Quick boot rom

[wayne12]

Hi guys this is my first post here,  I am hopeing to Build a mame cabinet of final fight for my sisters birthday as we use to play that game a ton at the arcades.
This will be my first bash at a mame cabinet and not my last, my question is is there a way i can get my pc to boot straight into final fight with out going to a front end menu screen. I would buy a final fight jamma board but there so damn exspensive, so a pc with a 1 rom will be just as good i think.

Thanks for any help you can give me

[crip102468]

If you can open a webpage to get to this site im sure u can open mame to play final fight 
If you get hyperspin you may set it that way anyway enjoy the forums 

[wayne12]

Yep i know how to boot final fight in mame, but what i was asking is it possible to get a pc to boot straight into final fight with out going to the hyperspin menu.

[Hewskie]

Of course it is. There are numerous ways to accomplish what you want, you just have to decide a few things first.

Do you want the machine to ONLY play final fight?
Or do you want it to boot to final fight, then on a button press go to a menu?
Do you want to hide windows completely and make it look like a real machine?

check the wiki, it's very helpful

Hewskie

[Bender]

I'm pretty sure quite a few Front Ends that let will automatically start one particular game so it looks like a dedicated cab
I've personally seen it done with Mala
and yes I believe you can go right into the game without going into the menu in hyperspin also

[Hewskie]

mamewah can do it too.

Here's a link to the wiki article all about hiding windows: http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Hiding_Windows

Instant sheller is great, I've also used Quickshell (created by someone here on BYOAC, sorry I forget your name right now)

Good luck with your build

hewskie

[wayne12]

Yesssss thats it, i wont it to look like the real thing for her

Do you want the machine to ONLY play final fight?

Do you want to hide windows completely and make it look like a real machine?

Thanks guys

[bkenobi]

You guys are making this specific question too difficult.  Wayne12 want to boot a single rom so that it looks like the machine is the original game.  He will have nothing other than that one game on there.  SO, there is an easy answer that will work and another way that's more complicated depending on what hardware you go with.

Easy way:  If you use a joystick/button interface that works in DOS (keyboard encoders like IPAC and KeyWiz) and your video card has DOS supported drivers, you are golden.  Set up DOS as normal and then add the correct MAME command line to your autoexec.bat.

Harder way:  If you use an interface that requires drivers that are not available for DOS (USB devices like U360 or GP-Wiz for example), then you need to use a different OS.  You can go with Windows (WinXP is a very popular choice, but Win98SE or newer will work) or Linux.  If you go with Windows, there are guides to hide your OS almost completely both here and other forums around the web.  If you use Vista or older, check out InstantSheller.  It's an app that will do everything that you need.  If you go Linux, I'm sure you can get it working, but I have no advice since I've never set up a distro that wasn't stock.

Good luck and welcome!

[wayne12]

Thank you bkenobi you hit the nail right on the head. just a smal question i'm use to using windows so this Dos thing i dont suppose you have a tut for it do you.

thanks

[bkenobi]

If you don't have DOS, you could probably read up on one of the stripped down WinXP installations.  I've never used them for arcade stuff, so I really can't say which one is best for this purpose.  The last small install I used was NLite IIRC.  Perhaps someone else can recommend a better version if that one is inappropriate.

[Havok]

DOS is simple; the hardest part will be finding contemporary hardware that will work with it. Once you have DOS installed and working, you just add a command line in autoexec.bat:

C:\mame\mame.exe ffight

(Assuming you have put mame.exe in a Mame directory on the root of the C: drive) The autoexec.bat file is a text file in the root of C: that you edit and just put that as the last line. When the system boots up, it will just start the game.

[bkenobi]

Final Fight is a pretty basic game as far as controls go (2 8-way sticks, 3 buttons each player, 2 coin slots...16 inputs total).  If you go with DOS, you could get away with an old pentium, PII or PIII CPU based system.  Anything PCI should have DOS drivers I would think.  You can then go with a keyboard encoder (Key-Wiz or Ipac) and you should be good to go!

If you can't source an older computer, you will likely be better off going with Windows so you can get decent driver support.  Check Craigslist and ebay for a system.  Good luck!  

[Thenasty]

if you are in NJ, I'll help you out.

[I/O]

Instant sheller is great, I've also used Quickshell (created by someone here on BYOAC, sorry I forget your name right now)

Quickshell?

[Havok]

Actually, it's called Quick Sheller:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=99179.0

[wayne12]

if you are in NJ, I'll help you out.

Thanks mate but i'm afraid NJ is a little bit to far for me to come i'm from the U.K Portsmouth.

But thanks for the offer but any tips you can give me would be great. This is my first time building one of these.