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fredster:

You can buy an rf adapter from Walmart to convert the signal to plug into the TV with a standard coax cable for $19.00.  Then you can use any TV with sound if you want.

It works okay on most of the old games to use a TV.  So you can buy a cheap TV too with the rf adapter.  

I found out today that you can buy an ACT LABS gun for TV that will support 2 guns at the same time.  The one I have only supports 1 on a PC monitor.

It costs as much as you want to make a Mame CAB.  If you don't have all the power tools, you will have a higher cost in all the little tools necessary.

You have to get Mame working on a bench first.  Load it and then use it with a gamepad before you go nuts with it.  If you like it, move the PC to a cab.  

You can get cabs cheap at auctions.  Look over the paper or search the web for "arcade auction" and see if you have on in your area.  You can pick up dead cabs pretty cheap, and they have lots of parts in them.

The most expensive parts of my cab were :
1) PC - by far with the fancy video card and the memory
2) Monitor
3) Keyboard Interface - get one like an IPAC, it's the heart of the system.  It makes the system.
4) The cab - it was from an auction
I made the side art on a plotter at work.




paigeoliver:


--- Quote from: ashardin on February 16, 2004, 03:29:55 pm ---If yopu want, you can get a used 21 Inch PC monitor for less than $100 on Ebay.  I found one locally and it was $50 total, since I could pick it up.  Just another idea for you.

That 500 mhz machine *should* run most NEO GEO games (i.e. Metal Slug).  SF2 will probably run a little jumpy though.  I built a cab for my brother's family using a 600 mhz machine with 192 MB of memory and although it ran 95% of the mame roms, it was pretty easy to push the top edge of performance.  Forget about Midway games (Mortal Kombat, NBA JAM, etc).  And doubly forget and CHD (compressed hard drive) game like Area 51.  You will need a top of the line rig to begin to run those at 50%.

--- End quote ---

WHY would Streetfighter 2 be jumpy? CPS1 emulation is not that CPU intensive, and I DEFINITELY remember playing all the emulated Capcom games back when I had a 233 mhz K6 processor (and they ran full speed).

Also, I suggest using Mame version .60 on that processor, newer mame=slower mame. Sure they add new games in the new versions, but many of those new games won't be playable on your hardware, and general slowdowns will render many of the games that WOULD play correctly on .60 unplayable.

There is no AVERAGE cost to a Mame system.
Approximate costs of mine have been.

Amazing Mame (horizontal monitor, 2 joysticks, 6 buttons per player). $300

Galaga (vertical monitor, 4-way joystick, 2 buttons). $120

Gorf cocktail $150 (I did not personally build this, I simply traded something for it, and I paid $150 originally for what I traded).

Space Firebird mini (vertical monitor, 8-way joystick, 2 buttons). $100ish (hard to put an exact price on, since I reused an older computer that I once paid A LOT of money for, but is now worth jack, truth be told I didn't actually spend a dime on it, everything was surplus, free, or otherwise recycled).

Solitaire mini (trackball cabinet). $92

Battlezone (unfinished, but I have everthing I need to finish it). $30 (yes, $30).

Building from scratch usually adds a good $400 to the cost of the project.

Now onto vending roms?

Question one, why? You aren't going to be putting your Mame cabinet out on location, that is for sure (as far as I know there are not any location secure frontends anyway). So that only leaves the option that you want to charge your friends. Now if you are the kind of guy who would charge his buddies, then you are probably the kind of guy who wouldn't care if it was legal.

Now more on vending roms. I have (via web and in person), spoken to several operators who actually DO have Mame cabinets out on location, but they ARE NOT multi-game cabinets. Every one of them runs a single game that also has a broken PCB inside. So regardless of the legalities, people ARE doing it, and anyway, I think that actually IS legal according to recent rulings (there is a thread around here somewhere), having to do with protection on software for obsolete computer systems.

Now more on that. Operators largely don't care about legalities anyway. They  bought and ran bootleg kits back in 1982, they did it in 1992, and they still do it today, (although the bootleg market is a lot smaller today, mostly Neo Geo stuff, and classic "Multigame" JAMMA boards).



krick:


--- Quote from: ashardin on February 16, 2004, 03:29:55 pm ---Forget about Midway games (Mortal Kombat, NBA JAM, etc).  And doubly forget and CHD (compressed hard drive) game like Area 51.  You will need a top of the line rig to begin to run those at 50%.

--- End quote ---

I'll second that.  I *tried* to play Mortal Kombat on a 1.1GHz Celeron but it could only manage about 19 frames per second.  It was REALLY choppy and the sound stuttered.  It was virtually unplayable.

My 2.13GHz P4 on the other hand seems to be just about fast enough.

The mame cab I'm building will include a 2.8GHz CPU and I don't think that will be fast enough to play the CHD hard drive based games.





paigeoliver:


--- Quote from: krick on February 17, 2004, 02:12:25 am ---
--- Quote from: ashardin on February 16, 2004, 03:29:55 pm ---Forget about Midway games (Mortal Kombat, NBA JAM, etc).  And doubly forget and CHD (compressed hard drive) game like Area 51.  You will need a top of the line rig to begin to run those at 50%.

--- End quote ---

I'll second that.  I *tried* to play Mortal Kombat on a 1.1GHz Celeron but it could only manage about 19 frames per second.  It was REALLY choppy and the sound stuttered.  It was virtually unplayable.

My 2.13GHz P4 on the other hand seems to be just about fast enough.

The mame cab I'm building will include a 2.8GHz CPU and I don't think that will be fast enough to play the CHD hard drive based games.


--- End quote ---

Use an older Mame version on that 1.1 ghz and then it should handle Mortal Kombat just fine. The Midway hardware games keep getting slower because the emulation keeps getting more "accurate".  ;D

ashardin:

"WHY would Streetfighter 2 be jumpy? CPS1 emulation is not that CPU intensive, and I DEFINITELY remember playing all the emulated Capcom games back when I had a 233 mhz K6 processor (and they ran full speed). "

I dunno, maybe it was the version I used (.64 if I remember correctly), the computer setup, sunspots, whatever,  but it didn't well on that machine.  If it works for him and his setup, more power to him.  I'm just passing on my experience from setting up a similiar machine last x-mas.  I didn't spend a great of time troubleshooting an individual rom.



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