some direction needed

[project86]

So my wife and I have abandoned our dream of having a dedicated cab... at least for a while. Just don't have the room, time, etc. Very sad!

But all is not lost, because we are going to integrate a PC into the home theater system, and that PC will hopefully be used for MAME. Display is a 50" Panasonic plasma. I know it's a far cry from a real acrade crt, but it will have to do.

Anyways, I just upgraded my parents computer for them, so I'll be keeping the old one. It is an Athlon XP 1600+, 512MB RAM, Radeon 7000 32MB video, 40GB hard drive. I'd like to use it as an mp3 jukebox as well, but that will only take a few GB of space. A few questions though:

What romset should I be looking for with this system? I don't expect to run the later stuff, just the classics.

Is there a decent wireless controller that lends itself well to MAME? I don't really have the funds to buy a slickstick or anything like that. I was thinking maybe just a wireless gamepad for now.

Which frontend is the easiest to use? My wife will be using it a lot with my 2 year old son, and they are not very technical. I'd like to integrate a music player as well, and controll the whole thing from the joystick/gamepad.

[danny_galaga]

dont know about which romset to use, although ive heard mame seems to be getting quite slow this side of 100. atomic fe is a great front end, and easy to use. the animated menu would look brilliant on a 50" screen methinks. you can also use it for other emulators too...

[project86]

Thanks, I'll look into Atomic FE. I was also checking out Game EX, and people always have good things to say about MAMEwah, so I guess I'll just have to set them up and try them myself.

Any other ideas about what romset to use, as well as a wireless controller option?

[ark_ader]

Mame Set .84 is the same I used on a similar rig as yours.

Jukebox?  Arcade Machine?  Great ideas for the Home Theatre.

How about a modded coffee table to house your toys with a reversable top for controls?  Or an occasional table in the corner.  All these are possible with some imagination.

I like this one: http://eamontales.com/coffeetable/index.html

Have fun! 

[project86]

That is awesome, but I lack the woodworking skills, time, IQ, etc to build it. Mine is going to be a cheap black PC turned on it's side, doing it's best "HTPC" impersonation. I do have a nice side table that has a drawer to accomodate my vast array of remotes (only the universal remote gets to live out in the open.) My subwoofer is also hiding under that table, and once I get MAME running I hope to place my wireless gampad in there too.

Thanks for the version suggestion.

[project86]

Another question (maybe it needs its own thread...):

My cheap setup has a Radeon 7000 AGP card that has VGA and S-Video out. I could run an S-Video cable and get roughly 640x480 signal to the TV, which would then scale it to the native res of 1366x768.

Would I see any benefit by picking up a cheap video card that has a DVI out? Then I could run a DVI to HDMI converter and set the outpus res to a matching 1366x768.

I don't think the older MAME games see any benefit at all from a higher end GPU, so that part of it won't matter. But I assume the DVI output is a lot better than the S-Video. Then again the games were all low res to start with.... so I don't know. I guess it couldn't hurt to try since the whole thing will be so cheap anyway.But I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with that.

[Pongo]

I don't know what version of the Panasonic monitor you have, but does it have a VGA in?

I have a 50" Panasonic plasma also, and it has a VGA input as well as the usual HDMI and component connections. I know yours is different because of the resolution you stated (Mine is full 1920x1080 native) but you should check for the VGA connection.

I've hooked mine up to my laptop and the display is awesome!

[project86]

I've got the step down from yours, so no 1080p and no vga in.

[DeLuSioNal29]

I have a 50" plasma too (one step down from 1080p).  Mine only does 1080i and it DOES have a DVI connector on it.  Even if yours doesn't; check to see if it has an HDMI connector on it.  If it does you can simply buy and adapter to convert it to DVI.

Here's one:
http://www.cobaltcable.com/hdmi-dvi-adapter.htm

However, I would hesitate playing classic games on a plasma!  They say they are "burn proof" now (not true), but I would think twice about playing games like pacman for instance where burn in my be inevitable with the maze!

But if you must... have you considered modding an Xbox?  They have "softmods" available now that allow you to modify the xbox without even cracking it open!  And yes, they have an xbox version of MAME!  Mine works great!

~ DeLuSioNaL