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My checklist! New builder!

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jet989:
So, I'm building a MAME cabinet! Well... not me! But someone I know is building it FOR me, for a great price. I need to know if everything I have here is all I need to do it. This will also help me for when I inevitably want to build myself! The guy I'm talking about might even post on here, or recognize me by my specifications!

Checklist:

-Cabinet
-Monitor (21 inch TV with S-Video input)
-Computer (USB inputs, TV Out card with S-Video)
What's a good speed for this? Will 2GHZ 512MB Ram cover it? 64MB Video card?
-Mouse/Keyboard with PS/2 inputs
-4 sticks and lots o' buttons! 6 for each stick, 4 coin, 4 start = 32 buttons total.
-iPac4 with USB inputs. iPac4 will cover all the buttons and sticks right?
-Speakers

Mouse and Keyboard will go under the joysticks with a piano hinge on the controller mount, so I can just open it up any time I need to. No drawer on this baby.

But essentially all I really need is the iPac4 and a Front Loader on the computer and this would hook up just fine without the cabinet right? The cabinet is just acting as a cool shell for all of these parts. Now this is where I begin to wonder, do I NEED anything else? The wiring my friend is taking care of, the computer installing and everything else I am taking care of, but other than that, this would work right?


That all being said, what if I wanted to add a SPINNER to the control scheme? Is that just a matter of also purchasing a ball and Optipac and using the other USB input? If it's that simple I might just drop the coin. That would be cool.


Thanks for all your help everyone. Also feel free to post suggestions and/or alternatives to what I've listed. From what I've read iPac and Optipac are the best but I have limited knowledge of schematics and the like. Thanks!

Honkyharris:
Sounds like you've got most of the basics covered. A couple of tips though :

1) You may only want to use 4 buttons for your P3 and P4 locations. I don't think there are any games that require 6 buttons for these players.

2) When you are designing/building your control panel box make sure you make it deep enough to account for the keyboard/mouse you're planning to hide in there. The joysticks/buttons have their own depth so you need to have enough clearance for your other items.

3) Ipac4/Optipac both have rave reviews throughout these forums so I don't believe you can go wrong with either of these and if you look at them closely they are very simple to setup.

4) (Probably should have been first) Make sure you need a 4P setup!! There are only 10 or so games that actually allow for 4 people to play. How often will you have 4 people playing? Etc..

5) Help your friend as much as possible. The more you learn about the process the easier it will be for you to fix/troubleshoot if you begin to have problems.

Edit : Also remember that each joystick will need at 4 wire connections to your ipac4 assuming your planning on using 4-8way joysticks. Although this creates 16 more connections your ipac4 should have no problem covering all the buttons / joystick wiring you've mentioned.

Hope this all makes sense
Honkyharris

jet989:
Hey Honkyharris, thanks for much for the reply. Definitely going to get the 4 sticks, as I think about games like Turtles, Simpsons and Xmen, it would be a crime not to have 4 sticks. The 6 button thing is more for 'OTHER' games :)


Finally, here is the specs for the computer I'm building. Should definitely cover me right? I'm going to output the computer audio to the TV speakers :)


1 Intel Celeron E1500 Dual Core 2.2Ghz Socket 775 CPU, 800FSB, 512k L2 - retail box
1 ASUS P5KPL-AM SE Intel G31 Socket 775 Mainboard, 2xDDR2-800, Intel GMA3100 Graphics & 1xPCI-Ex16, 1xPCI-
Ex1, 2xPCI, 2xEIDE, 4xSATA300, 8Ch Audio, 10/100 LAN, 8xUSB2.0, 1066FSB, mATX
1 Kingston 1GB PC2-6400 800Mhz DDR2 Memory
1 Itech Professional ATX Black Case w/500w Power Supply
1 Western Digital 320GB Caviar Blue 7200rpm SATA300 Hard Drive - 16MB Buffer
1 Sapphire Radeon HD3450 512MB DDR2 PCI-Ex16 2.0 Graphics Card - VGA, DVI, HDTV, Video-Out, CrossfireX,
Integrated 5.1 Audio Controller, 668Mhz GPU, 1656Mhz DDR
1 LG 22x SATA Dual Layer DVD+/-RW - Black

Honkyharris:
Should be good enough for most games. May not run some newer PC games well if you decide to try to do that.

You're best bet is to go ahead and start getting the software up and running so you can test games ahead of time. Don't play too much or you'll never get anything done!

Honkyharris

severdhed:
that PC should be fine.  although it wouldn't hurt to add more RAM. 

i'm running a Pentium 4 3ghz, with 2gb of ram, and a 256mb GeForce 4 mx440.  i have no problem playing most mame games.  the 3d games and most of the CHD games dont run that well, but that is to be expected.

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