Neo Geo Mame Cabinet Project... Assistance required!!! :)

[swirlee]

Hello Friends,

It's time for me to start my latest project. I am finally getting around to building my MAME cabinet. I've been pretty picky deciding what old cabinet to start this project with, but I finally found it. I am a huge Neo Geo fan and I have been looking for a MVS upright in decent shape. Finally one popped up on craigslist in my local area. I don't have any pictures of the actual cab I have purchased yet, because the guy I bought it from can't deliver it for a few days. So the next few pictures I post are generic google images.

The cab is basically identical to the MVS-1 slot pictured at far left.


Now this will be my first MAME anything, so please excuse the stupid questions and if you answer one please don't be too specific that I don't know what your talking about.

First things first, the Neo Geo's only have 4 buttons. This just wont do, but fortunately there is plenty of room to add 4 more. I made a couple crappy photoshop mocks to see how it might look with the added buttons. I would of course have a custom control panel overlay made to accommodate these extra buttons.



I think I like the white layout the best as it keeps a kind of stock feel even with 4 added buttons, though I may move the Red A button to top left so it wont be too confusing when playing actual neo geo games. What do you guys think?

So my first real question is this... what other buttons do I need for controlling MAME? I cant find this info anywhere. Things like start or esc buttons? What else is required or would be nice to have? I really dont want to finish this project only to realize that I need another button or two for controlling other aspects of MAME. There should be plenty of room where the player start buttons are to add these controls.

I plan on using the Hyperspin front end as it seems to be the coolest and best organized.

I'm sure I am going to have a TON more questions as I finally get this thing home and start to work on it, so please check back often and help me out! You can expect a lot of pictures of the build. Also, if this isn't the best place to have posted this thread please let me know where is? There doesn't seem to be an obvious place to post MAME help stuff here.

Oh also forgot to mention. I restored at MVS-2 Mini 13 awhile ago. Did a number of upgrades as well as the restoration. Here is a few pics of her.



If your interested my WIP thread can be found here on Racket Boy: http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20168&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Thanks!

[M.Lanza]

With all the xxx - in 1 neo geo cartridges available fairly inexpensively,
there's really no reason why you should destroy and uglify a dedicated cabinet
when there are so many neglected conversions floating around.

[swirlee]

Ah, a purist eh?

If you think about it, I'm not really destroying the cab at all... a few extra buttons will do no harm. If the cab ever needs to be restored back to factory, all I would need to do is swap out the control panel overlay with the original graphic and plexi and no one would know there were extra button holes. Besides I feel as though I already payed my respects to the Neo Geo gods by restoring a far rarer cab. Also, the guy I am buying the cab from has 4 of them sitting in an open air garage here in Florida. Florida! Think about it, I am doing this thing a favor. I have a couple xxx in 1 multicarts for the MVS already, but I want to play LOTS of other non Neo Geo games with this baby. And as I mentioned I am an SNK fan and want to collect to whole set so to speak. I will already have my dedicated Neo cab and then a full size, with the added benefit of playing everyish game.

Now if we could get back on topic and answer a few of my questions I would appreciate it!     

[WhereEaglesDare]

Here is what I have on my two player cab.  Two Sticks, 6 buttons for each player, player start buttons, two coin buttons, and two admin buttons. 

1 admin button does a shift feature which then allows all your other buttons to do separate functions, like escape, enter, tab, etc...  the second admin button is pause.  When I press both admin buttons at the same time (shift pause) it speeds the game clock up so cut scenes go faster.  In reality you only need on admin button and that is the shift button.  You can shift player start for coins, you can shift button 1 for tab and shift button 4 for escape, etc.

[swirlee]

WhereEaglesDare:

Thanks for the info. This is the first I've heard of a admin button. Sounds like something thats good to have though. Also, I guess I forgot until now that "player start" and "insert coin" are two different things. I have my Neo cab on free play so just hitting player start accomplishes the insert coin requirements. Is there not a way to tell MAME to emulate the Roms in free play that way I wont need a insert coin button? This will save me from having to install 2 buttons.

thanks!

[M.Lanza]

The only admin button you really need is an exit button
and that one can be hidden so that it doesn't clutter the control panel.

A lot of people have "coin" buttons, but most games have a freeplay
feature anyway, so there's really no reason to have one.

It just depends on whether you want something that is indistinguishable
from an arcade machine, or whether you just want to have a box that
just happens to be able to play arcade games.

[swirlee]

I just want this thing to be able to play the widest range of games possible with this setup. I just see all these MAME cabs with ridiculous amounts of buttons separate from the standard "street fighter controls" and it confuses the crap out of me.

Best example I could find on short notice.


Oh I also wanted to mention that I want to put an xbox 360 in this thing as well and have it connected to the controls. Would be fun playing SFIV on live. 

[releasedtruth]

If you have 6 buttons and 2 8-way joysticks you'll have a wide array of games, but will be missing many of the classic 4-way games, spinner games, analog and so forth. I made a similar choice initially and only recently added a spinner and 6" driving wheel. Add some guns with no control panel clutter and you likely won't miss Ms. Pac Man all that much....

[jimmy2x2x]

If you have 6 buttons and 2 8-way joysticks you'll have a wide array of games, but will be missing many of the classic 4-way games, spinner games, analog and so forth. I made a similar choice initially and only recently added a spinner and 6" driving wheel. Add some guns with no control panel clutter and you likely won't miss Ms. Pac Man all that much....

Why miss out on those games? Get a stick that can switch between 4/8 way like a Sanwa JLW or JLF or a Seimitsu LS32.
The LS32 comes with a 3 way gate to support 2/4 and 8 way restriction, IMO its the most responsive traditional microswitched joystick.

AFAIK some of the enthusiast (not in use in actual arcade machines) joysticks cope very well with 4 way games, but I haven't tried any of those.

[BurgerKingDiamond]

It really depends on what games you like to play... In other words, don't put a spinner on there just for the hell of it if you know that you are probably never gonna play spinner games. I guess that is pretty obvious though...

Here are some good examples of what NOT to do.
http://wickedretarded.com/~crapmame/

I was on the ultimarc website the other day and I noticed this joystick they have that you can switch to the 4 way restrictor without have open the panel at all. I think you just pull up on the stick and then twist it 90 degrees or something. That sounds pretty cool. Especially if you are into the old 4 way games like DK and Pac Man. An 8 way just doesn't really cut it for those games. The diagonals will screw you up.

[emphatic]

MY EYES! 

Cupholders are a thing of evil.

[swirlee]

relax... it's affixed with velcro... no screws, no holes

[TOK]

relax... it's affixed with velcro... no screws, no holes

Yeungling Lager in there too, which would almost make it OK if it was screwed in! 

[Malenko]

america's oldest brewery!