cabinet front-end for Mac?

[Zobeid]

I'm contemplating a compact cabinet with a small, efficient computer. . .   possibly a Mac Mini.

The older PowerPC G4-based Minis are quite cheap now on eBay and would have enough power for what I want to do.  The main concern I have is a suitable front-end.  Is there a front-end that runs on Mac OS X that can. . .

• hide the Mac UI completely (including mouse pointer and menu bar)
• run in vertical-monitor mode
• be controlled with a joytick (and, preferably, joystick buttons rather than keys)

A Linux/SDL front-end might work if I can get the sources and build it for PowerPC.  Obviously one that's out for Mac OS X natively would be that much easier, if such a thing exists.  Any ideas?

[DaveMMR]

The older PowerPC G4-based Minis are quite cheap now on eBay

Comparable PC's are cheaper.      

I'm not trying to start a whole MAC vs. PC debate here, but if it's strictly for cabinet/gaming use, why not just go with a PC?  I can understand if you already own a Mac and you're going to use it but if you're in the market, you'll have more software options going with a PC.  And sometimes you get them for next to nothing (even free - people throw out old but "powerful enough" PC's all the time).

[Zobeid]

Comparable PC's are cheaper.      

How comparable are we talking about?  The Mac Mini is small, doesn't use much power or generate much heat, and has ATI (not GMA) graphics.  What would be the PC equivalent of that?

I'm not trying to start a whole MAC vs. PC debate here, but if it's strictly for cabinet/gaming use, why not just go with a PC?

It's partly about familiarity, you know.  I don't know PCs and don't run PCs.  Mac software I can test on any of my several Macs that I have here.

[DaveMMR]

How comparable are we talking about?  The Mac Mini is small, doesn't use much power or generate much heat, and has ATI (not GMA) graphics.  What would be the PC equivalent of that?

Well let's discard heat issues because you can buy a cheap case fan and be done.  And older or less-powerful ATI cards can be had fairly cheap.  Just talking processor and memory on the G4 line (1.25 - 1.5 Ghz and up to 1GB of memory) - you can often find people giving away PC's with those specs.  You probably know at least three people with PCs at least as powerful sitting in a closet. 

If you like the familiarity, that's an entirely different story.  I can understand that.

[garwil]

My current system is a Core Duo Mac Mini and I'm using it as a test bed for when I finally get the cash together to build a cab. It runs MAME and all the 16bit emus really well, but frontends are a bit thin on the ground.

EmuLaunch looks nice but is lacking in features and has been discontinued. It works well though. (http://www.emulaunch.com/)

Supposedly Wah!Cade can be compiled for OS X but I never got it to work. (http://www.anti-particle.com/wahcade.shtml)

IIRC SDL MAME has a game list function built in, so if you're going purely MAME you might be able to configure it to load on boot.

However, none of those solutions panned out for me so I now dual boot Windows XP and run HyperSpin. Using Windows also allows me to play N64 and PSX games.

I'd definitely consider using my Mini in a cab but not running OS X. However, I think if you're going to go out and buy one specifically for a cab, you'd probably be better off with a cheap PC.

Good luck with your project, I'd be interested to see what you come up with. 

[Bender]

I had a similar experience
we have all macs at the house and I was gonna use an old one to Mame but after a lot of research I found the support for mac is just not there
so I went with a PC and XP (just makes me appreciate OSX even more)

I use Emulaunch on my desktop and it OK