On , utvgg-bounces+sean=lithoflexo.com@mailman.xmission.com <> sprang to life and wrote:
I know its heresy, but they do have their purpose. I've considered building a MAME cabinet forever
It's not heresy, it just needs to be done right. I have built 2 so far, and really like them. A third is in the works even as we speak and a 4th, a 6 button fighter cab is in the planning stages. ^^^OPINIONS TO FOLLOW^^^ The "Ultimate Mega-Cade" idea, able to play every game ever made on a huge monitor, is appealing but you can't pull it off successfully. By successfully, I mean that the games feel right when you play them. This is largely the fault of the "do it all" control panel. The buttons are to close to the joysticks and everything feels cramped. The spinner isn't even worth getting, as you have to reach over other controls to use it. The track ball is affected the least, it's still easy to manipulate as long as the fire button is placed at a good distance. Anyone who played the original is going to be disappointed, and the huge cabs are ugly. My solution was to have multiple MAME cabs made from abused game cabs, and keep the CP simple. I have a cocktail that plays 4-way vertical games and a horizontal cab that plays; wait for it... horizontal games. The 3rd one is a vertical cab that will have 1943 artwork on it and play vertical shmups. Each cab has NOS Wico leafswitch joysticks and all but the cocktail use arcade monitors. The original appearance was left intact, and the CPO's are custom that use the original games artwork as a base. I did modify the cocktail, so my controls would be on a flat surface. My goal was to have MAME cabs that felt right to play, and looked good with my dedicated games. And it's soooooo nice to be able to play dozens of games without switching JAMMA boards. FWIW, I used win98 with no gui (dos mode), arcadeOS for a front end and ADVMame as the emulator. ADVMame does *GREAT* with arcade monitors, the games look great and don't need any stretching or squishing to fit the screen. ADVmame is a b*t*ch to setup though, took me several hours, but it was worth it. Another caveat, is there are some games I can't play on the arcade monitor. Some games output a different sync rate or are at some weird resolution I can't get the monitor to use. R-type and Smash TV are just 2 I can think of. They use a 55 Hz sync and most other games use a 60hz sync, so when I start them the picture rolls. I can adjust the h-hold on the monitor, but then the other games roll. And of course, vector games on a raster monitor make baby Jesus cry. Don't do it. My final thought: MAME cabs are great to play lots of games without having to swap boards or have lots of cabs. But even a MAME cab should be tailored to fit the games you want to play on it. Some games require a dedicated setup. Use MAME where it belongs and you will be really happy with it. Sean