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Massive Newbie Questions!
u_rebelscum:
--- Quote ---1) System Specs: [snip] It plays all the oldies perfectly and all the Capcom fighters just swell. Unfortunately I have some pretty bad slowdowns on the later games. We need to be able to play KI and UMK3 flawlessly!
So here?s question #1: I?m thinking of plopping down the money for an Athlon 1.2gig combo. For those of you who have experience playing the more recent games, will this cut it? I?d love to get that board and a cheap GeForce 2 MX and maybe 128 ram? Will this do or am I going to need to invest in a GeForce 3 or *gulp* 4 TI? Am I going to need a ~1.6 gig chip?
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As said by others, mame does not use hardward 3D, so you want a good 2D video chip. A geForce 4 TI is good at 2d, and ATI radeons are supposed to be better at 2D (and cheaper). Me? I got a KyroII video card hooked to a PC monitor on my 1 gig athlon and am pleased with the setup.
--- Quote ---2) Joysticks: After about a weeks worth of research it seems Happs Supers are the way to go. I?ve heard bad things about Ultimates and 4-ways are just out of the question. So, Supers for massive Street Fighter Alpha 3 action?
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I have and like both supers and competitions, but both "click". Some fighter people don't like this, so go to the 49 or 360 joysticks and set them up as digital joysticks. Check some other posts for more information.
--- Quote ---3) Buttons: This is really divided into 2 questions:
(a) Anyone know anything about the 50 cent buttons over at http://www.videoconnect.com ? I?d love to only have to shell out 50 cents a piece rather than $1.75 since I plan on using about 24 buttons..... (remember: starving college student here!!)
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If you aren't too picky about what color you use, check the prices of each color of the happs buttons. Some may be on sale. When I bought mine (~6 months ago) the red buttons were on sale for $0.99.
--- Quote ---4) Encoder: Looks like I?m going to have to shell out the $40 for the I-PAC. I tore apart a few keyboards and the encoders look simple enough to mess with, but my MAME-CADE is going to be for 2 simultaneous players, probably mashing many-a-key at once. I?ve read several problems with this cheap hacking way including ghosting or just keys simply not being recognized.
So, from the pros out there, should I just buckle down and get the I-PAC?
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I-PAC is great, and half the price of other encoders. I like mine. Keyboard hacks are unreliable and harder to do than use an I-PAC. End of story.
--- Quote ---Many many thanks in advance for anyone who took the time to read and/or respond. I hope to have a working cabinet this summer complete with *pure bliss*.
ARCADECONTROLS.COM 4 LIFE
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Good luck, and have fun!
Frostillicus:
I've been doing a bit of research myself for a while now - and when I called video connections the woman said the $0.50 buttons are leaf style buttons WITHOUT the leaft switch - which is the expensive part these days.
Apparently what happened is that she sold like 3000 leaf switches to one guy in a HUGE bulk order - leaving her with some colored pushbuttons sans switches.
I checked on ebay and some dude was selling like 20 or 30 leaf switches for 49.99 first bid.....I'm going with microswitch.
As for the vid card - go with ATI - many folks trumpet the GeForce cards as the best 3d cards ever, but I disagree. I've always had ATI - and my radeon 8500 rivals any geforce 3 out there. (the geforce4 ti 4600 is like 400bucks - like 350 more than my 8500)
I remember having great tv out, multi monitor, and amazing 2d graphics on my all-in-wonder pro like 5 years ago ...and their stuff is even better now. the 7500 would be great for a dedicated cab.
jelloslug:
I think the Happ supers were used in many fighting games but I think Capcom used ultimates with the stronger spring in the SF 2 games. You might want to order the stronger spring for the supers when you order if you think you might want a bit less springyness in the stick.
hyiu:
Hi there:
I'm running all capcom fighting games with my P866 with no lags... (but I do not play Mortal combat, so, donno about UMK3...) If you currently have a 800MHz, I would say first, try to increase your RAM first, if not,
then upgrade your CPU... (since when you upgrade your CPU, you can still use your RAM....) and if the extra RAM somehow solved your pblm, then you don't even need a new CPU !!!
also... when you say lack... what do you mean ?? the whole game keeps on jiggering all the time ??.... or just once in a while slow down for a couple of second ??....
Also, which Mame are you running ?? are you running on DOS ?? or Windows ?? (and which one ?? 95, 98, 2000, XP...) If its only jiggering once in a while (for a few seconds) and you're using Mame32 (windows version)... I've heard it might not be the CPU not fast enough, but its the windows "system restoration" safe feature kicking in eating part of your cpu for a couple of sec..... (or some other background process.....)
I've also heard that if you run DOS version, it might be faster... (but this is just what I heard, cos I never tried it myself....)
about joystick.... (my personal limited opinion....)
I've used both Super and Competition from Happs...
Super is good and the turn is perfect circle....
so, if you're playing street fighter series and you're
using Zangieff (which needs to do lots of 360 degree moves....) Super is perfect....
However, when I play, I like competition better, cos competition's turn is not a "TRUE" circle... but with a little "square"ish feel.... so, when you need to pull your stick to lower left corner to low block, you will actually have that "feel" and you know you're blocking....
when I'm using Super to play fighting games... too often I tired to block and I ended up just pressing "down" instead of "down left" and got my a** whiped...
So, depends on your preference....
I use 3/4 inch plywood for my control panel, and both
Super and competition can be mounted on without routing.... but Competition stick does stick out a little more than the Super.... (so far, this is the only 2 sticks I've used... I might try the J-stik later.... heee hee....)
and for I-pac.... I have heard great great things about it....... but if you're thinking about price..... (since you say you're a starving college student...) there might be another possible way to save some....
IF (and ONLY IF) you're using Windows version of Mame32... then you can go look for Microsoft Sidewinder GamePad (not the USB version, but the game port version...) if you surf around, you can find them about $5 each.... they can be daisy chained for up to 4 players... and you can hack them pretty easily... (I have hacked 4 myself....) and there is NO ghosting issues on those since they're designed for all players, all buttons to be pressed all at once..... each pad has 8 buttons plus a start button.... (so, each buttons to play most if not all arcade games.... plus even coin buttons....) if you're only building for 2 players.. then about $10 + S&H.... less than i-pac....
Down side to this is, i-pac is just 1 circuit board and everything there... and there is NO need to solder.... to hack a pad, you'll need to solder....
(I keep on saying I'll post pics... I actually have already borrowed a digi cam from my friend... hopefully... I'll post pics very soon....)
Sorry this ran on way toooooo looong.... hope it helps....
;)
Bob Ceccarelli:
Wow, thanks for all the response!!
Rebelscum:
"A geForce 4 TI is good at 2d, and ATI radeons are supposed to be better at 2D (and cheaper). "
ATI it is! Also, very interesting on those discount buttons. I'll be looking into that.
Frostillicus
That's interesting about the leaf switches.... aslo shatters any hope of extremely cheap buttons, lol. Also, thanks for the detailed perspective on the ATI. Whatever the 7500 is, I'll get it!!
jelloslug
Stronger spring, eh? Lemme just add that to the list of things to do....
hyiu
First off, I'm running Win 98, MAME .60, and the EmuLoader frontend. The lag I'm reffering to in the Mortal Kombat games is this: THe game starts fine, the menus are great, the character selection is wonderful, and the beginning of the fight is also fine.... but once the actions starts (ie the players jump into each other and start fighting) it starts to lag pretty bad and gets VERY jumpy, making it pretty unplayable....
This is the same for the NBA Jam/Hangtime series and the Killer Instinct's too. I'm pretty certain that a little RAM and CPU boost will do the trick. (And the ATI!!!)
Also, that's interesting about the Super joystick. Not being able to block is a definate problem. Anyone else have that problem? I'll have to look into that a bit more...
Finally, I love the Sidewinder idea!! Soldiering the hell outta those things is right up my alley. Are they USB? If you end up posting pics please tell us! I'm sure people will love a short tutorial on that ;-).
Thanks a lot everyone!! This might eventually become the standard Newbie FAQ thread!