DOS, Ubuntu or windows?

[zOdeac]

Hey all I have a few good questions that im just not getting though my head yet.

I just ordered $800 worth of parts from trackball, guns, buttons, joysticks and spinners and I want to convert my X-Man cabinet. It’s the same Simpsons used 4 player in real nice shape.

My question is what OS should I use.

Windows – Easy setup easy update ROM’s but take so long to boot up and it’s a memory hog not to say I wish to make 3 of this MAME games so ill have to buy 3 OS’s = more $$$ witch sucks when your trying to help friends to.

Ubuntu – Easy to setup and update ROMs though SSH but again I want it to be faster the only way I know is though the GUI and I’m trying to avoid a GUI that comes up before the game comes up.

Dos – Not easy to setup or update ROMs but fast. But once setup how often does some one alter the games anyway. Only problem I have found yet with the Dos version is I can’t find a download copy so I can be able to run games like Mortal Combat.

Any suggestions would be helpful i am making 3 of them for my house but friends wish to setup some to. Id prefers to make it more like my arcade so change the backgrounds and items but I just don’t see it that well in the windows version.  I guess I want to make it more locked down so Windows is not accessible with Dos I can do that. Not sure about Ubuntu.

Thanks again for reading and hope you reply with your suggestions.

[ark_ader]

Neither buy a Mac.

[patrickmaher]

Neither buy a Mac.

He is concerned with the price of Windows and you tell him to buy a Mac? 


zOdeac, Think out your software requirements for what you want to do with your cabinets.

Are you just going to run MAME?
You said you got guns, do you want to run PC gun games or just MAME gun games?
What front end do you want to use?
Do you want to run console emulators? If so, which run the games you want to play and have features you require?
What utilities do you need/want to use? Hardware configuration, front end extras, management, etc.

After you figure out what software you want you can decide which OS can handle it all.

Windows – Easy setup easy update ROM’s but take so long to boot up and it’s a memory hog not to say I wish to make 3 of this MAME games so ill have to buy 3 OS’s = more $$$ witch sucks when your trying to help friends to.

See the nLite thread in the software forum for info on stripping down Windows XP so it uses about 40MB of RAM and boots up in about 30 seconds.

Id prefers to make it more like my arcade so change the backgrounds and items but I just don’t see it that well in the windows version.  I guess I want to make it more locked down so Windows is not accessible with Dos I can do that. Not sure about Ubuntu.

See the Hiding Windows section in the wiki. You could probably get the same result on linux but I'm not sure about that.

[zOdeac]

Good things to think about Patrickmaher.

Mac is out of the question not only a new OS but a new computer

what i really want is an interface like this one, http://www.mameworld.net/arcadepic/screenshots.htm
The problem is i cant get it to work with the newer version of MAME and its been stopped development seance 2004.

I tried a diffrent one called atomicfe0.19 from http://www.emukult.net/ but the load time was very bad compred to Arcadepic. 

I did read a post about the Arther giving out the source code if i emailed him  on this forum but as of now i still don't have a reply so i cant update it to work with the newer version of Mame. It comes up and all just wont launch the games.

from your post windows XP is probably the best bet as i want to run
MAME, Daphne and a few other emus like the old 2600 River Raid inside of the ArcadePIC type interface so it looks good.

Patrickmaher do you or anyone else know of any interfaces that's like ArcadePIC?
http://www.mameworld.net/arcadepic/screenshots.htm

[patrickmaher]

what i really want is an interface like this one, http://www.mameworld.net/arcadepic/screenshots.htm
The problem is i cant get it to work with the newer version of MAME and its been stopped development seance 2004.

Since you are linking to the screenshots page of Arcadepic I assume what you like about it is the skins pictured. At the bottom of the page it says, "Please note, that I don't take credit for these skins. Most of them were taken from Screenshotarchive, and originally designed for MameWAH".

MameWah is a fairly popular frontend. It is what I am currently using and it works well. The screenshot archive has MameWah skins(also called layouts) for download, including some pictured on the Arcadepic site.

MameWah site
Newest version of MameWah
MameWah skins

Usefull sites for MameWah setup
More MameWah skins
 jcrouse's site has pre made MameWah ini files for many emulators and other usefull utils.
Folder/File structure for new version of MameWah
MameWah wiki entry

Setting up MameWah can be confusing at first. The sites above helped to make sense of how it works. You can also make your own skins using the MameWah layout editor.

You might also check out
Software wiki entry
Front ends wiki entry
Preview movies for use in front ends


edit to add:
If you want to use linux you might check if there is a linux version of the emulators you want to use. There is a front end called Wah!Cade which is a linux clone of MameWah, it uses MameWah's config files and skins. If you are not already comfortable with using linux it may make things harder, just setting up the emulators and front ends takes time and learning. Maybe you can try it on windows for one of your cabinets and then transfer your MameWah setup over to Wah!Cade on linux for your next cabinet.

[buks]

If you do decide to go down the linux route then Balki, the author of Wah!Cade, uses Ubuntu too so you won't be totally "on your own". I've also setup Wah!Cade on ubuntu and it was pretty straight forward but it really depends on how comfortable you are with linux (and I must admit Balki was with me when I set it up so maybe that was cheating). Having said that, I mostly use windows (my cab is dual boot) as I have lit buttons that can only be lit through windows apps (and I switched from MameWah to MaLa as the button lighting was built in).

Honestly, I meant to only write a couple of lines and now I'm wittering on about my own cab....

Buks

[spystyle]

edit by moderator: you know better than to advocate piracy on this board!


As for boot time - be it your home PC or your arcade machine :

Do not stand there watching it start up with your breath held - instead turn it on, go fix yourself a coffee (or whatever is context appropriate) and then return to the machine - it will be ready.

Who watches these things boot? Really... That's just foolish.

If you need an "instant on" look up "embedded OS", but it's much cheaper to leave it on all the time! Start it in the morning when you are fixing your breakfest and turn it off before you go to bed.

[Havok]

I tried a diffrent one called atomicfe0.19 from http://www.emukult.net/ but the load time was very bad compred to Arcadepic. 

The only official build for AtomicFE is located here:

http://www.atomicfe.com/EN2/download.php

What kind of hardware are you running this on? Granted, I have a newer Athlon pc, but my system boots in 43 seconds from off to in the front end, with full services running. Firing up Atomic shouldn't take too long. One thing about v019, there is an intro video and if you do not have the codec installed (located in the Atomic main directory), you will just get a blank screen for about 20+ seconds, and then the FE starts. You can also disable the intro video for faster start times.

Check out my documentation here:

http://www.atomicfe.com/EN2/documentation.php

Let me know if you have any questions on Atomic, or you can also visit the support site here:

AtomicFE Support Forum

Good luck!

** Edit **

By the way, if you want the most options with different arcade hardware and controllers, Windows is the only choice...