MAME cabinet first timer questions

[tdarcade]

Hello, so I am finally embracing MAME as a great alternative to having a ton of cabinets and all of the logistics around that. The cabinet I am using is a very nice condition Mortal Kombat II that I don't intend on hacking up.

Controls - As mentioned I am doing this on an MK II cabinet which obviously only has 5 buttons on it. I was considering buying another control panel that I could either add more buttons to or ideally would already be done. This way the cabinet could easily go back to MK II by swapping the CP and plugging MK II boardset back in. If anyone has recommendations on CPs that would plug and play in an MK cabinet please let me know.

Using the MK monitor - I understand that I can hack a VGA cable to connect to the monitor and use my on board ATI video card with Soft 15KHz. Will I lose anything with this? From reading it sounds like even though the voltage from VGA is lower than standard RGB output you can compensate by jacking up the brightness on the monitor, any disadvantage or limitations doing that?

Computer for MAME - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600, 2GB RAM, ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 which I know will be fine for what I am looking to play

MAME version - I have MAME4ALL running on an Raspberry PI and I am very impressed with the PI. MK I even plays very well after overclocking the PI. I've read a ton of info over the past few days and I'm sure I have some information mixed up but I see in the FAQ here that Advance MAME allows you to specify resolution/orientation for each game. Now correct me if I am wrong here but doesn't MAME4ALL also allow you to change each games resolution? I have OS flexibility with Windows or Linux although I am stronger on the Windows side. Hyperspin looks cool so will most likely run that on the front end unless there are pitfalls I am not aware of.

Interfacing with JAMMA - I am looking at a JPAC but I do see others out there. I know I could hack a spare JAMMA harness but that would be a PITA. Just want a good, clean solution to achieve this. Oh and if I do order the JPAC I was planning on getting the USB cables NOT the PS2 KB and mouse cables as I presume that the USB would work with Linux too?

Other considerations - again this is my first MAME cabinet so any other gotchyas, snags, etc you can think of would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

TD

[paigeoliver]

That athlon is leaps and bounds better than a raspberry pi. Just say no to raspberry pi. The pi came out, a bunch of people wet themselves and said "ooh, its a cell phone processor on a board, that will be great for mame". It isn't, it combines all the suckage of the bootleg 60 in 1 boards with all the goodness of, well, of refusing to stop defending a bad idea. Mame4all is based on something like a 14 year old version of mame.

I suggest just keeping your Mortal Kombat control panel. You lose the 6 button fighters, but no panel plays everything.

[tdarcade]

Thanks for replying. Yeah I know the PI is nowhere near the Athlon I just mentioned it in comparison because it is so anemic in comparison and yet does a nice job.  My biggest question marks are really about the the video - tie in to RGB with a hacked VGA cable and use Soft 15KHz or use another piece of hardware and connecting the PC (i.e. with JPAC or something else that people recommend?). Thanks.

[mcseforsale]

Anything with a dual-core will do just about everything you want.  Hell, I run old P4s and Celeron Ms in my cabs. 

AJ

Thanks for replying. Yeah I know the PI is nowhere near the Athlon I just mentioned it in comparison because it is so anemic in comparison and yet does a nice job.  My biggest question marks are really about the the video - tie in to RGB with a hacked VGA cable and use Soft 15KHz or use another piece of hardware and connecting the PC (i.e. with JPAC or something else that people recommend?). Thanks.

[tdarcade]

Yeah I am not really concerned about the hardware and perhaps I should have just left it out of my post. I was trying to be thorough in listing out what I am using but the big question marks for me are still video and the best way to connect to JAMMA (JPAC is what I am leaning towards just looking for feedback on it or it vs. something else). Thanks.

TD

[BobA]

Jpac is the easiest for jamma but the hard part is the video.   You have to establish that your video on board or video card is supported by soft 15 and make up the vga to video cable.

[tdarcade]

Jpac is the easiest for jamma but the hard part is the video.   You have to establish that your video on board or video card is supported by soft 15 and make up the vga to video cable.

Yeah that's what I figured. I posted on the Soft 15 thread asking if anyone knew but based on the broad compatibility with ATI cards my hunch is it will work and if not, I will pony up the $20 or so to get a used one that is known to work with it. I don't see the VGA cable being a big deal either although I'd gladly pay $5 to $10 for one that was done up nice.