Anyone Built A Mame Box For The Gp2x Yet


1200XL

Still Fresh
Joined
Mar 23, 2007
Messages
8
I got the developer BOB a few weeks ago and I am playing lots of MAME stuff.
I am getting sick of tipping my 32" SONY CRT onto its end to play in the correct aspect :rolleyes:
Thinks a mini MAME cab would be cool and I am looking for ideas.
 
As well as this some pimped up media centers should be possible...

Imaging a nice little box with a hard disk in, USB and ports on the back, stripping a GP2x and re mounting in the box so the LCD display is a front panel, OK so not a portable games machine any more but...

Add Keyboard and we are away...

Now all this needs is a nice media center type interface and a useful app like email...

Or am i weird?
:D
 
Why not just use an old computer, that would definitely be both cheaper and easier. :)

I have a fully working, full size original arcade cabinet that I just need to fit a computer into. That way I will have both an arcade cabinet, jukebox and mediacenter in one!
And you don't have to hack up your GP2X.
You don't need to have an original cab, you can just build one yourself.

This is a great site for inspiration:

http://arcadecontrols.com/arcade_examples.php

Otherwise just do a google search on "build your own arcade cabinet", and you will get lots of hits.
 
foft said:
There is plenty of inspiration here:
http://www.disorder.org/crapmame/

:D



that guy wins at life, so fuckin funny xd
x-arcade controls on a nicely built cab, and wtf some of them arcade cab's just blow
but i couldnt do any better ><

would probably be cheaper to just use a cheap computer + moniter and some basic arcade controls, then use the gp2x as a HOME arcade cabinet, its a portable gaming system..
 
Last edited by a moderator:
fatdad said:
really funny , i read them all up to there was an error ...some monsters in there.....
hahaha that's not an error! It is actually a quite humorous page about dead links on the byoac website.

Yeah... pretty good. The last page however is quite serious and does five some good advice if you don't want to make the same mistakes the shown AC builders did.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm planning on building a desktop size cabinet with a shelf in the front for the gp2x to sit in the cradle. When I want to go mobile, I pop out the gp2x and play handheld, and then I come home I pop it in the cradle, turn on the cabinet and use an x-arcade controller and big TV.
 
I've been fiddling with a mini mame cabinet of my own

My GP2X screen got fubared when I was doing a bat mod so I thought I might aswell use the internals for a mini mame cabinet using a PSONE screen as display 7.2v dvd player battery and some texas instruments converters for power and a 4GB microdrive attached to a usb reader for storage.

I've yet to find decent controls for a reasonable price that are small but arent tacky

And that's where my project has been for months all the internals work, my generic usb gamepad works but isnt ideal

EDIT: An idea just came to me wouln't it be cool to have a mini mame cabinet with a built in HDD and slot that the GP2X slides into to bring the cabinet to "LIFE" complete with led strips that light up upon docking with GP2X that way you can carry on your game on the go get home and play on the cabinet.
 
site1015.jpg


This one is my favorite
 
freddykreuger666 said:
x-arcade controls on a nicely built cab
Actually, I don't see the problem with using a prefab control panel. I know some people who have built perfectly fine cabinets, but bought X-Arcade panels simply to save some time and work (and to avoid a mess of wires!) because they already knew from the start that their main focus would be fighter-type games. Although some may want to take MAME to it's extreme using a massive "frankenpanel" with all sorts of joysticks, spinners and whatnot, but if you decide early in the design process what type of games you want to play, perhaps you'll find that a prefab panel suits your needs and can save you some time and work (not to mention the hassle of wiring problems).
Of course, there are prefab "frankenpanels" as well, such as the SlikStik, but it's also fairly expensive.

To answer the original poster, I'm not really into building cabinets, but perhaps a computer-based large cabinet with a removable desktop control panel (like the Tankstick) would be nice - that way you could take your GP2X, the control panel and the cradle with you when visiting friends, and hook it all up to their TV set.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I just got my gp2x with TV out cable and have seen a HUGE slowdown in Mame playing certain games vs playing without the TV out. For example, Metal slug s-l-o-w-s way down when I'm in TV out mode, but plays much better when I turn TV mode off. Zaxxon looks awful on the TV, the screen scrolls are all jittery, but it looks fine playing on the gp2x screen.

Is this a function of the emulator or the GP2X in general? I'm on Firmware 3 and a 32 inch lcd hdtv. Haven't tried it yet on a real TV.
 
berighteous said:
I just got my gp2x with TV out cable and have seen a HUGE slowdown in Mame playing certain games vs playing without the TV out. For example, Metal slug s-l-o-w-s way down when I'm in TV out mode, but plays much better when I turn TV mode off. Zaxxon looks awful on the TV, the screen scrolls are all jittery, but it looks fine playing on the gp2x screen.

Is this a function of the emulator or the GP2X in general? I'm on Firmware 3 and a 32 inch lcd hdtv. Haven't tried it yet on a real TV.
:lol: real TV ...

Hmm, I use the BOB for my TV out and MAME freezes about half the time for me, but runs flawlessly when un-docked from the BOB ... strange indeed ..
 
Last edited by a moderator:
TelcoLou said:
berighteous said:
I just got my gp2x with TV out cable and have seen a HUGE slowdown in Mame playing certain games vs playing without the TV out. For example, Metal slug s-l-o-w-s way down when I'm in TV out mode, but plays much better when I turn TV mode off. Zaxxon looks awful on the TV, the screen scrolls are all jittery, but it looks fine playing on the gp2x screen.

Is this a function of the emulator or the GP2X in general? I'm on Firmware 3 and a 32 inch lcd hdtv. Haven't tried it yet on a real TV.
:lol: real TV ...

Hmm, I use the BOB for my TV out and MAME freezes about half the time for me, but runs flawlessly when un-docked from the BOB ... strange indeed ..


If I set the frameskip to 1 or higher it plays ok on the TV out, but if it's set to the default <=2 auto it s-l-o-w-s down to a crawl. very weird. It plays fine with TV out off.

Of course, it also cuts off the top and bottom of the screen in games like Pacman, so it's useless for a mame box unless you mount the TV sideways. oh well. Was a cool idea, anyways.

BTW Toobin' looks TERRIBLE scaled to the screen on the TV out! (L+R, L+R)

We need to convince the author to get the 2nd processor running for graphics scaling and processing and have it default TV out to 640x480... :D
 
Last edited by a moderator:
... WE don't need to convince Franxis to do anything .. we're grateful for the work he's given us, and your comment appears ungrateful. <_<
 
You're funny! :blink:
We're having a discussion about building a mame box for the gp2x. We can't have a useful discussion about building a mame box for the gp2x without mentioning issues of using the gp2x and mame with the TV output.

Cutting off the tops and bottoms of vertical games is an issue, and one that can be only resolved by either mounting the TV vertically and only playing vertical games, or have the author addressing it somehow in a future version. Two options for addressing that issue are 1) using the TV out at a higher resolution, or 2) using the second processor to scale the video so it looks good at 320x240 on the TV output.

It's not ungrateful to suggest a solution to the issue. And I added a smiley, :D

I think Franxis has done an amazing job getting Mame to run really well on a GP2X, and certainly deserves a round of applause. I'm very grateful.
 
Back
Top