Joined: Jun 27, 2007 Posts: 1135 Location: Melbourne, Australia XP: 57,060
Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 12:26 pm Post subject: How to Make a Mame Cabinet?
Since i moved into my new house (2 and a half years ago) i have been planning to build an arcade cabinet. What spurred me on to do this was some arcade joysticks and buttons that i bought and made a case for.
I'm just using an old computer i have and i should be picking up a 22" crt monitor for £20 soon. I also have an Alpine MRV-F407 4 channel car amp and speakers for the sound.
I know i need a slidey draw for the keyboard and mouse and will need to vent it well also. I also need to find a company to print me off a vinyl to stick on the joystick case to make it look nice.
I was just wondering if anyone else had ever planned to or has done a project like this before and if they had any hints/advice for me.
I have often thought about it but in my thoughts I wanted it to look like the ones in the arcades and unfortunately my carpentry and wiring skills are not that skillfull. Good luck though and I am really interested to see pictures! _________________________________________________________
forahobby Administrator
Joined: May 22, 2003 Posts: 23944 Location: NSW, Australia XP: 3,060,024
Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 5:42 am Post subject:
I used to do video games for a living.. Well, i mean i tried to start a business.. I had quite a few machines i used to lease out to shops..
I still have 2 of the cabinets left and about 6-10 jamma PCB games..
I want to eventually design a huge cabinet myself but i need to get settled in my own house first.. Im still renting right now.. There's no where for me to have the thing..
Ive always wanted a mame cabinet. Just a matter of time i guess.
Till then i can play my mortal kombat, ninja spirit and the other cool original arcade games i have.
Feel free to attach some images of your project too.
Joined: Jun 27, 2007 Posts: 1135 Location: Melbourne, Australia XP: 57,060
Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 7:15 pm Post subject:
I'm looking to run a Mame Frontend rather than to boot up and see windows. I have found GameEx, MameWah and Maximus Arcade. For GameEx and Maximus Arcade you have to pay a fee ???? MAME is free and that does all the hard work, why would i pay for the frontend. With GameEx you get an annoying nag screen for 30 seconds when you boot up and Maximus is a 30 day free trial. MameWah is free but i cannot get the designer to work properly.
I would really like to use GameEx but i don't want to pay to get rid of that nag screen. Does anyone know of any good free MAME frontends?
forahobby Administrator
Joined: May 22, 2003 Posts: 23944 Location: NSW, Australia XP: 3,060,024
Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 7:51 am Post subject:
So your saying you want your pc to boot directly to mame without showing windows?? Im positive there would already be some sort of project out there for this.
Ill have a quick hunt and check it out for myself. I found GAMEex myself too for XBOX MEDIA CENTER but i didnt like it either coz you had to pay. I was hoping it would work on the xbox 360 really.. that was the only reason i bothered downloading it.
back in a tic..
update:
maybe you could boot directly from DOS to mameDOS.
I dont know how different it is or what sort of front end it has but you could check that out.
Joined: Jun 27, 2007 Posts: 1135 Location: Melbourne, Australia XP: 57,060
Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 9:53 am Post subject:
I have seen on wiki somewhere how to do it. You have to change the default windows startup picture and a few other things, there is a bit to it. Just had a look now and found this
Quote:
Q: How can I boot to Mamewah when my computer starts up?
A: When windows starts, the default "Shell" application is explorer.exe, which starts up your taskbar on normal windows boot. You can modify this shell to be any at startup.
1. Go to your Mamewah folder and edit your mamewah.ini file
2. Near the bottom of the list of options is app_to_run_on_exit enter explorer.exe next to it and save the file.
3. Start Menu->Run and enter regedit
4. Navigate to the item HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\system.ini\boot
5. If there is an item in there called Shell right-mouse click and select modify
6. Change the first three letters from SYS to USR
7. Navigate to the item HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
8. Right-mouse click "Winlogon" and select New->String Value
9. Name it Shell then right mouse click Shell and select modify and enter the full path to your Mamewah executeable eg. c:\emu\mamewah\mamewah.exe
If you have problems starting your computer after making this change, you may need to use Safe mode (pressing F8 on bootup prior to Windows logo) to recover/change the setting back to explorer.exe
I'll give this a go and see what happens.
GameEx is good because you can choose a game by category whilst with mamewah you have to scroll throught the whole list. I'm gonna limit my games to ones that i will actually play so it shouldn't be that long a list.
I'll check out some of the other front ends, thanks for that Hobbs.
Got a 22" crt monitor the other day, weighs a ton.
As for having a keyboard, most people have a slide out drawer, i was thinking of having the front of the joystick part flap down with the keyboard attached to the back of it and the mouse will be in there hanging around (don't have a trackball).
Where the coin slots usually are (yet again i don't have any) i will have the car amp on show, that will make it easier to change the volume. I'll mount the psu on the side and the cd will come of of the front of the cabinet, will paint it black so it doesn't show as much.
I'll get a momentary button and attach that to the power button for the pc.
As for the joystick, i have a picture for it and i'm gonna get it professionally printed. I'll but a thin sheet of perspex to go over it so it's protected.
t-moulding is £15 on ebay. Dunno what else there is to think of, of course the marquee with a light behind it.
forahobby Administrator
Joined: May 22, 2003 Posts: 23944 Location: NSW, Australia XP: 3,060,024
Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 11:33 am Post subject:
nice.. Even better.
DOS would be good for really old machines..
Sounds like a nice solution.. I knew there would be one for sure with all those mame cabinets out there..
anyway, let us know how you go and as always feel free to attach your photos to this topic or a new one.
Yeah definetly pictures! Lots of them with proper lighting so we can see the badassness of it all! I wish I had the time to take on such a project but with work,gaming and the endless honey do's I never seem to get the time! _________________________________________________________
Div Moderator
Joined: Jun 27, 2007 Posts: 1135 Location: Melbourne, Australia XP: 57,060
Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 9:03 pm Post subject:
Still not got round to making an arcade cabinet... supprise. But i have found a free frontend that is 1000 times better than any frontend you have to pay for. It is called hyperspin (http://www.hyperspin-fe.com) and is just beautiful. Rather than having a snapshot of the selected game, you can have a video of it and it's fully customisable.
Here is some lucky bastard with a 3D 50inch plasma screen and too much money running it
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gamexxover Moderator
Joined: Feb 17, 2007 Posts: 2131
XP: 143,168
Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 9:50 pm Post subject:
Div wrote:
Here is some lucky bastard with a 3D 50inch plasma screen and too much money running it
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