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MAME cabinet project


Osbo

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Looks pretty nice, man. What size monitor will fit in there?! Looks kind of small or it's only orientated for vertical monitors?!

 

I read somewhere that the smallest monitor you can do horizontal and vertical without actually rotating the monitor is 27", so that's what I am going with on my cab.

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Thanks!

I have a 15 mounted vertical for now. When I get some more extra cash, I'm getting a real arcade monitor.

 

The cabinet is a little bit too big. If I have to do it again, I'm shaving at least 5 inches in the bottom, and I'd do it a little bit narrower.

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I don't have much to say yet and have no pictures yet, but if you read my blog here I've started documenting my MAME cabinet process. I am getting my cabinet from mameroom.com.

 

They have a few styles (cocktail, bartop, standup). The model I am getting is the standup one. It's just Under $500, everything pre-cut, will take up to 27" monitor. It's put together sort of like when you buy a TV stand, so not many tools are required. I'll deck it out with controls, light up marquee, graphics, etc.

 

You can also get a smaller bartop thing from them for under $200. I'm almost tempted to because it's cheaper, but I wanted a bigger monitor.

 

Instead of putting classic game graphics on my case, though, I'm going to get stuff from bands I like instead.

 

One front end I was looking at is Maximus Arcade. It looks pretty nice, but I haven't tried it yet. It has "attract mode" that will play mp3's randomly while nobody is using the machine.

 

If you're interested in the full mame .107 set there's a great website Pleasuredome. What you do is download their torrent, once you download it, you just download updates as new mame versions come out, so you only are downloading what you need, not a whole 15GB set again.

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I highly recommend that MAMEcab'ers take a look at MameWAH. It's capable of some very nice looking frontends, though it is a bit daunting at first to setup.

 

My MameWAH setup runs under XP as a shell replacement, and the system is customized so that windows is never seen. The cabinet has it's own bootup screen as well. It's setup to randomly launch games under MAME when idle to provide that arcade background noise :)

 

Here's (bad) some snaps of it in action and a preview of the bootscreen:

 

post-5887-1154465779_thumb.jpg post-5887-1154465784_thumb.jpg post-5887-1154465790_thumb.jpg post-5887-1154465798_thumb.jpg

Edited by remowilliams
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Well I can help you out with the arcade monitor part here is a place that sells them really cheap. They deal with 8-liner games but I'm fairly sure they use the same exact type of monitors that any standard arcade game uses. http://www.genao.com/parts.htm They start at like $189 for 19in monitors or $110 for a refurbished one. I found it on the web page they can be used on arcade games.

Edited by TheBman80
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Thanks for the MAMEWah screenshots. I had heard of it, but never saw any screenshots before. It looks beautiful. Only thing is I wouldn't want it to totally replace windows because I'd like to test it on my current system first.

 

I'm using MAME Classics or something and it's very plain and boring. It does the job though I guess.

Edited by yuppicide
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Only thing is I wouldn't want it to totally replace windows because I'd like to test it on my current system first.

It doesn't have to replace the windows explorer shell, as a matter of fact that was one of the last steps in my setup. You can just install MameWAH and fiddle around with it until you get it the way you want it to look, and then worry about launching it later.

 

Even though my cab launches straight into MameWAH as a replacement shell, I can still log into it remotely (or locally) to manage it, as the shell replacement is only under the MAME user account. ;)

 

I used to run Win98/shell and ArcadeOS. Ran like that for quite a while. When I upgraded the cab hardware I switched to XP/MameWAH and never looked back :D

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Which would be the best program to use for a Windows 98 system?

I'd say that depends on a number of things, among them: hardware specs, monitor choice, controllers that you plan on using, games you want to run in MAME, other emus you might want to run, frequency and method of updates

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If you end up ordering a 19" monitor from them let me know how you make out I would like to know how good their monitors are. I have at least 3 games that I would just rather replace for that price than even bothering with the recaping process (they have really burnt up screens).

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sure, no problem.

 

man if I have to do this again, I would try to find a leaf joystick and leaf pushbuttons, the clicky clacky gets old pretty quickly.

 

I think you get a little better reaction time out of the newer ones I was getting really pissed at my Asteroids Deluxe fireing button so I just replaced it with a newer one I had lying around but of course I would never get rid of the old button I have it in the coin box. I just might put it back on the game soon but you are right the new buttons are totally different in the way they feel and sound. And the old ones basicly never break because its just 2 contacts being pushed together unlike the new complicated mechs. in the new buttons.

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sure, no problem.

 

man if I have to do this again, I would try to find a leaf joystick and leaf pushbuttons, the clicky clacky gets old pretty quickly.

 

 

Quick fix, You don't even need new buttons.

 

http://www.retroblast.com/reviews/leaf-swi...4272006-01.html

 

You can get them here (I've gotten several for different projects and they work great):

 

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=36770.0

 

You will have to register to the forum but you should anyways. Lots of good information.

 

-TIM

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I think there is only one word for this AWESOME!!! Not only will it save you a huge amount of money in the long run there virtually indestructible and no more winpy ass click click click. There even built better than the old ones who said simple wasnt better. I have had lots of thoes micro-switches crap out on me I can't wait to buy these things I'll replace them in all my games and never have to worry about that micro-switch failing at the rong time ever again. It's like the good old days of Arcade playing are back again.

 

Oh yeah Osbo you could sell your micro-switches on ebay and easily be able to buy these for your MAME.

Edited by TheBman80
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Quick fix, You don't even need new buttons.

That's very cool. On my MAME cab, I'll be sticking with the Cherry microswitches - I've yet to have a microswitch failure, and they are pretty quiet. Not to mention I've got rotary sticks anyhow.

 

On my dedicated cabs though these may be just the thing :)

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Speaking of using real arcade monitors, does anyone have any experience with using the ArcadeVGA card and a monitor like the Betson Imperial 27" Multisync or the Wells-Gardner D9200? I've wanted to upgrade my MAME cab for some time now (it has a 27" TV in it right now), but the cost of these monitors has made me hold off.

 

Tempest

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I am getting the ArcadeVGA card and the Wells-Gardner D9400. They don't make the D9200 anymore and the D9400 is it's replacement. I was told by Ultimarc that they work great and will just plug right in together using the cable that comes with the monitor. I have no experience yet as I didn't buy it yet.

 

@arcadecontrols.com forum - I would not reccommend them. If anyone else here has a better experience with them please let me know. If anyone has access to the forums there let me know as well. I signed up and the system never emailed me any information. It said a moderator had to approve my account and nobody has gotten back to me. I sent someone an email but they never answered me either. I wanted to get on incase I needed some help when I started putting my controls together.. Ultimarc website listed a link to them, which is why I wanted to goto them first before placing my order for controls.

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I am getting the ArcadeVGA card and the Wells-Gardner D9400. They don't make the D9200 anymore and the D9400 is it's replacement. I was told by Ultimarc that they work great and will just plug right in together using the cable that comes with the monitor. I have no experience yet as I didn't buy it yet.

 

@arcadecontrols.com forum - I would not reccommend them. If anyone else here has a better experience with them please let me know. If anyone has access to the forums there let me know as well. I signed up and the system never emailed me any information. It said a moderator had to approve my account and nobody has gotten back to me. I sent someone an email but they never answered me either. I wanted to get on incase I needed some help when I started putting my controls together.. Ultimarc website listed a link to them, which is why I wanted to goto them first before placing my order for controls.

 

They replied to my request to join in less than 24hrs.

 

Strange.

 

-Tim

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