Building a MAME arcade cabinet...

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Originally Posted by andyrose

Hey Tonic and Videodrone, you have any pics of your cabs you can send me?

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I have some pics, but I don't have access to them right now. I can send you some pics of the inside, so you can see how everything comes together.

I also use mamewah as my frontend. My favorite thing about it is how easy it is to customize to your specific setup. Mine is setup so I don't need to use the mouse/keyboard at all- I can do everything from my CP (but I did put a keyboard drawer under my CP though). One thing you might want to consider is adding a set of admin buttons (for things like exit, pause, credit, etc). I only added 1 admin button to my CP that basically works as shift to be used in tandem with the 1P buttons. Anyone who plays with me can't remember what the shift functions are, even though it seems perfectly intuitive to me...

As for mame on xbox I remember that there was a problem with roms that were >56MB or something (ie metal slug 3), but maybe they fixed it.

The only admin button I really plan to have is "Back", which I'm planning on binding to alt+F4+esc. Strange as it sounds, that combo will quit absolutely everything. 'cept Mamewah, given how I'll be setting it up. Of course, I'll be keeping the keyboard under the table.

Could someone tell me more about the types of monitors people like to use for these? As some of you know I buy shit in lots from the military every now and then. I see lots of rgb monitors come up all the time.

If I knew more, and if it was worth my money and time, I might be able to help the community out.

From what I can gather, the "purest" display you can use is a RGB/15khz/CGA/whatever you want to call it monitor. Really, if you're seeing a ton of RGB monitors, I wish that I could've bought one from you a month ago. What would you want to know about them?

I can tell you that they really don't seem to have a video connection standard, and... That's about it.

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Originally Posted by Tain

What would you want to know about them?

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some links on what people are using, how people get them to do what they want, how people make new plugs, the specs people need to do this, and how they get things that are not to spec to work anyway. But the big question is what people pay for these things.

Is it worth my trouble to drive 4 hours to Huntsville and load up 30 of these things and store them.

thats what sucks about looking for RGB monitors, because there isn't always a clear cut way of telling if something will run standard resolution analog rgb. I remember spending hours in a surplus store looking at rgb monitors and looking their specs up. Out of 50 rgb monitors, only 3 would work for gaming (but they were all beat to shit). I learned the hard way that connections labeled "RGB" with some HV sync doesn't necessarily mean you found what ure looking for.

If you can take something up with you to test the monitors that would probably be the easiest way. Maybe hacking up a playstation rgb cable and a psone would be the most convenient way.

I don't know if that is doable.

What the DMRO does is that they take say, 50 whatevers, put them on pallets, and shrink rap a stack of them. They then shove all of this in a warehouse from the 40s.

powering them on, hooking shit up, and the like, really isn't an option.

Ok, here's what I've been learning:

RGB Arcade monitors are the best for this, bar none. However, I also heard conflicting reports that Windows doesn't like RGB monitors, so I'm not sure about that. I do know that I can't find or afford one of these, even if they do work.

TVs seem to be the most cost effective solution. I've seen a lot of MAME cabs with TVs. Since I ran into a snag with my LCD setup, this may be what I do. Problem with this is it's going to be heavy as hell, and put out a buttload of heat.

CRT PC Monitors are going to give you increased quality over TV, but they're going to be even heavier, and large screens are going to be hard to find. However, I do have a 19" NEC CRT collecting dust in a shed, and it's actually a pretty good screen. I may end up using this too.

I was all set to use an LCD for my project, just because they are so bright, so clear, so cheap, they're light as a feather, don't put out much heat, etc. etc. Unfortunately, I've been reading that third party PC light guns are not going to work with an LCD or TFT screen. One of the reasons I'm building this thing is to play ALL of the great old arcade games that MAME is compatible with, and using an LCD would prevent playing light gun games. So I guess I'm down to using a CRT or a TV for my screen.

You are right, there is no substitute for an RGB monitor. I run windows on my WG k7400, albeit at 640X480 interlaced resolution. It gets the job done just fine. If you get a WG9200 (can do standard, medium, and high res) then you can run widows at a higher resoltion non-interlaced.

Using a tv isn't that bad of an alternative, especially because there isn't any hassel with setup. It took me some time and research to get everything to work on my arcade monitor, but once I did I felt dumb that I doubted getting one.

Yeah, I found this guy's website where he uses a 24" Sony Wega, and he says it looks great and I'm sure it does. I think I've decided that a 24" Wega is probably the best option for me and my cab. If I didn't live in Arkansas, where there isn't an arcade, let alone an arcade parts shop, for 500 miles, I might have looked for an RGB monitor.

Went to my local Lowes store today to start the process by buying 4 sheets of 4X8 MDF board. They didn't have any. The dumbasses that were working at the time didn't even know what Medium Density Fiberboard was. Looks like I'm going to have to get it out of town, I may take a trip next Friday or Saturday to buy my supplies.