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Arcade Cabinet Mame Conversion - Looking fo good advice before I do anything!

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bradx:

get an empty cab on craigslist or one with a lousy jamma game you can sell the kit out of, it will be much cheaper and easier than building your own. 

keep in mind, if you dont need to play every single game mame is capable of currently, you can use an older version that still will work perfectly with thousands of the classics, and pretty much any old PC tower you can get for $50 or less will be fine. 

for a frontend, mala is easy to set up and free. 

my last project was built for a friend, we got a cab on craigslist for $50.  keyboard encoder through a member here for $15.  21" monitor from a thrift store for $15.  compaq deskpro PC for $20.  the cab still had the joystick and buttons, it plays thousands of games, i was able to sell it to him for $300 and double my investment, not too shabby. 

my advice is keep it as simple as you can stand.  no need to overcomplicate things, you can always upgrade later...

wonderboy78:


--- Quote from: rpgposer on April 29, 2013, 01:03:52 pm ---
4. Decision:  Replace tube monitor w/LCD, purchase RGB/CGA/YUV to VGA adapter and J-PAC. Leave original game and wiring and power supply in place in case I change my mind.

8.  MALA as frontend.  * I have spent years using and trying out front ends.  MALA has been the easiest to set up, best looking, works with vert/horiz monitor orientation.  For a simple list frontend, I would use AdvanceMenu, for an eye candy frontend, I would use XBMC.


Expenses for were the cab ($30), video adapter ($40), lcd monitor ($35 - PA state surplus) and the JPAC with PS2 console adapter. ($70? - not 100% sure).

I am happy with the results and have zero regrets.

--- End quote ---

Thanks for your input,

I really want to use an original arcade monitor and the quality and authenticity of this option is the main reason I want to do this.

Mala sound like a good option, I will try it out on my computer to see if I like it, is it easy to find and setup with artwork etc?

You built a very cheap cabinet and I think that is awesome, I would like mine to be a fairly cheap build too, but here in Australia getting cheap cabinets is not easy, smaller market I guess, but I will keep searching until I find a good one.


wonderboy78:


--- Quote from: bradx on April 30, 2013, 03:43:31 am ---get an empty cab on craigslist or one with a lousy jamma game you can sell the kit out of, it will be much cheaper and easier than building your own. 

keep in mind, if you dont need to play every single game mame is capable of currently, you can use an older version that still will work perfectly with thousands of the classics, and pretty much any old PC tower you can get for $50 or less will be fine. 

for a frontend, mala is easy to set up and free. 

my last project was built for a friend, we got a cab on craigslist for $50.  keyboard encoder through a member here for $15.  21" monitor from a thrift store for $15.  compaq deskpro PC for $20.  the cab still had the joystick and buttons, it plays thousands of games, i was able to sell it to him for $300 and double my investment, not too shabby. 

my advice is keep it as simple as you can stand.  no need to overcomplicate things, you can always upgrade later...

--- End quote ---

Thanks for your input, I like the idea of the cheapest possible build and I also want to get an old cabinet and convert it because I know this will be the easiest and cheapest way. I can see the advantages of a computer monitor like the one you mentioned, but I have my heart set on an Arcade monitor and this is the driving force behind this build.

So I'm gonna try to start by getting an old cabinet with a working arcade monitor and go from there.

mgb:

Mala is definitely easy to setup.
Also it has a low res mode for arcade monitors.



wonderboy78:


--- Quote from: mgb on May 01, 2013, 12:07:06 am ---Mala is definitely easy to setup.
Also it has a low res mode for arcade monitors.

--- End quote ---

I checked this out and I'm so far finding it much harder than say Mame32, but I have seen some nice examples on youtube of a guy who has set it up to look rally good. I'm just wondering how long something like that would take:

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