Three questions for the mame experts

[jedimason]

1.  I'm making my mame cocktail control panels out of wood to save money.  What is the cheapest and most effective thing for the control panel.  Laminate, Lexan, Plexiglass, Paint, Formica.  Obviously some type of paint would be pretty easy to apply several times, but what kind is the best.  I have read several different sites on what they used, but in my situation of being a college student with no money what would you use.

2.  Right now I'm messing around with mamewah.  What other emulators do you guys use for say nintendo, snes, and nintendo 64.

3.  Right now I only have a 17 inch. monitor.  I have the oppurtunity to purchase a 1997 tv for 25 bucks, but it only has rca inputs.  If I buy the $5 adapter for the s-video/rca, will I be happy with the picture quality.

Thanks for all your help,

Jonny

[CM]

1)  No perfect answer.  To each their own.  I would use something more protective than just paint IMHO though.

2)  (MAMEWAH is not an emulator, it is a frontend.)  Go here for a good list of console emulators: http://www.zophar.net/index.phtml

3) Depends on what "happy" is.  RCA inputs do not enjoy the full S-video crispness, but then again the monitor beats the TV in that area anyways.  Most people go with TV for size vs cost over monitors.   For the $30 you might be able to find an old S-video tv on ebay or garage sale though...

Good luck!

[Pete Harcoff]

To answer #2:

I use UltraFCE for NES emulation and Snes9x for SNES emulation.  I've tried N64 emulation, but had too many problems with it.

[Sephroth57]

well its not like the picture quality is going to be less then normal RCA with a Svid converter. its just not going to be "true" s video quality. although a computer monitor beats both, so its up to you and how much $ u have to spend

[eightbit]

In a tv vs monitor debate tv's are often argued to have a more arcade authentic picture than a monitor. It mostly depends on the quality of the tv but also depends on how good your tv out on your video card is.

How big is this tv and will it even fit into your cocktail cab?

[slicer_d]

I wouldnt even consider using a tv for a cocktail they are just not setup for it at all.  If you use an older tv and lay it on its back you will most likely get a crap image with all the funky colors distorting it.  I dont know whats its called but its why monitors have the degauss feature.  If you bought a new tv and always kept it that way it might work out alright but decasing a tv is a pain from what I hear.  Also I remember hearing that back in the saturn days when all the new shmups were coming out the Japanese were tilting there tv's onto the side and they would break after being that way sometimes because they are not built to hold the weight that way.

I'm basically done with my cocktail cab it just needs some paint and I have made it custom for a 19" (18" viewable) computer monitor.  You might be able to fit a 21" in it but I dont think you could put a coin door in at that point. The 19" is basically what they have in the real ones if you want I can post some pics of mine to show you how tight it is.  The monitor only cost me 55 bucks and its in good shape so I would say find one cheap locally in the paper or on ebay pick it up and bam nice crisp picture ready to go.

Also I'm planning to use plexi on my cp that I custom made out of wood.  If you want some pics let me know I spent a decent amount of time thinking out its construction so it should turn out pretty good.

[Tiger-Heli]

1.  I'm making my mame cocktail control panels out of wood to save money.  What is the cheapest and most effective thing for the control panel.  Laminate, Lexan, Plexiglass, Paint, Formica.  Obviously some type of paint would be pretty easy to apply several times, but what kind is the best.  I have read several different sites on what they used, but in my situation of being a college student with no money what would you use.

First off, laminate is Formica - it's just a brand name, like Jell-O and gelatin, or Band-Aid and bandage.

Formica is good IF you have access to a router to work with it.  Plexiglass (or rather Lexan) is good if you will have artwork on the panel.  For solid color and low-budget, OSCAR likes this vinyl from partsexpress shown in this thread:

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=7427;start=msg53287#msg53287