Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

Anyone here have a MAME cabinet? I could use some help.

jessman1988

jessman1988

Banned
Hey everyone. I'm getting a huge sum of money coming in and I'm trying to find out just how to get a fully functional MAME cabinet that supports 2-4 players and that maintains an authentic arcade look. The thing is, I can't just spend $5,000 as that's just a waste of money, imo. Is there ANY way to do this inexpensively? Surely SOMEONE here has a MAME machine in their own home, perhaps? I'm totally lost, and can't find any web sites that can help me.

I've seen sites that show off their own fine machines, but the only instructions I can find require me to either make one from scratch or somehow get an old arcade cabinet and reiwire everything! I'm only 16 so I really don't have the know-how on these things. Is there anyone here that can make me a decent machine, or at least get me a cabinet with the controls and everything so I just have to fit my current pc to it? Thanks for your time, and I'm sorry for yet another long thread.
 
Allnatural

Allnatural

New member
Moderator
This is a fairly big job no matter how you look at it, unless of course you buy a pre-built/fitted cabinet (which you said you can't). Finding old cabs isn't very difficult from what I've read (cheap too), and you can by pre-built control panels at a decent price. A pre-built panel would be much easier to connect to the PC, but you would still likely have to make some modifications to fit it to the cab.

Then there is the monitor. TV, computer monitor, or authentic arcade monitor? The first two would be easy, except perhaps for the mounting; the arcade monitor would require some potentially complicated set-up. Not totally sure about that last point; I would use a PC monitor myself.

ArcadeControls offers numerous tutorials if you really want to dive in.
 
Hexidecimal

Hexidecimal

Emutalk Bounty Hunter.
Here's a site with complete instructions and material list you can use a relatively cheap PC as mame doesnt take much to run (most low end machines run on a 600 - 700 mhz processor) this guy has a great setup, cost him 600 dollars, I want to model my cabinet after this one.

http://www.russprince.com/cabinet/

be sure to read everything carefully, I've read the site a few times and I'm still learning.

More sites you should check for parts and cabs:

http://www.ebay.com has cabs amazingly cheap at times.
http://www.happcontrols.com/ has the best authentic arcade parts
http://www.ultimarc.com/ the I-PAC VE has a straight USB interface and easily labeled wire connection points, best arcade interfaces, bar none
http://www.hanaho.com/products/HotRodJoystick/ if you dont want to bother building a stick, the hotrod is a good alternative and decidedly cheaper then the X-Arcade, and also flawlessly intergrates with MAME.
http://wrongcrowd.com/arcade/joystickp1.shtml re-wire a PSX pad to be a joystick pretty easily
http://www.arcadecontrols.com/arcade.htm all you ever wanted to know about building arcade sticks

I've been heavily researching MAME cabinets this week, so I have a pretty good round up of sites on hand.
 
OP
jessman1988

jessman1988

Banned
hm...well, thanks for the link. Pricewise, I'm looking for $1000-$3000. I know that I should have more money, but most of the cash that I mentioned earilier is going to my parents. I once saw a website that could make my dream machine for only about $2000, but I unfortunatly lost it in the corruption of my harddrive. Crap. Nothing in life is easy, huh?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Top