Just Bought A MAME Cabinet (Pics Added) (Question Added 2/14...And Answered)

[jtfields]

I've been wanting to build a four player MAME cabinet for a few years now.  But even after buying and reading Saint's book a year or so ago I didn't feel that confident about it.  It doesn't help that hammering a nail is a challenge for me much less any real woodworking and my spare time seems to have dwindled to nothing these days.  So, the short of it is that I stumbled upon a used fully functional cabinet for sale and on a whim bought it.  I paid $400 for it on Craigslist (seemed like an okay deal) and am going to pick it up this Saturday.  Beside the fact that it's a two player and not four, the only things really missing for me would be a spinner, a couple of guns and maybe some pinball buttons on the sides of the panel.  Not sure how easy these would be to add.  The monitor is jut a PC monitor (I didn't ask, but I'm guessing 17").  I would like to upgrade the monitor to a bigger monitor (maybe an arcade monitor if I feel I can install it without killing myself.)  The coin door has been disconnected and I would like to reconnect (no idea how to do this.)  Based purely on the picture my wife is already inquiring about painting it and changing the marquee (it's going to be located in my home office which is very visible by visitors...in fact I'm surprised she was so understanding when I bought it.)  Anyway, I guess I started this thread just to get some general impressions and ideas.  When I get it I may add additional pictures and questions regarding the changes, if any, I decide to make.

[Dartful Dodger]

Congrats on the cab.  I spent 6 years collecting parts and never using them before I gave up on the idea of building a Mame cab myself.  I decided to buy a 2 player cab and convert it.  It's been sitting in my parents' garage for 4 months.  Maybe next year I'll give up on converting the cab and just buy an already built Mame cab too.

Originally I wanted a 4 player control panel too, but (after 6 years of contemplation) I realized that a 4 player cabs don't have the sleek look and feel of the arcade games from my youth.

You should be able to plug in PC joysticks and use them for the 4 times you have 3 or more people over who want to play one of the 4 player games.

[DashRendar]

Congrats on the purchase- I think you'll have fun with it.   

Has your wife given you any feedback on what she would like marquee-wise for the cab?

Personally, I'm not a fan either of the "MAME" design that a lot of people use.  I think it's better to make it look like an arcade game you would find in an arcade.

Hopefully she doesn't want to hide it with something that blends into your home decor (family pictures, artwork, etc).  Marquees are, by design, there to bring attention to the machine and get people excited to play it!   

[Malenko]

Thats worth 400, hope the computer inside is good enough to run a lot of games. paint and tmolding are easily changed (and cheap too!) I'd change the buttons, I'm partial to red, white, and blue buttons myself. marquee, print something at kinkos or hit up mamemarquees.com and maybe get control panel overlay. Its defintely a good start.

you should post up details about the cab

[Don]

Nice looking cab, simple design and not buttons everywhere like you see sometimes!

Yes i would definately get a bigger monitor. If the PC has a video card that supprts tv-out then i reccommend you stick an old tv in there, they look great in cabs and are more authentic than a regular PC monitor. If you want to go the real deal get an arcade monitor, they're expensive and you'll need to get an ArcadeVGA card also to get it to work, but from what i've seen they look great.

I'm also not a fan of the 'MAME' marquees, i'd personally either go for a game specific marquee (street fighter II etc.), get a nice one from mamemarquees.com or alternatively make your own in photoshop and get it printed!

Good lunk anyway!

[shateredsoul]

Hmmm since you haven't picked it up yet why not ask the guy or lady if they'd show you some of the basics? Or at least, how to switch out the computer  and how to switch out buttons ...if you felt like you wanted to do that.

Congrats on the cab, it looks nice.  I agree with the previous post, I like the fact that it doesn't have buttons everywhere.

[jtfields]

Wow, thanks for all the quick replies.  I don't know much about the computer.  I just figured if it wasn't adequate I'd replace it so I didn't even ask.  I built computers as a hobby for a few years so I may get the itch to build something new for it anyway.

Good point about just being able to add plug in joysticks.  Maybe I'll add some readily accessible USB ports somewhere.

My wife hasn't given any indication of how she'd like the marquee to look or a color that she might like.  Probably nothing too flashy is my guess.  A control panel overlay is a good idea.  

Hopefully when I pick it up the guy will spend some time with me "showing me the ropes".

I'll definitely post details once I have the cab.

[rlehm]

be glad it's a two player.

[mytymaus007]

Nice find Good Luck!!

[jtfields]

I got it home over the weekend. Not a bad cabinet.  It has a 19" Dell CRT monitor in it.  The guy swore up and down that four years ago he put the monitor in through the back without having to disassemble anything.  So he insisted on trying to get it out before we moved it.  He was never able to get it out and in the process he scratched up the inside of the plexiglass.  Also, the front bottom of the cabinet got damaged a little bringing it into my house.  The PC is an eMachine with a 2.6 GHz Celeron and 1GB RAM running Windows 2000.  The speakers are just throw away computer speakers sitting next to the monitor (there is a cutout for speakers to be mounted behind the marquee but there are none there.)  It's running MAME32 .118.  I need to update it as using MAME32 with arcade controls is not very fun (not to mention the ROM set that came with it is very incomplete even missing some of the classics like Centipede, Asteriods, and Missle Command to name a few.)

The control panel seems to work okay although the trackball isn't as heavy as what I remember at the arcade and it doesn't glide as smoothly.  The track ball also can kind of lift sometimes when you roll it which makes whatever you are controlling stop moving for a split second (not sure if I described that problem very well.)  I haven't messed around with it enough to figure out if the joysticks are 8-way or 16-way.  Not very good for Pacman though, I can tell you that.  Each stick has 6 buttons.  Additionally, there are a left and right mouse buttons, player 1 and player 2 buttons along with a credit button for each player.  Best I can tell there are no hinges on the CP to easily access the back.  In fact, in general the cab was not built with the idea of easy access in mind.  The coin door opens up to access the PC.  The lock for the coindoor is gone (I guess so you can stick your finger in the whole to open the door to get to the PC.)  As I said earlier, I'd like get it running so that it takes quarters for credits.

So far my six year old has been playing it more than anyone.  He's gotten hooked on Aliens vs. Predator.

I'll try and post some pics later.

Edit:  Added pic.

[Dazz]

Aggie House....  Fellow Texan?

Not a bad looking cab there.  My son was 3 when I built my cabinet 5 years ago.  He's been playing arcade games on my cabinet since then and has never stopped.  He's played and enjoys more classic games than people 4 times his age.  My 8 year old son and 12 year old daughter have Frogger competitions all the time.

If I were you; I'd seriously re-consider doing the coin/credit thing.  I had mine setup that way to use tokens and it got old fast.  While coins can still be entered for credits on my cabinet; I still have a button combination via my IPAC4 that is just much better than coins.

[jtfields]

Yep, an Aggie...

My son has dropped his Wii and only wants to play on the cabinet.  Not sure how long that will last.

I'll keep your suggestion about the coin door in mind.  I wanted to hook it up for a couple of reasons.  First, of course, is authenticity (that true "arcade feel".)  But secondly, me and the wife were thinking it might be a good way to control the kids playing time.  "Here's eight quarters (or tokens) son, when their gone it's time to get off."  Right now we use the timer on the wireless sensor bar to monitor the Wii.  My wife gets concerned that their brains will turn to mush if they spend hours playing video games.  Me, I'm not as worried as her.  That's what I did when I was a kid.

By the way, I noticed you are on the HyperSpin team.  I just learned of that FE the other day.  I may give it a go.

I took some more pictures of the inside and stuff last night.  It was late though so I'll try and post them tonight.

[drventure]

Nice. Yeah, a bigger screen, maybe some side art, a new marquee, you'd have a sweet machine for not a lot of cash.

The good thing is, all those bits are pretty easy to come by and install.

I hear you with the coin door. I went the "coin button" route, and, while it IS convenient, you do loose a little of the arcade feel. But then, my cab is SOOOO not authentic arcade that I guess it shouldn't really matter 

[jtfields]

A few more pics...

[jtfields]

Posted this question in the software forum but haven't gotten much in the way of reads so I thought I'd add it to this thread as well since it refers to this cab.

Currently the PC in the cab is running Windows 2000 and MAME32 .118.  I plan on updating it soon when I get the chance and at that point will install a front end designed for a cab (haven't decided yet but leaning towards HyperSpin.)  I'm just trying to decide if I want to keep the PC it came with (probably make a couple of ugrades to it such as RAM and a larger hard drive) or build a new one for it..  Until then I'm playing with it as is. 

Anyway, the controls are configured so that if I press player 1 and 2 start buttons simultaneously it's the same as pressing ESC.  When I'm playing a game in MAME32 pressing ESC (player 1 and 2 simultaneoulsy) exits the game currently playing and takes me back to the MAME32 interface to select another game.  However, I cannot seem to exit MAME32 itself back to Windows.  The Windows bar at the top that would normally have the minimize and exit buttons in the top right hand corner are gone.  The normal "File, Edit, View..." type menus  that are usually in the upper left are missing too.  I asked the guy that I bought it from about it and he just said that the menu bar and the minimize, maximize and exit buttons used to be there but his kids did something to it at some point and they vanished.  He didn't know how to exit either.  The only way I know how to exit is to hit the power button (which is configured to shut down the PC) and then power back up to Windows.  Any help is appreciated and sorry if this is a total noob question.

[jtfields]

Sorry guys, I figured it out. F11 toggles it.  I had tried Google earlier to no avail but I didn't realize that area was called the Title Bar.  Once I learned that it was pretty easy to find.