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My first Mame, and post! *updated* TV now found
Fysh:
Hello all,
I've been lurking for quite some time and I thought I would announce my build and introduce myself. My name is Jon and I live in Canada. Recently my wife and I had our 6th wedding anniversary and she gave me the funds, $1500, to build my own arcade machine. I was a big player of games when I was a kid. The corner store by my house always had games for kids to play ranging from Street Fighter to Bubble Bobble to Shinobi. A local bar had a copy of Heavy Barrel that I remember going to and sitting for hours playing with friends. And eventually I remember choosing to walk home instead of taking the bus from High School so I had money to play Street Fighter 2 at a store on the way home. So I thought this was a pretty cool gift, and the thought of the build to me seems to be just as much fun as playing with it afterward. First I went out and read, as much as I could find. There is a great deal of knowledge here, but boy is spread out. Finding specifics can sometimes be tough.
So here's what I'm thinking for the build, I'll try and list specifics when I can, and I'll highlight questions that I might have as I go through.
Item 1 - The Cab
I had planned to use the UA2 cab from mameroom.com. I love the look of it and it seems to be big enough for all my purposes. Originally the plan was to just buy the cab and cp outright and have them shipped. I was shocked to find that once I got to the check out the shipping for the cab was 350 bucks! So I've had to alter my plan to stay within my budget. I got the plans for the cab instead and I'm just going to build it myself. I'm not the handiest guy on the planet, but I can normally hold my own. Plus I've got the help of my Dad who has access to a highschool wood shop and all the tools I will possibly need. So the next item is to figure out what to build it out of. I've read the debates of MDF vs. MDO vs. Plywood and I think I'm going to go with MDO if I can find it. I've also seen some pictures of cabs laminated rather then painted and I like how it turns out. So that might be an option as well. Recently I saw a beautiful Street Fighter cab that a poster has up, sorry I can't remember his name. he laminated his black before putting the side art on an it looked great. So in the end I'll probably go with plywood and then laminate it. This brings me to my first question. Where can I get decent side art that will fit the UA2 cab? I've seen a few sites for marquees and stuff, but a lot of the art seems to go up the whole side, and with the split in the middle I don't think any of these are really going to work for me. I would also rather avoid and of the large MAME type stickers that some people use, as they just don't appeal to me personally.
Item 2 - The Control Panel
I've been looking and one of the requirements my wife had was that she wants to be able to play golden tee, so a trackball is a must. I've decided to just use the two player classic panel from mameroom.com. I like the layout and it's fairly inexpensive. I've also purchased the blue lightning overlay and the clear acrylic sheet that goes with it. Shipping for these items with some blue t-strip was 50 bucks, so much more reasonable. I'm sure there are cheaper overlays that I could have gotten, but I liked this one and it's premade to fit that specific panel. For the buttons and stuff themselves, I'm going to get most of the stuff from Ultramarc.com. I've decided on 2 of the Ultrastik 360's, a mag stick plus, a spin track rotary control, tons of classic push buttons, and a U trak. I guess from what I can see the 360's, spin track and U-track are all USB, and for the buttons and the mag stick I'll get an i-pac value to wire them all up. Hopefully, and please comment if I'm wrong, this should allow all the inputs I need and be a fairly decent controls set up.
Item 3 - The PC
I've gotten fairly lucky with the PC. I've got some friends that have helped out with some components that they had spare. So I got a donated: Case, 160 gig HD, 430 watt power supply, and a geforce 8600 GTS. I've got 2 gigs of spare 800 mhz ram. And I got a deal on a 2.5ghz dual core AMD processor/mobo combo off tigerdirect.com for 80 bucks. That should give me a fairly decent PC. I've got mame32 running on my PC upstairs and it's close to this, currently the only thing I can't get to run is MK4. I'm sure there will be others, but it should be fine for my needs. I want to be able to run Street Fighter 4 off the PC as well, and this should be above the recommended requirements.
Item 4 - Monitor
Here's where I get undecided. I'm going to use a TV rather then an arcade monitor, but it has to be a CRT, I don't want to use a LCD monitor or something. According to the plans for the UA2 I can use a 27" arcade monitor or a 25' tv. I figure that if I decase the TV, I'll have to find directions on how to discharge it first so I don't kill myself, I should be able to fit a 27" tv in the case. I'm currently looking to use a 27" Sony Wega or something similar that will have HD inputs. This will allow for a sharper picture and SF4 should look decent. I can get a used one around here for about 75 bucks. So it's not too expensive, but I don't know if it'll work that well. Has anyone else tried this type of TV? How does it look?
So other then some art, a marquee, and a coin door I should be good to go. Please let me know if I'm on the right track. Also I plan on running a front end loader, I've read a few posts on some, but recommendations would be welcome.
Thanks
ragnar:
"currently the only thing I can get to run is MK4"
Did you mean "currently the only thing I can not get to run is MK4"? If so, either can I on a P4 2.6GHz. MK4 is the first one that went 3D so it's not surprising.
Fysh:
Ya doh, boo bad proof reading.
There are a couple of others, Virtua Fighter 3 for example that just won't load. not sure if it a rom error or the computer just doesn't have the juice to do it. I figure if I really want those games I can use a DC emulator or something for them.
leapinlew:
--- Quote from: Fysh on September 08, 2010, 10:13:12 am ---Ya doh, boo bad proof reading.
There are a couple of others, Virtua Fighter 3 for example that just won't load. not sure if it a rom error or the computer just doesn't have the juice to do it. I figure if I really want those games I can use a DC emulator or something for them.
--- End quote ---
Settle into the idea that not everything is going to run right away. One other thing to start thinking about is how you plan on handling the controls. Many of us wanted an "ultimate gaming machine" and ended up with a frankenpanel. With that kind of money, you could build 2 cabs.
Before 100% committing to building a cab from scratch I would look around to see if anyone has a cab you can convert. By finding an old cab and refurbing it, you save yourself lots of time and money.
As a suggestion, how about use a couple hundred dollars and build a classics cab with a vertical monitor. Using cheap/free parts you can get a feel for the process. All of us have "things we would do different". As a bonus, once it's done you'll have a cabinet that faithfully plays Donkey Kong, Ms. Pacman, etc.
Fysh:
I've looked around briefly for a cab and didn't really see anything that I liked. I don't see the build of the cab being hard, more just time consuming. But the project itself is part of the fun, so I don't mind building the cab from scratch.
I figure that I'll probably end up using Hyperspin or one of the other front end loaders to keep the amount of roms and such in check, but I'm curious to see what others have used. The current plan is to get the CPU up and running and then get it matched with the monitor and control panel. Once that is working to how I want it I'll start on the cab.
I know that it won't run everything, and I can't see why you would want to. odds are there will be about 50 games that get played a lot and a bunch of others that just get booted up a few times.
I don't see me building more then one of these, at least not anytime soon, so I want to take my time and make sure everything is as good as I can get it first try. I may go back and update some stuff once done, but I pretty much have only one shot at this and want to make it a good one.