A while back I saved a gutted Sit Down Cruis'n USA Arcade from the scrapheap. It now has a 26 Samsung LCD and a Logitech Driving Force GT Gaming Wheel inside. It's currently running Project 64 and the N64 version of Cruis'n USA on a Sony Vaio laptop on Windows XP. I'm using Project 64 because it runs smoothly on the laptop and works with the sequential shifter. Running MAME Cruis'n USA on the machine ran the game at 60% skipping 10/1 frames.
As I'm not in love with this solution, I'm going to give running MAME Cruis'n USA and getting a friend to hack MAME to work with the sequential shifter one more shot. Do you guys have any tips on what kind of pc I should look for? Is putting one together a good (inexpensive) idea? Should I look for a common used machine?