Jason Carr

This is for Android, not Windows. I plan to add Skyline for the next release. You might be able to still add it by importing the games as something else and editing the platform, and then adding a custom emulator, but the process unfortunately isn't very smooth for the moment.

Oh, one last thing. I didn't plan on ordering a new marquee screen, but I'm afraid my current one is too small, and I got tempted into ordering one of these beasts: https://creativeartsandtechnology.com/product/recroom-lcd/ As far as I can tell, the dimensions should work well. That's also going to be an experiment though; we'll see how it goes. Onwards!

Yesterday I ordered the vinyls for the artwork from GameonGrafix: https://gameongrafix.com/ I imagine they'll have some questions for me though, because I ordered the full cabinet graphics, and there's some extra pieces for the wings (I noted this on the order). I'm also not sure if they need specific dimensions for the cabinet, or if the images that I sent will suffice. I haven't heard back from them as of yet. Finally, I ordered plenty of t-molding from https://www.t-molding.com. I think that'll ultimately get me what I need, outside of paint, which I'll have to pick up from the hardware store. I'm loathing the painting process the most out of everything, because I've had issues with painting plywood before (I'm not very artsy). We'll see how that goes.

I have my custom control panel all designed out now: I haven't drilled anything out of the wood yet though (this is just a Photoshop design), so more than willing to hear feedback on it. Everything should be measured out properly. I ordered the following from Ultimarc: 30 GoldLeaf RGB Illuminated Pushbuttons - https://www.ultimarc.com/arcade/buttons/goldleaf-pushbuttons-rgb/ GoldLeaf RGB Logo Cap Pack - https://www.ultimarc.com/arcade/button-accessories/ultralux-logo-inserts-clone/ I-PAC Ultimate I/O - https://www.ultimarc.com/control-interfaces/i-pacs/i-pac-ultimate-i-o/?variation_id=311 Large Knob for SpinTrak Spinner (Black) - https://www.ultimarc.com/trackballs-and-spinners/spinner-accessories/knobs-for-spintrak-large/ SpinTrak Rotary Control - https://www.ultimarc.com/trackballs-and-spinners/spinners/spintrak/ U-Trak FlushMount Arcade Trackball (Pearl Translucent for RGB) - https://www.ultimarc.com/trackballs-and-spinners/trackballs/u-trak/?variation_id=370 U-Trak RGB LED Illumination Kit - https://www.ultimarc.com/trackballs-and-spinners/trackball-accessories/u-trak-rgb-led-illumination-kit/ Optional Trim Bezel for U-Trak - https://www.ultimarc.com/trackballs-and-spinners/trackball-accessories/optional-trim-bezel-for-u-trak/ 2 Mag-Stik Plus Joysticks - https://www.ultimarc.com/arcade-controls/joysticks/mag-stik-plus/ Hopefully that'll get me everything I need. I definitely went all-out on the control board; everything will be fully RGB lit. However, I will admit that the cost of all of this arcade hardware was way more than I expected lol. Oh well? The Mag-Stik Plus joysticks have a mechanism inside that allows you to go back and forth between 4-way and 8-way. They are somewhat of an experiment, because I've never used them before, and I'm a bit skeptical. If anyone has used any of this hardware before and has any feedback, let us know.

The total width of the cabinet frame is 33.25 inches, so with the final side wings added it should be about 34.75 inches. That said, the depth of the whole thing is only about 31 inches, so you would probably want to move it sideways through any doors. The inside door frames of my house are about 35 inches wide, so it doesn't look like there should be any issues moving it about (at least in my house). Yeah, I didn't find any better plans to follow on the web. So far I've only found minor issues, so I think I can go ahead and recommend the plans. The only thing I've found so far is that there are few edges that need angled that they forgot to put the specs for in the plans, but it's easy enough to figure it out from the other cuts. And yes, it is "modular", at least while you're building the frame. You build it in three separate pieces (the top, the control panel, and the bottom), basically just I like I did above. That said, you do end up screwing it together immediately after the frame pieces are put together, and I don't imagine taking it apart would really be all that easy, because you have to take off the entire side panels.

Thanks brother. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. I am moving it into the house, yes, but thankfully I have double doors to the outside in my office, which is where it's going. I haven't checked if it would fit through a normal doorway though. That might be good to know lol.

Also, I got the graphics from Rachid! They look amazing, as expected. Here are the graphics for the sides of the cabinet: And the marquee: The control board top: The control board front: And the two side wings on the control board, which should roughly match the sides of the cabinet: Per the marquee, I plan to put a marquee screen in the middle of it, so I'm not entirely sure if I'll use the edges of it, or something else. I'm up for ideas. My marquee screen is on the smaller side and definitely won't fill up the entire area for the marquee. I'd love to have a one that would, but haven't found one that doesn't break the bank.

Alright, here goes. Still moving quickly, but I imagine it will start slowing down here a bit now, because I'll be waiting on things like printing the graphics (more on that later), t-molding, and other things that I don't have yet. But anyways, today of course I worked on the frame for the upper piece to hold the monitor and the marquee. Cutting out the pieces went fairly well, better than expected. Now that I know how to properly use my jigsaw to make it cut a straight line, I didn't have any issues using the templates to cut out the large side pieces, which was my main concern. There also wasn't really any tear-out at all. I think I'll even be able to cut out the large floor-to-top side pieces without having to use my circular saw, which is great. For the speaker holes, I ended up using a hole saw bit. I knew enough to put some masking tape on the wood before making the cut in order to reduce tear-out, and that worked really well. It was honestly harder work than I thought it would be because the holes are so big (took me a good 10 minutes and made my wrists a little sore), but in the end it gave me a great result. Here's the top piece after putting the first four pieces together: I panicked a little bit at this point because it was rather lopsided. You probably can't tell much from the picture, but you sure could in person. I was able to force it properly upright, but it took quite a bit of force, and I wasn't sure how I was going to fix that, because I couldn't tell until I had it all completed and put it upright on top of the other pieces of the cabinet. It turns out that the plans call for using a 1x4 in the back on the bottom for support, in order to keep everything square. In my experience, though, it was too lopsided for that and it needed a bit more support. I ended up using a 1x6 instead: That very much helped to square it off and make it so that it wasn't lopsided anymore, thankfully. So we're all good there. I still had the top of the marquee to attach though before finishing out the upper frame. Unfortunately the plans have an error where they don't tell you to angle the edge of that upper piece to 20.5 degrees, but I was able to figure that out, thankfully. Otherwise, the top piece of the marquee would jut out a bit forward and wouldn't be flush with the rest of the frame in the front of the marquee. Here it is with the top piece added: That's basically it for the frame. I still have to screw the three pieces of the frame together, work on the control board, the monitor mount, screen and marquee bezels, and of course the bottom-to-top pieces for the sides of the cabinet. I'm very pleased with it thus far. Hopefully I don't screw it up with some of the more complicated details later on.

Tonight I worked on and finished the frame for the bottom half of the cabinet (actually I worked on the angled edges and custom cuts some last night as well), so this was around two evenings of work. I figured that cutting out the hole in the middle of the front face for the coin door would be tricky, but it really wasn't too bad with the jigsaw. The edges aren't perfectly straight, but it doesn't much matter because it'll all get covered up by the overlapping edges of the coin door. Speaking of the jigsaw, after I cut the hole for the coin door, I went out and bought a jigsaw blade with finer teeth that's specifically made for plywood, and that has made a world of difference for the more recent cuts that I've made. Thanks to @Lordmonkus for cluing me into that, because I didn't know that was a thing. I also discovered that my jigsaw has a setting on it that makes it much easier to make straight cuts, so that's another important thing learned. Perhaps I should be watching some tutorials on the tools that I'm using lol instead of stumbling around in the dark. Regardless, things are coming along: ' Getting the cuts right for those angles was a real bear; it was definitely the hardest part of the build so far. The plans don't give you exact measurements, but instead tell you to just line up the pieces and draw it out. But only having two hands makes that a bit difficult. What I ended up with isn't perfect (the bottom piece extends out a tiny bit past the edges of the front pieces), but I can probably sand that down if needed. Adding the back supports was easy enough, of course, but I did make a small mistake. I added pocket holes on the bottom piece but really I only needed them on the back supports themselves. Oh well, the holes are inside and I can fill them in if needed: After this, the hard part was mostly done. I used the same angles and measurements for the top piece, and then flipped the whole thing over and set it on top of the top piece upside down to attach the top: The only thing left then was to add the middle shelf. I flipped it upside down on top of my short bench and used vertical spacers to easily just place the shelf in there in the right spot, and glue and screw: Finally, here it is all upright and placed on the ground: And here it is with the controls section that I previously built just resting on top of it: All in all, I'm pretty happy with the build. I still have a lot to learn though before I'm gonna be able to make it how I want it, including: How to paint it well How to curve some of the edges for the t-molding How to use a slotted router bit for the t-molding How to put on the vinyl well Probably more stuff I'm forgetting Regardless, praise the Lord, it's coming along well so far. I'll have another update soon.

There are many different emulator options available for most platforms under the Emulator Settings for the platforms. That said, on Android especially, you're really shooting yourself in the foot if you avoid RetroArch, because it tends to have the best emulation available on Android for most platforms.

What were the hoops?

What device are you using? Most likely it's just running out resources.

That file though is outdated. You should be getting version 12.16 when you download, not 12.12.

Okay, all of those things look correct. So it does appear to be downloading properly. If double-clicking the setup file isn't working, then there's something really strange going on with the Windows installation. Is your computer perhaps managed by a company or organization, or is it your personal computer?

Yes, via Tools > Options > Integrations > MAME in the LaunchBox interface.

That's about the most standard way of doing it, so I don't understand what could be going wrong. We get hundreds of people downloading it every day, so it's really strange that you're running into issues. What is the name of the file that you downloaded? Do you know how to check the file size?

It sounds like maybe the browser that you're using to download (or the email client) isn't downloading the file correctly, and giving it the wrong extension. Can you try using a different browser to download it? What email client or browser are you using to download the file?

Tonight I finally started working on finishing the more complicated cuts and beginning actual construction. I have the basic frame for the control panel piece that sits in the middle of the cabinet completed: Before I could assemble it though, I had to cut down some of the angled pieces with some of the smaller templates that I had printed out. This was easy enough with the spray adhesive, but it is a little bit of a challenge to cut straight lines with the jigsaw. For some of the bigger pieces, I might need to get a track for my circular saw and use that instead. One other thing that I did for the first time tonight was to angle the blade on my table saw, in order to achieve angled edge cuts for the front and back of the controls box. I found it to be a small challenge to figure out where to place the angled blade on the piece when cutting it, but ultimately, it worked out well enough. It's not perfect, but it all assembled well enough with pocket hole screws and wood glue. It's pretty solid. Not much of this piece will be visible when the cabinet is done, so I don't need to be overly picky at this point. I'll update this post when I make more progress (most likely this weekend). Next I'll be building the base of the cabinet.

Late this afternoon I went to the UPS Store to get the templates printed out. These templates are provided with the plans from I Like to Make Stuff (YouTube video above), and they help significantly to more easily cut the angles and curves and such for the more complicated pieces: I was concerned that getting the templates printed out at the correct sizes would be a challenge, and it was somewhat, but the folks at the UPS Store worked with me and we got them all printed out at the right sizes. Apparently you can print these huge templates out on any machine that can print blueprints, for the most part. The templates can then be cut out and attached with spray adhesive to the plywood pieces to be cut down with a jigsaw.

Now for the build process! Over the weekend I cut all of the pieces out of birch plywood (plus a few 1x4s of pine lumber): You can see some nasty tearout on a couple of pieces that I had to finish off with my jig saw. Apparently with plywood, if you cut it with a jigsaw with the correct side on top, you don't get much tearout, but you do if you use the other side, so lesson learned there. The good news though is that those pieces will get cut down anyways and that will all go to scrap, because I have yet to cut any angles into these pieces.

Hey all, I greatly miss the beautiful bartop arcade cabinet that @Rincewind designed the graphics for way back in 2016: We ended up giving this cabinet away to the Game Chasers, which was honestly the best decision we could have made as a company at the time, however difficult it was to see it go. The cabinet was featured in tons and tons of videos and we got crazy amounts of publicity from it. Monster Arcades did a great job with it, but because of the copyrighted artwork, they weren't willing to build us another one because legally they could only build one as a "tribute". I do have a full-size arcade cabinet that's pretty decked out already, but it's a modified Rec Room Masters cabinet, and it's seen better days at this point. It also never had any artwork on it so it's just black. All this to say that I've been itching to build a new cabinet for years. I've also started woodworking as a hobby in the last couple of years, so it's not a bad pairing. It will be a full-size arcade cabinet with a 32" TV in it. For artwork for the new cabinet, I've commissioned some amazing nostalgic bedroom scene artwork from the one and only Rachid Lotf: https://rachidlotf.com/ I'll share a small version of the artwork here once I receive it from Rachid. For the actual cabinet build and plans, I'm following this tutorial, and I've purchased the plans: The final cabinet will be very similar to this build, but I'm planning on putting glass in front of the LCD screen (instead of just mounting the LCD screen directly), and I'll be overhauling the control panel. I'm gonna make another post here shortly with some pics of the beginning of the build process. Feel free to comment on any suggestions or feedback for the build.

Beta 4 is out now with some minor fixes to the manual searches from the games database and image browser. We're hoping to release tomorrow, so any testing that folks can do would be much appreciated.

Good to hear. Thanks.

Hey all, beta 3 is out now with the following: You can now pick and choose which game images to download from the LaunchBox Games Database by going to the Edit Media menu item on a game and then selecting Browse for New Games Database Image from the listed image types Image download priorities have been improved for images from the LaunchBox Games Database without a region (which should help to avoid downloading, for example, Japanese images on North American games) Fixed several issues with the manual game search process when editing a game's metadata, where the correct values were not always being used and updated

@Simon_BroQuest Thanks for the report. I've added this to my list to review.