Just got my cabinet.. questions??

[Rick Sigouin]

Ok... hope you guys don't flame me, as I'm a relative newbie but here goes.

For the last couple months, I've been reading message boards (especially this one) checking out sites with examples and such to get the info I needed to build my own cabinet.  I tell ya there is a TON of info out there.. anyway, I was thinking about starting my cabinet when I founf out someone in my area (50 miles away) had a MAME cabinet that they were trying to sell.  
Well I checked it out and it's exactly what I was looking for in a starter cab.  

Well I bought it Sunday.  It's an old Warp Warp machine converted to MAME.  2 sets of controls, 4 buttons per player, Player1,2 start and 2 extra buttons that light up.

It came in working condition (of course no roms when I bought it) with a brand new 19" PC monitor.  I decided that I'd like to update it right away, so I pre-ordered the IPAC (It was keyboard hacked) as well as upgrading to an AMD Duron 1.0G Processor and 128 MB RAM.  This was all installed for me as I'm really new at all this.  Anyway besides the IPAC, processor and RAM which I purchased, I got it for $300.

It has Windows 98, but it runs MAME from DOS.  Well, I've been experimenting with Frontends.  It came with ArcadeOS.  I've tried GameLauncher and like them both.  Question???  Why do I get the OK message for MAME when I run the roms from GameLauncher but not from ArcadeOS.  Any other Frontend recommendations?  I'm willing to try but it needs to be able to run multiple emulators (ZSNES, Nesticle, Stella, Colem) if possible.

Another question...  I'm using the onboard sound on my motherboard, which works great with MAME, but I can't get any sound from ZSNES and can't get nesticle to run at all.  Do you think a new sound card would help and not impact MAME?  I'm really interested in running Nesticle, Colem, Stella, ZSNES, as these are the old systems I owned.  ZSNES and Nesticle both run fine on my regular PC and the same versions are copied to the MAME PC.

THANKS for reading my post and any responses are greatly appreciated.

[darkmanx]

i would suggest a genuine sound blaster card. pretty much anything will work with it.

[ErikRuud]

ArcadeOS replies to the OK messages for you.

I tried ArcadeOS, but I couldn't get it to work on my system, so I went with GameLauncher and I am very happy with it.

[Rick Sigouin]

I was thinking about sound blaster.  How difficult is it to disable the onboard sound card I have?  I've never done this....

Thanks,
Rick

[Rick Sigouin]

ArcadeOS replies to the OK messages for you.

I tried ArcadeOS, but I couldn't get it to work on my system, so I went with GameLauncher and I am very happy with it.

Yeah.. I like GameLauncher too... just would prefer to get rid of the messages... I've seen some posts about re-compliling MAME to acheive this but not sure if I want to try it yet.....Mostly only programmed in SQL/SQLPLUS ,   only a little c.

[AlmtyBob]

Disabling your onboard sound is very easy, it's just a matter or going in to your bios and finding the setting.  It's most likely the AC '97 chipset.  AC '97 is 100% soundblaster compatible so there's no reason it shouldn't work with zsnes and other emulators.

[Rick Sigouin]

I'm at work now, but I brought the manual in and it is the AC'97 Sound.  Thanks for the help.  Which soundblaster card do you recommend?  Anyone??

Rick

[ArcadeFX]

My grandma could recompile MAME. Maybe in her sleep.  Don't let it scare you.  It should only take you 15 minutes to download an set everything.  Then another 15 minutes to recompile it.  They say it can take up to an hour for the recompile but if you have a realativly fast machine it is pretty quick.

If you can follow directions then you can recompile mame.

Just read this: http://www.mame.net/compilewin.html

[Frobozz]

If you're going to be running Windows, I'd just go for one of the Live! cards.  They're cheap now if you get one with no-frills.  The original Live!'s had some buggy issues (which were mostly in order to remain compatable with DOS) but the newer Live!'s like the 5.1 and the Audigy seem to have fixed them.  

I think you can find an OEM white-box Audigy for like $59 US.  

If you want to splurge, get the Platinum version or the Extigy and mount the little 5 1/4" drive bay control panel someplace within easy reach on your cabinet.  

Also, try Nesten over Nesticle (it's much better), PC Atari over Stella (Actually plays Pitfall 2 decently), and one of the Windows versions of MAME.  Then you won't have to swap modes all the time.  

[kamakazi]

you don't get the "OK" messages in arcadeOS because there is a setting to make it watch for that screen and automatically send the OK, so you never even see it.

If all you use this box for is emulators, and you aren't emulating anything fancier than SNES, get a genuine Soun Blaster 16 (if you have ISA slots) or a Creative AudioPCI card, they should be under $30 andare more than enough to handle those emulators.  If you want to use the box for modern PC games as well, then buy the best genuine Creative Sound Blaster card that fits your budget, that way the emulators work, and you get all he surround and fancy stuff for your PC games.

kamakazi