Homemade MAME Machine, ROMZ vs. the real deal

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

If we're down to debating whether or not the "spiritual relationship" is different or not, I'll bow out.
You must become one with Pac-Man. You must be Pac-Man.

Flack, if you ever see a real live Rock-Ola Fantasy machine in your neck of the woods, gimme a shout, eh? I will be so right there to procure it.

[Kid Fenris]

Fluke may have gone all Lucky Wander Boy on us, but I think he's nailed it: computers may emulate the code of a game, but they can't replicate the experience of playing the original in a cabinet, or the knowledge that you're doing so. Of course, it's also a matter of a player's perception, and as this thread has shown, not everyone places a high value on the authenticity of the game.

And so I'll continue my hunt for an Alien vs. Predator coin-op.

[98PaceCar]

[For the games I play (late 80's to late 90's) MAME feels great and right on the money.

And that's the key... For the games you play, mame feels right to you. What I've seen (and I mean no disrespect to anyone either way) is that the older crowd who were a part of the original coming of video games are more interested in having dedicated cabs. The slightly younger crowd that came in after the advent of jamma are more at ease with a mame cab.

The only real difference I can figure is that in the early 80's, the cabinets were, for the most part, completely different from game to game or at least manufacturer to manufacturer. The use of black lights, mirrors, paper and cardboard backdrops, and full cab artwork made each game more than just a game to play, they were something to admire. After the arcade crash, games became more generic and almost all of the creativity was taken out of the cabinet design. It became more about getting games in the hands of operators quickly than creating a fully immersive experience. If that's the experience you are looking to relive, mame is the best way to do it! No doubt about that.

But to say that mame is better than the real thing.. well, I have to disagree. There are too many gaps in the experience it can provide to be better than the real thing. Mame may be able to run vector games, but it's nowhere near what a real vector game can do. You may be able to hook up the biggest, baddest speakers with lots of power, but that's not what the design of the game dictated. In a lot of cases, it was the limitations of the original equipment that provides part of the atmosphere and by "improving" on the design, you ruin what the engineers and programmers had in mind.

Mame is like a kit Cobra. It looks the same or better on the outside and it might even perform better than the real thing, but it's just not the real thing and some people won't settle for less than the real thing.

I will say that it's far more practical to have a couple mame cabs than collecting dedicated versions of every game you want, especially when a large number of the games made in the late 80's were never in dedicated cabs! After taking up a complete bedroom, half of my garage, part of my living room, and even a wall in my office, it would be a lot more space effective to have 2 or 3 (or even 10 at this point) mame cabs! But this isn't the experience I want to recreate.

It all boils down to what you are after and what you are willing to accept. When I walk into my gameroom and fire up two full walls of uprights at the same time, I know that mame will never compete with the real thing for me. I think that the majority of people that really know the capabilites of mame and what dedicated cabs have to offer agree with this.

But it still boils down to personal preference. Though I'll challenge anyone to want just a mame cab after spending some time in a nicely equipped home arcade!

98PaceCar

[buttasuperb]

OK.. what about the other 99.99% of JAMMA boards that don't have S-Video out??? again.. MAME looks more realistic than the real thing in this case..

Don't you mean 100%

Getting an AvP cab would be damn good idea, Fenris.

[Flack]

Flack, if you ever see a real live Rock-Ola Fantasy machine in your neck of the woods, gimme a shout, eh? I will be so right there to procure it.

Putting it in my Palm Pilot right now. There is one auction in Dallas this weekend, and two auctions in OKC between now and Christmas. Let me know how much you're willing to spend, most of these auctions take credit cards ...

Flack

[leonk]

But it still boils down to personal preference.

I couldn't say it any better my self.. and the part where late 80's and on arcade machines were designed to be "fast to market" rather than works of art make MAME a viable solution for that market.. the market I find myself in.

Hey.. I'm an NES fan.. I don't have any Atari games nor want to have any..

My MAME machine fills my gaming gap between the NES and XBOX quite well..

Really nice post!

[Anonymous]

I've got the red dress, shovel, cap and screwdrivers, but I can't find the damn mirror anywhere!

I might have gotten a little misty eyed in my last post, but I wanted to make sure the meaning got across, which I think it did. What I didn't say is that I don't think any one way is better or worse than the other. I myself am building a mame cabinet as we speak, and I can't wait to have it in my house. But for the pure sake of sticking my nose in discussions, I just wanted to add my own two cents that mame cabinets (meaning the experience of a mame cabinet) is on some level (physical or otherwise) different from original arcade cabs.

[chadtower]

[Another thing, do you play newer Neo games like Rage of the Dragons, Matrimelee, or SvC on your MAME cabs? If you do, you're a fucking prick. If not, GAME ON!

Well, at least for me, I don't MAME those games. My MAME box is a p533 so even if I wanted to I couldn't. 90% of my mame time is Berzerk, and the games don't really get a lot newer than that for me. I play the Pacmans, Donkey Kongs, and a lot of the older games that I never got the chance to see as a kid. I never spent much time in arcades as a kid. For one thing, where I lived, the nearest arcade was a 50 minute drive away and never got anything more than 5-6 old beaten up cabs. It was all video poker machines. I love mame because it gives me the chance to play all of the old games I never got the opportunity to see in the back woods of Nova Scotia. I'm not into using it to emulate the newest games possible in order to save myself some quarters. There are so many games I had never played before I set up mame last year... but now I can. That's what I am after.

[leonk]

For me, I spent all my money growing up in Chucky E Cheese's.. Tiger Heli must have taken a good amount of cash out of my pockets..

Apart from that, it was the local arcade in my University..

Recently, my fiancee and I decided to go there, and were shocked by the lack of arcade machines. 1/2 the place has PC's setup for multiplayer internet gaming (rent a seat by the hour) and the other side has XBOX & PS/2's for rent by the hour as well...

The only arcade games that are left have very complicated controls and sensors (follow the drummer, move your body, or jump around type of games)..

So I really am hard pressed to say that I'm "stealing" from the vendors today, since all the games I have on my MAME machine have all left the arcades a long time ago.