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Need Advice on MAME Conversion

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DashRendar:
Well, I've been reading a lot in the Wiki and the forums, but I'm not quite clear on some details.

Scenario:  I have an NFL Blitz '99 arcade, fully working.  It's a JAMMA in a Midway cab.  I would like to convert it to MAME though. 

Hardware that will be used is:

* The arcade monitor (Hantarex Polo 25)
* Existing arcade speakers
* I will be replacing the controls (which are currently four 49-way sticks) with four U360 sticks
I bought an IPAC4, as one of my co-workers who has done this said that's what I needed.  Now I'm wondering if that was bad advice, and if a JPAC is really what I need.

But I'm not sure about that.  JPAC only supports 2 player, which I need 4 player.  I saw at the Ultimarc site that you can combine them with an IPAC, but I'm unclear on that.

So, I need a 4 player setup that will work with the arcade monitor and speakers in this cab.  I realize I can use an ArcadeVGA card for the video, but that's a chunk of cash.  I'm looking at JPAC as a possible solution that would be more economical.

To make it a little more complicated, I would also like to eventually hack a Dreamcast to connect up (via KVM switch maybe?), where I could play MAME games on the PC or play Dreamcast games.  That might be a factor for the video hookup.

Any advice is appreciated.   :angel:

Beretta:
can't help you with the dream cast.. if i was gonna go with a dream cast i'd just hack some dreamcast controllers.. otherwise perhaps try emulating them instead?


the ipac has 56inputs so that is plenty for a 4 player setup..

however if you're going with 4 u360's you probably dont need anything else.

the u360's come with a 8 button interface so you'd have 32 inputs on top of the joysticks.

thats enough for each player to have their own start, coin, and 6 button layout.

but since i dont think there are any 4 player games that use more then 4 buttons.. you basicly have 4 extra inputs to spare you could use for admin controls.. IE: restart, pause, mame menu, exit, etc

as for the arcade vga, you can use a regular card and (if it's compatible) use soft 15khz this will give the you same end result as the arcade vga.


the Jpac will only filter out bad freqz it wont actually convert the video signal or anything so you'ed still need to use a arcadevga (pointless since arcadevga always puts out a proper signal anyway), and soft 15khz or other similar solution.

DashRendar:
Yep, the plan is to hack the DC controllers for that.  Emulation hasn't yielded very good results.

I was looking at going with a Neo Geo setup- so I'd need at least 7 buttons for the first two players, plus a P1 and P2 button making 8 buttons per player.  I could get by with 4 buttons on player 3 and 4 though- so I would potentially have 6 extra buttons for admin.  That should work.

Regarding video- I've looked at using Soft 15khz, but I've read that the signal can damage the monitor if the monitor doesn't support frequencies over 15khz (before the program loads).  I'm not sure about my monitor.  It's a Hantarex Polo 25.

According to KLOV, this is a Raster Medium Resolution monitor:

MEDIUM RESOLUTION

          HORIZONTAL                    VERTICAL
Scan Frequency: 25.00 KHz    Scan Frequency: 60.0 Hz
   Scan Period: 40.0 µSec       Scan Period: 16.7 mSec
  Active Video: 32.0 µSec      Active Video: 15.4 mSec
   Video Delay:  7.2 µSec       Video Delay:  1.2 mSec
    Sync Pulse:  4.0 µSec        Sync Pulse:  0.2 mSec
     Scan Line: 640 Pixels           Screen: 416 Lines
    Resolution: 512 Pixels       Resolution: 384 Lines
    Clock Freq: 16.00 MHz
I'm unclear on whether this would work with Soft 15khz.

Beretta:
ah most people have standard resolution monitors..

that should still work 15khz also has a set of resolutions for 25khz.

a quick and dirty way around the signal problem is to have a secondary video card and set bios to use it as the primary.. then set windows to disable the secondary card..

so when the computer boots it will dry ot display on teh secondary card, but once it gets to windows it would be disabled leaving only the primary card (the one with the monitor attached) to take over at which point it's already outputting the correct signal.

another way to do it woudl be to 1, have a seperate power switch for the monitor.

or 2. setup a relay so that the monitor is switched on once you get to windows.

some say that the 30 or so seconds before it gets to windows wont harm it but like you i'd rather play the "rather safe then sorry" card.

the jpac will work for filtering the signal before it gets to windows but it's more expensive then the 2nd card, switch, or relay solution.

DashRendar:
I have several old video cards.  Doing an extra one disabled in Windows could work.

That is a quick and dirty way of doing it, heh.  But it might do the job.

What about hacking the arcade speakers to work with the PC?  Do they normally need juice, or it is as simple as hooking audio jack ends and plugging them into the PC's sound card?

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