laptop use

[Terryhooper]

I am building a bartop arcade and would like to use a laptop and flatscreen because of weight.  can i do this or are there reasons i can't     

[ark_ader]

Sure you can, but why not use the screen from the laptop?

I make all my bartops out of old laptops.

The only thing that would worry me about using an external display with the laptop is the power on issue. 

Does the laptop power on with the external monitor ok? 

Do you have to hit some key combo to get it working?

[u_rebelscum]

Also, if the laptop uses an on-board video chip, you might not be about to do some of mame's "extra" features without slowdown.  That is, stuff like overlays, underlays, bezels, crt video effects and scaling.  Most of these you probably don't want to use any way, but just test them on your laptop to see how well they run on it, and if you want them at all.

[Terryhooper]

thanks, i was going to use a external monitor because the monitor on the laptop is failing, (backlight) so instead of replacing it i would use a flatscreen and use the laptop. but thanks for all the help, i will be asking further questions because this is my first but i think i can pull this off........

[ale8oneboy]

As with any unit. You will need to make sure the vents are not blocked off on the laptop.

[spOOf]

I'm actually doing this for my standup machine.  I planned to use a desktop, but the laptop ended up being my choice after testing.  Works great so far.