Newbie help before I start

[megashock5]

Hello,

I'm just starting to consider building one of these things and want to make sure I'm not getting in over my head here.

First off, I'm a Mac guy. However, I'm thinking it will be easier to find an old PC that someone doesn't want anymore than a Mac (just more of them around) and I don't know thing one about DOS. I've read about this 'ArcadeOS' front end that some people run - will this make it pretty easy to use?

Also, I get very excited when I see the pics of the stuff people are  making, until I see the shots of how the controls are wired - then I panic. How hard is this to figure out? Can I get by just by reading what others have on their web pages?

I have a Galaga 3 cabinet that stopped working a year ago. I'm still trying to decide if I want to gut it or if I want to get it fixed and build a second cabinet for MAME. Any suggestions? Anyone have any experience trying to find someone to repair an old arcade game?

Basically, I'm excited about the prospect of making one of these, but a bit intimitated at the same time. Any advice or info anyone can give me would be GREATLY appreciated...

Thanks in advance!!!

[spauldingd]

I finished wiring my first control panel this weekend, so I think I can speak on this.  Its really pretty simply if you buy the right stuff.  For me, the right stuff was an IPAC and an Optipac from Ultimarc.  Looking back, I could probably have done without the Optipac, but the IPAC was necessary and while I was paying shipping, I got the Optipac too.  You can do this, it looks like a crazy mess of wires, but its not, its really easy.  This coming from a guy that can't hook up a new car stereo.

On the PC/DOS front, you don't need to know DOS if your PC is powerful enough.  I bought a refurbished 2.4 GHz celeron from DELL for $199 plus $40 shipping and its powerful enough for everything I want to play running under WindowsXP.  MameWah as the front end to Mame32 and I was good to go.  No need to ever drop to DOS, no batch files to write, etc.  Any PC 1Ghz or higher is probably more than enough to run MAME under windows just fine.

Dave

[Sprucemoose]

It is a bit intimidating before you start, but it is not that bad.  If I were you I would wait a couple weeks and buy Saints book (on arcadecontrols home page) when it comes out at the end of the month.  I believe it will have all the answers that you are looking for.  

For now, I don't know much about MACs so I can't give any advice there.  As for DOS, you really don't need to know that much about it to get a frontend (arcadeos) working with mame.  

Wiring a control panel is very straightforward.  I would recommend and IPAC from Ultimarc.  Look at his website for wiring instructions- really not that bad.

If your Galaga was a junker and unworking I would say gut it, but because it was working not too long ago I would look into restoring it.  Hell, you could then sell it and pay for your mame cab.

Look at the FAQ <--on left.  Then come back with some very specific questions.  Good luck and welcome to the forum.

[Tiger-Heli]

First off, I'm a Mac guy. However, I'm thinking it will be easier to find an old PC that someone doesn't want anymore than a Mac (just more of them around) and I don't know thing one about DOS. I've read about this 'ArcadeOS' front end that some people run - will this make it pretty easy to use?

I don't know much about the Mac.  Assume you've been using MacMAME.  I would forget about DOS.  Get like a Duron 600 or better (depending on the games you want to play) and run windows command line mame under a frontend.

Also, I get very excited when I see the pics of the stuff people are  making, until I see the shots of how the controls are wired - then I panic. How hard is this to figure out? Can I get by just by reading what others have on their web pages?

Wiring is fairly simple, but check the FAQ's first and use the commercial products when avaialable.  Also different controls need different interfaces -

Joysticks and buttons (digital controls) - Interface through the USB or PS/2 keyboard ports.  Get a commercial encoder like the KeyWiz from www.groovygamegear.com, or one of the I-PAC's from www.ultimarc.com.

Trackballs and spinners, 360-degree wheels (optical controls) - Interface through the USB or PS/2 mouse ports.  Use either the opti-pac from www.ultimarc.com, or oscar's mouse hack from www.oscarcontrols.com.

270-degree wheels, Star Wars yokes, analog joysticks - Interface to USB using daveb's AKI http://dave.bit2000.com/aki.html or you can hack a PC joystick to the gameport, or a Sidewinder Dual Strike joystick to USB.

Misc - Druin has an interface for mechanical rotary joysticks (Ikari) and daveb is working on an interface for 49-way Sinistar type joysticks.

[Gideon]

Maybe this example of a Mac cab will inspire you.

[megashock5]

Thanks for the advice so far and the awesome link to the MacMAME page - very cool. I'm planning to check out the 'Project Arcade' book when it comes out, as it would be easier to have that in the basement with me instead of repeatedly running upstairs to reference web pages.

I've seen some people use other emulators in addition to MAME in their cabinets (NES, SNES, Genny, etc). I'll have to check to see what's availabe for Mac. I used to have some of those, but they didn't run full-screen.

Again, thanks for the info. I'd still love to hear as much advice as I can from others who have done this. Very glad I registered, it already seems like this is going to be a very helpful place. I'm used to console forums, and those people can be downright rude.

[Tiger-Heli]

Again, thanks for the info. I'd still love to hear as much advice as I can from others who have done this. Very glad I registered, it already seems like this is going to be a very helpful place. I'm used to console forums, and those people can be downright rude.

This is one of the friendliest and most helpful forums you will find.

The key to a good arcade cabinet is planning first so you don't have to rework later.

For you - Step one would be finding out what games are out there and what you want to play on your cabinet - Are u mostly into 80's games - not much processing power required.  90's and up - a little higher requirements.

Step two would be whether you want to stay Macintosh, or go PC.  Related to this would be whether you want a dedicated machine for the arcade cabinet, or try to have gaming and computing on the same machine.

From here, you can see which way to go - BTW, if you choose to go the PC route, it doesn't need to be super expensive -

A used Pentium III 500 or Duron 600 system will play all the 80's games and be around $300 or so.

In new components, check www.pricewatch.com, but an XP2400 and motherboard is currently $78 (then you would need to add a cheap HD, video card, monitor, Power Supply and keyboard.)

Or complete Duron 1.3 systems are around $200 new without a monitor.

[RecycledPast]

The project will take longer then expected and it will cost a lot more then expected.  

I found that the time planning and building was actually better then using the finished machine, because there is always something you want to tweak/replace/add.

The main thing you need to do is figure out what games you'll actually play, that will determine what controls you need.  Notice I said "actually play"  that's because everyone thinks they want to be able to play all available mame games but the reality is that a lot of the games loose their fun quickly.  

It's easy to keep buying add-ons, "it's only $20 more dollars to add this," but then after you get it you realize you need a special connector for another $10.  

TIME and MONEY are other main variables.  If you have a lot of time you can piece together a system( free parts, ebay, etc.),learn how to hack things , learn dos but if you have money you can buy premade things fast PC with windows, I-Pac, oscar spinner, smart strip power strip, etc...  

Read a lot, visit every page in the examples section. Make sure you bookmark any site that has info you like.

For some DOS info go to http://www.mameworld.net/dosmame/setup.php

[Tiger-Heli]

For some DOS info go to http://www.mameworld.net/dosmame/setup.php

Good points.

While were at it, I don't know if you've played around with MacMAME at all, but for help with the windows setup- see http://www.mameworld.net/easyemu/mamemenu.htm

[megashock5]

Yikes! Looking at those DOS links makes my head hurt. Do I need to know that stuff to do this with a PC - or can I just get by with my limited windows knowledge? I keep seeing references to MAME32, how is this different from the regular MAME?

I'm sure I'd be more in my element to use Mac, but I think it will be harder to find an old cheap one. I'm probably going to focus on 80's stuff, so I shouldn't need anything super powerful.

[Tiger-Heli]

Yikes! Looking at those DOS links makes my head hurt. Do I need to know that stuff to do this with a PC - or can I just get by with my limited windows knowledge? I keep seeing references to MAME32, how is this different from the regular MAME?

I'm sure I'd be more in my element to use Mac, but I think it will be harder to find an old cheap one. I'm probably going to focus on 80's stuff, so I shouldn't need anything super powerful.

Well, depends on how limited your windows knowledge is.

Unfortunately, I've never used MacMAME, and I was using PC's when DOS was all that existed, Windows hadn't been invented yet, so it doesn't seem that complicated to me.

Best way I can explain it - you can run DOS or commandline windows with

C:\mame\mame.exe -gamename

but . . .

You probably will want to tweak stuff like hardware stretch, etc., so you might end up playing with the command line options.

http://www.mameworld.net/easyemu/mamechoice.htm has a snapshot of MAME32, but you can get the same effect and ease of use with command-line MAME and a frontend like www.mameworld.net/emuloader or with MAMEWAH if you want a less Windows flavor.

[megashock5]

the MAME32 shot looks far less scary. When I use MacMAME, I just launch the application and then it asks me to choose a rom. Is that pretty much how this works? I've seen people talk about ArcadeOS as a front end - if I understand right, when you boot up the machine it automatically asks you to choose a game. Is that correct, or did I misinterpret the screenshot I saw?

Also, as someone asked previously, I'm not looking for this to do anything beyond game emulation. I don't plan on using it for any computing needs other than that.

[Tiger-Heli]

the MAME32 shot looks far less scary. When I use MacMAME, I just launch the application and then it asks me to choose a rom. Is that pretty much how this works?

Pretty much.  But Emuloader with commandline MAME does about the same thing.  You could always start with MAME32 and switch to something else later if you wanted to.

I've seen people talk about ArcadeOS as a front end - if I understand right, when you boot up the machine it automatically asks you to choose a game. Is that correct, or did I misinterpret the screenshot I saw?

I haven't used AOS, but from what I understand, that's correct
once you get it set up.  I think there's a lot of configuration with it to get it that way, and you're running in DOS, which a lot of PC hardware no longer supports (flames starting . . . ducking for cover).

You can basically do the same thing in Windoze by putting a shortcut to MAME32 or your frontend in your StartUp folder.  Ask if that didn't make sense to you.

Also, as someone asked previously, I'm not looking for this to do anything beyond game emulation. I don't plan on using it for any computing needs other than that.

Won't need much of a maching for 80's games then . . .  I had a Pentium 200 that ran most of them.  If you're buying, though, you probably can get something better than that for very little.