im not sure what a Hacked version of a emulator is, but if your having problems setting up a emulator for cabinet use, i recommend zsnes for snes emulator.
Like most emulators you can reconfigure snes gamepad to different keys, but what i like about zsnes is i can also change the emulator command to different keys or disable them.
For example i can change screen shot or save/load state to a different key making it very customize able for a cabinet. I havent found any other emulators that offer that much customizing. So give it a try.