Cabinet advice needed

[ld50]

This will be my first MAME cabinet, I have been doing quite a bit of reading and the following is what I have come up with. 

Controls:
     Player 1,2:
          2-Ultra Stick 360
          7-buttons per player
     Center:
          1-4 way stick
          1-SpinTrak Spinner
          2-Buttons
     Other:
          1-Happ 3" USB Trackball
          P1,P2 Start
          P1,P2 Coin
          Pinball L,R,F

Billabs BL27B0P Monitor
LED-Wiz (RGB LEDs, Electric Ice Buttons)
I-PAC2
2.4GHz P4, 256MB RAM

Now with the questions! 
1) I would like to be able to play as many games as possible without cluttering up the control panel(I am really not familiar with classic arcade games or their controls).  The CP will be nearly exactly like Knievel's Neon MAME with the exception of the added 7th button and pinball.  Will this work with most games?  Any popular ones I will be missing out on?

2) Admin buttons, should I include these somewhere out of the way or use a shift function with the existing buttons?

3)Will the Billabs BL27B0P monitor be a good choice?  I found only two alternatives, the Wells-Gardner D9400 and a Betson IMP 44-4070-RT.  It seems that Wells-Garder is having reliability issues and I couldn't find much info on the Betson.  Am I correct in thinking that the Billabs monitor will connect directly to my  video card?  Will I need anything else to get it to work?

4)The Ultra-Stik 360s allow wiring up to 8 buttons to them, is there any advantage to this or should they just be wired directly to the IPAC?

5)What else am I missing here?

BTW, I know that the monitor is rather pricey but I have decided to make this as real of an arcade as I can so I don't really want to go the CRT, LCD or TV route.

Thanks for any input!!   

[Green Giant]

1.  I would say lose the 4-way stick altogether.  The U360's will take the place of that.  Move the trackball to the center and set the spinner somewhere else on the panel.  For pinball you will want two on each side for flipper and nudge.  Use the buttons on top for the plunger.  Just make sure and have nothing in front of the trackball cause if you play golden tee you will want some space for a follow through.  As for number of games that will cover almost everything available.

2.  You will want exit and pause buttons on the panel.  Shift is only for people without space or inputs on the encoder.

3.  Not sure about that monitor.  I used a tv with component inputs through a dongle, looks great.  If you don't go with the arcade monitor, use a tv with component as the picture is more authentic than lcd.  LCD's are too good and don't give the picture you will remember.

4.  Using the U360 compared to the ipac offers no benefits asside from a different place to connect your buttons.  But I would recomend the groovygamegear gpwiz-eco or keywiz-eco.  For half the price of an ipac you get the same exact functionality.  Now some will say the ipac has different features, but when it comes to sending keypresses to mame, they are the same.

5.  You might want a coindoor on there too.  You can wire it up to coin buttons so either way will work.  On mine I have the coin buttons hidden under the panel so it looks authentic but doesn't require a ton of quarters to play.

[unclet]

My kids love having the "Reset" button on my control panel.   They get frustrated when they die quickly on some games, so hitting "Reset" immediately starts the game over, rather than having to go back to the Frontend and then select the game again.   Not really needed, but it does save a step or two.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Just some advice, try not to put the 4 way or spinner directly above the trackball.  For games like Golden Tee where you need to "whip" the trackball up as hard as you can to swing, you may end up with broken fingers if you hit the spinner or joy on top.  I set mine a bit to the right so as to not interfere with the trackball.

As far as the monitor goes, I just bought a Betson 27" Monitor.  According to the people here on the forums, it's been known to be more reliable than a Wells Gardner, which is why I bought it.  My buddy also has this monitor.  So far I love it.  It's so crisp and accurately recreates the arcade feel.
It's on sale right now for $374 (normally $469) which is an AMAZING price!  It will cost about $100 to ship, but I picked mine up directly at Betson's facility so I lucked out and saved on shipping.  (You may need an SUV or a hatchback to pick it up as the box is pretty big and you should not really take it out until you are installing it).  Betson has several showrooms around the country.

The monitor itself has a standard VGA hookup, similar to a normal PC monitor, so no other equipment is necessary.  It will work great with Ultimarc's VGA2 card.  Although I eventually will purchase the arcade VGA, for now I have an Nvidia GeForce 7 working with Powerstrip and it works like a champ (you must cut and paste the extra 15kz resolutions into the powerstrip.ini file, then reboot)

Find out how here:  http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Custom_display_modes_(Windows)_-_Powerstrip#Step-by-step_guide

The actual stuff that you need to paste into the .ini file is here:  http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Custom_Powerstrip.ini

Last but not least... Here's a link to the monitor:  http://www.betson.com/products/IMP-44-4070-RT

Enjoy!

~ DeLuSioNaL

[ld50]

Getting rid of the 4way is something I'm considering. 

As for the spinner, where should the buttons be placed and how many? I've seen most people placing two buttons to the right.

The Betson monitor sounds like a good deal at $374, I guess the main difference between it and the Billabs monitor is the highest resolution.  I'll have to see if they have a Houston location.

[DeLuSioNal29]

The Betson monitor sounds like a good deal at $374, I guess the main difference between it and the Billabs monitor is the highest resolution.  I'll have to see if they have a Houston location.

Sounds like it's your lucky day...

Betson Texas Distributing
1127 Conveyor Lane
Dallas, TX  75247
(214) 638-4900
Fax (214) 638-4925

[FrizzleFried]

The Betson monitor sounds like a good deal at $374, I guess the main difference between it and the Billabs monitor is the highest resolution.  I'll have to see if they have a Houston location.

Sounds like it's your lucky day...

Betson Texas Distributing
1127 Conveyor Lane
Dallas, TX  75247
(214) 638-4900
Fax (214) 638-4925

I guess some folks don't realize that there's over 500 miles round-trip to go from Houston to Dallas and back.

[DeLuSioNal29]

I guess some folks don't realize that there's over 500 miles round-trip to go from Houston to Dallas and back.

Heh heh... I read that wrong... for some reason I though it said Houston.  But after I posted it, I figured it's all the same and left it as is.  Thanks for the correction!   

[Green Giant]

I guess some folks don't realize that there's over 500 miles round-trip to go from Houston to Dallas and back.

Heh heh... I read that wrong... for some reason I though it said Houston.  But after I posted it, I figured it's all the same and left it as is.  Thanks for the correction!   

Don't worry, yankees don't realize just how big Texas is.  If you are driving to LA, the halfway point is still in Texas.