vertical cabinet front end

[mattnday]

struggling a little bit with mamewah............is this the best bet for a vertical cabinet. I would like to get away from using the pivot rotation software as it is causing some grief to my system.


I loaded gamelauncher and it was ok but I was kind of looking for something a little more impressive tat it doesnt take a rocket scientist to set up

[PacManFan]

Check out Kymaera.

www.pacmanfan.com

[SirPeale]

ArcadeOS does vertical.

[OSCAR]

Cocktail FE

This FE was designed specificially for vertical monitors and has a similiar appearance to MAMEWAH.

[slicer_d]

Gamelauncher works for me a has some decent support.


http://www.dribin.org/dave/game_launcher/

[paigeoliver]

Last Mame cabinet I sold was a vert one, and it used the DOS version of gamelauncher.

I also own 3 vertical Mame cabinets, using windows gamelauncher, arcadeOS, and advancemenu (windows) respectively.

[DarkKobold]

ArcadeOS has the distinct advantage of being able to support arcade  monitors. It also can use the parrallel port to turn on a monitor after the correct resolution is being sent, to protect the monitor.

[Minwah]

struggling a little bit with mamewah............is this the best bet for a vertical cabinet. I would like to get away from using the pivot rotation software as it is causing some grief to my system.

If your video card supports hardware rotation you could also give that a shot...

But since many of the other FE's mentioned can rotate natively they are probably a better bet...

[SaiNRuB]

I also own 3 vertical Mame cabinets, using windows gamelauncher, arcadeOS, and advancemenu (windows) respectively.

I am planning to build a vertical cabinet with a 19" CGA monitor.

Id like to hear what kind of software and hardware config you would suggest for me and my plans.

I presently have these components:

ASUS A7PRO /KT133 Chipset
Duron 700
256MB PC100 SDRAM
10GB ATA66 HDD
ATi RAGE 128 Ultra 32MB
Creative Labs Ensoniq  PCI Sound Card /1371 Chipset


I bought these in regards to using ArcadeOS and I am getting a lil nervous on my build since i am almost prepared to find a cga monitor to begin testing.

I plan on having swappable control panels so hotswapping is going to require usb so I dont know about a DOS environment. Id like to use windows with my cga monitor so ive been reading up on that and have come to the conclusion that it is very steep. The best alternative would be to buy a ArcadeVGA card but that would be out of my budget.

What are the fundamentals with running windows with a CGA Monitor without an ArcadeVGA Card?

I am all ears and appreciate and advice you may offer me. TIA


mattnday hopefully if i get some feedback will both realize that its not going to be as hard as we think on getting our vertical cabs up and runnin with arcade monitors and a vertically orineted front-end

[paigeoliver]

What are the fundamentals with running windows with a CGA Monitor without an ArcadeVGA Card?

To my knowledge it has never been done.

And also, please take no offense to any of these comments I will now post.

You CAN afford the extra controls needed to have USB powered hot swappable panels, and you CAN afford a 19" CGA display, but you CAN'T afford an arcadeVGA card?

That seems to be an improper budgeting issue. As in, you don't seem to be wisely spreading you cash around for the project. This isn't quite as bad as some others I have seen though ("I CAN afford a brand new 6 GHZ computer, hand built cabinet, and $300 worth of custom artwork, but I CAN'T afford an actual coin door, or an encoder").

My suggestion, drop $90 worth of hot swappable panels so that you can afford the arcadeVGA. I am not sure what panels you are making, but I am sure you could cut some cash in that department, as you can always build them later.

[SaiNRuB]

paigeoliver you are absolutely right, I need to go over my plans and make some serious changes to the hardware that will be involved.

I am now at a conclusion that Id either go with an AVGA card our rule out all usb and go with a dos environment and no hotswapping.

Either way i hope i make the rite decision in regards to my cabinet.

I appreciate your advice.

[Minwah]

paigeoliver you are absolutely right, I need to go over my plans and make some serious changes to the hardware that will be involved.

I am now at a conclusion that Id either go with an AVGA card our rule out all usb and go with a dos environment and no hotswapping.

Either way i hope i make the rite decision in regards to my cabinet.

I appreciate your advice.

I would agree that an ArcadeVGA is the way to go...

But I wouldn't neccessarily rule out Windows + USB - what are the main costs that you are concerned about with this route?

[SaiNRuB]

But I wouldn't neccessarily rule out Windows + USB - what are the main costs that you are concerned about with this route?

Hiya minwah, I was confused on being able to use a ATi Rage128 Ultra with AdvanceMame/AdvanceMenu in Windows. I know that a Trident Blade T64 is able to and thought the same was possible with my particular card. I now know it isnt but i would be able to use it in a Dos environment with AdvMame/AdvMenu.

So basically im running in circles with high hopes

[Minwah]

Hiya minwah, I was confused on being able to use a ATi Rage128 Ultra with AdvanceMame/AdvanceMenu in Windows. I know that a Trident Blade T64 is able to and thought the same was possible with my particular card. I now know it isnt but i would be able to use it in a Dos environment with AdvMame/AdvMenu.

So basically im running in circles with high hopes

I see, I don't know much about AdvMAME but I would think that it would run pretty well with DOS on your spec PC.  I don't think you would get any better performance in Windows really so you may as well try it out - you can always upgrade your PC later if you want

USB is not neccessarily needed for hot-swapping either, depending on what controls you have (although it does help).

[JoeB]

I'm confused about the problem with vertical monitors.. is it because all vertical monitors are really horizontal monitors put on their side, with the game boards configured to flip the video 90 degrees internally??

As far as arcadeVGA goes.. I think it's as important as getting MAME.EXE to run, if not more for arcade monitor owners!