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Where to start on Mame cabinet?
#325217 - 04/26/14 01:13 AM
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Well I have messed around with Mame many years ago and always wanted to build a mame cabinet. Now that I finally have money to do so, I am not sure where to start. I think I want to build a bartop style with 2 player and would like to add a track ball. I have seen weecade and like it, but it is like most out there. Though if there are great plans I would love to see them.
Woodworking is not a problem at all. I have access to a cabinetry shop at my work.
My real issue is pc. what to use and what type of button input card to use or do I even need one? etc.. All the plans for cabinets seem to only talk about how to build the actual cabinet. Rarely if at all do they include the pc side of it. And if there is references to a pc, the article is before 2010.
I have a few years old dual core pc laying around. I don't necessarily have to use this but just saying that I have it available is all. I am open to suggestions short of spending a grand on a quad core pc.
I am not wanting to play todays games for the most part. More of late 70s-80-90s.
I have a 17 and 19.5 (and possibly a 22" wide screen I think)flat monitor that can be used. I thought about using bigger monitor so there would be room for trackball in control panel.
I also have no clue which frontends work the best or which are most user friendliest. that would be great also.
Any help I can get would really be appreciated and/or pointed in the right direction would be great.
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Re: Where to start on Mame cabinet?
[Re: heyyouguys]
#325218 - 04/26/14 01:28 AM
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A good site to check out BYOAC
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Re: Where to start on Mame cabinet?
[Re: trickyd]
#325232 - 04/26/14 07:43 AM
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Thank you, I will check out that site.
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Re: Where to start on Mame cabinet?
[Re: heyyouguys]
#325969 - 05/17/14 11:48 AM
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A dual core PC will run a very high majority of MAME games just fine. Some of the driving games and a few other newer games will still be a slide show, but if you have a dual core laying around I would stick with that to save money and invest in a Ultimarc Arcade VGA card, and other good high quality controls (joysticks, spinner, trackball, guns) and the associated driver boards (ipac and opti-pac)that go with them. The other biggie is a monitor. Vice dropping cash into a newer PC I would invest in an arcade monitor. I would take an existing arcade cabinet for a 25" monitor and gut it and add a new digital 25" arcade monitor that directly hooks to a VGA cable off of the Arcade VGA card. This provides almost instant perfect game resolution/scaling with no effort on your part and gives an authentic pixel appearance versus a LCD monitor. This only requires you to buy a new plastic bezel ($20) and cut it to size to fit your cabinet and really polish off your monitor appearance.
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Glad you posted this because i'm in the same boat, looking to build a bartop. I have already built my own mame cab several year ago and this winter it got hit with a power surge and the power supply and hd were fried. So in the process of rebuilding my cab i was inspired to build a mini arcade.
I was unimpressed by the plans i saw out there until i saw this (images attached) i like the design a lot. Although these are not plans, the pictures are enough for me to work with. As far as the system, I just spent upwards of $600 for a new quad core 3.8ghz for my broken cab, and i don't want to spend anywhere near that on the mini. Luckily i have a friend who bought a brand new HP laptop and 6 months later the screen went bad, so she bought an all in one and gave me the laptop. it still works fine, all i need is a flat screen. If you can find a fairly new laptop on ebay with a broken screen, thats one way you can go
The controls im looking at are the ultimarc mini-pac because of its small footprint and its support for both trackball and spinner. Joystick i want something looser than the ones i got from ultimarc because i imagine it would make it hard for a lightweight tabletop cab to stay still. Trackball and spinner from ultimarc.
Some other details like whether to go with a speaker system with subwoofer or just get a flat panel with built in speakers and a few minor details to work out.
Hope these suggestions help.
Cyber Spyder
[ATTACHED IMAGE - CLICK FOR FULL SIZE]
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