New StandAlone Panel Build Idea

[WhereEaglesDare]

Well Im at a point on my cab where Im pretty much done, waiting to get some cash together to get the art done for it, in the mean time I have two sticks and a bunch of buttons and Im going to build a panel.

I have an idea I dont know if it has been done.  I want to put a USB Hard Drive or at least a thumbdrive in the panel and put a front end on it and everything that way you could plug it in to a buddies PC and wail on some 1943 or MK3.  I figured I could load all of the SNES, Genesis, NES, and 100-500 of the best MAME Games with Art and the front end on a 8GB thumbdrive.

I could put an extension on a hub and plug my controller board on the hub and put the thumbdrive on the hub.

A couple of questions, if I try to run the MAME and the controller through the same USB cable will I get laggy controls?  I cant use a powered hub.  Any one try this before?

[drventure]

For a while, I wasn't driving an IPAC and 2 U360s via a non powered hub and never noticed any issues at all. I doubt you'd see any lag in that kind of situation.

And I love this idea. A controller with the emu and some games all on one USB plug you could just plug in and go...

Very cool!

[TheGameFan]

It would be cool if you could set a front end to auto-play, but I think each PC would need to be configured for auto-play to work.

[WhereEaglesDare]

Had an idea last night, if I get use a power adapter for this then, it would a little heavier, but I could use a standard HDD, I would need a IDE-USB Adapter, but I could stop a lot more...  In that case then I guess I might as well put a PC in there then huh?

[drventure]

Yeah, but it'll need to be a good bit bigger. You'll need a mobo (probably one of those atom boards), a PS, possibly a vid card, HDD, and then the usb units you need.

BTW I'm pretty sure you can config a USB stick drive to autorun something when it's inserted. The use may have turned that off in the OS, but I believe that capability is there.

[dawolv]

LOVE this idea!
Instead of a Full Size HDD why not a 2.5" Laptop HDD (very lightweight)?
ATOM D510 Intel Board (CPU/Mobo/Video)
~200W PSU
Hmmm..this is turning into a PC 

*Goes back to the drawing board*

[WhereEaglesDare]

***Back to drawing board indeed***

NOT putting a PC in there,  because then I may as well build a small bartop, and that isn't the idea.  I'm going to have to dig out my USB HUB and put some roms on my thumbdrive and connect a gamepad and try it out.

I know people have those passport HDD that dont require a external power supply, but Im sure they may not work as well on a hub, I dunno.  Doesnt MAME load the rom into the RAM of the PC anyways so once the game is loaded it doesnt read from the thumbdrive or HDD anymore?  Thats how some people play CHDs over a Share Drive.

I was going to hack a game pad for the controls for 1P and use a second pad for 2P or maybe make a second one down the road.  Anyone think I should make this standalone panel a two player panel?

BTW I'm pretty sure you can config a USB stick drive to autorun something when it's inserted. The use may have turned that off in the OS, but I believe that capability is there.

It is a OS setting.  I'll start setting up the thumbdrive I guess, if there is any custom programming involved I'll post it here when I get it working.


I just thought of a problem.  If I put the front end on this and lets say the drive is set to be drive F:\ on my PC and set all the paths to the F:\ drive (F:\Mame\Roms) etc, then if I goto another PC and that PC designates the drive as E:\ then it wont work at all...  Unless I can find a batch file that will assign drive designators then I may not be able to do this.

[Burn4Evr]

I've seen this done on a NES pad before, Although I don't have a link handy. Bit of googling might help.
Also I would look into running it as an OS on a stick.
Ubuntu live usb stick + linux emulators should fit the bill nicely.

This would work for any system that can boot from USB. This way you never touch the resident operating system and such.
Plus I could totally see it as a way to get people to turn their old spyware slowed PCs into Mame machines.

[WhereEaglesDare]

I dont think running an OS from a stick is ever a great idea, maybe a good idea but not great.  Ive done it, it is a lil difficult, I even got one of them home made Bart PE Win XP sticks, but thumb drives arent meant to be written to constantly and they will not last as long as you may want.  Plus that will require rebooting the PC, maybe getting into the BIOS and on older PCs installing a firmware update or flashing the BIOS to allow boot from USB. 

Nice thought, very unique and that is the direction I am looking for (something different) and thanks for the input but I dont see that as practical

[drventure]

You shouldn't need to run an actual OS from the drive, just have it start mame or a front end, possibly start a bat file that rewrites some drive letters in the cfg files, but even that I'll bet there's a way around.

Yeah, I'm digging the "No pc" approach.

[KuddlKat]

So... has anyone tried this to answer the original question?  Basically, connecting a flash drive and controller board through a USB hub and noticing any lag in the controller or problems with file access.

Originally, I was planning on connecting my controller board (cheap-o) and a mouse hack trackball with a hub and wondered about power requirements when I came across this thread in my search.  Sounds like a great idea, so if I was using a hub anyway it would be cool to add an 8GB flash drive too (even if it is just to store the MAME files).

Oh, this is going in a stand-alone controller box too, so I hoped it would be only USB-powered.

[WhereEaglesDare]

it would work fine, need to do some more research on the front end needed...  im still planing on doing something similar to this, but got a cab i am building and i have one i need to paint...  We shall see how well it goes...