Back after a 13yo hiatus, with ALL NEW QUESTIONS!

[Anubis_au]

Hi guys

Reaching out to the community for some information and help.

In 2007 (yes, you read that correctly!) I assembled the parts to build my second arcade machine. Then I travelled overseas, lived overseas, got married, had four kids and now live in Canada. All the while my stuff was boxed then shipped overseas and has been lying dormant... until this week when I unboxed it all.

My original project thread (for those interested) is here:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,71736.html


I have the following 13yo parts to potentially use in a machine:
19” LG monitor (recently acquired for my bartop project)
20” CRT for my original lowboy build which I’m not doing right now
Pentium 4, 3.2GHz processor, 1Gb RAM, on-board sound etc, ArcadeVGA video card (not sure what type of slot it goes in but whatever was in vogue in 2007). Its running windows xp and MaLa with MAME v1.18 and Daphne
2x UltraStik 360s from Ultimarc
I-PAC2 keyboard encoder from Ultimarc (ps/2 connector!)
LED-Wiz and NovaGem arcade buttons with graphic inserts from GroovyGameGear

I want to build a one-player vertically oriented bartop. I want it playing only those MAME games I want plus some pinball games. I still want it that only the buttons used for a game will glow, the rest remaining dark. I also want it that I don’t have to switch between emulators, but rather there be just one long list of games, and it just launches whatever is needed for each game.

So, my questions in no particular order are:
1. Given ‘constraints’ of using the changing maps of the ultrastik 360 and LED-wiz, am I limited to the windows pc realm or is the pi an option?
2. What’s the best FE avail to have just one list of games? My first machine ran advmenu / advmame under DOS. Sure, it had only MAME games, but I loved the simplicity of it… a list of games, you launched, you played. I want that again. Is MaLa still the best when working with the ultrastik?
3. Given the advance in technology in 13 years, is there a better option than pac/ledwiz for achieving what I want?
4. What pinball emulators exist now and do they run on 4:3? (asking bc every pinball thread I see seems to be 16:9)

Thank you...