MMMKII

[Candiman]

Greetings everyone.
I am a long time reader but a first time poster.
Obviously like everyone else here when I first discovered MAME I thought wow finally my dreams can come true and then also like many of you I sat on the idea for a long time.
I kicked around the idea for a  long time and even bought an arcade control stick for my PC.
But its not the same.
I wanted a REAL arcade machine.
Coming here reading all your stories made it much harder to resist.
Finally, after I discovered MUGEN did I decide to bite the bullet.

I live in Japan and building materials are hard to come by and extremely expensive.
I recently went back to Canada to finalize my move here by moving all my stuff here that was in storage. At first I was going to just send some wood panels as well. But then I thought about what I really wanted all along is a Mortal Kombat II cabinet. MK was never really popular in Japan and I have only ever seen an MK4 cab. So I poked around a bit and ended up getting a MKII cabinet that I included in my shipping on the boat to Japan.

Anyway. I have finally started my project and started a website about it as well.
I would be honored if people here would read it and comment here or there about it.

Mortal Mugen Mame Kombat II

http://mmmkii.blogspot.com/

I also have a blog about my crazy life here in Japan as well which any of you can follow if you desire. Just send me a PM and I will point you to it.
Life here is pretty different than in the West. I talk about a wide range of things.

Here are some photos as well.

Its nice to meet all of you. Thanks for the wealth of information that you have given me already.

[jeef]

Sweet man, welcome

Erm, why are there light guns on that mk cabinet? And how cool is that!? Will you be able to use the light guns?

[Candiman]

That is a very good question.

MKII is in my opinion the game with the most awesome side art ever.
So It was by far my first choice for games to get for that reason.
However the only one I could get under such short notice

(the full story is on my blog here: http://mmmkii.blogspot.com/2009/05/welcome-to-mmmkii-introduction-you-can.html )

in the 2 weeks I was in Canada was an Area 51 convert.  Obviously the guns and its control panel are only useful for a hand full of games so I got the guy who had it to swap it back out with the MKII control board and a set of controls that I will almost certainly replace anyway.
In hindsight I wish I had just taken it as is and sold the Area 51 PCB with guns and control board and bought my own control panel but I was more interested in saving time at that point. The guy also threw in the PCB for TUMBLE POP, which is nice but will also make its way to eBay eventually I am sure.

C'est la vie.

I ended up getting a MKII pcb on eBay for $50. However it is missing the soundboard. If anyone has an MKII soundboard they don't need I would love to take it off your hands.

A sort of blessing in disguise is the fact that when whoever converted it to a AREA 51 game they drilled 2 holes in the front on either side of the coin door for the gun cables to go through.

It works to my advantage because I plan to either put some kind of Volume control there or a Power button or remote control receiver (I have a PC remote already) and use my game as a juke box as well. I also have a NEW wireless logitec keyboard and mouse that my mom got with her new Dell that she didn't want while I was in town. I also don't need it because it is English and I spend a lot of time typing in Japanese and this PC has a nice Japanese keyboard (if you spend a lot of time typing in Japanese you will understand how great it is to have a dedicated hirigana and katakana button).  So now I am thinking to put the logitec receiver through one of those holes so If I need the keyboard or mouse I can use it without having to stash it somewhere inside. Once I have it finished I want to not have to open it up often.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

[jeef]

Ah true, well, good luck with the project then! I'm basing my cab very much off this shape, just a couple of slight tweaks to fit my monitor etc, and doing the control panel quite different. I will be going for red t-moulding for sure though

Keep us posted

[Candiman]

I got my package from Ultimarc today, which means I will be mostly up and running very quickly.

I did a lot of shopping around and while lots of the other sellers have slightly cheaper prices Andy had a cheaper shipping price which ended up being the deal maker.

Shipping to Japan is not cheap!
I found an Australian seller that had similar pricing but Andy still beat them.
I will post updates soon.

[Silas (son of Silas)]

Uber-cool cab.  I love the MK series

[Candiman]

Thank you.
I agree. This cab is what made the difference between me spending $30 and $600.
Sadly my JPAC is not working.
My keyboard works in BIOS but not in windows.
I emailed Andy with the details but so far his suggestions have not cleared up the problem.
Anyone else?

[Candiman]

I have not given up but things have been slow due to $$ and general life, going on tour, etc.
I have posted new info on my project blog http://mmmkii.blogspot.com/ for anyone interested.
A big thanks to Fred at Xtremegameroom.com http://xtremegameroom.com/videogameparts.aspx

and Andy at Ultimarc http://ultimarc.com for the great service and help for someone with no experience like myself.

At the moment I am stuck in software hell but I hope to wedge myself out of it soon enough.

Thanks everyone for the words of encouragement and support.

[Silas (son of Silas)]

..and Andy at Ultimarc http://ultimarc.com for the great service and help for someone with no experience like myself.

+1

[Malenko]

it looks good! Im an MK nut myself; if you'd like I can send you my PDS file of my "Mortal Kabinet" marquee

[Candiman]

Malenko
I would love to see your project. However I will be keeping my cabinet mostly stock MKII. Other than an external USB port and a few other tweeks.


In other news.......

Lots of progress today!
I pasted the post from my blog bellow. However the actual blog post has links if anyone is really curious.
http://mmmkii.blogspot.com/2009/09/windows-xp-and-various-software-install.html



Windows XP and various software install.


I sort of failed to chronicle the software side of things before.
Perhaps this is my Karma for that.

So now I am re-installing windows XP on my machine and it is proving to be a lot more difficult while the PC is inside the cabinet and while using an arcade monitor.
Unfortunately I do not have a CRT monitor to use at the moment and while originally installing windows with the Arcade VGA card installed it said my monitor would not support it.

I had major issues with my second hard disc with formatting errors for some reason.
However a major issue was when installing XP through my arcade VGA card the install screen was only the top half.

From MMMKII


I tried several times to install format but all ended in failure.
So seeing as my LCD doesn't work with my Arcade VGA and installing a different video card wasn`t going to happen I decided to try something totally different.

I installed TINY XP  (which is technically illegal shhhhh!) on a different hard drive through my main machine and then took that had and installed it into my cab. First boot had some errors due to driver issues but because tiny xp includes a million drivers it found them all quickly except a few I needed to install from my motherboard disc and the Arcade VGA drivers. Tiny xp is a version of XP that is stripped down to the bare necessities. It boots up super fast as well which is a biggy for me due to my wanting to hit one switch and play games ASAP when people come over.

However the Tiny Xp disc I had made wouldn`t read in my systems DVD rom drive for some reason so I had to use my External USB CD/DVD drive that I picked up used on a whim when I had a Tablet PC for $15. Some things come in handy and that is probably why I am a pack rat..

My particular Arcade VGA card is an older version so the drivers that came with my JPAC wouldn't work. Luckily Minor God Andy emailed me the link to the OLDER DRIVERS and that got me up and sailing no problem.

The instructions at Ultimarc are pretty thorough so I wont go through it all again here.
I have yet to properly set up my Jpac so I will go into that later as well. I am having some trouble setting keystrokes to work in MAME and MUGEN.

I also had some issues with some weird scrolling on my monitor image in windows. However games in MAME look fine. I found the answer with a small little control dial on the actual monitor circuit board on the back. I found the answer HERE. This guy has the same monitor and problem I had.



Now I am attempting to get MAME set up using HYPERSPIN as my front end.

Not an easy all in one process. Especially since I have no internet connection on my cab. So I am constantly going back and forth between cab and this pc with a thumbdrive because there is no all inclusive install package and its really pissing me off.

You need to download all the programs from the link above and the programs from HERE as well.

Plus you need Microsofts .NET Framework 2.0.


However I can not seem to build a database and get some error.


I am getting all kinds of errors and doing installs on a 640x480 is not my friend at the moment. I will attempt to get it all set up and running on my main PC while documenting it and then trying to replicate what I did over on my Cab.

Thats it for now. Lots of progress today.



I feel good.