_cabinets/...rquee/index.php

(Insprition page)

http://picasaweb.google.de/getmoresun/Bartop

(personal project page)

Thanks chris

thanks brian,

this is the new projectspage for the minibartops: http://picasaweb.google.de/getmoresun/Gala...obbleMiniBartop

[DamageCase]

Heres my Cab that I finished just a couple of weeks ago. I designed and built it as a Game cab with functionality in mind... It's not just for arcade stuff. The control panel has enough room to use a mouse on (Can use mouse & joystick for FPS)... It also has enough space for me to clip my Logitech G25 wheel to for Racers. USB ports allow for additional controllers (two Xbox controllers for those 4 player games). Of course I'll still be launching everything through Gameex

I built it in two sections for ease of movement when needed (its still bloody heavy though). All of the electronics are in the top half. Its using a 20"LCD, PC is behind that. Underneath the PC (and behind the keyboard drawer) is the Sub for the speakers. I have heaps of pics from when I was building it... Should probably put it all in a start to finish guide.

[emphatic]

Made a small webpage for my project from start to finish: http://www.emphatic.se/mamecabinet/

Emph

[Hunk_4TH]

I'm half way done with my cabinet except for the joysticks. It still needs to be painted and a few more things added. My dad helped me build it since I don't know much about cutting and building things. Here the pics so far sorry for the quality I used a crappy digital camera We worked very hard on it especially my dad I'm very proud of it so far

[lokesen]

Project MAME - The Defender

This is my GameEX Mame cabinet

Here is the homepage with autocad drawings and pictures. Hope you like it. I have used all my money on it and can't even afford to register my GameEX

http://www.koenigs.dk/mame/eng/

The cabinet has been updated with new marquee and controls

[sharkfin]

Been busy migrating from Mamewah, which I've been using for a couple of years and has been fantastic (especially the forum over at Mameworld), over to the simply awesome GameEx!!

I have found that Visual Pinball works better (I no longer have the focus issues with pinmame) and generally the frontend setup is a slightly simpler.

Also NullDC works like a dream!

I built this machine three years ago, it's mkIV (mk III is almost as complete, mk II and I no longer exist).

Mk V will probably be micro ATX based with HDMI out negating the need for a graphics card and use a Blue Ray DVD drive.

I also built some time ago a small website for it:

http://www.sharkfinmedia.com/infinity/

My son (he's playing the elf and has just eaten all the food!!) and two young cousins. Start 'em early that's what I say.

[Shmizzle]

Here's mine:

Thought I'd throw in the beginning pics for contrast.

Original Cab:

After restoration:

(Went with the Williams logo on the side, after all it's my last name and it seemed appropriate...)

Updated pic:

Specs:

Pentium 4 2.66 GHZ W/ 1.25 GB o' ram

40 GB Hard drive + 200 gb Hard drive

1 used X-arcade setup I took apart for the controls. (I was just gonna use the I-pac and such but I found a used X-arcade on ebay for cheaper than what I would have payed for all that stuff.)

Transparent GLOWING blue USB Happ track ball

Replaced the yellow coin reject buttons with blue ones so they glow blue along with the trackball.

Parts from a cheap 5 speaker surround sound system from Walmart W/ subwoofer

Arcade VGA video card

27" Betson Multi sync VGA arcade monitor

To restore this cab first I used lots of Bondo

Then laminated the the entire thing with black laminate ( I work @ a edgebanding/laminate warehouse so the laminate and t-molding was free).

I laminated the control panel with brushed chrome stainless steal laminate for a killer modern look!

Yes, the older pics are powered by Maximus. I just changed to GameEx a little over a month ago due to exiting issues...

[lokesen]

Project MAME - The Defender

This is my GameEX Mame cabinet

Here is the homepage with autocad drawings and pictures. Hope you like it. I have used all my money on it and can't even afford to register my GameEX

http://www.koenigs.dk/mame/eng/

Cabinet has been updated with new controls and new speakers.

[nexus6]

wheres the cry-smilie when you need it?

[Elfo]

Well, I haven't actually built my cabinet as yet, as I need to find a place to actually cut the wood at. But, I do have everything running on my desktop with one of those nifty XBox controllers

I figured I'd show the CAD drawings, 'cause I'm damn proud that I figured out the software. It's too bad they screwed up the lighting a bit, but it's not designed to manipulate photos anyways.

[DJ Infinity]

Here are pictures of my desktop Mame setup and my 2 player cab and one of my quad core machines.

[Hicks-MofG]

So this was my senior project for College. Im just now getting time to really play the thing and update it.

Game Ex is so Awasom!!!!!!!

It wouldnt have been half as nice without it.

Theres a whole slide show of start to finish that shows most of the steps in the work if uld like to see more

Visit My Website silversystemsonline.no-ip.org

[Hicks-MofG]

Awesome cabinet dude! Love the control panel

Thanks. Its my design, i could post a link to the cad template drawings if u like.

The only reason the 2 middle ones are short a button is because the ipac doesn't have enough inputs for 2 more buttons.

but they could be easily added.

Theres a whole slide show of start to finish that shows most of the steps in the work if uld like to see more

Visit My Website silversystemsonline.no-ip.org

[whirlwind]

Here a Cab a friend and I made after being inspired after seeing the GameEx front end!! So many thanks to Tom Speirs and all the guys whose information and help about emulation these forums was so good I didnt need any help ....yet! Needs a bit of touching up and filling screw holes. I was going to fit a coin slot but to get it up and running was a bit complicated for me, So seen a 12" plasma disc that goes in time with the music !, it also looks better with the lights dimmed . Hope ye like it !!!.

[DJ Infinity]

New & improved DeskMame! after being in the right place at the right time, I acquired another HP LP2465! I then moved to my deskmame side of my desk replacing the 22in Samsung. The Samsung got moved to work duty and I donated the 20in CRT and a computer I found in the trash and restored to perfect health to someone needy. The HP is really nice to game on! Not only that it comes on a stand so rotation for vertical games is possible. I almost want to sell my vertical cab (cheap). It has a 19in LCD in it. It just can't compare to this monitor.

[Canti]

~Running registered GameEx under Windows XP, modified and shelled to hide all traces of Windows.

~Pentium Dual-Core E2160

~1gb RAM

~Integrated sound + graphics (Intel GMA 945)

~70gb HD

~Flat monitor 19" TFT

~4:3 ratio

~5ms response time

~2000:1 contrast ratio

~20 buttons + 2 joysticks

~Linked to CPU via Mini-PAC

~4 external USB ports

~External volume control dial

~Control panel lifts up on a hinge revealing a keyboard and trackpad for changing settings

~Can be turned on by hitting any button