New MAME arcade cabinet project

[sirdave]

Afternoon all
I’m a tiny bit excited at the moment as I’ve just dragged a Golden Tee Fore! arcade machine into my spare room, and the wife knows! This will hopefully be the realisation of a little dream I’ve had for years which is to build a MAME arcade cabinet, both my kids are now well into all things gaming so I’m sort having one of those father son moments in my head where we build this together, sad I know but that’s the plan

So I’m wondering does anyone have any experience with converting these? It’s a fully working Jamma, Golden Tee Fore! setup with a Hantarex POLO 25 screen or at least that’s all I can see name wise so far for the screen, first question is there’s a video card on the board that is marked as an incredible technologies card, but from looking on their site it would seem to be a voodoo 3 video card, I’m assuming this is capable of running at 15Khz which is what again I assume the screen runs at, still looking around for info on it all so any help would be appreciated, I’m happy chopping cables and making leads etc just hoping to reuse as much as possible of the original cabinet and would definitely want to use the screen.

Plan is to just use an old pc I have and run MAME with a front end for now until I get a bit more clued up on the emulation scene, ideally I’d like to run all the emus SNES, Neo, Amiga etc everything I can find but no rush for me to get that far, a game of Bubble Bobble or Shinobi will do me!

Other questions would be a brand of Joysticks and buttons to buy for the new console I will have to make, am I better off paying good money or are the cheaper versions just as good? And how many buttons do people go for? Is 4 each enough for most games??

Basically any help or advise is welcome, thanks for looking, got some pics of the inside to post but can’t do that from the office so will get them up tonight.

Cheers

[tronads]

The Hantrex Polo's are great monitors, been the monitor of choice for years. You might want to consider a cap kit on it while its all stripped down. I was a bit puzzled as to what board you were referring to, as im not familiar with that game cabinet atall, but looking at the pdf for it, I see its got an inbuilt video card to output to jamma standards at 15khz.
Im therefore presuming you are asking what to use if you rip out the golden tee board and slap a pc in there.
Take a look here http://www.ultimarc.com/monfaq.html this explains all about why 15khz is needed, and they sell the ati card required, and its interface.
Im sure there are other options around.

I wasnt too fussed myself about keeping the authentic cga monitor in my cabinet and ripped it out and slapped the biggest 4:3 LCD monitor I could find in it. That way any old vga card can be used. Saved a tonne of weight as well. But I understand its not for everyone. I might have considered keeping it had it not been plagued with screen burn.

With regards to controls, you can use an IPAC interface (again details on that site), which simulates a USB keyboard. You just wire the joysticks etc to the screw terminals on the IPAC, all labeled up for you.
Plenty of different brands of sticks around, only thing I would say is look for one easy to change between 4 and 8 way, as an 8 way joystick on a game expecting a 4 way can be dreadful to play

[sirdave]

Excellent thanks mate will have a look tonight as on me phone at the moment, I might pull the video card out as from what I can tell its just an agp card, a voodoo 3 they class it as, I'm wondering if that can support 15khz if so I'm might be able to use it? out of interest what frontend do you use? I've looked at mala and hyperspin will have a play with a few others I've found as well, looking forward to getting stuck in now :-) picked the cabinet up for 20 quid off eBay was in a blokes office and is in mint condition, well chuffed

Anyway thanks for the info plenty of reading ahead for me :-)



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[doughboy]

Good luck with the project, look forward to seeing pics.

I've built many superguns in the past, but never made a full cab. Maybe one day when I have the time.

[sirdave]

I'm going to have to ask, whats a supergun?

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[doughboy]

It lets you play jamma boards on your tv
It uses the same jamma loom which is in inside a normal cabinet.

[sirdave]

Sounds good never heard of it, got should much to learn on the mame front, never bothered looking into it really until I came across the cabinet, wish I had now chucked many a working tv via freecycle!

Have been trawling my boxes of old shit in the loft tonight and just found an ATI radion 7000 which from what I've read will work with soft15khz, so will give that a bash to start with just so I can keep the costs down and get it running ASAP, I can then add to it as I go along.

The existing vga card in the golden tee is a voodoo card but specially designed for arcade cabs, has no BIOS chip installed so can't be used in a pc, shame as it put out 15khz

Anyway cheers for info fellas will get some pics up ASAP and keep this updated, have set my little one the task of designing the console, would like some old skool characters mixing it with current, he likes all his art and drawing so will be a nice little challenge for him, onwards and upwards then now!

Last question.....what's the best OS to run on the pc? I have everything so should I go xp or windows 7? Going to try to get my vga breakout cable done tomorrow at least then I know the card will work

Cheers guys

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[tronads]

Ive actualy gone with a dedicated multi-game pcb in my cabinet, but Hyperspin seems to be a very popular front end as it does more emulatros than just mame. What annoys me is all the booting up to get the thing started...Im thinking again of putting a PC in there but using an SSD to help with that.
Theres a recent thread on here somewhere about Hyperspin, with some nzb links to grab the whole thing.

here is a useful article on how to make your bootup sequence less like a pc and more like an arcade machine.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=67740.0

[Twincharge]

Are those Golden Tee cabs JAMMA?

Also, I would strongly advise on keeping the Hanty Polo for the authentic arcade experience.

[sirdave]

Ive actualy gone with a dedicated multi-game pcb in my cabinet, but Hyperspin seems to be a very popular front end as it does more emulatros than just mame. What annoys me is all the booting up to get the thing started...Im thinking again of putting a PC in there but using an SSD to help with that.
Theres a recent thread on here somewhere about Hyperspin, with some nzb links to grab the whole thing.

here is a useful article on how to make your bootup sequence less like a pc and more like an arcade machine.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=67740.0

so with the multi game does it reboot for each new game load? do you have to go through all the checks everytime as it boots? Yea i saw that thread with the NZB in not sure its all there though but will have another look at the thread.

Im thinking of buying a prebuilt Scorpion XG-2 joystick off ebay only cos cash is tight and it means the kids can start playing straight away, then gives me time to build the console and get it right then just strip the buttons out of the XG-2

@twincharge as far as i know there jamma, to be honest im new to all this all i saw was the jamma connector on it so assumed it was, just going to put some pics on flickr so you can see the insides, i defo want to keep the screen love the idea of it, going to try to build the pc today using that ati card i found, fingers corssed it works as i cant afford joystick and new graphics card yet! anyway couple of pics going up soon.

Cheers guys

Link for pics http://www.flickr.com/photos/thedc5/

[tronads]

The multigame board (64 in one) returns to the menu screen after your game ends. So I switch on, and it boots up with some countdown timer thing, then I get a screen full of games I can move through. I press P1Start on the game I like and it takes me straight to the game with one credit (2 if I start it with 2 credits). When my game is over and name put up, it drops back to the game selection screen.
It works very well, and has most of the games on it I like.

One negative point though is that it is not elligible for setting any world records on.

[Waka]

Get a new monitor if you want.
They're working on adding all sort of crazy shit special effects to mame, pin cushioning, scan lines...

[sirdave]

Im struggling to get the new versions working, but for now and for the cheapest route im going to order one of these Video Converter PCB - VGA to CGA/CVBS/S-Video TV on eBay (end time 03-Jun-11 12:10:16 BST)

supposedly just converts to 15khz from VGA so will do for now, kids are chomping at the bit now lol

Found cheaper buttons and joysticks around now also so will just bite the bullet and make a new console for it, just got to wait till pay day......roll on!!

[Mystical_2K]

Im struggling to get the new versions working, but for now and for the cheapest route im going to order one of these Video Converter PCB - VGA to CGA/CVBS/S-Video TV on eBay (end time 03-Jun-11 12:10:16 BST)

supposedly just converts to 15khz from VGA so will do for now, kids are chomping at the bit now lol

Found cheaper buttons and joysticks around now also so will just bite the bullet and make a new console for it, just got to wait till pay day......roll on!!

im looking at doing something similar mate, starting from scratch etc. but building the cab (friends a carpenter and my mate has a full size cab i can get sizes etc from) but wondered where you where getting the cheap joysticks and buttons from?

good luck with the build tho mate, will be watching with interest!

[sirdave]

I was just going to get these 2 JOYSTICK / 16 BUTTON arcade set for mame,jamma NEW on eBay (end time 15-Jun-11 16:11:19 BST) cheapest ive seen yet, im guessing they wont be brilliant quality but im on a budget, I figure I can always change bits as and when cash is there, still need the controller for them but button wise they seem cheap.

I would trawl eBay for a Cab mine was £20 and its mint, has coin slots led display screen all working, I liked the idea of building from scratch but when I started looking at it it would cost me so much more, either way though, good luck mate!!

[Twincharge]

The easiest way to hook a PC to a JAMMA cab is to use an ArcadeVGA card and a JPAC.

Some cards can be hacked to work like an ArcadeVGA which is essentially a modded ATI card.

I will look to see if I have any spare sticks or buttons.

[sirdave]

Ive got a couple of cards that should work with soft15kHz but there both AGP and for some reason the only pc I have with AGP doesnt even see them, so i just thought this would be the cheaper way to just use my exsisting pc as I think the ArcadeVGA is about £60 and to be honest i have no idea how long the monitor will last so i was thinking if that fails i will fit a tft anyway so was just going to go down that road for now, but i will have a look at the JPAC as im not sure ive come accross that when ive been looking, cheers mate

[digitalsystemsuk]

Hi there

Post Removed

Jeff F

[Goldberg]

Hi there back.

Although you have posted some very good info, prepare to feel the wrath... Post 1 with no introduction and your 'selling'...

Should have gone to specsavers and read the rules!

That aside I am interested in what you have to offer.... but when is 'later in the year' ??

[blaggard]

digitalsystemsuk You may NOT advertise on these forums, talk to the boss if you wish to negotiate the possibility, all other sales are for VIP only and then in the BST!!

READ THE RULES then introduce yourself.