Building a MAME arcade cabinet...

You guys know all about MAME, right? Arcade emulator, plays tons of our favorite arcade games right on a home PC, etc. And then a few years ago we heard about this 'X-Arcade' thing, a company was selling an arcade cabinet capable of playing all of these great arcade games in one machine.

Well me and my friend/business partner really started getting serious about building one of these things ourselves. We found a lot of great information on the internet from people that have built them before. Some people buy old trashed arcade cabs and convert them, but we're going to build it from scratch and customize it a bit. When it's done it'll end up looking something like the picture I'm attaching. Anyone on TNL built one of these before? If so, hit me up on AIM(andyrosebrook), if you have any useful tips. As we go along building it I'm going to take pictures at each stage.

What I'm debating is whether or not to try to somehow hook up consoles to it as well. I've seen pictures where someone also had a Dreamcast, Xbox, PS2, etc. hooked up internally to the joystick controls. I'm also not sure if we're going to make it 2 or 4 player. I know I'm going to put in a spinner and a scroll ball, and maybe flight sim joystick for the old flying games, not sure yet. Oh yeah, and I think we're going to try to figure out how to make it with a rotatable 21-24" LCD screen. You'll be able to flip the screen vertically for vertical shooters.

I thought about doing something like this a few years ago.. but I decided that it is just too impractical for us (living in NYC and all). It would be kinda awesome to have something like this in a "game room", but it is also abit bulky. So I ended up building a HTPC and just play mame on my big screen TV. Not sure if there is a market for something like this though, since you can't price it too low and it is an incredible pain (not to mention expensive) to ship. But good luck.

I think Tain was/is building one. I wanted to at one point, but I don't really have anywhere to put one so there'd be no point.

I wanted to build one, but i thought of putting in a xbox instead of a pc, though now that i think about it a pc would be a better choice

I built one and finally finished it 6 months ago. Best thing I ever did, and the thing I like about it the most is I can play arcade pcbs, mame, and consoles quite easily. I take it you already did a lot of research over at byoac. There are a lot of great projects that are detailed step by step, and the best thing is you can learn from other people's mistakes instead of screwing up yourself.

I highly recommend building your cab in a 3D sketch program, like sketchup. It's extremely easy to use and I think google just bought them so it's free. I was able to get the cab to look exactly the way I wanted it to, and figure out all the small details before hand rather than running into some big oversight later on.

I guess the easiest way to explain how everything works is that my cab basically has a supergun in it, so I just plug whatever system, PCB, or PC into the supergun. It just takes a minute to change the controls, video, and audio. I used the project box approach with my controls using db15 connectors and used the vga pinout as my video standard and hacked a spider rgb cable for consoles. I also hacked a saturn pad to a db15 extension cable, so I can easily use that to play arcade pcbs or whatever.

For PC connectivity, i'm using a arcade vga and jpac. I hesitated at first about getting a WG monitor, but now I'm so glad i didn't use a pc monitor

Tain is making one atm, it's hot

oh yeah, and i made it so I could swap out control panels (one happ and the other sanwa parts). It wasn't necessary, I just did it cause I could. I'm going to make a steering wheel CP sometime too. It's a matter of preference, but I was really against making a "frankenpanel" with too much stuff on it.

Yeah, I'm about to do the actual cabinet building process now that the hardware and software side is mostly done. Got a thread in the circuit board with my progress.

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I guess the easiest way to explain how everything works is that my cab basically has a supergun in it, so I just plug whatever system, PCB, or PC into the supergun. It just takes a minute to change the controls, video, and audio. I used the project box approach with my controls using db15 connectors and used the vga pinout as my video standard and hacked a spider rgb cable for consoles. I also hacked a saturn pad to a db15 extension cable, so I can easily use that to play arcade pcbs or whatever.

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Sounds better than what I'm doing. At the moment, I just have the PC connected right to the monitor via an ArcadeVGA card. I figure I'll cut up a SCART cable at some point to hook up a PS2 (or just buy a pre-made cable like that for $10 more), followed by wiring PS2 pads to the joysticks. Still gonna be missing some key Saturn games (Silvergun) until MAME speeds STV up a bit, though.

So, for your controls, you have the Saturn controller PCB connected to a db15 connector? Is that a JAMMA controller standard?

I've been thinking of a reasonably easy way to swap the joystick between PC (via keyboard encoder) to PSX, but I'm a complete noob when it comes to electronics. I'd like to not have to swap, say, fifteen wires from one terminal strip to another.

What sort of display do you have?

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oh yeah, and i made it so I could swap out control panels (one happ and the other sanwa parts). It wasn't necessary, I just did it cause I could. I'm going to make a steering wheel CP sometime too. It's a matter of preference, but I was really against making a "frankenpanel" with too much stuff on it.

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This would be awesome way down the line, and something we're probably doing.

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Originally Posted by andyrose

Oh yeah, and I think we're going to try to figure out how to make it with a rotatable 21-24" LCD screen.

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LCDs are pretty damn ugly, as a warning.

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Originally Posted by Tain

Yeah, I'm about to do the actual cabinet building process now that the hardware and software side is mostly done. Got a thread in the circuit board with my progress.

Sounds better than what I'm doing. At the moment, I just have the PC connected right to the monitor via an ArcadeVGA card. I figure I'll cut up a SCART cable at some point to hook up a PS2 (or just buy a pre-made cable like that for $10 more), followed by wiring PS2 pads to the joysticks. Still gonna be missing some key Saturn games (Silvergun) until MAME speeds STV up a bit, though.

So, for your controls, you have the Saturn controller PCB connected to a db15 connector? Is that a JAMMA controller standard?

I've been thinking of a reasonably easy way to swap the joystick between PC (via keyboard encoder) to PSX, but I'm a complete noob when it comes to electronics. I'd like to not have to swap, say, fifteen wires from one terminal strip to another.

What sort of display do you have?

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Tain's right about using an LCD, it will look pretty nasty when a game is running at a non native resolution (pretty much everything)

I realy lucked out 2 years ago and got a refurbised 25" wellsgardner display for $200. I mentioned above that I hacked a spider rgb cable, but that wasn't how it went down. I bought a scart extension cable that made things easier. I wired one end to conform to the vga pinout, and the female end of the scart ext would obviously accept any scart cable. So instead of hacking each individual console for rgb, I would just need to get the appropriate scart cable. As I mentioned before, I lucked out and found this spider rgb cable that has leads for all the sega systems, nintendo, playstation 1/2, and xbox.

I don't think I explained the whole db15 thing correctly. Don't wire any pcbs inside your sticks- make your own pinout and wire the buttons straight to the db15 connector. That way they aren't console specific and you can add any system later on. Go get some small project boxes from radio shack and put your respective controller pcbs wired to a db15 connector. So then a standard db15 extension cable runs from your sticks to the project boxes, and the other side of the project boxes has the cord from the pcb that goes to the consoles.

As far as my saturn controller, I opened it up and removed the chip inside (it's not that hard to remove). I then cut one end of a db15 extension cable and wired it to the pcb conforming to my personal controller pinout. Does that make sense? So I can use my saturn pad on the PC, ps2, nintendo, xbox, etch without the need for an adaptor/converter. I can even run it to the saturn if I want...

this is the only pic I have on hand, but maybe it will help

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I realy lucked out 2 years ago and got a refurbised 25" wellsgardner display for $200.

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Holy damn, that's amazing. My 25 inch display strikes me as kinda low quality (not that I'd know), and it cost me $250 minus shipping. Sounds like a great find on the scart cable, too. You wouldn't happen to know the output voltage of most of these consoles, would you? My monitor only takes 2.5-5v, so I needed to get a signal booster to use my PC (ArcadeVGA outputs at 1v). If all the consoles are the same, then great.

As for the controls, I wouldn't actually have the PCBs inside the sticks, but rather just some barrier strips connected to the PCBs inside the cabinet itself. But after what you said, fitting them to db15 would be pretty convenient.

And yeah, I think I got what you said about the Saturn controller now. Pretty good idea, but I don't know if I'll be hooking enough up to this to make it worth making a decent box out of.

I built one a little over 2 years ago. It was alot of fun. Gonna make cocktail sooner than later.

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Originally Posted by Tonic the Drunkhog

There are a lot of great projects that are detailed step by step, and the best thing is you can learn from other people's mistakes instead of screwing up yourself.

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Totally agree. Look at a lot of different projects and see what you like and go from there.
Nice thing is that it appears that there are a few people here that had done it before to get advice from if you run into any questions/issues.

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Originally Posted by andyrose

I've seen pictures where someone also had a Dreamcast, Xbox, PS2, etc. hooked up internally to the joystick controls.

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I love mame cabs, but this idea has never made sense to me.

the whole point of a mame cab is to recreate the arcade experence, screen setup, controls and all. Why would anyone want to play standing up with alien controlers for a console game on a arcade monitor?

If you're going to play shmups or fighters that MAME can't emulate, then you need a PS2 in there...

I have a dreamcast in my arcade cab. pls blv.

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Originally Posted by Tain

Holy damn, that's amazing. My 25 inch display strikes me as kinda low quality (not that I'd know), and it cost me $250 minus shipping. Sounds like a great find on the scart cable, too. You wouldn't happen to know the output voltage of most of these consoles, would you? My monitor only takes 2.5-5v, so I needed to get a signal booster to use my PC (ArcadeVGA outputs at 1v). If all the consoles are the same, then great.

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I dont know what the voltages are, but I can tell you that they don't output the same (ie you need to make adjustments for each system). I use my jpac as a signal booster, mainly because I don't want to adjust my monitor each time I change something.

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the whole point of a mame cab is to recreate the arcade experence, screen setup, controls and all. Why would anyone want to play standing up with alien controlers for a console game on a arcade monitor?

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At least for the Dreamcast, you just wire your joystick controls to the Dreamcast. It's not very easy, and you have to swap power plugs to switch from one to the other.

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

The thing about the LCD is this. We've been playing MAME at my computer repair shop on a spare computer with just regular joysticks for the past few weeks, using it as goof off time. We had a customer bring in a 22" NEC LCD for repair, and when we hooked it up and ran MAME it was so freaking beautiful. Even really old games looked amazing, even at their native resolutions. I'm sure the quality of the LCD makes a big difference, but I also hooked up my 19" widescreen LCD to it and it looks just about as good on every game we've played so far. One reason I want to make a bigass LCD cab is just for the simple fact that I haven't seen anyone else do it yet.....which is a big plus to me because I like being different. But we were also designing it to where you could rotate the LCD 90 degrees to play vertical shooters.

We'll probably just end up putting a 27" TV in there, just in case we want to hook up some newer consoles, but if the quality of newer LCDs can hold up to an RGB arcade monitor, then I'm going to find some way to go with that, if only to make the cabinet easier to move around!

Alright, here's something for you guys.......did you know you can emulate the Dreamcast on a PC pretty much perfectly now? Without going into names, there's one that allows you to play Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Powerstone 2(the 2 main DC games I would want on this thing) flawlessly, and I'm pretty sure it will play many other ones once I get the chance to test it out more. It would be really nice not to have to hook up a Dreamcast and have to change CDs out every time I wanted to play a DC game, if I could create a custom menu screen and just link up with the Dreamcast emulator, that would be kickass. I kinda want to have a menu on the select screen that goes like this:

Arcade -> choose this and link up to the MAME arcade list
Dreamcast ->
NES
Sega Master System
SNES
Genesis
Sega CD
Sega 32X
Saturn
PSX
N64
Game Boy
Game Gear
GBA
GB DS

etc., and just have every console emulated on the main screen.

Anybody have light guns hooked up to theirs? Because I'm going to have to get some light gun action going if I'm going to do this.

So now that my studio is nearly finished, I'm starting on my next aracde machine (next to the neo, wee!).

The plan is to drop a xbox running mame and a DC inside the thing because I have extra systems of both.

How does the xbox mame compare to the pc mame? I'd much rather use an xbox due to convience and ease of setup, but if there is a HUGE diffierence between the emulation quality and a mid range pc I might change my mind.

Any place that has xbox mame/pc mame type comparisons?

Thanks!

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did you know you can emulate the Dreamcast on a PC pretty much perfectly now? Without going into names, there's one that allows you to play Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Powerstone 2(the 2 main DC games I would want on this thing) flawlessly, and I'm pretty sure it will play many other ones once I get the chance to test it out more. It would be really nice not to have to hook up a Dreamcast and have to change CDs out every time I wanted to play a DC game, if I could create a custom menu screen and just link up with the Dreamcast emulator, that would be kickass.

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Chankast, right?

Yeah, it's getting there, but it's pretty far from perfection. At least, it doesn't run the games that I want in the slightest. And it hasn't been updated in two years, so I'm a sad panda.

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I kinda want to have a menu on the select screen that goes like this:

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http://mamewah.mameworld.net/

MameWAH is a menu frontend thing for pretty much any emulator you can find. It's joystick controllable, has custom layouts, runs at any resolution, supports sound, supports video backgrounds, game snapshots, game video previews, and a million other things. It also runs PC games, so I have it linking to all those doujin shmups and shit.

Basically, you can assign buttons to switch platform as well as buttons to switch sublists for each platform. So, I've got every MAME game I have (many of which are clones or run like crap, most of which don't have screenshots, and it's a huge slow list to scroll through), but I also have a "Recommended Games" list with all the stuff that I like perfectly configured with screens.

There's an alternative called MaLa, which supports MameWah layouts and is supposedly easier to configure, but I haven't messed with it yet.

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So now that my studio is nearly finished, I'm starting on my next aracde machine (next to the neo, wee!).

The plan is to drop a xbox running mame and a DC inside the thing because I have extra systems of both.

How does the xbox mame compare to the pc mame? I'd much rather use an xbox due to convience and ease of setup, but if there is a HUGE diffierence between the emulation quality and a mid range pc I might change my mind.

Any place that has xbox mame/pc mame type comparisons?

Thanks!

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Xbox MAME is slower, has a way outdated game list, and it always outputs video with hardware stretching. I'd say just go for a cheap PC, myself.

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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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Unfortunately don't have any current pics. I originally used laminate tape for the edging as I did have/have access to a rounter to cut the grove for t-molding. I recently got one and a grove cutter, so the cab has been laying on my basement floor for the past few weeks for my father-in-law to come help me cut the groves (see: don't wanna fuck up).

I took pitures of each step and started to make a webpage (still haved got around to finishing it), but anyway this was the enterence page. Didn't have a marquee at the time I took the pic and only had a 17' pc monitor it there. Both things have since changed:
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/a...id=19869&stc=1

Here is a collage of some of the wip stages:
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/a...id=19870&stc=1

I ended up using a hybrid Capcom 6 button layout/SNK layout for my controls (If anybody is interested in using this template simply LMK -I'll send it your way):
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/a...chmentid=19767

In the attachments below I put the boarder art I found and modified/edited to match my cab. They add a real nice look.

Hell yes, Videodrone, that's what I'm talking about. I've decided to go with a 4 player setup. I like that marble look, I think I'm going to go with a high gloss coat of black paint for mine and just add a few graphics. Since I've had some experience cutting windows for custom PCs, I think I may put some side windows in the cab, not sure yet.

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Chankast, right?

Yeah, it's getting there, but it's pretty far from perfection. At least, it doesn't run the games that I want in the slightest. And it hasn't been updated in two years, so I'm a sad panda.

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I don't know about that, but it plays Marvel vs Capcom 2 perfectly, which MAME can't do, and so far I've also tested Ikaruga, Capcom vs SNK 2000, and 2 or 3 others, and it works like a frickin charm. It's going to be great not having to shove in my DC and swap out games for this thing, not to mention hooking it up to the sticks.

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http://mamewah.mameworld.net/

MameWAH is a menu frontend thing for pretty much any emulator you can find. It's joystick controllable, has custom layouts, runs at any resolution, supports sound, supports video backgrounds, game snapshots, game video previews, and a million other things. It also runs PC games, so I have it linking to all those doujin shmups and shit.

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Who says the internet is just a series of interconnected tubes? Thanks man, this is what I was looking for.

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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.

This may be a stupid question, but would viewing a TV from only ~2 feet away from a extended period of time put strain on the eyes? I've thought about upgrading my cab with a 27" set, but am leary as our mothers have always hassled us about sitting to close to the tv.

*edit*

Did some research and the conclusion is that there is no potenial for damage to the eyes from watching a tv "too close".

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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.

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Yeah, the only real beef I have with TVs is that it seems that you either go with an image that doesn't fill the screen or filtering. Filtering on a TV looks a million times better than, say, filtering on a PC monitor, though. If I didn't go with an RGB monitor, that'd be the route I'd take.

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Originally Posted by andyrose

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.

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us fiberboard really the best thing for this?

Unless you want your cabinet to have that "rustic" look, MDF is the only material I see using. It's a lot easier to work with, too.

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Originally Posted by andyrose

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.

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How much is a 24" wega? If it's like $300, you might as well get a monitor from WellsGardner for around $50 more.
One thing I was doing reseach on but dumped when I got my monitor for cheap, was converting the RGB signal to component video to use on a modern tv. When you use svideo out on regular video card it will only output 480i (and svideo doesn't look great to begin with), but I really see no reason why you couldn't have something convert the output of the arcade vga to component. I remember seeing a post at neo-geo.com where a kid made a mvs supergun and used a audio authority converter and got a good picture on his wega. I beleive JMkurtz started making a rgb>component converter as well. Just an idea to consider if you're bored and feel like finding out...

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is fiberboard really the best thing for this?

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absolutely!

Medium Density Fiberboard may be magical but I've always considered fiberboard to be a shit of a building material. It hates moisture, it's heavy, and doesn't support weight as well as anything else.

Are you talking about fiberboard or particleboard? Fiberboard is the heavy duty water resistant shit they build office furniture out of. And, I'm pretty sure, arcade cabinets.

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Originally Posted by andyrose

Are you talking about fiberboard or particleboard? Fiberboard is the heavy duty water resistant shit they build office furniture out of. And, I'm pretty sure, arcade cabinets.

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Not to mention speaker cabinets for both home and car setups.

MDF is strong as all hell, you just need to know how to work with it.

Its not really water resisant until you paint and seal it, however, but for an arcade cab, should water be a big issue?

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Originally Posted by buttcheeks

It hates moisture, it's heavy, and doesn't support weight as well as anything else.

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Dude are you talking about fiberboard or your mom?

What's the best version of MAME as far as working correctly with the most roms?

I'd say just the standard Mame. Well, Mame32 for easy game selection.

Oh yeah, version 106 of MAME does NOT work with a lot of the games I've tried for some reason. version 95 is what we've been using.

I just built one, finished it this month. The only two suggestions i have are get back ups of the inexpensive parts and don't get frustrated when hooking in the joysticks, it takes a while to get them just right.

Have any pictures, Biff?

I shall take pictures and post them.

Well my joysticks are screwed up, so you get some helpful pics.

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...calMikeJoy.jpg

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ogicaljoy1.jpg


You can see what my cab looks like (it's really not great, but it was cheap and effective) on the this months haul thread.

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Originally Posted by andyrose

Are you talking about fiberboard or particleboard? Fiberboard is the heavy duty water resistant shit they build office furniture out of. And, I'm pretty sure, arcade cabinets.

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Particle board is a type of fiberboard genius. And all types of fiberboard are not water resistant.

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Oh yeah, version 106 of MAME does NOT work with a lot of the games I've tried for some reason. version 95 is what we've been using.

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I'd bet that you have out of date romsets, then. MAME tends to reorganize romsets pretty often. There are tools out there that update romsets (maybe clrmamepro does it?), or you could just find newer ones.

I personally use win32 version 0.92.0.0 it works great and is very easy to use.

The only games I can't load properly are the Raiden series and Die Hard arcade.

TRY GUNBIRD! I hate bullet hell shooters but this one is awesome and functions properly in mame.

ER.. Of course I mean try it if you own the machine. (TM) (.) boob.

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Originally Posted by buttcheeks

Particle board is a type of fiberboard genius. And all types of fiberboard are not water resistant.

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What crawled up your butt, ass?

Obviously, particle board is a type of fiberboard. I was comparing particle board to MEDIUM DENSITY FIBERBOARD, which are obviously not the same thing.

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Originally Posted by Tain

I'd bet that you have out of date romsets, then. MAME tends to reorganize romsets pretty often. There are tools out there that update romsets (maybe clrmamepro does it?), or you could just find newer ones.

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Ah, thanks man, that was driving me nuts. I'm sure that's what it is. I don't know if I want to download all 3500 of my ROMS, but I can if that's what it takes.

3500 dude? I have like 70 and I thought I was excessive.

Have you found a working version of Die Hard arcade, I'm dying to back up my arcade cabinet, cough cough.

I'll check tomorrow and let you know, I think I backed mine up awhile back.

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Originally Posted by Tain

I'd bet that you have out of date romsets, then. MAME tends to reorganize romsets pretty often. There are tools out there that update romsets (maybe clrmamepro does it?), or you could just find newer ones.

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106 is just a broken version because they've been completely reworking the renderer. 107 is out now. Might still have to update a bunch of stuff, but the good news is stuff like Asteroids Deluxe and Golly Ghost look great now.

remember you not only need to get updated roms, but alot of games need the system boards bios as well. Perhaps all you need to run die hard arcade is the sega STV bios.

:cry: Tried that, failed.

Die Hard Arcade just isn't fully working yet, fyi.

Yeah, I agree with that emotion.

I dunno if 106 was used as a testing ground, but 107 has a new rendering system that'll be buggy till things get sorted out.

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Originally Posted by andyrose

What crawled up your butt, ass?

Obviously, particle board is a type of fiberboard. I was comparing particle board to MEDIUM DENSITY FIBERBOARD, which are obviously not the same thing.

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neither is a super duty water resistant building material though. Which was what I was asking about.

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Originally Posted by buttcheeks

neither is a super duty water resistant building material though. Which was what I was asking about.

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Which unless your installing this cab in a shower stall, it should be an issue to begin with.

Alright, I'm giving up the idea of being able to emulate my DC games through a virtual CD drive, not enough of them work right, and the ones that do work work great for awhile, but usually end up freezing. So, I have no choice but to install a Dreamcast inside of it, take apart 2 DC controllers, and hotwire the PCB boards to my joysticks. It's going to suck swapping CDs out, though.

On a positive note, my partner in this project was showing me this Sega arcade board emulator that plays a lot of the awesome 3D Sega arcade games that MAME just won't run, I think it's called m2emulator or something like that. We were playing House of Dead and a lot of other 3D Sega board games, and it ran them perfectly. There's another alternative to MAME called Final Burn that focuses on playing some of the more graphic intensive games better than MAME, and it works great too.

btw mamemarquees.com is a great place to get your stuff printed at. The owner will do all he can to help you and the pricing is fair considering how good the quality.

I may look into that. We have a wide format Epson inkjet here, and I just ordered a bunch of photo paper for it. I may try printing it myself first and see how it goes. I'm thinking that I'll need more of a transparent paper for the marquee to let the light show through properly.

I really havn't followed the emu scene in the past two years or so. I was totally surprised to hear a Sega Model 3(Daytona 2, Scud Racer, Harley Riders) emulator isn't to far away. Is it true some Model 3 stuff is already been released for MAME?

Yup. All that is open for download as we speak, in fact if it's perfect you guys can quit whining about the controls from now on. :nod:

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Originally Posted by Videodrone

I really havn't followed the emu scene in the past two years or so. I was totally surprised to hear a Sega Model 3(Daytona 2, Scud Racer, Harley Riders) emulator isn't to far away. Is it true some Model 3 stuff is already been released for MAME?

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Gah, they havent even gotten ST-V stuff right.

There's only 2 other emulators for it besides mame right?

No idea, I tried a few ST-V games and they had acknowledged sound and video glitches and were problematic.

Oh well as long as I have Don Doko Don and Miss Nude 96 World I am happy.

:lol:

Miss Nude World 96 is the creepiest game ever.

Like, really, who thought putting disgusting pictures of stacks of bodies and stuff in a nudie game? The cheesy unliscensed music seals it, too.

Mame and SSF strike me as the fastest Saturn emulators. At least, I got better performance from Mame last time I tried Silvergun. And Mame doesn't require an SSE2 processor. Should run perfectly in my cab if there's a little bit more optimization left.

As for Model 3... You can actually run VF3 and VOOT and shit in Mame now, which is crazy, given how little high level emulation there is. Not playable, and the textures and lighting are out of whack, but still. The Model 2 games don't even display polygons yet.

For Model 2 games, try m2emulator. House of the Dead, Gunbird, Fighting Vipers, etc., all of those run really well on it. Dynomite Cop, lol, etc.

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Originally Posted by Diff-chan

Gah, they havent even gotten ST-V stuff right.

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This isn't really fair. ST-V has made huge strides this year and much of it runs perfectly well, and even gets decent speed.

SSF is the best emu for saturn stuff and it recently added ST-V support, so that might be the best way to go, but MAME is fine for firing up a game of Silvergun or Cotton 2 or whatever.

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Originally Posted by Tain

As for Model 3... You can actually run VF3 and VOOT and shit in Mame now, which is crazy, given how little high level emulation there is. Not playable, and the textures and lighting are out of whack, but still. The Model 2 games don't even display polygons yet.

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Star Wars Trilogy Arcade is actually playable, but it runs like a slideshow.

The sad thing is unless we're talking about hardware with multiple CPUs (like Saturn) multi-core will do very little to speed up emulation, so it'll probably be a very, very long time before we see stuff like Model 3 or newer midway games (like San Francisco Rush) emulating at full speed.

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For Model 2 games, try m2emulator. House of the Dead, Gunbird, Fighting Vipers, etc., all of those run really well on it. Dynomite Cop, lol, etc.

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I tried House of the Dead a week or so ago. It was pretty nice, but there were way too many visual errors to make me think about putting it in a cab or anything. The sky was full of random polygons.

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Originally Posted by Tain

I tried House of the Dead a week or so ago. It was pretty nice, but there were way too many visual errors to make me think about putting it in a cab or anything. The sky was full of random polygons.

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It doesn't work right on ATI cards. There's a fix option in the ini, but it's not 100%

Yeah, I'm using an nVidia 6600 in this box, and it's great. The cool thing about that emulator is that you can change the resolution of the game itself.

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It doesn't work right on ATI cards. There's a fix option in the ini, but it's not 100%

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Ah, damn, when I checked the ini just now it was already on. ;_;

Good to know it's fine for nVidia folk though.

I wonder why VF2 hasn't been emulated, though. I know that there are different versions of the Model 2 hardware, but I'm surprised that an emulator can get so far while not supporting all of 'em.

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Originally Posted by Tain

I wonder why VF2 hasn't been emulated, though. I know that there are different versions of the Model 2 hardware, but I'm surprised that an emulator can get so far while not supporting all of 'em.

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It's a lack of documentation regarding the variants in the hardware coupled with the fact that the emu hasn't been worked on for years.

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Miss Nude World 96 is the creepiest game ever.

Like, really, who thought putting disgusting pictures of stacks of bodies and stuff in a nudie game? The cheesy unliscensed music seals it, too.

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Qix + hot girls (the girls are pretty good looking man, but yea the pictures are, well... explicit as hell) = good game. The only thing is I cant really figure out what makes that bar on the top move up and down, but whatever.

Don Doko Don rocks, though.

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This isn't really fair. ST-V has made huge strides this year and much of it runs perfectly well, and even gets decent speed.

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Eh, I wasnt impressed, but I wasnt really dissing it too much. I own both RS and Souky so its fine.

As for Model 3 VOOT... twin sticks pls.

Havn't updated my cab in a few years (1 1/2-2). What good game releases have I missed out on? I see Silvergun and Clutch Hitter have been added. Anything else that is playable worth checking out?

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Originally Posted by Videodrone

Havn't updated my cab in a few years (1 1/2-2). What good game releases have I missed out on? I see Silvergun and Clutch Hitter have been added. Anything else that is playable worth checking out?

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Were you around for all the Sega shit that got added? That was probably about a year and a half ago. Like all the pre-3D sega games work like Galaxy Force, Thunderblade, AB Cop. Tons and tons of good shit, there. Osman might be newer than that, too. Oh, and the Seibu SPI games like Raiden Fighters and Viper Phase 1 work now, but the sound blows. Some of the Data East stuff works, like Night Slashers, Fighter's History...

A lot's happened, really. MAME was a rollercoaster of new updates for a while, but it's slowed down in the last 6 months.

Missed all that stuff. Guess I better figure a way to get up-to-date.

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Qix + hot girls (the girls are pretty good looking man, but yea the pictures are, well... explicit as hell) = good game. The only thing is I cant really figure out what makes that bar on the top move up and down, but whatever.

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I think the bar goes to the red side when you take too much in one go.

yes i know

Gals Panic S is the best pornographic Qix clone in MAME.

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

Gals Panic S is the best pornographic Qix clone in MAME.

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Ah, this is why I came back to TNL. Videogame experts, indeed.

lawl

For those using MAME on a PC, what kind of controller would you recommend? Last time I emu'ed was with a keyboard and it's just not the same.

Whatever you want, really.

PS2 adapters, Xbox adapters, just pick one up. I used a Dual Shock for a while, myself.

Standard Microsoft Sidewinder pad isn't bad for the price if you don't want to pay the money for an adapter. If you are looking at an adapter, a second gen Saturn pad is probably the way to go.

SF arcade stick + PS2/USB adapter. Gotta play these things as natural as possible.

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

Gals Panic S is the best pornographic Qix clone in MAME.

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Im not interested in cartoon naked girls.

Perv.

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Originally Posted by Diff-chan

Im not interested in cartoon naked girls.

Perv.

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If you want porn for porn's sake they all suck. But Gals Panic S is actually a good game.

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Originally Posted by RoleTroll

For those using MAME on a PC, what kind of controller would you recommend? Last time I emu'ed was with a keyboard and it's just not the same.

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Dual Shock or something similar, simply because I find it to be the most versatile design. A trackball is a must too for a lot of games (not only trackball games, but also dial-based games like Tempest).

Hanaho makes some badass arcade sticks if you really want to go all out.

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Originally Posted by Tain

Xbox MAME is slower, has a way outdated game list, and it always outputs video with hardware stretching. I'd say just go for a cheap PC, myself.

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Hmm, so it looks like an xbox is out.

I was thinking about picking up a cheap dell ('cause I dont have the time or inclination to build a pc right now).

I was thinking something like this and upgrading the RAM.

From looking at the mame site it seems okay, but I wanted to see what you cats thought.

I am running a 2.4 GHz system at the moment and most games in MAME run fine, however Dodonpachi was very slow in a version of MAME, I waited a couple of months and the new MAME plays Dodonpachi fine. But thats the thing with MAME, a game might be running fine now, but dont count on it next year so stick with your MAME version.

My machine is a 2.9 ghz Celeron D, 512 ram, 80 gig HD. Runs everything I want outside of ST-V games just fine. That should be good, Kidnemo.

DoDonPachi has been running at good speeds for a while now. It's odd that it would change like that.

Sweet, thanks much guys.

Is there any place that has stuff about minimum system recommendations for roms?

One of the main things I wanna run is Killer Instinct, I've owned the actual hardware for years and never got to use it (not sure if it even works anymore), so finally getting to play that in the cab is gonna rock.

Can't say I know of a site like that.

Buut it looks like KI runs fine on my little old laptop (can't believe this game had FMV arenas, what a wierd approach), so it should be good on your machine.

my cab has a athlon xp 2800+ and runs KI fine, but it struggles when running KI2

That's cool, KI2 is poopy anyway. =D

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Originally Posted by Tain

(can't believe this game had FMV arenas, what a wierd approach)

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PROJECT REALITY!

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Originally Posted by Tain

DoDonPachi has been running at good speeds for a while now. It's odd that it would change like that.

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MAME gets slower as time goes on and the versions advance. When a system is pushing it, the people writing the drivers will make more compromises in the name of optimization, but then the will rewrite the drivers later to be more accurate and easier to understand, as computers need that optimization less.

I have the old ultrahle emulator that was written to just run KI and KI2 and they both run way too fast on my current emu machine, (like 3 - 4x normal speed) and im just running an AMD Semperon 3100+

I know there was a program out there to convert the img file into a chd one to use in mame but alas it seems to have vanished from the internets