So your going to design your ultimate game room!!!

[thekeepr]

Ok...so some of you have it already...some of you may never get it...and some you are planning to have it someday, the gameroom of your dreams....a place you can show off your entire collection, hook up every system you desire to play any game you have in mind, a comfortable seating arrangement for visitors and yourself, a room you could really admire......so why am I rambling on like this? I'm planning to have a room sorta of like what I have been describing, from the ground up!! A room about 36 ft x 20 ft.,possibily slightly larger, but not by much.......So the questions arise....If you had to do it from the beginning...what would you do different?, if your starting, as I hopefully will be doing soon, how would you design this room?
Having ample room would of course be nice, I'm thinking the dimensions I stated will be enough.....how about outlets for all the stuff I need to plug into?, wall space and storage for all the carts so I can show off my collection? a small area to work on systems(i.e. repair,clean,etc), proper lighting?, what type of lighting? Any suggestions that would help me and possibly anyone else planning such an undertaking would be helpful. Thanks....The Keeper

[Ed Oscuro]

A room about 36 ft x 20 ft.,possibily slightly larger, but not by much.......

Hah, that's funny. Mine wouldn't be any larger than 12 ft square.

Well, if I had to do things over...I'd, I dunno, probably do it the same, except get somewhere that I can sit my Neo Geo box, and a shelf that's the right size to hold Mega Drive/SFC boxes.

[udisi]

well I don't have pics , but something I plan on doing when I move my game room are
1), have a way to conceal wires...I have 18 systems on one TV, and I have my systems a few feet away from my enterainment center on and under a coffe table, so that my controllers can reach my couch and other seat comfortably...problem is that I have a giant embilical cord of wires coming from my coffee table back behind my entertainment center to plug into my amp...same with cords under my coffee table...now you can organized and zip tie the cords under the coffe table , but the embilicus would be better done, if it were under the floor and then come up under the coffee table as to get it out of the way.
2) As for outlets I run on 4-5 power strips, from 2 outlets. Since I don't run all my systems at once I don't really have a problem with overloading, but don't forget to have outlets for your tv, amp, powered subs, dvd player, etc, I have I think one or 2 more power strips for these. If I were Building the room over I would have more direct outlets or maybe even a built in high power, power strip in stalled so that I wasn't puting 2 or more power strips off a standard 2 slot outlet. (Just safety concerns.)
3). I want to make custom built-in shelves around my new walls to hold all my games. I want Kinda like a hutch all the way around my room, so that the bottom say 3-4 feet are storage spaces, like drawers or just cabinats to store controllers , mem cards, boxes , magizines, or whatever some space so that I could clean up all the clutter that accumilates when you're like" I don't know where to put this so I'll just throw it on this pile"

[Nature Boy]

I've got a couple of ideas floating in the back of my head.

In the short term, I might convert my current game room a bit. I've got a dozen or so consoles sitting on two book cases, with the machines on the lower shelves and the games on the upper shelves (and a 14" TV in the middle).

What I'd like to do is use my closet. Build some custom shelving (nothing fancy, just the proper dimensions) and use my 27" TV in the middle. There's an outlet right there that I can run power bars off of. I'll take off the doors, but having it tucked away means that the rest of my room is going to be pretty open (I'll fill the book shelves with books for a change :) ).

Long term I want to build something in my basement. I have a wall that will follow the support beams. I'll build shelving *inside* the wall, with the ability to walk behind it. That way connecting stuff and hiding wires will be trivial. Plus I can put more than the standard number of outlets back there if I want to.

The last thing I've thought of is labeling. Putting simple engraved labels in front of each machine, with it's name and year of release. To give it a bit of a museum feel (and to impress even those who don't like video games).

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

A room about 36 ft x 20 ft.,possibily slightly larger, but not by much...

36 x 20!? Is that all? Good lord, what luxury! X_x

If I had mine (http://www.thelogbook.com/phosphor/about/room/) to do over again...I'd do it in a much larger room, even if it meant annexing said room by force with my army of game-playing kitties.

[IGotTheDot]

My idea of a game room is for storage. You can walk into the room and see mostly everything and then take it to the living room and play it. I don't want to be banished to a room that is dark and smells like cardboard to play my games.

Do other people have a problem with setting up all the systems in the living room?

[DarkSoul]

I personally rather like my current and near future system that has games scattered around the house, with framed (flattened) boxes and instruction manuals on the walls, two arcade machines, one in the bedroom (cocktail style, doubles as a bedside table), one in the living room... Then, the consoles are soon to be split into two groups, one in the "study" den type room with the older games, and the other, new games (along with some dupes of my favorite systems that can be in both rooms) in the main living room....



'course, how long this will last is anyone's guess. My girlfriend wants to give me a dedicated gaming room. How generous. Sigh.
:)

[Shadysmurf]

im currently transforming a room into a game room, I need more game posters, and possible some shelfs im seriously running out of room with my impulsive buying 0.o

[buttasuperb]

At some point I will have a game room with many cabs.

I will need much more room for that of course.

Also lots of posters and marquees on the walls, and a bar. Yes, a bar right in my game room. :-D

[Anthony1]

One thing that I would do if I was making my own dream game room, would be to go out and buy like 5 or 6 Commodore 1084 RGB monitors. These are small 13 inch RGB monitors that could be made into mini game stations.

Then you could have some of your systems hooked up to these RGB monitors by a specialized RGB cable, and you could enjoy these systems to their ultimate extent, in terms of clarity and crispness of the video signal.

You can find these old monitors for like 40 bucks or so each, maybe even less. Of course the hard part is getting a TRUE rgb cable for each of your systems.

Right now, I'm playing these systems in true Glorious RGB on my Commodore 1084S-D1 monitor:

Super Nintendo - if you are a fan of the SNES, you really need to see it in RGB. See every little detail in a game like Super Ghouls and Ghosts.

Sega Genesis - Another must for RGB. See every little detail in the butterflies flying around in Spring Hill Zone in Sonic.

Atari Jaguar - See the crystal clear display that is an Atari Jaguar in true RGB.

Sega Saturn - You have never really seen a Sega Saturn, until you've seen the beauty of Astal in RGB.

I have those four systems working in RGB, but right now, I only have one RGB monitor. It would be nice to have 4 seperate RGB monitors for all for of these systems in my Gameroom.

Plus you can also play these systems in RGB too: Playstation 1, Turbo Grafx 16, Nintendo 64, Sega CD, Sega 32X and Playstation 2.

Both the Turbo Grafx and Nintendo 64 need to be internally modified to output a RGB signal, but once done, it provides a supposedly incredible picture. By the way, you can have the Sega CD, Genesis and 32X all hooked up to one RGB monitor with one RGB cable.

And then somewhere in the room, I would also have a large 27 inch or larger Wells-Gardner RGB monitor. These are the same ones that are found in Arcade Cabinets. Of course you would also need special cables to hook all those systems up to this monitor too, and that would be a real pain in the neck, but that's another story.

[dave2236]

I plan on having my entire basement being my game museum and arcade center. I plan on having glass shelving and glass doors all the way around my basement to store my games and toys in. I also plan on putting my pool table and Arkanoid machine down their too. And a bar, Fooseball table, and shuffleboard down there.

[Ed Oscuro]

I finally got a good shelf for my games, and it's thankfully still got room left. It's for storing VCR tapes/CDs, which are about the same size as Master System/Genesis boxes and, of course, the various CD-ROMs I've got. Put it together myself. $24.88, piece of junk Sauder but who's gonna care. Bottom shelf's for Neo Geo/old style Saturn/x68K/MSX boxes.

[thekeepr]

WOW!!!.....just ask and you shall recieve...lots of good input here, This project is still in the very early planning stages, will have more clarity on it in about 2 weeks. I guess the actual dimensions will be 19 x 35 or so, after you get walls up and everything. It may be slightly "L" shaped too, allowing for a walk in closet type arrangment for game & system storage. The electrical wiring is going to be a challenge...I want plenty of plug ins...would consider any input here, how about those long (various lengths they come in, 6-8-10 ft long) power strips mounted along the bottom of the walls were the systems will be? I've seen these before, don't really know how they would do for this type of installation. And I want to have indirect type of lighting for the room, so as to have better viewing of the monitor/tv screens...possibly cheap track lighting? Also I do have about 6-7 Commodore monitors...been buying those for a reason when I see them. I don't plan to have any big screen type tv's, just a bunch of small monitors and 13-15-17 & 21 inch tv's/displays for my game systems. I guess I could leave a wall free for marque and poster hanging. Thanks again for everyone's help on this.
The Keeper :) :)

[ghsqb]

WOW!!!.....just ask and you shall recieve...lots of good input here, This project is still in the very early planning stages, will have more clarity on it in about 2 weeks. I guess the actual dimensions will be 19 x 35 or so, after you get walls up and everything. It may be slightly "L" shaped too, allowing for a walk in closet type arrangment for game & system storage. The electrical wiring is going to be a challenge...I want plenty of plug ins...would consider any input here, how about those long (various lengths they come in, 6-8-10 ft long) power strips mounted along the bottom of the walls were the systems will be? I've seen these before, don't really know how they would do for this type of installation. And I want to have indirect type of lighting for the room, so as to have better viewing of the monitor/tv screens...possibly cheap track lighting? Also I do have about 6-7 Commodore monitors...been buying those for a reason when I see them. I don't plan to have any big screen type tv's, just a bunch of small monitors and 13-15-17 & 21 inch tv's/displays for my game systems. I guess I could leave a wall free for marque and poster hanging. Thanks again for everyone's help on this.
The Keeper :) :)

Well Keeper, being in the electrical field, I can help you with a few of your electrical concerns.

First, those strips of electrical recepticals you are refering two, there are two types.
One is Elecrostrip, which is basically an electrified strip of about 8-10' long and receptacles are added by clipping them in to the elctrified strip.
This is more of a commercial application and not something I'd recommend for your home.

There is another brand called "Plugmold" and the manufacturer is "Wiremold"
You should be able to find Wiremold products at your local Home Depot.
Plugmold is a preset length, again usually 8-10' (some ar available in 6' lengths? and the number and spacing of the recptacles is predetermined.
You cannot add to this system, but you can order it to suit your needs.
As far as mounting, the Plugmold product allows for two mounting options.
One is "hardwire" where you bring your supply from the panel and connect it directly to the Plugmold, this is more of a permanent installation.
You can also get Plugmold that actually can plug into an existing wall receptacle, this is less popular because it becomes nothing more than a glorified power bar, at a much higher price than a power bar would be.

Secondly, the lighting, if you want to go with indirect lighting, it is difficult to do without incurring expense and having it look decent.

I would not suggest track lighting, track lighting will either be incandescent or low-voltage halogen, in both cases your heat to light ratio will be 90% heat to 10% light.
This will result in low light levels and discolouration of your ceiling.
Best bet for indirect lighting is fluorescent.
Heat to light ratio is 10% heat, 90% light.
Furthermore incandescent track lighting tends to be narrower beam, making indirect lighting difficult.

Your best bet is to go with fluorescent, and if you want to do it inexpensively, go to Home Depot or Lowes and pick up 4' industrial strip fixtures. These are just a strip that will hold 1 or 2 lamps.
Mount them off the ceiling using threaded rod and/or unistrut.
You should also pick up reflectors for the strips so that the light is channeled upwards at the ceiling for your indirect lighting and not escaping from the sides of the fixture.

Hope that helps.