How fast of a computer needed for MAME cab & how to do the joystick hack?

[IceCold]

How fast of a processor is needed to run just about every game supported by MAME?  I ask this because I just bought a mainboard on ebay that can support as low as 233mhz up to 850mhz.  I do not want to put a 233mhz processor in it, but how high should I go? 450? higher?  I know this also depends on how much ram have, how good of a video card, etc., but just give me an educated guess.  

I have one more question, how do I perform a joystick/gamepad hack?  I have looked at it on this website, and all I can find is a few pictures of somebody's hacked sidewinder, and some products to buy for hooking up multiple joysticks to one computer.  I do not have any parts from happs yet, but I want to know how to perform the hack before I start buying anything.  Thank you for your time.  

[Carsten Carlos]

Well, haven't tried out all games, but so far I can say that a Pentium2-350 isn't fast enough (e.g. frame skipping on Puzzle Bobble).
My other PC is a P3-800 with 512MB RAM, and it works perfect for me, at least with every game I wanted to play. As soon as I feel I need a faster PC, the P3 will fit my cab!
Don't know if your board supports the P3, as the 800 is a coppermine-type and needs some special voltages. However, if it fits slot1-cpu's you could get a FCPGA-one and run it with an adapter. Works fine for me for over a year now.

[IceCold]

My board is supposed to fit Celeron and Pentium 3 processors from anywhere from 233mhz to 850mhz, as long as they have a 66 or 100 FSB.  It's a socket 370 board.  Thank you for the advice, I'll try to go with at least a 500mhz.

Now, does anybody know about the joystick/gamepad hack?  

[dhansen]

Save yourself some time and frustration and get an IPAC  

http://www.ultimarc.com

if not, have you seen Static X's tutorial?

http://www.arcadecontrols.speedhost.com/arcade_staticx.shtml#Step4

Doug

[IceCold]

No I had not seen that tutorial, but that's pretty much what I was looking for, so thank you.

[isugoat]

No I had not seen that tutorial, but that's pretty much what I was looking for, so thank you.

if you do a sidewinder hack and aren't really, really good with a soldering iron, let me make a suggestion.  static x will have you soldering like 10 wires into an area of like .5 inch squared.  instead of soldering there, i suggest soldering to where the buttons are physically supposed to hit to connect the traces.  you just have to scrape off some of the black coating stuff to reveal the metal and you are set.  it's quite a bit easier.
it might make the solder more vulnerable to being broken in the future, but i know i haven't had any probs yet.
i thought i was pretty handy and steady with the iron until I tried to solder all those wires into such a small space.

[IceCold]

Yeah, I looked over that tutorial, and I was like "HOW am I supposed to do that" LOL  .  Once I get a sidewinder, and I order some parts from Happs, I'll try what you said to do.  Did you have a lot of trouble doing the sidewinder hack?  Does it take a lot of time and frustration?  Is the keyboard hack any easier?

[rampy]

I'm currently using a 2 qty. sidewinder gameport version hack... I'm comfortable around electronics/soldering (at least more so than around a circular saw) and I'm being *really* frugal with my cabinet......

If you aren't comfortable hacking/soldering AND you aren't in a fiscal crunch.... spend the 40-60 dollars for an ipac from ultimarc as dhanson suggested earlier.  I assum you are pretty new to this so I'll spell it out.  The ipac is like a special keyboard interface designed for wiring up joystick controls to a PC.  you don't even have to solder (it has a terminal strip on the side... you just stick/wrap a wire into the terminal and tighten down a screw for each contact)  ...  

So as Johnnie Cochran would say... "If your broke, and your soldering skills aren't  a joke, you must aquit...er... sidewinder/keyboard hack " (i ran out of rhymes...)

(In my estimation the gameport sidewinder hack is easier than a keyboard hack in general, btw)

If you got the means... then cool beans get an ipac.

RE: CPU speed...  I run a celeron 366@550 and I can run most games (NOT all) ...  say through the neogeo agames... I can run mortal kombat I with a moderate amount of frame skip... (btw I run DOS mame in pure DOS for extra fps)  but MKII, III etc... any NBA jam type game... some of the newer Streetfighters 3/ the movie don't run so hot either... and uhm...  so yeah... the newest or most processor intensive games aren't playable with sound and moderate frameskip...   In general to play ALL game you'll need around 1.3 ghz (in GENERAL , and AROUND;... annecdotally)  but you'll do pretty damn well with an 800 i imagine i.e. play 98 percent or higher...

Good luck...

Rampy

[IceCold]

I'm about as broke as they come, that's why I'm not buying an ipac.  Plus, since I'm only doing 1 joystick, and like 6 buttons(maybe more if I make a button for the coins and stuff), it should be easier than if I was doing controls for 4 people on my control panel.  Hopefully I'll be able to do a sidewinder hack and it'll work.

BTW - I doubt you need a 1.3ghz, as I'm using a 1.1ghz with like 15 programs running, and I'm running some of the newer games(mortal kombat II and 3, nba jam and nba jam TE, etc.) and they're running perfectly fine.  Although I could be wrong.  I'm gonna either put 256 or 512 megs of ram in the mame cabinet, and an okay video card, so I'm hoping that'll help me get good speed out of it too.

If I run into any problems doing my sidewinder hack, would any of you guys be able to help me out?

[rampy]

Like I said I was generalizing... and on the high side... but you just wait my friend... v.62 of mame will tax your 1.1 ghz with 15 programs running in the background for some of the newer additions (not new as in recent, but new as in just added)...

I was just saying that you'll be able to play 98% of the games in MAME with the 800... and that I'd recommend a 1.3 ...

I didn't realize it was a 1 player control panel...    a sidewinder gameport version seems like a good match for you...  I'll gladly answer any questions you have re: the hack (as I'm sure the rest of the board will to...)

rampy

[IceCold]

To give you an idea of what mine will be kinda like, check out http://members.rogers.com/sschwartz2000/forsale.html .  I'm going to make it a table top cabinet like that.  Of course, there will be many differences too.  I'm thinking about putting a button on each side of the cabinet, for pinball emulation(anybody had experience with this??? should I do it??).  I was planning on using a Super Joystick from Happs, as I believe that it is switchable between 4 way and 8 way(correct me if I'm wrong).  Then I'm just going to use 6 buttons like the guy's cabinet that I linked to.  I figured since I'm only having one joystick and everything, the SideWinder hack should work.  

So, what games are going to be added to .v62 of mame?  I'd like to see like Virtua Fighter and Blitz and some other games like that, but I don't know if that will be planned.

[IceCold]

BTW - Thank you for all the help!!!!      

[SirPoonga]

Well, if you want to run everything at 100% you can't do that yet. At least when the next  version somes out. HAZE said a 2.2Ghz only ran harddriving like at 80%.

A 1Ghz does well.  With plenty of memory, mame is more reliant on memory usage.

You want pictures of a gamepadhack, they are everywhere.  Nullpadd did, goto projects and look at his site.  

[isugoat]

Yeah, I looked over that tutorial, and I was like "HOW am I supposed to do that" LOL  .  Once I get a sidewinder, and I order some parts from Happs, I'll try what you said to do.  Did you have a lot of trouble doing the sidewinder hack?  Does it take a lot of time and frustration?  Is the keyboard hack any easier?

the sidewinder hack was cake once I decided not to use all those small solder points.  and if you do solder the way I did, you'll prolly wanna do something to fasten down the wires so that they don't move around to crack the solder off.  all I did was mount the whole sidewinder on a base piece of wood and then fasten down the wires by screwing a small strip of wood into the base with the wires in between so they wouldn't move.
keyboard hack isn't too bad once you identify all the traces.  not sure how alike keyboards are but on mine the solder points were fairly large, and I didn't use all of them so I had a lot of room to work.

[IceCold]

So you did a keyboard hack AND a sidewinder hack?  Geez, I'll be lucky if I can do even one of them  .  Do you have any pictures of how you did the sidewinder hack?

[isugoat]

So you did a keyboard hack AND a sidewinder hack?  Geez, I'll be lucky if I can do even one of them  .  Do you have any pictures of how you did the sidewinder hack?

well i started out with just the keyboard hack, but I learned pretty soon on that with ghosting, there was no way I could have 2 people playing Street Fighter 2:CE(the best one =P ).  So i looked into the sidewinder hack, ordered 2 of em and tried it out.  it worked great.  eventually i decided to add more controls to make my panel a 4 player instead of just 2 so i could get some use out of the keyboard hack.  between the keyboard and 2 sidewinders, i have more than enough inputs for 4 happs super 8's, 6 buttons each for player 1&2, 3 buttons each for 3&4, 4 start buttons and 4 coin buttons.
as for pics, I don't have any yet...and I can't get any right now since it is sitting unfinished in my dad's workshop in iowa while i'm in NYC for the semester =/

[hyiu]

hi there.... I hacked like 6 or so sidewinders....

and also hacked some psx pads... (just ps1, digital ones...)

I find that yes.... the sidewinder holes are quite close together, but since the wire can hang on to a hole, its actually easier to solder (at least for me...) and the end result is a more solid solder.... (no loose ones...) I use the helping clamp from radio shack also....

but 1 thing is your soldering iron needs to have a "fine tip"... but not a big chunky tip.... go to radio shack and check out those electronic soldering tip... they're like sharp..... (if you already have them, then its fine... and just don't go crazy on putting the solder there.... usually a little bit is fine....

when I do the psx pads... (I did the original SONY ones... yes, I know they're known to be not too "solder friendly"... but well... that's the only ones I have, and can use for free...)
I solder them and without the hole, if I yank it with just little strength, its much easier to come off... (compare to sidewinder...) so, after solder and testing, I put glue all over the circuit board to help hold on to the soldering.....
(if you also do this, DO NOT PLUG IN THE PAD UNTIL THE GLUE IS COMPLETELY DRY !!! or you risk frying the pad/console/whatever....

so... my personal opinion is to solder them to the test holes...

and for 500 MHz... my friend is using them to run Mame32 (on XP)....
its not fast enough for newer games... especially games that are video like... like mortal combat, NBA jam with the real player's head, etc.  of course... that depends on your video card too..... I guess using Windows Me or 95 might help a little... but 500 might not be enough....

you know... if you're close to like a best buy or circuit city (where they say you're WELCOME to play with their stuffs, burn a CD with just a few favorite roms and try it out there !!..) its free and you can find out exactly !!!!....

       

hope it helps....