using a mac for mame cabinet

[PixelPaul]

I have access to a cache of older macs at my workplace for little or no cost. They are mostly G3 & G4 tower units. I'm wondering if anyone has experience running MacMame or Mame OS X on these older machines. I'm only interested in the "classic" games (pac-man, donkey kong, etc). If these machines are suitable I'll grab a couple for future projects. Thanks!

[gatordad]

Mac's are great!
I love mine.

Classics will run fine but none of the front ends have been updated in a while and don't do the cool stuff the windows front ends do.

I have 114 set on my mac and play with the keyboard no issues at all.

[DrumAnBass]

Yah as GatorDad said; the front ends are weak for the Mac; much better options on the PC side... The games work fine and the USB encoder interfaces should work fine as well, but it just won't look as slick as it looks on a PC because of the very "basic" front ends.

The best option is probably EmuLaunch http://www.emulaunch.com/

[alfonzotan]

I have access to a cache of older macs at my workplace for little or no cost. They are mostly G3 & G4 tower units. I'm wondering if anyone has experience running MacMame or Mame OS X on these older machines. I'm only interested in the "classic" games (pac-man, donkey kong, etc). If these machines are suitable I'll grab a couple for future projects. Thanks!

Should be just fine for the "classic era" games.  Even the very early versions of MacMAME in the '90s ran them on PowerPC 601's with no trouble at all.

The last version of MacMAME (it was discontinued a couple years back) works fine with every controller I've tried.  MAME OS X is more up to date, but it's squirrelly; doesn't recognize a spinner control.  I'm just starting to play with SDLMAME and its various Mac front ends.

I'd be interested in a working G4 if you wound up with an extra... there are some nice old OS9 emulators that were never ported to OS X.

[PixelPaul]

I had hoped to run EmuLaunch as a front end anyway. It needs OS X 10.4 to run, which can be installed on a G3 or G4. Cool!

[gnateye]

i have built 3 Mame cabs that use old 300mhz (system 8.6, Mame .59) mac desktops as the computer. i max out the ram and put a new hard drive in them and they work great for the classics(and some newer ones, though don't expect mortal combat to work) like everyone has said, the main drawback is the lack of front ends in my opinion (as everyone said above).

otherwise i love them, they work with the ipac, usb spinners and trackball, have built in speakers (that i am able to wire my cab speakers into with no problem, are easy to upgrade and parts are cheap. luckily for me i tend to attract these old mac so i have a few lying around. if i had a bunch pf PCs lying around i would prolly have built every cab with them. but i am a cheapskate and love to use what i have...

 i have tried upgrading to newer mac running 10.4 and had nothing but problems, i went back to my old faithful setup that never disappoints.

www.cosmicbreaks.com/arcade for pics of my cabs

[alfonzotan]

i have built 3 Mame cabs that use old 300mhz (system 8.6, Mame .59) mac desktops as the computer. i max out the ram and put a new hard drive in them and they work great for the classics(and some newer ones, though don't expect mortal combat to work) like everyone has said, the main drawback is the lack of front ends in my opinion (as everyone said above).

otherwise i love them, they work with the ipac, usb spinners and trackball, have built in speakers (that i am able to wire my cab speakers into with no problem, are easy to upgrade and parts are cheap. luckily for me i tend to attract these old mac so i have a few lying around. if i had a bunch pf PCs lying around i would prolly have built every cab with them. but i am a cheapskate and love to use what i have...

 i have tried upgrading to newer mac running 10.4 and had nothing but problems, i went back to my old faithful setup that never disappoints.

www.cosmicbreaks.com/arcade for pics of my cabs

This thread inspired me... just picked up a G4 tower ($20!) to add to my Mac multicab-in-progress.

Now to re-learn OS9...

[PixelPaul]

l, have built in speakers (that i am able to wire my cab speakers into with no problem.

Can you expand on your comment about speakers? I was wondering what the options were for speakers.

[taylormadelv]

I use old Macs all the time as mostly "dedicated" mames. There are work arounds when I work with old macs. The first is attempting to run the game(s) I want on OS 9 and an old version of macmame os 9. Everything will run much, much faster on OS 9. Vector games emulate very well on macmame OS9, better than any PC emulator besides AAE; but again, no real front end and limited encoder options. Right now I'm building a Midway mini/cabaret cabinet that runs all the vector hacks for Galaxian, Galaga and the Pacman games. It turns out that Mistfitmame for mac only runs on OSX and the games only turn to the RIGHT vertically. So now I have to unmount the imac G3 400 I installed and flip it upside down so all the games look correct. ACK!
Some games like Neo Geos and Topgunner will only run on Macmame OS X as far as I know. Macmame OS 9 can give that nice "soft" look to the classics and like I said before, OS 9 is KING for emulating vectors IMO.