question about controls for a MAME cabinet

[mrmoomoo]

ok,
i am kinda a newbie to this whole building cabinets/buttons thing but i do have moderate experience with electronics in general.

what i am wondering is if i were to buy the x-action arcade controller or whatever(http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/gaming/5988/)
since i bought a really cheap cabinet and am putting  a computer(pIII 833mHz) into the cabinet could i simply hook this x-arcade controller thingy into the computer connfigure it and mount it to the cabinet?

i could be wrong but this sounds alot easier than the whole connect it yourself approach...but what do i know

looking for some help from someone who has done this --BINGO! Either that, or I was attempting to say "before" but it was too many letters to type--


thanx alot Nick,Nrellihan@yahoo.com

[Jakobud]

Yeah you could go this route, but it just depends on what you want/are expecting.  In general, the X-Arcade buttons and joysticks don't feel that great compared to Happs or Ultimarc joysticks. Second, will you be satisfied with those buttons and joysticks?  No trackball? No Spinner?  No 4-way joystick?  No rotating joysticks?  See there's a lot of different games and a lot of different types of controls that go with those games.  Everyone has their own preference of what sorts of games they want to play, which in turn governs what types of controls they need.  That why people build their own custom solutions.  Building your own can end up giving you a much better product than what X-Arcade offers.

[mrmoomoo]

ok yeah that is a good point i eventually would want all of those features but this x-arcade thing seems to be a good solution atm. what other ways of making control panels that will work with arcade os?

I just dont know though i have been reading around and it sounds like alot of ripping apart...

but anyway offer any other cheap solutions that you may have thanx alot

[BLACK KNIGHT]

As a beginner I bought the X-arcade...I then built my whole cabinet around the X-arcade and yeah it's limited you might be able to only play a 1000 games properly rather than Mame's entire 4000+ but by the time you get bored of the 1000 you'll know if you really want to continue in this hobby and then build a new controller.  If you are not an arcade junkie to the point that you know how the joysticks should feel exactly like me then the X-arcade is an awesome beginner's solution.  I absolutely love my X-arcade and my Mame cabinet even tho I'm limited in some of the games I can play.  However, I have started to modify it...I replaced the buttons with colored ones to make it look a bit different and I have all the parts to build a second controller on my Christmas list.  Of course, you could take apart the X-arcade and reuse a lot of the parts and it would save $$ too.  So I don't think it was a bad decision on my part to spend $150 on this thing whatsoever.  Just my 2 cents!

[Hoe]

Of course, you could take apart the X-arcade and reuse a lot of the parts and it would save $$ too

Sounds crazy to me to scrap a 150$ controller in favor of pulling 25$s worth of parts out of it.
The X-Gaming parts do feel a bit sub par, but I've never been a bit displeased with them (I play mostly the orignal Street Fighter II, and Tetris Plus 2/Tetris Grand Master).

[eightbit]

I've got an x-arcade and it works very well for what I bought it for. I bought it to use with an x-box and occasionally with my laptop.

The fit and finish of their product is excellent. The sticks are crappy. The joysticks are the worst new sticks I've ever used and the buttons are just ok. I'm thinking of trying to upgrade the sticks.  They are the only one I am aware of that can easily be used with consoles and PC's though I think other people are working on these interfaces and there will be more options there eventually.

Over all if you want to buy a pre-built solution then this is a good option.  Though you will probably also want to consider the hotrod http://www.hanaho.com/products/HotRodJoystick/overview.html and Slickstick http://www.slikstik.com/ Skickstick is pricey but you have to consider the quality of the controls.

Theirs lots of reviews on all of these, you should do some more research. http://www.retroblast.com/reviews/controller1.html