X-Box Cabinet: POSSIBLE?

[eightbit]

I think Nintendo has always had the most imaginative games/characters, and still do a good job to this day. Some people complaing that Nintendo is for kids..well they always have been. Most of us got hooked on Nintendo when we were kids, duh.

I think the Xbox has been failing at the whole kid market. I recently bought sneakers since its supposed to be a kid game but my neices and nephews won't play it. The racing games that they like to play are buried to deep in menus for them to start on their own. I realize its probably not the xbox prime market but they need to invest in some kid games.

[killr0y]

Racing games buried too deep in menus?  You must be confused with GranTurismo on the PS2.  The racing games on the XBOX such as Wreckless, Project Gotham, Rallisport, Sega GT, have nowhere near the menu surfing of the PS2.  In most cases you can be racing in 2 button presses.  Not sure which racing games you mean.  As original games go, I would agree that Nintendo has the most video game character recognition out of the console market.. You have to realize though, most great games are not made by the console manufacturer but instead made by third party software developers like Bungee, Square, Konami, etc.  

I'm not sure how this thread became a console war when it cleary was a question about the XBOX's feasability as MAME cab hardware..  

The answer in my opinion is a clear YES.  It can do 90% of all MAME games flawlessly.  It can also do SNES and Genesis with perfect accuracy and component video sharpness.  You can also use it as an MP3 Jukebox as well as use it to stream internet music.

I think Nintendo has always had the most imaginative games/characters, and still do a good job to this day. Some people complaing that Nintendo is for kids..well they always have been. Most of us got hooked on Nintendo when we were kids, duh.

I think the Xbox has been failing at the whole kid market. I recently bought sneakers since its supposed to be a kid game but my neices and nephews won't play it. The racing games that they like to play are buried to deep in menus for them to start on their own. I realize its probably not the xbox prime market but they need to invest in some kid games.

[eightbit]

Racing games buried too deep in menus?  You must be confused with GranTurismo on the PS2.  The racing games on the XBOX such as Wreckless, Project Gotham, Rallisport, Sega GT, have nowhere near the menu surfing of the PS2.  In most cases you can be racing in 2 button presses.  Not sure which racing games you mean.  As original games go, I would agree that Nintendo has the most video game character recognition out of the console market.. You have to realize though, most great games are not made by the console manufacturer but instead made by third party software developers like Bungee, Square, Konami, etc.  

I've got rallysport, project gotham, evo 4x4. My 10 year old nephew has difficulty with the menus and my 7 yr old neice can't start a game. I guess I'm remembering my  old Nintendo where basically there was 1p or 2p and start.

[AGarv]

Now I need to find a mobo with EVERYTHING built in for like $300! that would rock! Anyone know a great, cheap all in one small motherboard with onboard audtio, video, Network, Usb, TV out?

Heya Creep, check out the VIA Epia line of microatx mobos, they have everything you mentioned above for about $100-$200.

[creepfactory]

Really? Like processor, video, sound, etc for $200 ish?!? What speed around are they like a gigahertz? And its a proprietary processor right? Not a Pentium, AMD or other?

[HotDogg]

Here's a link to the VIA product:

http://www.viavpsd.com/product/epia_m_spec.jsp?motherboardId=81

I've considered this but from what I've read I'm not sure they have the horsepower to do mame games beyond "80's classics".

http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/viaepiam9000/
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/viaepiam/

Although cool I'm not sure it would make a good Mame platform - perhaps for a cocktail.  People are definately doing neat things with these ITX mobos.

http://www.mini-itx.com/

In the US you can do a search for EPIA at outpost.com for current offerings and prices.

[Magnet_Eye]

hey, check www.pricewatch.com

you can find a barebones system, with mobo, cpu, etc for under $100.

some really good deals.

-M

[killr0y]

technically, you should be able to build a MAME machine for around $200.  You can buy an AMD XP2000 barebones for around $120, then add a graphics card and some RAM.. if you can find an old hard drive laying around (all you need is a few Gigs) then you are all set (assuming you have integrated sound, else add another $25 for a good soundblaster.  Compare this to the price of an XBOX ($199 plus $59 for modchip), and you have to weigh the pros/cons to decide which way to go.

XBOX pros
--------------
Compact size
Can play XBOX games
Can play DVD Movies
Unparalled video output

PC Pros
--------------
Slightly less expensive
More choices of MAME frontends
More configurable hardware

I'm sure there are a few other Pros for each side but just some food for thought

[Jakobud]

First of all, those Via Epia boards are mini-itx formfactor, not microATX.  They are only 17cm x 17cm and have onboard everything. Just add memory, hardrive, power. The best one is about $160 and runs at 933MHz.  But it IS a Cyrix C3-ish processor.  That 933 is equivalent to about a PentiumIII-450 'maybe'.  I've been thinking about getting one of these for a while for a Mame cabinet.  Just not too sure about the performance...

[creepfactory]

You are all too optimistic. Any pc based cab of any speed worth building will be around $500.00 I have made them. and a slow poke p2 300 or a celeron 600 are just too slow OERALL. Yes they run anything from pac man to Neo Geo fine, but with all the cool new mame roms, it just wont cut it. Thats the whole point, an X-box runs 733 with CUSTOM drivers for it's Nvidea chip, and its super new so optimizing can happen for JUST this chip, not 1000 pc variations. So overal it's a competent processor and video chip, it's no screamer, but the potential for optimization is there. Try and run something like splinter cel on a p3 733, it chugs along like molasses! But the X-box version is better than anything but a 3 Gig p4 running the PC version of Splinter cel. I am just saying how an x-box can be a great cabinet solution, and more emus all the time. Don't forget things like zero crashing, instant on, PERFECT Tv out so you can use any TV instead of super expensive 33" arcade monitors, even HDTV out and component out, super crisp images. All of you using Pc monitors for mame are missing out! Arcade games were made for coarse pixel low frequency arcade monitors, which are really closer to TVs than PC MOnitors, but TV out from a pc introduces second generation blurring, bleeding and artifacts. An X-box video signal is first generation straight to the TV. I priced it out guys here goes, and this is REAL costs, not "find a crappy hard drive under the cat litter and toss it in" thinking, but NEW component costs, from mobo to hard drive to wood to lights, controls, encoder, all of it:

Arcade Cabinet costs:

Via Epia Based System Total Cost roughly                 $570.00

BookPC Based System Total Cost roughly                 $595.00

X-box/Matrix Based System Total Cost roughly          $510.00

Dell  Dimen.2350 Based System Total Cost roughly   $674.00

Gigabyte Celeron 1.8 pieced together system           $650.00
(mainly because if I were selling it, I have to BUY
Windows OEM for about $120.00

Now you are saying they are similar costs, but I also use the X Arcade as the controls for all of these at $149.00 its LESS than buying and bulding and wiring your own controls! HOW do they sell them this cheap! Look into it
Buttons and Stick just went up 15% at Happ also!
Buttons 2 player config, $1.87eachx 24 buttons  with shipping $47.00
Two Happ Super Sticks cost about $38.00 with shipping
Ipac Encoder Costs      $51.00 with shipping
Wiring Kit for buttons   $22.00 with shipping
This is assuming you dont have an elecronics shop with tons of spare wire and connectors lying around.
Totalling $158.00 to build your own!Now I know you will all jump in and say that's what it's about, building your own! But Why not focus on the cabinet, t-molding etc, the look of your own cabinet, the craftsmanship etc. and But a damn X-arcade and pop it in! And since they had the foresight to include converters, play X-box, ps2 or gamecube titles also! If you want perfect controls also attatch a 4 way restrictor, or even swap in an 8/4 way stick!
Its just crazy to spend more money, more time, and most likely have many trial and errors getting a control pannel wired yourself to me. I have made 4 cabinets this way, and I have to be honest, I want to PLAY the games, and build a sharp looking cab, not be under the hood for WEEKS figuiring shich wire messed up. This is an exaggeration, and if you get good at it it would only take a day or so to wire up buttons, but WHY?!? I am no shill for xarcade, I don't even own one yet, but read all the great reviews. What we need to do is get all the people who love cabs but cant wire up daughterboards to ipacs like that guy did with the brigh led buttons, and make an "XBOX arcade Cab Forum" To expolore this further instead of bashing it as stupid or not feasable.
Whos With me! Lets PLAY games not spend 6 months on the cab! Spend six DAYS on a cab!

[eightbit]

To expolore this further instead of bashing it as stupid or not feasable.
Whos With me! Lets PLAY games not spend 6 months on the cab! Spend six DAYS on a cab!

Hey creepy did you know there is companys out there that will sell you a whole cab wired up with controls and ready to go. Why spend 6 days when you can spend 6 seconds plugging it in?

You didn't itemize your build costs so for all we know you could have pulled them out of the air or padded them a bit.

A $500 PC is going to be a lot more powerfull than the xbox. As far as super new optimizable xbox video, you do realize that its 1 1/2yrs old and is no longer new technology right? How much more are you going to be able to optimize it than it is now? New PC's will keep getting faster and better.  Mame is being developed and optimized in a Windows PC environment. Your going to get the newest and best if you stay in the PC environment.

I have an xbox, I love my xbox, lately I've been playing a lot of system link Halo. I don't think its a substitue for a pc in a cab. Can it be done yes its feasible but should you do if your primary goal is mame, I would recomend not.

I don't know a lot about interfacing controls to the xbox or the limits of the interface. Can you hook up trackballs? Spinners? Whats it take to hack the analog inputs into a star wars yoke?

You don't want to be bashed for proposing the xbox but your bashing the people that aren't using an xbox. The BYOAC forums is propably not the place to forward your "BUY" Your Own Arcade Controls agenda.

[killr0y]

Hey creepfactory,

Why don't you go buy an XBOX and a matrix chip and install MAME?  You don't even need a cabinet because the controls are so well mapped to the already high-quality XBOX controller, you don't need an XARCADE.  In fact, they make home versions of arcade-style sticks for less than $50.  

Personally,  I'd love to see the XBOX become a standard hardware platform for some specially optimized MAME distribution.  It already has several components such as instant on, 5.1 sound, tv out, dvd-rom, ethernet, hard disk, etc.  In fact, you could use the controller ports as connectors to your control panel,  since they are USB plus they run power which could be used for optical joystics, trackballs, LED's etc.  Lots of potential.

[wobbie]

I have a moded xbox with a 20Gb drive in it happily running mamex (i can store every mame rom on the HDD). It also runs emulators for megadrive, snes, nes, amiga and gameboy.
It also doubles up as a very good media system playing mp3s, Divx and other formats from cd or from windows network shares.

I also have an arcade controler which i made out of an old Mortal kombat4 2player panel i found  on ebay.  Currently it is wired into a keyboard hack for pc.. and it works relly well.  But im thinking of modifying it to also work with xbox.

The emulators on the xbox all use the digital pads on the xbox controler... this should really be easy to hack through to the arcade controls shouldnt it?  
i have no interest in playing xbox games with this thing.  but the xbox does have 4 controller inputs so i can even leave 2 normall pads in there alongside the controller.

Anyway.. to get to the point...

A. has anybody taken apart an xbox controller and tried taking feeds from the switches in it?

B. Does anybody know somewhere in England..that can get me cheep xbox pads or broken pads to rip appart for this project?

[creepfactory]

So Wobbie, how cool is it to plop down on the couch with a cold drink and instantly play all the mame games? Se to me that's one of the main reasons an X-box cab would rock; instant on! Even die hard pc cabinet fans have to admit it would be kick @ss to just turn no a cabinet, play some Galaga or whatever, flip it off and leave. That's one of the main reasons an X-box cab would be cool, yet most cab builders ignore it! Yea it's just getting started for emus, but as I said before it's way farther along than the pc took, it was a few years to get mame working perfect on a pc, now it is perfect, and I think the Xbox mame will be too! Also do the SNES games play full screen, stereo, no skips or dropped frames/vsync problems?
Thanks Wobbie!

[wobbie]

The SNES emulator seems very reliable and gives a very good image and sound!

There is a dodgy N64 emulator also that was leaked out before the developers wanted it released. hopefully it will be relased properly soon.

Also i have yet to try BOCHS. But it does look impressive, it will apparently emulate MS DOS and play old DOS games.

There is even a nice port of DOOM /2.. which works well also.

and this morning a beta version of a firmware hack which will give the machine true VGA output has been released. unfortunatly though it not very good yet. but give it a few weeks and hopefully ill be playing my xbox on my nice monitor as well as my tv.

Instant on. low noise. low power consumption. and a really good scene of guys hacking it faster than you could ever imagine.  The xbox is definatly becoming a fantastic machine to base a cabnet on!

[eightbit]

So Wobbie, how cool is it to plop down on the couch with a cold drink and instantly play all the mame games? Se to me that's one of the main reasons an X-box cab would rock; instant on! Even die hard pc cabinet fans have to admit it would be kick @ss to just turn no a cabinet, play some Galaga or whatever, flip it off and leave.

The Xbox is not instant on, you still need to wait for it to load a disk when you turn it on. Its faster than a PC but its not almost instant like old catridge based consoles. New PC's boot up faster than ever. If you utilize suspend mode on Windows XP you can get the instant and instant off. Utilizing the power strip that I've talked about in other threads gives you console simplicity on your PC. A single press of a power button can turn your whole cab on and launch your emulator or menu off choice, another single press and you can walk away it will close your applications and shut down windows properly then it shuts off everythng in the cab.

[creepfactory]

I have Xp, it is FAR from Instant on, what with the damp sign on screen etc. and the booting of the apps into memory, And it is silly to think Microsoft says it isnt booting in dos, it is! I see it every time! They backed out and it is still booting using the 16 bit code, then it goes into the 64 bit code later, but it is still not a true 64 bit application totally, that would sacrifice too much legacy compatibility for microsoft. Maybe the next MS OS will be trully like the mac ox, with no cli start, just right into the os, but I digress!
Any way you slice it, to hint that ANY windows will start up as fast as a console, yes evn one that boots from cd/dvss like every console does now is silly. No contest, from PS2 to Gamecube to X-box and even ps1 and dreamcast, people would not tollerate a console that takes 5 minutes to boot. My clean install XP takes over three minutes to boot. An xbox takes about 30 seconds of load time!

[eightbit]

I have Xp, it is FAR from Instant on, what with the damp sign on screen etc. and the booting of the apps into memory, And it is silly to think Microsoft says it isnt booting in dos, it is! I see it every time! They backed out and it is still booting using the 16 bit code, then it goes into the 64 bit code later, but it is still not a true 64 bit application totally, that would sacrifice too much legacy compatibility for microsoft. Maybe the next MS OS will be trully like the mac ox, with no cli start, just right into the os, but I digress!
Any way you slice it, to hint that ANY windows will start up as fast as a console, yes evn one that boots from cd/dvss like every console does now is silly. No contest, from PS2 to Gamecube to X-box and even ps1 and dreamcast, people would not tollerate a console that takes 5 minutes to boot. My clean install XP takes over three minutes to boot. An xbox takes about 30 seconds of load time!

How fast is your PC? I'm talking about 2ghz plus boxes booting relatively fast.  I've got some 2.8ghz servers booting so fast that the splash screen of win2k server barely flashes on the screen before the login screen pops up. Not as fast as a console but not 3 minutes. Have you tried optimizing your system?

If you don't like the login screen why don't you set it to autologin?

Creep seems most of your problems are because you don't know how to use XP or the search engine on this site.

[Scarpad]

I have a PC running Mame basically a PIII 750, it also doubles as my PC Jukebox with Scott's Great VJB software. I'm just starting to think Mamecab and I have'nt decided on what to do. I have an Xbox and Have been considering a Second one. I have to do some research on the MameX project but how does that work as far as getting Mamex up and running. Does it boot from Disk or Hard Disk? Also would Mamex support the Xbox version of the ArcadeX stick?

[creepfactory]

You can either play Xmame from a cd/dvd disc or dump it to the xbox hard drive and play it from there. You can even replace the xbox drive with any ide hard drive and store 120+ gigs of divx movies, mp3, game roms, emus etc. You can also transfer and connect to your xbox through a standard network cable with software on the same sites as emus, Xbox ftp proggies

[Scarpad]

Any good MameX sites with details? You can email me at scarpad@netzero.net  thanks.

[wobbie]

ok. so its not strictly instant on
...but actually if you store mame and its games on the HDD then it will be very nearly instant .... and if you only want to use mame on the machine, you can set it to automatically load mame upon start up with no xbox logo at all.
Ive never tried it but I reckon youd get into mame from power off within 5seconds and then the games within seconds depending on their size of course.

the only current downfall that i can see is that it wont yet play games larger than 25Mb due to the way it flushes the games into RAM... but this is apparently being worked on.

anyways... i only came on here to ask if anybody had tried it before... but it seems that nobody cares much for trying it!

so ill do it myself and see how it goes.

[Magnet_Eye]

Any good MameX sites with details? You can email me at scarpad@netzero.net  thanks.

you can always goto the MAME-X website  

www.mame-x.com

-M

[Jakobud]

Your computer takes 5 minutes to boot up?  Goodness.  My cabinet is only running an AMD 1.2 and it boots into Win2k and into Game Launcher in ~35 secs.

[eightbit]

the only current downfall that i can see is that it wont yet play games larger than 25Mb due to the way it flushes the games into RAM... but this is apparently being worked on.

anyways... i only came on here to ask if anybody had tried it before... but it seems that nobody cares much for trying it!

so ill do it myself and see how it goes.

Wobbie its not that we aren't open to new ideas. We get a little defensesive when someone like Creep comes in and posts in a less than friendly manner and suggests things like we are wasting our time building controls. For many of us the building experience is as much a part of this hobby as the playing of the games. I would say many of us have spent more time building than we have playing. Thats why this website exists and what keeps this message board so active.

Your ideas are good ones and you have posted them nicely without slamming any one elses ideas. I respect that. I hope you keep posting on your progress. Old habits die hard, its still difficult to convince some people that Windows is a better platform to run on than DOS. Maybe the Xbox will become a cheap way to get a decent performaning system and I can see the potential for it to become a simple plug and play solution eventually.

[killr0y]

Ok, I just want to set the record straight on a few things in defense of the XBOX, not that I am advocating it for MAME cab use, but merely to quash some misinformation.

1. The XBOX IS instant on.  The OS is entirely in the ROM which is what constitutes instant on.  What the XBOX loads when it starts is the DASHBOARD.  You can instead have it immediately load MAMEX, but then you wouldn't be able to do anything else w/ the XBOX.   Furthermore, you can even eliminate the XBOX boot animation from the startup process.  In practice, you can have an XBOX go from complete power-off mode to running MAMEX faster than you could have a 3.0Ghz P4 come out of suspend mode.

2. Currently, MAMEX will run all MAME ROM's up to 64MB (XBOX's memory limit).  Metal Slug 2 is a perfect example of a 64MB ROMSET that runs fine.  They are working on versions of MAMEX that eliminate the 64MB barrier and of course further optimize its already awesome performance.

Imagine if they made an optimised MAME core that you could flash into your XBOX's mod chip, so that the XBOX ran on an OS specifically designed to run MAME games using routines coded to take advantage of every ounce of hardware?  You could run Killer Instinct, Cruisin' World, Tekken, whatever, with no problem whatsover.  Its not a matter of the XBOX not having the hardware to do it, its a matter of writing an emulator than can do it.  Emulators have to be written more like the SNES emulators rather than MAME due to the fundamental differences which are:

MAME is written so that it tells your CPU to "BE" that arcade machine's motherboard, CPU, video chip(s), sound chip(s), and any other supporting hardware.  As long as your PC's CPU is fast enough to pretend its all of that and do it just as fast as the original hardware, it will run the ROMS at full speed.  Mind you, the instructions to tell it how to do all this are written in a language that has to be interpreted by the OS, which is a piece of software that the CPU is already using cycles to keep running.

All the other console emulators could care less what hardware the original ROM was designed to run on.  If the X86 chip can produce a particular result much faster in its native code, it will use that method rather than waste its time emulating a CPU or video chip or sound chip.  Anything that the X86 chip can't directly interpret goes through the quickest possible translation to produce a satisfactory result (sometimes at the expense of accuracy).

Why, then, is it so important that MAME be written so that it HAS to emulate every operation of the original piece of hardware before it can emulate the games?  Simple.  The coders want to preserve the original hardware.  They don't care that the ROMs might run slow.  Being able to play a game with down-to-the-pixel accuracy is just a by-product of the fact that they were successful in emulating the arcade machine's hardware.

I'm sure almost all of you knew this...  Believe me, the XBOX has plenty of horsepower to run all the latest arcade games, just not the way MAME does it.  But since the XBOX is a combination of hardware that is exactly the same in every one produced, maybe the programmers can rely on that and perform optimizations they couldn't on the average PC..

[Howard_Casto]

Agreed... I've made this point several times but nobody seems to listen....  

How do you think that the xbox runs state of the art, brand new "pc-like" games on a 700mhz machine with only 64 mb of ram?  Simple because the xbox "os" uses direct hardware calls, which makes the code completely optimized.  Also the os is so pc-like that you can almost instantly port windows applications to the xbox.  It's the best of both worlds.  

Also some clarification about the "boot up" of the xbox.  It is very much instant on and that boot animation is meant to occupy you while the dvd spins up to speed (as the dvd player is slow)  while it does take a sec or two to load up the dash, it doesn't take that long.  M$ decided to keep the animation for when you boot straight into the dash for consistancy's sake.    As it's been posted above, with hacking you can remove this, however.  

And if we are comparing other systems again, all three have a similar boot-up sequence, so it's not really a good argument. They do it for the same reasons... no matter how fast a system is, it takes a while to read a cd/dvd as it has to spin up.   Plus I challenge anyone to find a moderately priced pc that boots as fast as the xbox.  

As killroy pointed out, the xbox is very capable of running the latest arcade games.  As a matter of fact ANY modern console is.... The problem is you can't do it with hacked pc code.  To do it properly the games would have to be coded in native xba code.  Remember, even the most modern arcade games generally don't have more than a 500 mhz processor and about 32 megs of ram.  
The arcade crusin games would run on a frikkin n64!

BUT with that being said.. it's probably not gonna happen anytime soon.  You can get programmers to code side projects (which is what mame and other emus are to them) for free, but only if it's realitively easy.  Getting a person to learn a whole new coding language just for a fun project is a bit harder.  

The only hope would be if a xbox developer would join the mame devs or something similar.  As they could very well get fired for helping the mame dev's with "illegal software" it's not gonna happen.  
 

[MinerAl]

Um...

If you take the hardware emulation out of MAME and just make it a game playing program, it becomes piracy instead of preservation.

Clutch these little technicalities to your bosom, for they are what allow you to play Mappy whenever you want.

[killr0y]

Um...

If you take the hardware emulation out of MAME and just make it a game playing program, it becomes piracy instead of preservation.

Clutch these little technicalities to your bosom, for they are what allow you to play Mappy whenever you want.

Actually, it becomes piracy when you have a copy of a ROM you don't have a legitimate license for.   This usually occurs long before any ROM "reverse engineering"