Major Cabinet HELP NEEDED

[koolmoecraig]

Ok, Here is the deal.

I have been assigned the duty of building my friends WWF WrestleFest 4-Player Jamma Cabinet into a MAME machine that also has the ability to play the Nintendo Emulator ROCKNESl.

I am doing a PC2Jamma conversion and I want the machine to load straight into a front end that can handle MAME and ROCKNES. Basically I want people to have no idea AT ALL that it is a PC that is running things.

What are my front end options that can do this? I am going to be using original NES game pads that are wired up to USB. If I use ARCADEOS(DOS) I have no USB support, is that right?

The computer that is going to be used is a new DELL with a 2.53 GHZ Pentium 4 with plenty of Memory(512mb), An ArcadeVGA card will be used for the monitor.

Thank you all for your help once again!
Craig

[tj]

MameWAH would be a nice front-end, and why are you wiring NES controllers in?  Just use the current controls if they're still there...

[koolmoecraig]

I am going to have the original NES controllers hidden in the coin door. I want to be able to play the NES games with them.

[bloodyviking77]

I agree.

Seeing as you're using an ArcadeVGA, [and, as you already have indicated, DOS support for USB is patchy or nonexistent] booting into a frontend via windows (and thus, it seems almost universally agreed, using MameWAH) would be the most straightforward.

You can hide the windows startup screens to make bootup seem less windowsy.

Just out of interest, why Rocknes in particular? IIRC there are a bunch of other emulators that have been updated more recently . . . why not go for znes, so you can run snes games too . . .?

[koolmoecraig]

I'll check out ZNES. RockNES just works perfectly and I got a Sega Genesis after my NES, so I was never really exposed to SNES.

So how do I make the boot up less "Windowie"?

Thanks

[cbmeeks]

So how do I make the boot up less "Windowie"?

Use Linux?  lol

Seriously, Linux can give you USB support.

Plus, you can tell your friends that Linux is the game doing diagnostics...hehe

cb

[AlanS17]

I'll check out ZNES. RockNES just works perfectly and I got a Sega Genesis after my NES, so I was never really exposed to SNES.

You poor secluded soul...