Advantage of cabinet with internet access?

[icecube45]

Hello! I'm almost done with my first build and have a spare wifi card lying around, would there be any advantage to installing it into the machine?

[UFO]

I've sometimes thought about the possibility of having ROM's 'cloud' based.

Edit: Network access is invaluable for me though...

[McHale]

Mine is definitely wireless.  I download all my MAME-related updates directly to the machine. 

[icecube45]

Mine is definitely wireless.  I download all my MAME-related updates directly to the machine. 

I've sometimes thought about the possibility of having ROM's 'cloud' based.

Edit: Network access is invaluable for me though...

These seem more than enough reasons to install the card on it!
The only other reason was if somehow I could get the top scores of selected games to be uploaded to a website.
Anyone know of how I could possibly do that?

[BobA]

Only disadvantages are Virus's and Malware. A bad infection could blow away all your work in setting up the software for the cab.  A complete backup would be a must.  Also if you have wifi access you need to keep virus/malware software running which uses CPU time and memory that will slow down the speed of your emulation.

[icecube45]

Only disadvantages are Virus's and Malware. A bad infection could blow away all your work in setting up the software for the cab.  A complete backup would be a must.  Also if you have wifi access you need to keep virus/malware software running which uses CPU time and memory that will slow down the speed of your emulation.

True...
Still thinking of online scoreboards though!

[PL1]

Several reasons to not install the wireless card:

1. Anti-virus, windows updates, etc. use processor cycles and can pop up in the middle of game play.

2. Once you get a dedicated cab working, you really only need to update when a gotta-have-it feature is added or a favorite game is now functional/greatly improved.

It's not hard to include an easy-access USB port or two for updates via thumb drive.


Scott

[icecube45]

Several reasons to not install the wireless card:

1. Anti-virus, windows updates, etc. use processor cycles and can pop up in the middle of game play.

2. Once you get a dedicated cab working, you really only need to update when a gotta-have-it feature is added or a favorite game is now functional/greatly improved.

It's not hard to include an easy-access USB port or two for updates via thumb drive.


Scott

Yeah, Although many of those could be turned off, its still a problem.
Still, online scoreboards! As this cabinet will be used by my neighbors and friends a ton.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Mine is definitely wireless.  I download all my MAME-related updates directly to the machine.

I used to think this way, but then STEAM came along an ruined everything.

DeLuSioNaL29

[PL1]

Not sure how much usage it will actually get, but an online scoreboard might be interesting.

It might not be worth putting the effort to automate it or the problems with putting cab online, though.

Maybe you could have a dedicated admin button to take screencaps -- use a thumb drive to dump them to Facebook and manually update the scoreboard.

It also avoids the whole "pics or it didn't happen" excuse.   


Scott

[Fursphere]

Everyone complaining about windows updates, anti-virus consuming cpu cycles, etc...  STOP USING 10+ year old PCs!  lol   

Updating a ROM set "ON" my cabinet sucks.  I do it on my main pc, then copy it over the network.  I also use it for more than just a mame cabinet.  I have Steam games on it.  Some Origin games.  I use it as a Pandora jukebox, etc. 

[PsychoAU]

Viruses and Malware don't just magically appear on a computer out of the blue.  If you know what you're doing and don't go browsing around some Russian warez site or something, then there is no real threat of malware.  Also don't install every shareware package with 10 toolbars. 

This thread is starting to give me flashbacks to the 90s when my high school teacher told everyone that AOL was a virus.

If you are smart enough to set up a MAME machine, you are smart enough to properly configure you OS and avoid malware without running anti-virus software at all.  And if you are thinking of wi-fi, then you already have the box behind a router.  Done and done.

[Fursphere]

This thread is starting to give me flashbacks to the 90s when my high school teacher told everyone that AOL was a virus.

I understand the analogy you're making, but AOL might as well be a virus with unbelievably craptastic it is.     Everyday I hear about them still being in business I'm amazed.

[UFO]

This thread is starting to give me flashbacks to the 90s when my high school teacher told everyone that AOL was a virus.

I understand the analogy you're making, but AOL might as well be a virus with unbelievably craptastic it is.     Everyday I hear about them still being in business I'm amazed.

)

Every time someone gives me an email address of @aol.com, I say "really?"

[SORHP]

You could utilize a USB wireless card, mount a USB extension on the back of the cab, only plug it it when you need it, I remote into mine this way to update stuff under one username, and she'll under another username, works a charm

[DaveMMR]

Every time someone gives me an email address of @aol.com, I say "really?"

My clients at work are mainly lawyers and I'm floored by how many of them conduct business with an AOL address. As far as professional appearances go, I liken it to handing out business cards written in crayon.

At any rate, my old cab was connected to my home network so that I can troubleshoot and update software and settings remotely. So much easier than pulling out the keyboard. I never worried about viruses/malware/etc. because the only thing on the drive, besides Windows, were the games and frontend software - all duplicated on my main computer's drive. And you really couldn't browse the web on that machine comfortably anyway.

The only this is that I actually went with a wired connection as I didn't want to install the software for the wireless adapter I had and risk it bogging things down with its constant annoyance. I don't know what you have really but something to consider.

[icecube45]

Every time someone gives me an email address of @aol.com, I say "really?"

My clients at work are mainly lawyers and I'm floored by how many of them conduct business with an AOL address. As far as professional appearances go, I liken it to handing out business cards written in crayon.

At any rate, my old cab was connected to my home network so that I can troubleshoot and update software and settings remotely. So much easier than pulling out the keyboard. I never worried about viruses/malware/etc. because the only thing on the drive, besides Windows, were the games and frontend software - all duplicated on my main computer's drive. And you really couldn't browse the web on that machine comfortably anyway.

The only this is that I actually went with a wired connection as I didn't want to install the software for the wireless adapter I had and risk it bogging things down with its constant annoyance. I don't know what you have really but something to consider.

The internet card I have works straight out of the box, My only goal now is the online scoreboard, via some autohotkey perhaps?

[kuehnau]

Hello! I'm almost done with my first build and have a spare wifi card lying around, would there be any advantage to installing it into the machine?

There's a version of MAME that includes internet access and "live" game play so people can drop in and out. Furthermore, if you don't have a version or copy of a rom someone is playing, it actually lets you download it from them.

I used it a few times to play TMNT online with a friend. Not the best software, but it works better then some versions of MAME I've tried to use.

[paigeoliver]

Once I complete a build I never upgrade any of the software.

Don't fix what isn't broken.

If you continually upgrade your mame cabinet then it will either continually develop problems or eventually your old rig will start skipping frames on a newer mame version.

[keilmillerjr]

I think internet access would be less useful, and lan access would be very helpful. Like others said, remotely update your cabinet.

[brihyn]

my cab has a flakey wireless connection, and it kills me.
If I need to do any larger configuration work or whatever, it's much easier to sit at my desk and RDP into the cab then to sit on the bar stool manipulating a keyboard on my lap. And finding the occasional buggy rom, getting VPin setup and working etc, it's just much easier doing it at my desk, letting my pc virus scan everything, and then copying the files over the net.

[michelevit]

I like to stream Pandora Internet radio and also the occasional Hulu /youtube video.
I have a simple USB wifi card that I piked up from monoprice. Works great.
I can remove it when the small ones are playing to prevent them from getting online.
I turn off auto updates which also prevents untimley system upgrades.

[jelwell]

Here's what I did when I had friends with arcade cabinets.

We all share the same hi scores. I store the hi and nvram directories on an ftp server. (We have not yet upgraded to save state versions). Then I use Webdrive on all the machines to mount the ftp server as if it were a physical drive. Everyone uses identical MAME revisions and ROMs and we all point our hi and nvram directories to the mounted server. It's quite speedy, unless you want to play Simpon's Bowling which has an NVRAM file which is around 8MB (which can take a noticeable number of seconds to load).

If you are going to have your box online then I highly suggest you use an icebox or something similar to "Freeze" your hard drive.
http://dx.com/p/windows-icebox-usb-system-restore-data-recovery-dongle-for-pc-and-laptops-17774

The icebox allows your system to ignore any writes to the hard drive when you reboot. This is great if a system update accidentally is applied or some hacker remotely exploits your OS and installs something that is causing problems - or more likely slowing your machine down. You can configure certain folders to ignore but the rest of the disk is "protected". It works by writing any changes to empty space on your drive and never committing them to the real file system. You can also temporarily disable it if you need to make some changes to your system.

Before I installed something like this I had problems being online.  Mostly from Windows updates but other problems too, like if somone accidentally found my keyboard and broke some key mapping in Mame or Mamewah. It's nice to be able to reboot and have all those changes simply ignored.

As someone else posted, there are also versions of MAME that support network play. So you could play with your friends. I have not tried any recently (as my friends all got rid of their cabinets) but it worked really well when I played it before.
Joseph Elwell.

[Fursphere]

Here's what I did when I had friends with arcade cabinets.

We all share the same hi scores. I store the hi and nvram directories on an ftp server. (We have not yet upgraded to save state versions). Then I use Webdrive on all the machines to mount the ftp server as if it were a physical drive. Everyone uses identical MAME revisions and ROMs and we all point our hi and nvram directories to the mounted server. It's quite speedy, unless you want to play Simpon's Bowling which has an NVRAM file which is around 8MB (which can take a noticeable number of seconds to load).

If you are going to have your box online then I highly suggest you use an icebox or something similar to "Freeze" your hard drive.
http://dx.com/p/windows-icebox-usb-system-restore-data-recovery-dongle-for-pc-and-laptops-17774

The icebox allows your system to ignore any writes to the hard drive when you reboot. This is great if a system update accidentally is applied or some hacker remotely exploits your OS and installs something that is causing problems - or more likely slowing your machine down. You can configure certain folders to ignore but the rest of the disk is "protected". It works by writing any changes to empty space on your drive and never committing them to the real file system. You can also temporarily disable it if you need to make some changes to your system.

Before I installed something like this I had problems being online.  Mostly from Windows updates but other problems too, like if somone accidentally found my keyboard and broke some key mapping in Mame or Mamewah. It's nice to be able to reboot and have all those changes simply ignored.

As someone else posted, there are also versions of MAME that support network play. So you could play with your friends. I have not tried any recently (as my friends all got rid of their cabinets) but it worked really well when I played it before.
Joseph Elwell.

How do you deal with fine contention issues?   Meaning two people playing the same ROM at the same time?

[michelevit]

there is no problem with sharing a file at the same time.
we have a NAS on our home network and many users can access the file at the same time.  the file isn't 'checked out.'
when someone accesses it.

[icecube45]

Here's what I did when I had friends with arcade cabinets.

We all share the same hi scores. I store the hi and nvram directories on an ftp server. (We have not yet upgraded to save state versions). Then I use Webdrive on all the machines to mount the ftp server as if it were a physical drive. Everyone uses identical MAME revisions and ROMs and we all point our hi and nvram directories to the mounted server. It's quite speedy, unless you want to play Simpon's Bowling which has an NVRAM file which is around 8MB (which can take a noticeable number of seconds to load).

If you are going to have your box online then I highly suggest you use an icebox or something similar to "Freeze" your hard drive.
http://dx.com/p/windows-icebox-usb-system-restore-data-recovery-dongle-for-pc-and-laptops-17774

The icebox allows your system to ignore any writes to the hard drive when you reboot. This is great if a system update accidentally is applied or some hacker remotely exploits your OS and installs something that is causing problems - or more likely slowing your machine down. You can configure certain folders to ignore but the rest of the disk is "protected". It works by writing any changes to empty space on your drive and never committing them to the real file system. You can also temporarily disable it if you need to make some changes to your system.

Before I installed something like this I had problems being online.  Mostly from Windows updates but other problems too, like if somone accidentally found my keyboard and broke some key mapping in Mame or Mamewah. It's nice to be able to reboot and have all those changes simply ignored.

As someone else posted, there are also versions of MAME that support network play. So you could play with your friends. I have not tried any recently (as my friends all got rid of their cabinets) but it worked really well when I played it before.
Joseph Elwell.

This:
I could store the high scores on an ftp server, which then displays them on a website!
Online scoreboard, woop

[DeLuSioNal29]

If you are going to have your box online then I highly suggest you use an icebox or something similar to "Freeze" your hard drive.
http://dx.com/p/windows-icebox-usb-system-restore-data-recovery-dongle-for-pc-and-laptops-17774
The icebox allows your system to ignore any writes to the hard drive when you reboot.

I assume then that any hi scores are ignored as well?

[jelwell]

If you are going to have your box online then I highly suggest you use an icebox or something similar to "Freeze" your hard drive.
http://dx.com/p/windows-icebox-usb-system-restore-data-recovery-dongle-for-pc-and-laptops-17774
The icebox allows your system to ignore any writes to the hard drive when you reboot.

I assume then that any hi scores are ignored as well?

High scores are not ignored.
1. If you're using the internet "shared high score list" feature that I describe above, the icebox doesn't work with it. It's not a physical disk, so depending on the way you "map" the remote folder in mame the icebox won't freeze it.
2. I add exceptions in the software configuration tool to the following directories:
mame/hi
mame/nvram

There are few other locations you'll probably want to exclude:
Mame's save state folder (I think that's mame/state)
Your front end's game play count list. I use Mamewah and there is a folder that keeps track of the number of times I've played a game. I exclude that folder. The reason to count is that Mamewah offers a view that shows all (thousands) of games sorted by how many times you've played them. VERY helpful when you just want to play the same ole same ole.

My current cabinet has one of these (instead of an icebox):
http://dx.com/p/recoverystar-crash-recovery-pci-card-for-pc-2896
They also have a USB version of this one:
http://dx.com/p/usb-data-recovery-system-restore-dongle-for-desktop-pc-and-laptops-14855

It works really well and has the added feature that at boot time you can decide to save any changes made during the last run. It defaults to booting up without saving anything. You have to quickly press some key combo when the Recovery screen flashes right after your bios. I think CTRL-A or the like. I can't recall if this version has folder exclusions. I setup icebox on my brother in law's cabinet. I'm planning on upgrading my cabinet's PC and switching to icebox though. With icebox, if you want to save any changes (other than to excluded folders) you have to launch the helper app in windows, then turn the unfreeze the computer, then REBOOT, then when it comes back up you can make any changes and then use the app to freeze the computer again - which will trigger another reboot. Kind of tedious, but not needed often. The documentation seemed to imply you can simply remove or plug in the USB stick to enable/disable freeze. But I either wasn't able to get it to work, or gave up too soon (because it was a feature I didn't really need).
Joseph Elwell.

[jelwell]

By the way, this is the program I used nearly a decade ago:
http://www.southrivertechnologies.com/products/webdrive/

Today I imagine I would just register a new dropbox account, specific to my arcade cabinet's and my friends. Then use their software to keep my mame score folders in sync. But I've kind of given up on that feature since my friends all sold their cabinets. And I didn't bother to make my brother in laws networked.
Joseph Elwell.

[icecube45]

By the way, this is the program I used nearly a decade ago:
http://www.southrivertechnologies.com/products/webdrive/

Today I imagine I would just register a new dropbox account, specific to my arcade cabinet's and my friends. Then use their software to keep my mame score folders in sync. But I've kind of given up on that feature since my friends all sold their cabinets. And I didn't bother to make my brother in laws networked.
Joseph Elwell.

I could symlink the highcores to a folder in dropbox, and then symlink that on the website hosting computer.
Now go an network your brother in laws, beat him in some 1941

[BadMouth]

I finally broke down and allowed my current build to access the internet so I could install some Steam games without having to use shady workarounds.

I thought it was all going great, until this evening when I tried to run some NAOMI shmups and NFL Blitz which ran perfectly before.
Now they're full of slowdown & sound skips.

I assumed some background process or service was slowing things down, so I go about disabling absolutely everything that windows doesn't need.  After every process was killed and every service was stopped that could be, it made no difference.  Thought maybe the default video card options had changed, so I disabled everything fancy.

I'm not sure if it's a video driver that was allowed to update to run the steam games or maybe a windows update that I figured I would allow, but now the NAOMI games that were supposed to be the primary focus of the cab are unplayable. 

.....and that's why you seal off your cab from the outside world as soon as you have it working the way you want.

[Fursphere]

Ok, so whats needed to run Naomi? 

If you want to troubleshoot, uninstall all the games in Steam, then uninstall Steam instead.  Then uninstall every Windows Update that's been installed since the computer was connected to the internet, and roll back your video driver to whatever version is used to be.

I'm not convinced that internet connectivity has anything to do with it....  but if it did, you should be able to "undo" whatever it "did". 

[CoryBee]

I'm not convinced that internet connectivity has anything to do with it....  but if it did, you should be able to "undo" whatever it "did".

I disagree completely. Windows XP hails home as soon as you connect to the internet. You can see this if you do a fresh install and connect to the internet, then run this command in a Command Prompt

Code: [Select]

netstat -b 5 > activity.txt
This will show any network activity on the computer. Let it run for a while, since this is for diagnostic purposes let it run for 12 - 24 hours before hitting

Code: [Select]

Ctrl+C
Open up the start menu and click on run, then type in

Code: [Select]

activity.txt
Hit enter and you will see what connections have been made on your computer and from which programs.

Also when you have registry changes to your computer it is really, really hard to rid yourself of them just by uninstalling the culprit.

[Fursphere]

I think you missed the point of what I was saying.

Simply plugging your Windows XP based system (why the hell are still running XP again?) into the "Internet" will not effect performance.  If you have Windows set to auto-update - there could be something there to blame.

[BadMouth]

Ok, so whats needed to run Naomi? 

If you want to troubleshoot, uninstall all the games in Steam, then uninstall Steam instead.  Then uninstall every Windows Update that's been installed since the computer was connected to the internet, and roll back your video driver to whatever version is used to be.

I'm not convinced that internet connectivity has anything to do with it....  but if it did, you should be able to "undo" whatever it "did".

I didn't think it would be Steam since stopping all services and processes related to it made no difference.

It was the video driver.

Uninstalled it, Vista reinstalled one from 2012, NAOMI games running full speed again.
MKK still works.  I didn't expect it to.

Hour and a half lost messing with it.  I'm glad that was all.

[CoryBee]

If you really wish to have easy access to your Arcade Machine via a wireless connection I suggest you do this.

Install your wireless card

Open up its adapter properties and change the default gateway to something like 10.10.10.10 or anything non existent. This will disable internet access but still allow you to connect to the local network.

Install TightVNC on this computer and the computer you will update it from

Do all updates and control through this control computer. You can transfer files you downloaded on your regular system through VNC and still maintain the integrity of your Arcade Machine.

-------

I personally don't allow any connection and just update through USB

[CoryBee]

(why the hell are still running XP again?)

Because you can still build MAME machines using $20 dell optiplex 256mb\512mb RAM computers......

I think you missed the point of what I was saying.
Simply plugging your Windows XP based system (why the hell are still running XP again?) into the "Internet" will not effect performance.  If you have Windows set to auto-update - there could be something there to blame.

I always install a fresh copy of windows in each system I build (have made a lot now) and always disable any auto update features and since I am using a striped down version of XP most services that I wont use are already disabled or removed without me having to mess with it. Despite this I have had a couple times when I did nothing but connect to the internet on one of these and download video\audio drivers from the manufacture's website and something funny happens. I have no idea what actually caused it those few times but ever since installing the same drivers from USB I have had no issues. I think overall in a system like this the internet, access to it and it just sitting idle while connected, is a bad idea.

It hails home as soon as it is connected. Does it change anything? Don't know, would depend on a lot of things considering the different security functions and protocols in the different service packs. But I prefer to be on the safe side as these machines I build will be in the hands of people who do not have the know how to fix any issues that may arise down the road.

 

[icecube45]

If you really wish to have easy access to your Arcade Machine via a wireless connection I suggest you do this.

Install your wireless card

Open up its adapter properties and change the default gateway to something like 10.10.10.10 or anything non existent. This will disable internet access but still allow you to connect to the local network.

Install TightVNC on this computer and the computer you will update it from

Do all updates and control through this control computer. You can transfer files you downloaded on your regular system through VNC and still maintain the integrity of your Arcade Machine.

-------

I personally don't allow any connection and just update through USB

Since my router allows the sharing of an external harddrive, I might save the highscores to that, and use them via online scoreboard (If I can get one working, that is)

[CoryBee]

Since my router allows the sharing of an external harddrive, I might save the highscores to that, and use them via online scoreboard (If I can get one working, that is)

So disable internet using this method but still retaining the ability to do online scoreboard from your machines? I like it!

You need a program to pull from the "hiscore.dat" file on your hard drive and post that on an online score board?

[icecube45]

Since my router allows the sharing of an external harddrive, I might save the highscores to that, and use them via online scoreboard (If I can get one working, that is)

So disable internet using this method but still retaining the ability to do online scoreboard from your machines? I like it!

You need a program to pull from the "hiscore.dat" file on your hard drive and post that on an online score board?

I can symlink the hi folder to the external harddrive, the only problem is converting the .hi files to a .txt or .html
See my software forum post Here : http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,134218.0.html