Newbie Preperation - Lots of Questions For All :)

[chinabox]

I can't believe I didn't decide to do this earlier!  I've had a coin-op version of "Championship Bowling" sitting idle in my basement for about 7 years now.  Anyway, here are my questions, one by one.  I apologize for the length of this post, but I've got a lot going on in my head!

1) I am *not* planning on using the arcade monitor that is currently installed in Championship Bowling.  I've got plenty of extra (bigger) monitors available, and don't want to spend the money hooking my computer up to it.  Is there anything I should know about "gutting" a machine?  What should I do with the excess parts from the arcade machine (like the arcade monitor and the "rolley ball" deal ?  Can I sell them?  What are they worth?  (I don't have specs on hand, unfortunately)

2) I've had more success running windows versions of emulators (mame32, nesticle, gens, zsnes) and AdvanceMENU, but there seems to be some stigma against Windows-based emulation.  I'm just looking for straight-up functionality, so is there *really* a big difference between Windows and DOS?  As an aside, I'm planning on installing WindowsXP with a wireless NIC so the machine can be accessed no matter where I put it (in the range of my Linksys, of course )

3) I'm planning on emulating MAME (new stuff included), NES, SNES, and Genesis (with 32X).  I'm planning on grabbing an XP1600+ and throwing in 512mb DDR and a 32mb AGP card.  Will that system be able to run everything at full speed?  

4) The current control panel on Championship Bowling is very small, and made for one player at a time.  Since I want a 2Player joystick + 6-button/ea. system, I'll have to somehow "expand" the control panel (perhaps by removing it and adding something entirely new).  Does anyone have any experience doing something like this?  Any tips?

5) What about angles?  What kind of slope should I put on the control panel?  What angle should the monitor be at?

This is all I can think of for now.  Any help you can give me would be MUCH appreciated.  I can't wait to get on this project.  Happ: here I come!

Regards,
Zach

[radiator]

well, i can answer 2 and 3 for ya:

with the setup you listed below, windows emulators are the way to go (hey that rhymes!)
there's only a very small minority who run into problems with windows based emulators, but as i said, that setup (xp1600 etc) will handle them fine.

all the mame games will run full speed apart from the obvious ones (ie, cruisin usa, wargods etc etc)

as for the graphics card, if you're gonna be running through an arcade monitor, i'd go for the ArcadeVGA (from Ultimarc
if you're planning on using a tv, just gor for any 'built by' ATI cards (the 7500 seems to be a popular choice)

 

[traknfieldSUPAstar]

some pics of your cab would be nice... might be able to help you more if we can see it first... also, I'm in agreement with radiator, the computer system you're planning should be fine if you wanna run winXP and all of the emulators you've listed... I have a similar system (athlon 1700+ with 512 ddr) and everything (with the expception of wargods) runs fine and dandy

[chinabox]

some pics of your cab would be nice... might be able to help you more if we can see it first...

I'll have some pictures up this weekend.   Thanks for the feedback about the system--I'm glad I got confirmation that it'll run everything I want to play.  Now I can transfer the blame to someone else if it doesn't work    Just kidding, thanks guys!  Anyone else--help a new guy?

Zach

[cdbrown]

Welcome to the greatest hobby in the world!

1) Make sure that the bigger monitors will actually fit inside the cab before you get rid of the existing one.  Also there are cheap options around to connect arcade monitors to a PC (ArcadeVGA from Ultimarc).

When gutting a machine it's best to try and preserve what you are removing, don't just rip it off.  There are many people around that will buy the parts from you including the marquee, control panel, any artwork you can save (ebay, Buy/Sell/Trade section on this site).  Check these places out to see their general worth.  

Before selling the "rolley ball" make sure you don't actually want to use it somehow.  Not having a pic of it and guessing it is a trackball, you may actually transplant it into you own built panel and continue to enjoy playing trackball games.

2) The stigma is basically because people don't like Micro$oft.  The base of Mame is doen in windows now as todays' PC hardware generally operates faster in Windows than in Dos.  The upside of the stigma is that a number great frontends are designed to look nothing like windows.

3) As radiator said, it will run most games at full speed, but some it won't (some Midway games).

4) Many people have removed the existing panel and created a "box panel" with the controls they want.  It's best to take a good look through the Main Forum and Project Announcements as well as all the Examples on the main site.

5) I have seen panels around 10-15 degrees.  Best way is to find a game that has a good feel to you and use that angle.  As for the monitor, it's entirely up to you.  The angle of my TV is based on the height of my control panel, my eye level (when standing but slightly hunched over) and my line of site being perpendicular to the screen when looking at the centre check out this thread

Good luck
-cdbrown