dsheinem's "MAME Cabinet in a Month(ish)" project - DONE!?

[dsheinem]

would this work D?

probably...but I'm not sure if the $ is worth the increase in size. The 21" monitor may actually make it more compact/portable, too.

[fedexin]

Congrats on starting a MAME project! You can get it done in a month, easy.

I highly recommend using http://hyperspin-fe.com/ as your frontend. Super easy to tweak, and supports the X-Arcade Tankstick and others right out of the box. Remember, it's just a PC in an elaborate case! If you can build a birdhouse and a computer, you're set.

[fedexin]

I built the prototype of this in 3 weeks, blinky lights an all:

http://www.mineoarcade.com

[sevin0seven]

so that 27" monitor is actually 21". oops.

I could put a 27" CRT TV in it, but the TV only has composite and s-video. Not sure if/how I could connect that to the PC...

What would you do?

i would get a video card that support s-video.

There's no video card or any other card that can be added to the nettop pc.

hmmm, then your options are limited. the item that noise linked would work, but in my opinion it's better to work with a built slim/mini pc that can handle multiple outputs from the video card. that's how my mini talking classic cab is built.

[fedexin]

.....Repurposed cab = $0-$300? assuming you would get a junky POS to gut.

Try not to use an existing arcade cab, but if you have to I wouldn't spend more than $50 on one. If you find one with a monitor mount/frame, you could strip a similar sized TV's guts out and place it in the arcade monitor's frame, creating a seamless look with a bezel.

[avrame]

I would suggest something like this:



I have a silver one, and used it to play emulators off my netbook onto my 27" CRT tv, worked wonders. I can make a video if you wanna see how it performs.

[dsheinem]

Hmm, that $10 part + the adapter I already have looks to be just the ticket to go from DVI>VGA>S-Video. Very tempting idea - how necessary is it to actually take the old TV apart if I go this route?

Morning of Day 2 - I got MAME up and running last night with a few ROMs to try and my Mayflash arcade stick. Today I plan to start looking into a few different Frontends and to finish installing the needed drivers for the nettop.

[fedexin]

Hyperspin front end (as well as others) allows you to set up button presses to exit/shut down the machine with ease. Also, you can download video previews to watch for almost every game made! Very handy when just surfing around the list wondering what the gameplay is like for a random title. The videos and other artwork are available at http://emumovies.com/forums/

[fedexin]

One more thing! You can load other emulators with ease to play console games. I've placed a PC Xbox360 controller dongle in my personal mini neo geo and can play wirelessly away from the machine.

[AppleQueso]

I don't like Hyperspin