Another dumb noob question

[richard]

 Hello all,
Got a few questions witch I hope You can answer. I have an deffender cab That I am turning into mame machine (The only thing left of cab was the cab and marque)
First question I need a coin door does not need to be operational I saw a door at happs but it was single coin and size was way to small they have a two coin but don't give dimensions for it I need one about 12 1/2" *10 1/2"is this standard two coin size?
#2 as the marque back lite is missing I was thinking of using a black light has anyone tried this and does it look good?
Last question I have a micro atx with a via c3 800 MHz 1 gig of ram and a Gforce mx 440 pci 256 meg video card I have read that even a lesser machine can run  mame but this one can,t even play a DVD without dropping frames under both xp and Linux so do you think this can handle games up to about the late 80s my wife and i are 40 something and love the old games.
 Thank You for any Help.


     Richard

[xmenxmen]

#1 - why not just check ebay and buy a use one.  Much cheaper and possible also working and identical to the original defender.

#2 - Now sure about black light, but all you need is your typical cheap homedepot counter florescent light for the marquee.

#3 - that pc will work fine for defender and like games.  Also consider an older version of mame, like .6x or .8x.    You can run either OS and get full speed.  Ideally, you best bet would be either DOS, win98 or linux.

[richard]

 Thanxs Xmen
as for coin door just looking for something nice to fill hole prob. gona stick keyboard ,mouse ,and cd drive in hole behind door. I ask about pc because I had about 10 years ago a amd 450 MHz 128 meg ram no name 64 meg vid card that played dvd so much smoother just droped ocasional frames. this machine makes me sea sick from frame drop (un-watchable) dont know if this will be a factor with mame but like i said we are into old games. black lite is just becaues I'm a produte of the 60s and thought might look cool behind original deffender marque.

[Green Giant]

Check ebay.  Tons of old coin doors on there for a good price.  You might have to repaint them but otherwise good.

Also, the blacklight probably won't be bright enough to show anything for the marquee unless it is pitch black.  You could try and implement the blacklight somewhere else though.  If you browse around here you will see people like adding new light features.

[richard]

 P.S.
paint goes on this week end, after close to 1 lb of wood putty and a buttload of sanding. I'll try to get some pics up soon

[knave]

Rich, I wouldn't worry too much about the frame drop on DVD's. Mame graphically is nothing like streaming video from a DVD.  Focus on finding a Mame version that runs the games you want to play.  I've been happy playing the classics on my 800 Mhz athlon PC with 256 MB of ram and an old ati GPU...I'm using pretty current mame for this old computer...113.  All the classics play great, it's when you get to the 1990's games that you get audio stutter and some (or alot of) slowdown.

[richard]

 Thank You Jolly,
Ok the doorstop pc. goes in (witch is good I have a 0$ budget) Now Xmen Sorry Bro gonna pick Your brain here, hav'nt yoused dos in 10 or more years isnt it limited to 1meg of ram ?from what i've read mame likes a lot of ram.  Sorry xmen guess I got caught up in the simple but expensive life of windows

[urbecrisch]

Hey Richard.  I just finished a month ago a Defender CAB I mamed out for a friend.  He wanted a Centipede Theme so I ordered a marquee from mamemarquees.com (great work) and installed a two player CP with 2.25" trackball.  It's a little cramped but it actually plays comfortable with two adults.  He also has two kids so he wanted something they can play together.  Here's some very poor finished PICS of the CAB.  I'll try to see if he'll take some better PICS at his house of the CAB. Feel free to PM me with any questions.  Good Luck!

[knave]

Uber: What's the width of that CP?

[urbecrisch]

Around 24".  It's the same width as the Defender CP.  I added another piece of wood above the CP for admin buttons.