I decided to start a new topic on Bitsmack so that I could discuss my MAME Cabinet project. This way you can enjoy all my misfortunes and all my triumphs. You eat who I eat. As I mentioned before, I bought a Raiden arcade machine back in March with the intention of putting a PC inside and playing games through emulation. Raiden is in my living room now and it runs but I don’t have sound for some reason and the controls are less than ideal. This project is divided into two phases. First I will get all the emulators running on my machine. Then I will take out the Raiden hardware and monitor and replace them with my PC, monitor and new controls. I hope to have pictures to put up from time to time.
The first step was wiping out my PC and starting from scratch. I’m working with a home built (aka crappy) 700 MHz Athlon with 256 MB RAM, on board audio and an ATI Radeon video card. It has two hard drives, a 6 GB and a 60 GB. Since I don’t have another machine to put the 60 GB in right now I decided that my MAME cabinet would also become my file server. The mere mention of the words “file server” caused a knee-jerk reaction in Goz, “you’re going to install Linux on it then?” I have messed around with Linux in the past and usually I give up after about a week. There’s just something about spending an hour installing a program that takes 30 seconds to install on Windows or 10 seconds on a Mac, that doesn’t really appeal to me. But now I’m getting ahead of myself.
Goz recommended I install Knoppix to the 6GB hard drive. Partitioning my drives and installing to the hard drive went really smooth. Once I had Linux up and running I played around with the desktop and window manager settings. From what I understand the primary reason to use Linux is for the pretty wallpaper and window designs. Anyway, I started searching the web for a frontend that would allow me to play multiple emulators in addition to MAME. I found one called AdvanceMenu that looked really cool. Unfortunately I could only find the source files and not the magical “mindless install” that I am used to on Windows and Mac. What happened to “Linux is ready for casual users”? Take that Slashdot’s beliefs! I then decided I would just try to get MAME running and forget about the frontend for now. Since Knoppix is based on Debian I could use the very handy “apt-get” and install the xmame package. However when I tried to run xmame from the command line it said “no cards detected” and “some files are missing”. I did notice my newly installed Linux machine had been quiet. Sure enough I didn’t have sound for any program.
My next step is trying to get sound to work and/or installing an old sound card. I also need to do some more research into my xmame error messages. If anyone has advice for me at any time throughout this process I’d like to hear it.
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I got my MAME machine working entirely under DOS. Of course that doesn’t work as a fileserver, but, I’d suggest you just get another crappy homebuilt PC for the purpose.
I use ArcadeOS for the frontend; and DOS MAME for the emulation. No fuss, no muss. Additionally, I have ArcadeOS configured to launch Nesticle, Genecyst, and Z26 (NES, Genesis and 2600 emulators).
By the way, I’d like to go on a rant about the lameness for Gozar’s MAME cabinet and suggest that you do a more pure implementation, like I have (had!). By using a PC monitor and some aftermarket general purpose controls, you rip out the beauty of playing the games on original equipment.
My solution uses the original screen from the game cabinet and original controls. (It is vitally important to get a cabinet with as many buttons as possible here. My cabinet, most recently a Twin Cobra game, has two joysticks each with two fire buttons. Enough for a lot of games, but not good for, say, Marble Madness.) I use a custom JAMMA fingerboard that plugs in directly to the cabinet wiring, and the other end plugs into the computer video port, sound port and keyboard port. (Also, therefore, the sound comes out of the original speakers, too.)
So: my solution is "pure", preserving as much of the original cabinet hardware as possible; the Goz solution turns your cabinet into an emasculated particle-board box with pretty stickers on it.
YMMV.
Goz orignally tried to use the arcade monitor and controls but the monitor had a bad burn-in and it didn’t work well for vertical shooters. For me I want to replace the controls because two buttons aren’t enough for Street Fighter II or even Track and Field. Now will I go all out and get one with a trackball and spinner? I haven’t decided yet. My goal is versatility. I want to play as many games as possible without the having to turn my cabinet into Frankenstein.
I have the opposite problem: my monitor is vertically aligned, and therefore is kinda goofy for horizontal-style games (and, especially, Nesticle, Genecyst and Z26).
Plus, the screen burn-in adds character.
If you want to play SFII, then yeah, I guess you’ll need a zillion buttons.
I saw pics of some guy’s game cabinet where he mounted the (original) monitor on some kind of roller mechanism which rotated in a circular hole in the cabinet. He could then easily play vertical or horizontal games. Of course that requires proficiency with a saw, which I don’t have.
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