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Has anyone else

Ratamahatta - Apr 14, 2002

		Ratamahatta		Apr 14, 2002
			I have the shell of the cabinet sitting in my basement, but for the innards of the system, I still need to buy, I plan on ordering the happ controls very shortly, (within a week) but I need to know if any of you have a specific computer setup that run the cabinet, I was thinking along the lines of a celeron 500 or so with 128 meg of ram, would this be sufficient? Also, this is a curiosity of mine, would I be able to throw in a tv out card, and television and get the arcade feel with that? or should I just opt and get an rgb set and a converter card?

ExCyber

Apr 14, 2002

	
	
		
		
			I was thinking along the lines of a celeron 500 or so with 128 meg of ram, would this be sufficient?

This really depends on what you want to run. I think it will be sufficient for most stuff, but the RAM could get a bit tight if you plan to run e.g. the later Neo Geo games (some of which require 100+MB of RAM). This is probably less of a problem if you use DOS emulators (see below). Overall it doesn't seem like a bad config though, especially if you get a nice deal on it.

	
	
		
		
			Also, this is a curiosity of mine, would I be able to throw in a tv out card, and television and get the arcade feel with that? or should I just opt and get an rgb set and a converter card?

A composite TV output won't give you the same quality as RGB, plain and simple. As for using an arcade monitor (if that's what you were talking about), there is a program designed to run various DOS emulators while tweaking VGA registers to display on an arcade monitor, called ArcadeOS. It can be downloaded from the PC2JAMMA... page, which incidentally has a lot of nice info about this sort of thing.

		Ratamahatta		Apr 14, 2002
			I remember reading about ArcadeOS, so Far I've just been running mame v0.59 on my system, (Celeron 800 with 128 SD) and things seem to run fine, they ran ok with my celeron 500 a while back. Most games that I plan to run would be Nam 1975, and all the street fighterish games. I know from experience that games from 1997 and on take a bit of ram and CPU usage, but what can I do, I can get a deal on a 500 with 128 megs. So If I decide to use an rgb monitor I should use Arcade OS?

ExCyber

Apr 14, 2002

	
	
		
		
			So If I decide to use an rgb monitor I should use Arcade OS?

I don't think I ever tried it myself, but I used to use Raine's "Arcade Monitor" mode on my Multisync all the time, so it might not be a bad idea to give it a shot at least...

archiver

Apr 14, 2002

	
	
		
		
			there is a program designed to run various DOS emulators while tweaking VGA registers to display on an arcade monitor, called ArcadeOS.

Sadly, tweaked VGA modes were removed a few betas ago

		Ratamahatta		Apr 14, 2002
			Is there a specific reason why they were removed?

		maidtina		Apr 14, 2002
			Never built a mame cabinet but i have built a joystick with a keyboard interpreter. Built it after i toasted my keyboard and wanted to play unreal tournament. Even added some switches so i could ctrl-alt-del to log in If you need to built joysticks for your mame box i'll be happy to help. I also know how to wire a digital joystick to an analogue pc joystick port. I have an old skool joystick from an old commodore 64 sitting in my bits box ive been meaning to wire up. Its not outside possibility for me to help out with wiring the crt up but that might be a little hard to do over the forum. sounds like n ICQ job. anyway, if you need a hand, gimme a shout on my email, you should have my pop account by now

		Zziggy00		Apr 14, 2002
			Have thought about the idea many times, and even went as far as drawing sloppy plans on what to do... Then the idea fell through and i decided not to do anything.

		Myname		Apr 14, 2002
			I've only got the tv to get and mine's pretty much done. Not sure about whether I should design my own marquee or just wait for a nice SNK one on eBay or something. As for the display, I think it has to be your preference really. If you get the best, cleanest signal it'll probably look pretty jaggy so I prefer to use a tv personally.

		antigov		Apr 15, 2002
			I've built one, and i must say that arcadeos is probably the easiest frontend, for use in arcade cabs, to set up. I used a 500mhz w/ 128M and it seems to run most of the older games just fine. I'm using the original monitor that came in the cab and a JPac, btw. I suggest you go through all the info on the pc2jamma site, and check out the forums, theres tons of useful information there.

		Gear		Apr 15, 2002
			I heard some guy was jailed because he built a mame cabinet and then opened his own arcade room.

		maidtina		Apr 15, 2002
			Why would they jail him copyright infringment? or am i just not understanding american law. In my mind a customer is still paying for a service. If he is doing the local arcade out of business because of their incredible prices well thats what business is all about. If i could get permission form whatever company made the game and paid their royalties im sure it would be perfectly legal to run a mame arcade

		Ratamahatta		Apr 15, 2002
			I'm building the cabinet just for my rec room. Its gonna be like a high tech piggy bank.

		maidtina		Apr 15, 2002
			Sounds tasty, Might try that one when i finish cramming a PC into a mega CD shell (getting hold of MATX motherboard at the moment) Have you thought of putting a keyboard drawer under the joystick console for web surfing? Check out happ controls for parts for the joystick console. They stock most things apart from the fruit machine buttons i was looking for