Question of pc location?

[S2Martin]

I was just wondering today about the use of the pc in my cabinet and got thinking..

my "home" pc is quite a good spec i think (c2d 3ghz, 4gb ram, 500+gb Sata and 8800 320mb ddr3 graphics) now as my card supports dual monitor would i not be better off using the secondry display out of my graphics card and putting it into my cabinet?

It's only a question of extending the keyboard (cp),mouse(trackball), speakers and monitor cables.

Could i then somehow change the front end that the pc uses on the second screen?

i could use a usb mouse and keyboard on my normal desktop so that the mame cab still use everything else?

Does it sound like a stupid idea? anyone played about with the idea at all??

Thanks
Mart

[david656]

jesus my main pc is 3.2Ghz 1Gb RAM 500Gb SATA and a Geforce 2 year old PCI-express card ! that systems gunna rock !

[DaOld Man]

You could use a KVM switch to switch between Keyboard Video and Mouse.
A DPDT relay or switch can switch your speakers.
Thats not a bad idea, but your PC would have to be very close to your arcade, unless you did some fancy smancy networking.

[ArtMAME]

You could set up your video displays as an extended desktop.  Just set your cabinet's display as the primary and your desktop PC display as your secondary since MAME defaults to  the primary display when you are in extended display mode.  I don't know how or if you can change MAME to default to the secondary screen.  Maybe somebody else knows. 

OR, you could just use a cloned desktop mode and display the game simultaneously on both screens.

Just move your Windows toolbar and icons to your secondary display for desktop usage, and keep cabinet/game/etc related icons on the primary.

For cables, just use some extension cables for PS/2, USB, VGA, audio, etc. 

Hope that helps.

[S2Martin]

Yes Art makes a lot of sense,
Thanks for the input guys