MAME for MCE 2005

[James Fee]

"The Media Center apps just keep on rolling this week. Joshua Schipman at HTPCNews points us to the Game EX MCE Plug-in for Windows XP Media Center Edition. For those not familiar, MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. Yes, you can play all your favorite old console games and others on your PC. Naturally you'll want to actually own any of the games you play, but this is a great tutorial and he comes away impressed with Media Center and Game EX front end saying, “Overall I would say this is one of the easiest front ends I have used to date.”

http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/mce_mame.jpg

Running MAME on MCE sounds great. Those old games will sure look great on a TV. 8) Such a great interface too.

[Raven]

That does it!

I'm getting me one of them MCE 2005 PCs :lol:

Marble Madness...here I come :twisted:

[Jason Dunn]

Ok, that is SO cool! I was initially thinking I only wanted an extender...but maybe a whole media center PC is in order. What to do, what to do...

[Raven]

What to do, what to do...

Simple.....

Open your wallet and pull out your credit card.

Me? I already have my CC number memorized.

Here's an 18 page review of MCE 2005 on HTPC News
Review (http://htpcnews.com/main.php?id=mce2k5_1)

[Suhit Gupta]

Here's an 18 page review of MCE 2005 on HTPC News
Review (http://htpcnews.com/main.php?id=mce2k5_1)
Wow, that is one massive review. Really good set of screenshots.

Suhit

[Schade]

...but maybe a whole media center PC is in order. What to do, what to do...

Same here. I've moved my wife up to the next rung of acceptance. (First, it was, well if you don't want me sitting in the office to use the computer, what we need is a laptop and wireless network!) Now, with an 11 month old daughter, thousands of digital photos, plenty of videotape, a messed up schedule that demands some sort of DVR, and getting tired of the hassle of booting a laptop and connecting external media drives, we're ready for MCE 2005! I going to deal with the fan noise and get a tower instead of something like the new HP models. That way I can do all of the other computer related things in the living room, too. (Dell Ultrasharp 20.1" is $639 w/free shipping this weekend!")

Here's what I've come up with after spending 12 hours researching site like thegreenbutton.com and DMT (keep up the great work guys!) yesterday...

Dell Dimension 8400 P4 3.2, 800Mhz FSB
XP MCE 2005
1GB DDR2 SDRAM 533Mhz
ATI Radeon X800 SE (128 mb) DVI/VGA/TV-out
250GB S-ATA
Wireless Keyboard and Mouse
8x DVD+RW
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS w/IEEE1394
ATI eHome Wonder TV tuner with MCE Remote
Plus! for XP + Plus! Digital Media Edition (To put us over $1799)

$1808
Minus Dell $250 mail-in-rebate
minus 15% ($271.20) Coupon XPCR11PT5Z96BT 15% off >= $1799

Grand total = $1286.80

I'll probably get the 20.1" also and then buy a second analog or HD tuner later. Might also drop the Plus! software and switch to a dual 250gb RAID configuration.

Pretty excited!

(Anybody know if I can use the SP/DIF audio out and the regular stereo speaker out on the Soundblaster Audigy 2 simultaneously?)