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looking for old arcade machine

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stikphysh

Member
Joined
May 15, 2002
Location
Reno, NV
im looking for an old arcade machine. actually just the chassis. i think they call em a cabinet in the acrade world. i dont really care what it is as long as its in decent shape. something like star castle or something like that. i basicaly want to gut it out and put a display behind the screen and run emulators. i eventually plan to have a menu system so u can chose platform and game (ie neo-geo with metal slug or n64 with mario 64). if anyone knows where i can get one, or is willing to build one for me (all on a strict budget unfortunately) let me know please. ill be sure to take lots of pictures and give yall a good solid work log if i ever get this project going.
 
Building one out of MDF or pine would actually be fairly simple, and would be (depending on your sources) cheaper than obtaining an actual arcade cabinet. Everything you need (structurally) could be purchased from Home Depot or Lowes and made with standard shop equipment.
Maybe you have a friend or local machine shop that could help you cut the sheets to the sizes you need.

Are you planning on integrating arcade-style controls into it, or just purchasing a premade acrade controller or gamepads? If you just need the cabinet itself that would be very easy to do with just a jigsaw and a power drill, after you get the individual sheets cut to the square sizes you need from wherever you source them.
 
Firstly try out this website for examples of homemade/customised arcade machines

http://arcadecontrols.com/arcade.htm

Secondly I built my own cabinet from scratch and it is definitely possible however i would have preferred to get an old one and convert it as it is much easier (albeit less rewarding). Try ebay as you should be able to pick up all of the various bits and pieces quite cheaply.

Good Luck :)
 
i agree, buildin gone is pretty east, and u can order the arcade controls. plus u can pick up a nice TV from a second hand store or a pawn ship. what emu u using anyways? MAME32? at least thats what i used before, i'm not sure what the best is right now.
 
i have seen a lot about mame, but never used it. as of right now, i have a slew of old emulators for nes, sega, neo-geo, snes, n64 and atari. i was planning on using those but i wouldnt mind having mame32 as well. anyone wanna offer up pros and cons of the different ones out there?
 
MAME32 is great for arcade emulation and in my opinion atleast, has the best key layout and features. I use it to emulate Metal Slug 1, X, and 3 as well as a number of Arcade fighters.
 
This brings back memories. I remember when I discovered ROMs in middle school. I spent hours playing old games. One of my favorites was Seiken Densetsu 3 for SNES, great RPG, one of the best games I've ever played. Me and my friends would also play those verticle scrolling games and all the Metal Slugs for Neo-Geo, aside from Seiken Densetsu, I think the Neo-Geo games were the most fun. Definitely check out "Last Blade 2" for Neo-Geo...but I'm sure you already know what you're gonna play,

But my question is, if you're going to be emulating, its gonna be on a computer, right? and then it's gonna be displayed onto a monitor, or a tv?

I think building would be easier, though you would have to do some wiring, but I'm sure there are diagrams for that, like everything in the world, avaliable on the internet.
 
I use Mame32 on my cabinet and I am more than happy with it as it has a very simple user interface however it is a resource hog on slower computers. Alot of people use a program called mamewah which can not only include mame games (arcade emulated) but also the old console games as well such as Sega, NES etc and has configurable menus.

http://mamewah.mameworld.net/

There are versions of Mame for just about everyones tastes/resources though , I recently built a small machine from a PII 266mhz for a friends son and was able to get 2000+ working games on it by using an old version of Mame. Also a 700mb CD can hold about 2,500+ of the old arcade games as many of them are only a few KB's in size, so hard disk space isn't an issue.
On the other hand some games like NFL Blitz & Carnevil are 1.5GB and i don't know if anyone has ever been able to run it yet at full frame rates even on a highend OC'ed PC as they are heavily CPU intensive rather than relying on a graphics card like standard PC games.

Now theres a challenge for anyone interested.
 
mame is pretty much the best arcade emu out there. we thought u were building arcade cabinates. not NES stuff. go with arcade and plays these games. metal slugs is the bomb. i used to play it 24/7. me n my friends would have contests and stuff. its really fun.

p.s its hard to find a lot of arcade emus now adays. plus they are suppose to be illegle. so i don't know where u guys are getting ur roms from.
 
Pineabs said:
p.s its hard to find a lot of arcade emus now adays. plus they are suppose to be illegle. so i don't know where u guys are getting ur roms from.

The emus are easy to find and they are definitely not illegal, however the roms are a bit of a grey area as there has in my knowledge never been a court case about them.

http://www.rom-world.com/dl.php?name=MAME

This is a link to ROM-world which in it's policy states that the ROM's are in the public domain. I would make you own mind up on that subject, however the fact that the site still exists and hasn't been shut down leads me to believe that it's on the level.
 
I think the most standard way these sites stay up is that they put the responsibility on the consumer and not themselves, they say that they are only for use if you own the cartridge couterpart to the game you're downloading
 
i would NEVER get illegal software. oh no! not me! nuh huh! no way!

now that i got that out of my system... i will have to download all the MAME stuff and run through em and what not. i do plan on running every console/arcade version possible on this thing.
 
stikphysh said:
i do plan on running every console/arcade version possible on this thing.

I hope you have Broadband, plenty of patience and a spare 80GB hard-drive as that is one seriously big amount of DL'ing. Standard Mame not including the big newer CHD games (NFL Blitz, San Francisco rush) is about 10-15GB. Each of the new games of which there is about 50 are around 100mb to 1.5gb in size.

If your going for it though don't just limit yourself to emulated games there are some other great games to play on a cabinet:-
Tiger Woods with a Trackball,
Crazy Taxi with a Wheel,
House of the Dead II with a Light-Gun
Tekken with 2 players and 7 buttons like the Arcade.

Great Fun!
:D :D
 
yeah thats what i mean. the roms are ileagle. i think u can keep them for 24hrs. to see how they feel, but then u must delete them. lol. i would try Direct Connect cus all the rom sites have crap loads of spam and pop ups on them. i once got 15 gigs of mame stuff from one guy on DC++.
 
I have restored a few cabinets and have helped a few friends make some MAME cabs. If money is not an option then by all means build one. Its not as easy as it looks, but a measure twice cut once approach is enough to make sure its a quality job. Plus it is something you can be proud of. As was stated www.arcadecontrols.com is your best source for pretty much everything.

Personally I would look for a used cabinet first at www.craigslist.com or in your newspaper. The reason I perfer used over new, is mainly because of price. Find one with a monitor that has no burn in and you will save yourself $300-$500. If you plan on going with a TV then you will still save yourself about $150-$200.

As for ROMS, I'm not going to tell you how to get them; but there are reliable people out there which will mail them to you on DVD for a very cheap price. Often times the cost of 5 DVD's + shipping.

Also don't bother trying to play the new games such as blitz and such. Your computer isn't fast enough. Its just a waste of space on your hardrive. (MAME wise)
 
well, i've started a work log. currently i only have the main page and a page where i started the controller for the buttons and what not. theres lots of typos and the such, but i will go through and fix those later tonight probably. http://www.moondog.net/system7/
 
Thats a good job on the keyboard hack, a lot neater than the one I first did.

I now use an I-Pac VE from Ultimarc which is configured esecially for Mame and only cost £25, still i got a lot more satisfaction out of getting the hack to work than buying an encoder.
 
um... the guy who maintains the webserver just changed permissions on my folder aparently. (he tends to maintain with a bottle of tuaca by his side :p) if you try to log on you may get a prompt for a password. unfortunately, there is nothing i can do about that. i am sorry. i am doing all i can to get this change, so if you get the prompt, please check back later. sorry about the problem.
 
Good job on the hack. I tried to do one my self, but I ended up breaking down and getting a I-pac. A decision I am happy I made. :) Both ways are fine but remember a keyboard hack does have its weaknesses.
 
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