Author Topic: Cabinet Friendly Emulators (Read 3718 times)

toasty · « **on:** March 02, 2006, 01:17:55 pm »

Looking to get my cab loaded up with any emulators worth having on a cab. Here's what I'm trying to accomplish:

1. Launch everything through MameWah.
2. Use MAME standard controls, including exit on ESC.
3. Actually play most things cleanly in an arcade cabinet environment -- in other words, I don't want to pack my cab full of emulators that don't run a lot of games properly, have serious issues, or require me to grab a keyboard from time to time, just to say I've got them on there.

In other words, I want to be able to keep the experience as arcade pure as possible, even though there may be non-arcade games on there. I'd like for someone that doesn't know there's a computer behind it all to be able to look at a couple brief instructions on the bezel or the CP overlay and game away without me there, just using the CP controls.

Right now I've got:
MAME
Daphne
Fusion

What other emulators do a good enough job to warrant putting them in an arcade cab?

Thanks

Brad · « **Reply #1 on:** March 02, 2006, 05:21:36 pm »

http://www.emuchrist.org/cpviewer/downloads.htm

Brad

toasty · « **Reply #2 on:** March 02, 2006, 05:30:03 pm »

well, I've seen that, but it doesn't shed any light on which would actually work well in a cabinet environment. It includes info regarding consoles that are really just barely emulated, and others that really require a keyboard or which can't be configured to work in an intuitive way...

What systems, other than those I've mentioned, are people emulating on their cabs?

Brad · « **Reply #3 on:** March 02, 2006, 06:35:42 pm »

Well the decent ones are all included. Also it's a matter of taste.

The systems I run regularly and well are the following:

Mame
Daphne
Atari2600
Atari5200
Atari7800
Atari Lynx
Atari Jaguar
SegaSMS
Sega Gamegear
Sega Genesis
Sega 32x
NES
SNES
N64
GB
GBC
GBA
ZX Spectrum
Emerson Arcadia
Colecovision
Intellivision
NeoGeo Pocket Mono
NeoGeo Pocket Colour
Wonderswan Mono
Wonderswan Colour

plus a number of others. Also consider that mileage will vary dependant on your PC specs and controllers.

Brad

jcrouse · « **Reply #4 on:** March 02, 2006, 07:54:41 pm »

Quote from: toasty on March 02, 2006, 05:30:03 pm

well, I've seen that, but it doesn't shed any light on which would actually work well in a cabinet environment. It includes info regarding consoles that are really just barely emulated, and others that really require a keyboard or which can't be configured to work in an intuitive way...

What systems, other than those I've mentioned, are people emulating on their cabs?

As for the CPViewer website, short of the computer systems, most of which require a keyboard (as you mentioned) and the couple of systems that aren't really emulated, Xbox, Xbox 360, GameCube, Saturn, and maybe one or two others, all of the systems run well with just a CP and/or gamepad (usb).

In addition to Brad's list:

Sega CD
Playstation
TurboGrafx
TurboGrafx CD
and I'm sure a few more are well emulated. When you decide which systems you want to emulate be sure to check Brad's link, my site, for a hacked emulator. They will include a readme file that tells what has been added/changed/improved.

Enjoy,
John

miles2912 · « **Reply #5 on:** March 02, 2006, 08:35:51 pm »

So you are looking at over 6000 games! Want to know the sad part.. I only know about half of them. Man it sux gettin old

Don

Quote from: Brad on March 02, 2006, 06:35:42 pm

Well the decent ones are all included. Also it's a matter of taste.

The systems I run regularly and well are the following:

Mame
Daphne
Atari2600
Atari5200
Atari7800
Atari Lynx
Atari Jaguar
SegaSMS
Sega Gamegear
Sega Genesis
Sega 32x
NES
SNES
N64
GB
GBC
GBA
ZX Spectrum
Emerson Arcadia
Colecovision
Intellivision
NeoGeo Pocket Mono
NeoGeo Pocket Colour
Wonderswan Mono
Wonderswan Colour

plus a number of others. Also consider that mileage will vary dependant on your PC specs and controllers.

Brad

jcrouse · « **Reply #6 on:** March 02, 2006, 08:42:07 pm »

I would imagine with a complete set (TOSEC or GoodTools) that it's like 150,000 game, without the computer stuff. I think a couple of the sets are over 6000 for a single system, including clones.

John

Mark70 · « **Reply #7 on:** March 02, 2006, 09:08:09 pm »

I can't imagine you'd want to run more than

Mame
SNES
Genesis.

but then again that's just the years of my youth.

I'd consider C64, and colecovision just for gateway to apshai

Brad · « **Reply #8 on:** March 02, 2006, 09:59:52 pm »

Like John I'm actually running more than that but he wanted simple. All up I have about 20,000 games installed in my cab but I stripped out all the foreighn versions and dupes except for in Mame which is a respectable 6000 now.

BTW I'm no spring chicken and I know ALL of these systems. Being a teen in the eighties means my most used are Classic Mame stuff, Colecovision, Atari2600, Intellivision and Daphne. My son loves GBA and Nintendo64 with some Sega Genesis thrown in, whilst my daughter generally plays Nintendo64 Sesame street games.

Brad

jcrouse · « **Reply #9 on:** March 02, 2006, 10:21:10 pm »

Funny thing about me and this hobby (obsession) is that I NEVER owned a console. I bought my first one about 5 months ago, a N64, just for the controller. My only memories are from arcades in the late seventies and early eighties when I was a teenager.

John

Brad · « **Reply #10 on:** March 02, 2006, 11:58:00 pm »

I'm the same. I did have a generic TV game thing that included pong and really ---smurfy--- games but thats about it.

I didn't get a computer till I started work and that was a C64. All my game playing was in the arcades so they are obviously my favourite. My fave consoles are generally ones my friends owned.

The only modern consoles at home is my son's PSX and GBA.

Brad

toasty · « **Reply #11 on:** March 03, 2006, 04:18:32 pm »

thanks folks. wow, looks like I've got more options than I anticipated. I'll likely just go with the basics:

MAME
Daphne
Genesis
Nintendo
Super Nintendo
N64

maybe Jaguar, Colecovision and Atari 2600, just b/c I had all those growing up. I don't want to spend oodles of time and effort tracking down a rom set for Emerson Arcadia, which I've never even heard of, or GBA/Lynx games, which I suspect would look way too pixelated on a full-size monitor.

For what it's worth, I'm running an Athlon 2200+ with Windows XP SP2, 512 RAM. Any trouble with any of these? Is that enough juice to run a PSX emulator as well?

Thanks to all who have responded.

Brad · « **Reply #12 on:** March 03, 2006, 05:33:12 pm »

Thats the same spec as my Mame cab and it runs fine for me.

Cheers,

Brad

digitalpackrat · « **Reply #13 on:** March 04, 2006, 07:45:06 am »

fyi jaguar is one of the few older systems that has not been emulated properly yet. rom sets are available with no way to play them I was all pumped to play some brutal sports football and cannon fodder. I had collected most of the rom sets while i was early in my design phase but didn't get into testing them til after the cab was "mostly" complete but alas no way to play

biron · « **Reply #14 on:** March 04, 2006, 09:20:43 am »

Quote from: digitalpackrat on March 04, 2006, 07:45:06 am

fyi jaguar is one of the few older systems that has not been emulated properly yet. rom sets are available with no way to play them I was all pumped to play some brutal sports football and cannon fodder. I had collected most of the rom sets while i was early in my design phase but didn't get into testing them til after the cab was "mostly" complete but alas no way to play

i play atari jaguar on my cab. (not so frequently, couse the games aren

jcrouse · « **Reply #15 on:** March 04, 2006, 09:51:38 am »

N64 really needs a USB gamepad and some sort of adapter. It is not very CP friendly.

John

Brad · « **Reply #16 on:** March 04, 2006, 04:27:33 pm »

Bah, you guys are just spoiled with your gamepads

I use my arcade controls no problem. Mind you I have zero interest in the N64 but my kids aren't complaining =)

Brad

ratabase1 · « **Reply #17 on:** September 02, 2007, 12:34:00 pm »

Has anyone found a GBA emulator (or modified version) that is cabinet friendly? I am looking for a GBA emulator that uses MAME standard controls, and especially includes exit on ESC. I was using VisualBoy Advance, but it doesn't have the exit on ESC functionality that I'm looking for. Any ideas?

SGT · « **Reply #18 on:** September 02, 2007, 12:41:20 pm »

Quote from: ratabase1 on September 02, 2007, 12:34:00 pm

Has anyone found a GBA emulator (or modified version) that is cabinet friendly? I am looking for a GBA emulator that uses MAME standard controls, and especially includes exit on ESC. I was using VisualBoy Advance, but it doesn't have the exit on ESC functionality that I'm looking for. Any ideas?

Use a wrapper so that the emulator will close on ESC. Closemul uses the ESC key to close an emulator with no configuration necessary.

http://lustar.free.fr/clusters/closemul/

ratabase1 · « **Reply #19 on:** September 02, 2007, 02:17:12 pm »

SGT,

Thanks for the suggestion. I was over on the 3darcade website and found talk of a neat little script utility called Autoit that will allow me to accomplish the same thing.

The person over there, came up with a script that basically makes the ESC key an exit key for ANY emulator.

SGT · « **Reply #20 on:** September 02, 2007, 03:26:41 pm »

Seems like over-kill if all you want is the ESC key to exit, but whatever you feel the most comfortable with is the best.


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