Need to get back up to speed

[mabu]

Hey everybody.. it's been awhile.  I built my cabinet awhile back and used the pc2Jamma with a neo geo cabinet and an arcadeVGA with a standard arcade monitor.  The system worked ok, but I always had problems under win98, and now the system just isn't running right any more - I didn't make any changes but most of the front ends now malfunction.  Mamewah works but the select button no longer launches the game; mala makes the monitor's horizontal resolution bounced depending upon what screen shot is displayed.  It's a mess.

So I've built an all-new PC as my mame unit, with a faster processor and more memory.  I plan on pulling the arcadeVGA card and the pc2jamma interface and putting it in this system.

But I've been out of the scene for awhile and I am asking for some advice:

1.  What's the best, most stable front end these days?  I know this is hotly debated, but I really need something that will work first, and easy, before I get discouraged and abandon upgrading the cabinet.  I need something flexible enough to allow me to tweak all the display settings if I run into problems with the monitor.  I really like MameWah but I had serious issues with how it kept overwriting the config file and trashing its own settings.  MaLa seemed to have promise but it would freak my monitor out sometimes.  Have these issues been fixed?  Is there a new "bad boy" front end on the scene that everyone's raving about?  Please advise!

2.  I've always wanted to run the pinball emulation stuff -- right now I'm mainly running Mame, but I could never figure out how to get the vpinball stuff working.  Is that whole system abandoned?  I am less interested in making my cabinet the mother of all emulators (that would be nice but first I just want mame to be solid) but I'd love to be able to get the vintage pinball emulation working - any comments or assistance would be most appreciated.

3.  New hardware?  My stuff is a bit old.  I was never happy with the usb to jamma interface I got from Arcade Controls... the way it would flip back and forth between trackball and spinner depending upon what it sensed was in use, etc.  And is my arcadeVGA a relic now too?  I don't mind replacing those components if there's a significant improvement in reliability and performance.  Thoughts?

Thanks very much for any help you all can provide. 

[mabu]

Also, is mame32 still being supported?  The site takes me to an annoying pay/signup download service.  Does anyone have a source for mame32 120 version?

[NIVO]

a few places to get builds Click Here  and  Here

[u_rebelscum]

Also, is mame32 still being supported?  The site takes me to an annoying pay/signup download service.  Does anyone have a source for mame32 120 version?

   No need to pay anything.  Just download from the "Free Public Servers", which seem to always have zero wait time.

Some people always use the other sites like linked by NIVO, anyway.

3.  New hardware?  ...[jpac] ... arcadeVGA... ?

The Jpac is still used a lot.  There's other products out there now, but AFAIK, ultimarc is the only one to still have joined joystick & mouse interfaces (jpac and mini-pac).  The other big one today is Groovy Game Gear, but you'd need to get two interfaces to handle but your TB & joysticks (which you can also do with ultimarc). 

And since mame now can remap to different mouse axes, you can now put the spinner on the Z axis, and remap so the TB & spinner don't fight if you get the optiwiz. 
Or get the optipac and keep the TB & spinner on separate mice. 
Or wire a hardware switch to switch between TB & spinner.


As for arcadeVGA, it's the only hardware way to go if you have an arcade monitor.  There's a 2nd version out now, though, with APG & PCI-E models.  Note there are software ways to basically do the same thing, but I haven't used them.  See if you can find more info searching this or the video forum.

[mabu]

Awesome!  Thanks for the info.  I finally found the 120 build for Mame32 at that French site.  The "official" page links to a 4 year old port of Mame32.. ugh.

I am using the Optipac I believe - I was running into some weird problem where if someone mashed on a bunch of keys the game would exit.. I am still trying to figure out why that was happening.

Anyway, I'm rebuilding everything right now.  I'm sure I'll have some more questions but I sincerely appreciate everyone's help so far.

Hey, I'm using MameMerge 4.0 - this seems to be the latest version to try to assemble all the proper romsets.  Is there something newer/better out now?

[mabu]

So what's the best front end these days?  I know this is a loaded question, but what are most people using now?

And what about in 640x480 mode?  What's the best front end to use for that? 

[edwardvci]

Mala  or AtomicFE work very well

[u_rebelscum]

Awesome!  Thanks for the info.  I finally found the 120 build for Mame32 at that French site.  The "official" page links to a 4 year old port of Mame32.. ugh.

The official site is now at http://mame32qa.classicgaming.gamespy.com/.  The old site hasn't been updated for ~ 5 years.  Sorry, I should have guessed you were going to the wrong site from your second post.

I am using the Optipac I believe - I was running into some weird problem where if someone mashed on a bunch of keys the game would exit.. I am still trying to figure out why that was happening.

Err, the optipac is for mouse type devices, only.  Joysticks and buttons (besides two mouse buttons) need other interfaces.  It can flip between TB & spinner with delays, but there are ways arround that.  Easiest: wire the TB to TB 1, and the spinner to TB 2.

IIRC, the ipac has the p1start + p2start = esc key shift as default.  The hotrod and xarcade ctrlr files have mame do the same thing in software.  I HATE this default. 
Check what interface your buttons are wired to, and which button combos make you exit mame, and I'll give you details on unmapping this IMO mistake, if you want.


(I don't use a FE, so can't help you there.)


edit: typo

[Hoopz]

Check what interface your buttons are wired to, and which button combos make you exit mame, and I'll give you details on unmapping this IOM mistake, if you want.

IOM?

[u_rebelscum]

Check what interface your buttons are wired to, and which button combos make you exit mame, and I'll give you details on unmapping this IOM mistake, if you want.

IOM?

Opps, typo.   "IMO"  I'll correct the other post, too.

IMO, having player1 start + player 2 start as exit mame is bad, Bad, BAD.  That's why I remap.

[Hoopz]

Check what interface your buttons are wired to, and which button combos make you exit mame, and I'll give you details on unmapping this IOM mistake, if you want.

IOM?

Opps, typo.   "IMO"  I'll correct the other post, too.

IMO, having player1 start + player 2 start as exit mame is bad, Bad, BAD.  That's why I remap.

I remap also but I had no idea about IMO.   

Only thing I could think of was the ticker symbol for Iomega.  Knew that wasn't it.