MAME cabinet refresh advice needed

[dth930]

I have an O-L-D (15+ years) MAME cabinet that I built that's in need of a refresh.  The old PC isn't running too well anymore.

What I have is based on a 4-player setup (I think it was originally an old Gauntlet cabinet) that I converted for 2-player MAME.  It's not JAMMA.  The custom controls are connected through an IPAC.  I have a PC running Windows 95 and MAMEWah.  It uses a 25" multi-freq CRT monitor.  The monitor is still in pretty good condition.  There's no burn-in, but it's been getting dimmer and flickers during heavy play.  I'm running the monitor using an old ArcadeVGA card.

I probably only play 20-30 games regularly... all the vintage classics.  That's probably all I'll ever want to do.

My problem is that the PC and Windows is flakey and, like I said, the monitor is pretty good but not 100% stable.

I'm wondering what my options are to get it back 100% working, especially if someone else has been in a similar situation before.

Some of my thoughts/questions are:
 - Should I upgrade/fix the PC or change to something more modern like a Raspberry Pi or Pandora's Box?
 - If I change the PC or use an entirely different solution, what do I do about a monitor?  I won't be able to use the ArcadeVGA card in a new machine.  I'm obviously stuck with the dimensions from the old CRT.  I prefer not to go smaller.
 - If I swap out the monitor, what impact is that going to have on the games?  I play mostly old upright games and it would be a shame to have to play them on the center 1/3 of a 24" 16:9 monitor.  On the other hand, I'm not serious enough to worry about frequencies and refresh rates if moving to something modern will make my life easier and work better.
 - Should I replace the controls with an entire integrated system?

Interested in anyone's thoughts who has done this before.  I obviously have an understanding of what's out there for new builds but can't quite wrap my head around what's best to use in a retrofit situation like mine.
 - Dave

[leapinlew]

How hung up on you on using a CRT vs LCD?
For me, I love the look of a CRT and I really like how those cabinets are filled out by a 25" CRT. I can understand why you went with the solution you did 15 years ago. 2-3 years ago, I bought a cabinet I wanted to use for multi-purpose, well, I bought two of them but I only kept one. I put a 27" LCD panel in both. I hid it behind some plexi and this is what it looked like with a Pandoras box:


You can see the space used isn't 100%, so you would have to determine if that's acceptable.


In this image, you can see what a 4:3 picture looks like. I don't have a vertical shot, but it looks as big as the Galaga cabinet, but in a way it seems so much smaller because of all the blank space.

For the powerplant, I'd definitely spend a few minutes looking at Raspberry Pi arcade image reviews on youtube. You'll be surprised at how easy that setup is. Depending on what games you play, that may be sufficient and affordable.  For your setup, I'd go with a Pi before I went with a Pandoras box.

[Phreakwars]

I guess I'm on the other end. I really really dislike Raspberry Pi's when used as Arcade boards. Don't get me wrong, they work OK, and I use Pi's all the time for many other projects, it's just you are a bit limited in MAME because only a couple versions work and you tend to need multiple versions of MAME depending on the games you run, and performance is meh..., setup is a pain, especially if Linux isn't your thing. Gimme a PC any day. I'd suggest a PC upgrade, but not a too modern board. Socket 1155/1150 would be just fine. My "newest" arcade PC is running on an ASUS P8H77-I ITX board with 8 gigs of ram, SSD, Core i5-3570, and a GT-1030 passively cooled with Windows 7 x64. Way more then enough to handle not only MAME but Hyperspin set on high settings. If you do wanna go brand new, I'd suggest something like an AMD Athlon 3000 or even a Ryzen 2200g with 8 gigs ram and just use onboard video. The Vega graphics can handle it just fine with buttery smooth play.

[leapinlew]

I guess I'm on the other end. I really really dislike Raspberry Pi's when used as Arcade boards. Don't get me wrong, they work OK, and I use Pi's all the time for many other projects, it's just you are a bit limited in MAME because only a couple versions work and you tend to need multiple versions of MAME depending on the games you run, and performance is meh..., setup is a pain, especially if Linux isn't your thing. Gimme a PC any day. I'd suggest a PC upgrade, but not a too modern board. Socket 1155/1150 would be just fine. My "newest" arcade PC is running on an ASUS P8H77-I ITX board with 8 gigs of ram, SSD, Core i5-3570, and a GT-1030 passively cooled with Windows 7 x64. Way more then enough to handle not only MAME but Hyperspin set on high settings. If you do wanna go brand new, I'd suggest something like an AMD Athlon 3000 or even a Ryzen 2200g with 8 gigs ram and just use onboard video. The Vega graphics can handle it just fine with buttery smooth play.

I think the line that lead me down the raspberry pi path was that he was only playing vintage classics, otherwise, I agree with you.

Perhaps a switch to Jamma and a 60-n-1 board would work for you. I switched my Galaga from a atom based PC to the 60-n-1. Pretty painless.

[dth930]

I've done some more looking and have a couple related questions...

1. How would a Pi solution look and perform compared to something REALLY simple like a Pandora's Box DX?

2. Which of these options (Pi, PBDX, MAME PC) would work with my CGA CRT?  Or would all of them work so this shouldn't be a concern?
 - Dave

[BadMouth]

Not sure if they work on Windows 95, but SSDs have done wonders for some of my older PCs.  Might be worth a try if the mobo has SATA.  You can get a 120GB for $20, less if on sale.

The gurus on here can probably keep your monitor going.

[bobbyb13]

If you want it to not cost a fortune but still work well with not a lot of drama (and keep your CRT, as you should  ?!)

Windows10 PC with an SSD and PCI-e slot with card that runs...
CRT emudriver (requires the right video card but not a big deal)
GroovyMame
Badmouth's all Killer No Filler list
Ultimarc or GroovyGameGear or Arduino interface(s)

I have this setup on 2 machines (working on the 3rd) and it rocks

EVERYthing you need to know can be found via this forum too.

[dth930]

MB definitely doesn't have SATA.  This would have to be a new PC build from the ground up.  That's fine if it's the best way to go.

It sounds like if I go the PC route I can drop the ArcadeVGA card and replace it with something more readily available.  That's good to know because it's one of my main concerns.

Considering the fact that I'm only interested in old arcade games, my biggest confusion is that I'm not clear on what benefit I have going the PC route besides a better front end.

The PBDX seems like a very easy, convenient and inexpensive solution.  It can drive a CGA CRT.  Something like RetroPie is slightly more difficult to get setup, but not a lot.  I'd need some set of adapters and custom configs to get video going.

While building and setting up MAME on a PC isn't hard, it seems like extra unnecessary expense and effort for what I need to do.  I totally agree that it's more powerful and flexible.  But to emulate old games, does it matter?

If I had access to all of these systems I'd be able to check them out and make an informed decision.  But without access, I just need to make an educated guess at what's best.
 - Dave

[Phreakwars]

To emulate old games, no doesn't matter at all. In fact, way back in the late 90's, my very first emulated game (pacman), was played on an old Cyrix chip PC that I built. Don't remember exactly which one it was since I've of course went through tons of chips over the years (Cyrix used to be my fav). I wanna say it was a PR166, possibly a PR300? Hell who knows, but I do remember also playing on a Pentium 233 as well. But the point is, yes system requirements for MAME have slowly went up over the years because of more complex games, but if you have a cab that's pretty old, it's probably still fine for old roms. I can beat ya though for old cabs. My very first one was done when the iPac was a very new obscure unheard of product, ran it with ArcadeOS (remember that one???). I no longer have the cab, but I still have that old original iPac in a box somewhere. It's the PS/2 version and still works great to this day.

EDIT: What I find odd though, is you can see slowdown with more modern versions of MAME. Especially on a Raspberry Pi, which I find very annoying. It's pretty pathetic that an old Pentium 233Mhz arcade cabinet with ArcadeOS can run much faster and less glitchy then a Pi, but this really really depends on which version of MAME you are using and many other factors. I say if you wanna save money, just keep what you have, maybe get an IDE to SATA connector  ( https://www.amazon.com/s?k=IDE+to+SATA&ref=nb_sb_noss_2 )and upgrade the drive to an SSD?? Don't discount what you have now as being down for the count. Swap out the CMOS battery which is probably old, hit it with a datavac/canned air and clean it up, maybe refresh the OS. The old stuff still runs great unless you are a picky bastard.

[Howard_Casto]

The only problem with super old versions of mame is it's sometimes hard to find/build old roms to go with them.  The reason mame is slower is it's optimized for newer processors and video cards so it works great on new hardware and crappy on older stuff.  That and old versions of mame didn't always emulate games accurately.  Accuracy often takes additional resources.  Gorf, for example, took a huge hit when sampled sound was replaced with actual generation. 

[mahuti]

As a guy that uses Pis for arcade cabinets... I recommend using Windows. I have fun tinkering around, but Windows is much easier to set up and get things right. You can buy a used PC for about the same cost as a fully set up Pi ($70-100).

I use Pis with CRTs, LCDs, and TVs... these days I can get it to work with most anything. Still... windows is far easier to use, and there's a lot better community support for it.

[Howard_Casto]

Plus you can get a used pc with a lot more horsepower for the price of a pi.

[Phreakwars]

Plus you can get a used pc with a lot more horsepower for the price of a pi.

YEPPERS!! Just try finding a Pi setup that will out perform this for the same price: https://shopucw.com/collections/motherboard-kit/products/asus-hb1m-c-with-pentium-g3220

That's just one example. They have full blown PC's for about the same price, like this one: https://shopucw.com/collections/desktops/products/dell-vostro-260 That one has a 250gig HDD, super cheap arcade right there.

[dth930]

Of course I remember ArcadeOS... that's what I was running until I updated to MAMEWah.  That's about the vintage of what I'm working with.

It sounds like the PC is the way to go. 

I'm not trying to save money, just get things up and running reliably and reasonably well.  I'm spring for whatever is going to be easy to set up and run reliably.  Recently I've had games crash and other weird things that didn't happen before which made me decide it's time for an overhaul.

As long as I can get my CRT running with a common video card or integrated graphics, then I think I'll be able to make it work.

I would try updating the machine I already have, but I don't think I can get my hands on a version of Windows old enough to run on it. 
 - Dave

[bobbyb13]

If you do go for the (newer) PC route, you MAY find that you can flash your old ArcadeVGA to accommodate your new build.

It may be worth a shot to save a few $$ and Calamity's support of his work is top notch if you need help.

A search on even fleabay for pci vga shows new cards for under $40 though, so depends on how frugal you are feeling.

[Haze]

It's pretty pathetic that an old Pentium 233Mhz arcade cabinet with ArcadeOS can run much faster and less glitchy then a Pi

I'm not a Pi fan, in fact I'd say avoid them at all costs, but this statement is simply not true.

MAME on a 233Mhz Pentium was garbage.  Everything was compromised to *just about* hit full speed, with the machines being pushed to their absolute thermal limits just to be able to do that.  The visuals were wrong - wrong colours, priority effects not properly emulated etc. gameplay speed was wrong, refresh rates were wrong, many protection simulations were wrong (yes, even on the 'classics') and the sound was very, very wrong, again, even for the classics, with most people running on such hardware outputting at reduced sample rates to compound the bad emulation.

MAME on an original Pi is bad, really, really bad, but not *quite* that bad.

MAME on a Pi4 can be quite reasonable as long as you don't just run the truly ancient versions and don't expect to be able to benefit from all the nice netlist audio etc. we've done in the last year or two.

MAME on ARM is going to get interesting however, as those new Apple M1 chips are blowing away even the top end Intels in terms of performance right now.  I'm not an Apple fan either, but it's embarrassing for both Intel and AMD just how well those ARMs are performing considering this is Apple's first offering.

I'll accept, that some people can't tell the difference, although put side-by-side the differences are obvious and shouldn't be denied.  It's how we can tell those now infamous Donkey Kong tapes are so obviously not original 1981 Nintendo hardware.

[Phreakwars]

I would agree with the ARM chips, I've seen alot of info floating around about the efficiency and it's pretty amazing. Perhaps you are right about games on the 233 Pentium, but then, for the ones I played back then (mainly pacman, dig dug, Mr. Do, Donkey Kong), it worked great. I certainly was not suggesting that one lower themselves to using a 233Mhz Pentium, what I was I guess trying to say, is for the games that did run well back then, it was a dream come true. I guess I don't recall mame ever going too mainstream until we started seeing those 1Ghz Athlon Slot A PC's around the turn of the century. Nice Riva graphics or whatever on an AGP card. Crazy that's been over 20 years now. The thing about Pi's though, is it's very annoying using different versions of mame and having to configure it, and I noticed when you load a game... depending on the game.. You get this jittering and stuttering which is pathetic considering the CPU is a 1.4Ghz? And that's really what I was comparing. Take a 1.4Ghz Athlon/Sempron/Celeron/whatever from that old era with something like ArcadeOS (I miss that one), and you have a very capable Arcade machine if you can hang with DOS and configure it correctly. Gosh, I remember how smooth the front end was, the sample images, all that. Almost makes we wanna whip out an old Socket 478 P4 board I have up on the shelf and make a simple arcade out of that. It's only a 2.8Ghz P4 and the GPU is I think an nVidia FX-5700 from circa 2003, but even that old thing would be better then a Pi. I like Pi's, and I have tons of Pi project parts like diodes, resistors, capacitors, bread boards, and etc etc, enough to keep me inventing junk for the entire year if so inclined but I just can't get into the whole arcade scene with them because of the jittering. I have both Pi 3's and Pi 4's  (8 gig) here at the house, thought maybe with the improvements in the Pi 4's that the emulation would improve, but I'm not seeing it even with a turbo overclock of 2Ghz constant and a GPU overclock. I guess it would be OK for the inexperienced or newbs, but having used mame for over 20 years now and seeing how it has yes, progressed to be so much better then the days of the 233Mhz Pentium, I kinda gotta snob up those Pi's. I also agree about the difficulty in finding older versions of those roms. I have some of the older versions on an old IDE hard drive somewhere, might just have to dump them on my megadrive account one day for others, but then this is ALSO an issue on the Pi. Whereas on a PC, even if it's kinda old, like say 6-7 years, the vast majority, and most certainly the most common games will run great with the latest version of mame meaning finding the roms is easier as well.

[leapinlew]

I've got a slightly different perspective. I've decided the computer route was causing me too much maintenance headache. At least, running 7 cabinets with PC's and Windows seemed like there would always be something to fix, and less time playing. I made an effort to remove as many computers as I could and/or clean up the restoration. This allows my kids to turn on/off the arcade with minimal fear of causing shutdown issues.

It doesn't have all the razz-ma-tazz that the fancy front ends do, but I was tired of fixing up windows boxes.

Of course, your experiences and preferences will be different!

[wp34]

I've got a slightly different perspective. I've decided the computer route was causing me too much maintenance headache. At least, running 7 cabinets with PC's and Windows seemed like there would always be something to fix, and less time playing. I made an effort to remove as many computers as I could and/or clean up the restoration. This allows my kids to turn on/off the arcade with minimal fear of causing shutdown issues.

It doesn't have all the razz-ma-tazz that the fancy front ends do, but I was tired of fixing up windows boxes.

Of course, your experiences and preferences will be different!

I haven't started pulling computers out but I have stopped using computers for projects.  Even though the game selection is more limited I prefer the ease of use of the Jamma-based boards such as BitKit and ArcadeSD.  After working on a computer all day setting up a MAME PC is like pulling teeth for me anymore.  The exact opposite of what I'm looking for in a hobby.  But like you said everybody is different.

[leapinlew]

I've got a slightly different perspective. I've decided the computer route was causing me too much maintenance headache. At least, running 7 cabinets with PC's and Windows seemed like there would always be something to fix, and less time playing. I made an effort to remove as many computers as I could and/or clean up the restoration. This allows my kids to turn on/off the arcade with minimal fear of causing shutdown issues.

It doesn't have all the razz-ma-tazz that the fancy front ends do, but I was tired of fixing up windows boxes.

Of course, your experiences and preferences will be different!

I haven't started pulling computers out but I have stopped using computers for projects.  Even though the game selection is more limited I prefer the ease of use of the Jamma-based boards such as BitKit and ArcadeSD.  After working on a computer all day setting up a MAME PC is like pulling teeth for me anymore.  The exact opposite of what I'm looking for in a hobby.  But like you said everybody is different.

[leapinlew]

I swapped out 1 PC for a 60-n-1. I trimmed down the game list to the 20ish games that plays well on the 60-n-1 and work with a vertical monitor, 4 way joystick and a single button.
I swapped out another PC for a 19-n-1. Trimmed it down to a single game. Boots directly into it.
I swapped out 1 PC for a Pi and I only boot into Gorf. I imaged the SD card. Bootup is quick.
I still use a Hyperspin setup in my horizontal two player and trackball mame machine and in my Star Wars Cabinet.

So far so good. For me, it's been nice being able to play more and have less maintenance. A couple windows boxes I can deal with.

[bobbyb13]

I swapped out 1 PC for a 60-n-1. I trimmed down the game list to the 20ish games that plays well on the 60-n-1 and work with a vertical monitor, 4 way joystick and a single button.
I swapped out another PC for a 19-n-1. Trimmed it down to a single game. Boots directly into it.
I swapped out 1 PC for a Pi and I only boot into Gorf. I imaged the SD card. Bootup is quick.
I still use a Hyperspin setup in my horizontal two player and trackball mame machine and in my Star Wars Cabinet.

So far so good. For me, it's been nice being able to play more and have less maintenance. A couple windows boxes I can deal with.

I have had little-to-no issue with 2 PCs that have stable controller IDs mapped and are airgapped.
Took a year to figure out how to make it so that people I'm not babysitting can't destroy controls designation of course, but since then- all is well.

Not hard to imagine that any box that microsoft can get at will be a nightmare in terms of maintenance, but are that many people having issues with dedicated systems?

And from a purity standpoint, I suppose I am willing to work a bit to benefit from the mamedevs (somehow still !) ongoing updates.

Thanks Haze

It will be interesting to see when the Intel and AMD crews get off their keisters and catch up to the dreaded Apple monster-

[Howard_Casto]

I don't understand this whole maintenance argument.  MAME, due to all the non-arcade junk in it now, is unwieldy and cumbersome to setup, and I honestly believe it's going to eventually kill the project in terms of attracting new users, BUT once you set it up on a dedicated cabinet you are done until the computer dies or a new game is added you want to play.  Considering new wholly original arcade additions to mame are few and far between these days it's pretty much set it and forget it.

[Phreakwars]

I don't understand this whole maintenance argument.  MAME, due to all the non-arcade junk in it now, is unwieldy and cumbersome to setup, and I honestly believe it's going to eventually kill the project in terms of attracting new users, BUT once you set it up on a dedicated cabinet you are done until the computer dies or a new game is added you want to play.  Considering new wholly original arcade additions to mame are few and far between these days it's pretty much set it and forget it.

AGREED. The OP is a great example of this. 15 years out of your cab is a fantastic and very real reality. No internet coming in to sneak in some update that breaks the cab, admin buttons to potentially modify settings can easily be disabled or never installed in the first place. My original cab, like I said, ran on the original iPac which also had a keyboard passthrough. It was used by my son when he was 4 and I was never worried about him messing anything up because the admin controls were done with an external keyboard port mounted in back. There was never any maintenance involved even if some new game was added in a newer version because chances were I probably never heard of it anyway and didn't really care. And there have been how many new games added since the mid 2000's?? With Pi's there is minimal maintenance either, but it can be trial and error getting "game x" to run properly with "emulator A, B or C".

Edit, also agreed and this goes double for me.. thank you again Haze for all the effort you have given the project over the years. You have made an autistic boy very happy for most of his life and given him an outlet to keep his mind calm... not to mention a great past time that he enjoys challenging me with.

[leapinlew]

I've had a lot of cabs, and I'll agree that a computer in a cabinet done properly and air gapped can be a very reliable experience. That was how I ran my mame systems. In fact, I even kept redundant hardware and imaged drives so I could swap components if needed. I have 2 Windows boxes now, down from 7. Two is manageable. 7 seemed to be enough that every few months, one of them had a hardware failure, weird noise, or some kid would find a new windows shortcut I failed to removed requiring me to hook up a keyboard and fix.

So I'm saying if you have 1 or 2 systems with a computer in it, and you can focus your efforts on it, great. At some point, this doesn't scale well and for me, it was 7. I was sick of fixing stuff throughout the year so I decided to remove as many PC's as made sense. As a bonus, the systems are much more quiet because of the fan noise.

I have several other servers in the house doing other things (Plex, Media, Personal PC, Laptops, etc.), which all contribute to the total number of boxes I have to maintain. So far, none of the new arcade modifications to x-n-1's have required anything. It's been great.

Like I said - different perspectives.

[Haze]

I honestly believe it's going to eventually kill the project in terms of attracting new users

You've said this a few times, but we're attracting more new users than ever with this approach.

Arcades died in any meaningful sense over 20 years ago now, there were *no* new users coming from that direction and hadn't been for 5+ years at the time the change was made, especially not technical users and new devs capable of improving what we had in terms of the arcade emulation.  The project, prior to that point really was on the edge, practically dead; if anything we delayed making that decision 5 years too long and lost significant momentum as a result.

Even the people using MAME for arcades weren't really contributing, because most of them had settled for some ancient version even long before then.

MAME will probably die if everything we cover ends up being a similar 'dead end tech' where there's no fresh blood with an interest in any of the things we do, but for now we've managed to get a lot more talent on board by making MAME look like a much more professional product rather than something used mainly by bootleg cabinets, which is the reputation it was getting.  Having the arcade stuff, alongside things the new contributors are interested in, in the current project, means the arcade stuff gets improved alongside everything else when similar challenges are identified.

You're benefiting from the new talent, this whole scene here is, so while arcades might no longer be a priority, it's not something to complain about.

In terms of working with the arcade scene, it was starting to become incredibly toxic too, with many of those left (especially in the US and Europe) wanting 'special treatment' because they had a rare board or whatever, insisting on keeping things private, wanting the remaining devs to work, alone, on things they'll never be able to include.  It had become a very negative environment, so again, breaking away from that, and telling people that we simply don't care if they're going to be difficult as we have plenty of better things to do, has only been healthy for the project.

[dth930]

This has been a very interesting discussion since I haven't followed the progression of MAME for many years.  As others have said, my airgapped PC-based system worked well for many, many years.  It's only now that it's becoming a challenge to maintain it and keep it working at the level and reliability I want.  That's why it's time for an upgrade.

I see a lot of this discussion has focused on new versions, new ROMs and the quality of emulation.  Of course my goal is to get the best that I can, but I had assumed that things were basically as good as they were going to get for the classic games.  Maybe I was wrong and there are still improvements to be had.

To put it in perspective, the cab I'm retiring is running MAME 0.62.  The newest I have is 0.78.  Is it worth the upgrade?  Should I upgrade to something newer?

I guess the question is whether there's a version and ROM set that considered the "gold standard" for classic arcades?  It seems most of the newer development is around other emulations, and it's not clear how much benefit older games will get from that, if any.

I'm wondering if a better way to approach this decision is to figure out what version of MAME I need that will give the best experience for the games I want to play, and then determine what hardware is necessary to make that happen.
 - Dave

[Haze]

I guess the question is whether there's a version and ROM set that considered the "gold standard" for classic arcades?  It seems most of the newer development is around other emulations, and it's not clear how much benefit older games will get from that, if any.

Gold Standard is always latest

Things like the netlist audio (and other recent sound system improvements) make a *huge* difference

Code: [Select]

https://youtu.be/PLHEkOPVrAo   Boxing Bugs Netlist

https://youtu.be/Y0ABwB1WpCE  Q*Bert modernized audio emulation

https://youtu.be/31i0OEtwz9s  Tranquillizer Gun Netlist + Protection FIx
although yes, you need a very beefy PC for netlist audio to be effective (but it's something alternatives like the Mister can't do well, so worthwhile us doing)

Even if you're going for more modern games things like Penguin Bros are so much nicer with the zoom at least mostly correct

Code: [Select]

https://youtu.be/WJtkXdnTC-c

or blending effects during the 'ghost carriage' chase on Night Slashers

Code: [Select]

https://youtu.be/oPNRArvPePM
or the attract sequence in Final Star Force not messing up

Code: [Select]

https://youtu.be/e-Rvg2omqW0
That's just a small selection of things I bothered to make videos for, from this year.

*edit* avoid embedding as it as just making forum spam