Why buy jamma game PCB's when you can have mame??

[eggedd2k]

just curious as i'm 50/50 myself whether to buy jamma game PCB's or do the mame thing (i've ordered most of the kit). 

any views?

[pointdablame]

Well... you NEED the PCB to have any rights to the roms, and even that is iffy, so the most important reason to use PCBs is the fact that it is legal.

There are also a lot of games in MAME that are near perfect.. but not perfect.  With the PCB, you know you have the original game.  I also enjoy a lot of the newer games out, and you just can't play most of them in MAME.. but you can with the PCBs of course.

I also just think that having the original PCBs is cool.  They are fun to collect and have around.

[ChadTower]

Troll.

[eggedd2k]

i understand what you say about them being fun to collect. does tempt me

[monkeybomb]

It's just different.  When you flip the switch on the game and it loads it's really fun.  There is no menu to scroll through and it feels different.  There is also a mental aspect of knowing that it is the "real" thing, even when MAME emulates the game perfectly. 

[clanggedin]

I built a MAME cab first, then I caught the bug and have 13 cabs now. The crazy thing is I originally wanted to buy a pinball machine, but then I found MAME and went that direction. I still don't even have any pins yet.

[SirPoonga]

In my case, with the astroids, you can not emulate that and get the full experience (unless you use lasermame I suppose).  A vector monitor is alot brighter than a raster monitor.  You will have after images of asteroids after you play the real thing

And part of it is because it is fun.  There's nothing like the original.  My mame cabinet uses microswitches, so it will feel slightly different than games that were originally leafs, like my double dragon 2 cabinet

BTW, you've been throwing the term jamma around alot lately.  It doesn't have to be jamma.  Two games I own are not jamma.  Asteroids and 1942.  Or course, I still need my 1942 sent to me...

[ChadTower]

In my case, with the astroids, you can not emulate that and get the full experience (unless you use lasermame I suppose).

[Stingray]

It's just neat to have the real thing around too. I think it just one of those things where if you have to have it explained to you, you probably won't get it.

-S

[Q*Bert_OP]

Well... you NEED the PCB to have any rights to the roms, and even that is iffy, so the most important reason to use PCBs is the fact that it is legal.

There are also a lot of games in MAME that are near perfect.. but not perfect.

[SirPoonga]

In my case, with the astroids, you can not emulate that and get the full experience (unless you use lasermame I suppose).

Use a ZVG and VectorMAME.

Nope, it's the monitor.  One is a bunch of pixels, the other is a a very bright focused beam   You cna not get a raster monitor, at least a computer one, as bright as an arcade vector monitor.

[paigeoliver]

In my case, with the astroids, you can not emulate that and get the full experience (unless you use lasermame I suppose).

Use a ZVG and VectorMAME.

Nope, it's the monitor.  One is a bunch of pixels, the other is a a very bright focused beam   You cna not get a raster monitor, at least a computer one, as bright as an arcade vector monitor.

A ZVG drives a vector monitor.

Although then you get into the issue that there are a bunch of different kinds of vector monitors and different games look different on different ones.

AFAIK the one is Asteroids is the highest res, but it is black and white. The Vectorbeam design is good, but doesn't have the image quality of the Asteroids one.

Then there are the two different Atari color vector monitors, the Wells Gardner and the Ampliphone.  The ampliphone is a faster monitor, but very prone to failure.

Then there is the Sega color vector monitor, not sure how it compares, as I haven't seen a working one since I was a kid.

[SirPoonga]

Ahh,  ok.  Anyway, still

[Dave_K.]

As mentioned above Mame emulation is not 100% (in some cases its noticably different timing than the original PCB).

[alundra]

its all about the true and original arcade feels to me..

[eggedd2k]

you've about convinced me to turn to the pcb side.  other than ebay where's best to get them from? (in the uk?)

[paigeoliver]

EBay is pretty much ALWAYS the best place to get them. Prices go up and down on ebay, off ebay they are always up.

[eggedd2k]

fair enough. i guess it's just a case of waiting till a working game pcb that you want turns up.

there seems to be a lot of faulty game pcbs on there as well - are these that popular?

[tommy]

I used to just have only pcb's and didn't know much about mame, now if i'm going to play a game it's going to be in mame. Changing jamma boards left and right can get really old quickly and besides that they cost money.

Mame kills the arcade market atleast for me but i do recomend buying the real boards if you have pleanty on cash to burn.

[ChadTower]

Nope, it's the monitor.