Hi, new here - intro and a couple questions on sourcing parts

[thecheat]

First of all, I'm glad to have finally found a forum that isn't dead. It seems like most MAME and home arcade interest died off around 2004.

I'm building my first cabinet and so far, so good.. I'm using 1/2" MDF and a sort of 'freeform' design that is pretty similar to everyone else's side profile. I am making a "slimline" cabinet because I'm using a 19" LCD monitor. This is also saving on material costs as I made the sides out of the same 4x8' sheet of MDF. I've got a bezel for the LCD cut out of black foamboard, the back layer and foam core are cut to fit the outside of the LCD bezel and the front layer is cut to fit the inside of the bezel. I'm making the front panels 24" wide to keep the measurements easy and make it easier to get materials; my local big box store has precut 2x2' and 2x4' sheets. I haven't decided if I'm going to slot it for t-molding or not, I may in the future and just mask off the sides with painters tape so they don't get scratched.

Anyhow, to my questions:

I am using a laptop with a broken LCD, it only has USB ports; what is the cheapest interface I can use? I'm going to have two 8-way joysticks and 7 buttons per player, plus probably 6 or 8 other buttons for p1/p2, coin, etc...the GP-Wiz 40 Eco looks like it will work, right?

I was originally going to go with a set of buttons, joysticks, and the control interface that xgaming.com sells. For $90 plus shipping the price seems pretty good. I did see that there are clear buttons and LED controllers available; is a lot of work to get the LED controller to light up the buttons that each game uses? I presume it's a per-game script that needs to run prior to launching the game, right? I'd probably need a frontend for that for sure? Since I'm trying to keep initial costs down, I'd probably buy the clear buttons and then the LEDs and controller later, would be cheaper than going with opaque buttons and then replacing them down the road. Although if it's more trouble than it's worth, I'd just assume go with opaque buttons.

So to summarize; what is the cheapest (but good) USB button interface and would it be worth my while to get clear buttons and light them with a controller or just get a set of solid buttons? I would like to preferably buy all the stuff from the same place so I'm not paying shipping from a bunch of different shops.

Also, since the GP-wiz 40 eco is a joystick interface, would I be better served with the I-PAC? From what I understand, it uses the default MAME keyboard map so I wouldn't (shouldn't ) have to do anything once it's set up.

[thecheat]

Well i bit the bullet and went with the I-PAC2 and the USB cable. The website isn't very clear on how the USB part works but there is apparently a USB to PS2 cable that turns the I-PAC into a USB HID keyboard device. I was going to go with the VE since it was cheaper by quite a bit but my 7 button keyboard layout sort of killed that. The I-PAC2 has 8 button support vs the VE's 6 button support. Since it has drop-in support for MAME's key layout, I figured it was a no-brainer.