MAME Cabinet: PC or an XBOX?

[Goblin]

I have a JPAC on it's way to my house, and I'm going to finally set my JAMMA cabinet up for MAME. Now here is the question as I have both available: Do I use a spare PC that I have lying around, or do I just use a spare xbox that already has MAME installed on it. Right now I plan to use the existing arcade monitor, but if that ultimately proves to be too much of a hassle I would consider ripping it out and replacing with a spare TV or VGA monitor as required.

The PC would require me to set it up in the first place, and then verify the video card supports 15kHz or else get one of the software solutions to do it. The Xbox would require me to buy the controller adapter and video adapter from Ultimarc, and probably be a little simpler.

Thoughts or experience either way?

[cityside75]

Another option to consider is one of the multi-game boards if you don't mind spending $200-300. I have a 1066 in 1 board that plugs right into the Jamma harness and runs MAME and a few other arcade emulators. Plus, a group of people have figured out how to add additional ROMS and emulators to these systems.

Edit -- In answer to your original question, it comes down to the games you want to play. The Xbox can emulate most games up to 1992 or so, while a PC can run the newer 3d games if it's got enough horsepower. If you're looking for simplicity, the Xbox is probably your best bet.

[RadiantSvgun]

I'd use the xbox and buy a xbox to jamma connector. That way you dont sacrifice a cabinet. Or you could build a PC-jamma adapter.

[XYXZYZ]

I have both, and as stated before it depends on what you want to play. The Xbox only supports MAME 0.84, and your hardware limits are 700 MHz processor, 64 MB RAM. You can also play Xbox games like Soul Calibur II, DOA, ports of 2D fighters. I don't play the Xbox games very much, and I'm certainly planning on ditching the Xbox and using a PC instead. More and more nowadays I'm disappointed by what the box can't do, and the visuals aren't that great; MAME uses stretching and graphics filter features, doesn't look so hot compared to an ArcadeVGA card (that card has spoiled me!) that can output most of the funky resolutions used by arcade games, in many cases the game looks just like the arcade board.

So in the long run I'd go with a PC. The picture is better (ArcadeVGA cards are worth the price!) and it's versatility and upgradability is something you'll miss after you've been playing within the limits of the Xbox for awhile.

[norkusa]

If you plan on using a Xbox, check out BritneysPAIRS CoinOPS MAME emulator. Just released earlier this year. It only supports 0.84 but it runs a lot of roms that the other Xbox emulators can't play. Still updated regularly too.

[diskoboy]

Use a PC.

The versions of MAME run better, and faster. More storage to hold more games. They're upgraded more often. And you can use any type of hardware you choose - from an old 500mhz celeron, to a quad-core CPU (a gfx card wouldn't do any good, though. MAME still doesn't use gfx card acceleration, for some reason)

[kingpong]

(a gfx card wouldn't do any good, though. MAME still doesn't use gfx card acceleration, for some reason)

Because MAME is shooting for accuracy it has to do software rendering. Not sure why people always think there's a way to have a graphics card handle any part of the graphics generation and get the right result back. It would take a lot of work, but it would be possible to make the graphics card do the rendering. Unfortunately what you get back would be tainted by that hardware's unique style of rendering, something we've all seen in video card reviews including comparisons of the same scene. Think of software rendering as running on the original hardware, while hardware rendering via a graphics card would be a like a port. The port can be perfectly fine for playing, and it may even be "better" (what that means is arguable), but it wouldn't be accurate.

That said, use of graphics cards is coming to MAME in the future. Basically they're looking to use the programmable pixel shaders of modern cards. Whether they simply implement software rendering running on the shaders or if they try conventional hardware acceleration but corrected via shader control remains to be seen.

Keep in mind though that graphics acceleration isn't a magic bullet. In the games where you would think acceleration would help the bottleneck is actually the emulation of the non-graphics parts of the original hardware. Off-loading some work would of course help, but we're only talking about enough improvement to make something that was nearly playable previously on your system now playable.

And just to get back to the OP, there's no question about it - use a PC. Would you run 0.84 on a PC? Of course not! Why should you run that on a pseudo-PC? The XBox has nothing to offer that the latest PC versions can't do many times better.

[Lerxstnj]

I would do both.

[Goblin]

Another option to consider is one of the multi-game boards if you don't mind spending $200-300. I have a 1066 in 1 board that plugs right into the Jamma harness and runs MAME and a few other arcade emulators. Plus, a group of people have figured out how to add additional ROMS and emulators to these systems.

I have seriously considered this, hence my other post sometime in the past week in the arcade forum about them. I figured they would be the best of both worlds, RGB support and VGA support, flexability of a pseduo-PC based motherboard. The thing that keeps getting me is the price but I am still thinking about it.

Ultimately I got such a good deal on a JPAC that I thought I'd try my luck with something I already had. I use MAME with the xarcade on my main machine, but I just want to toss something in my cab for next to nothing.

The Xbox only supports MAME 0.84, and your hardware limits are 700 MHz processor, 64 MB RAM....
So in the long run I'd go with a PC. The picture is better (ArcadeVGA cards are worth the price!) and it's versatility and upgradability is something you'll miss after you've been playing within the limits of the Xbox for awhile.

I think I'm leaning towards the PC, but the real limitation is the hardware in my spare machines, a P3, and an even older P2. I'm not going to embed my main Athlon x64 in an arcade machine, so I'm stuck with 2 marginal at best machines. The xbox might even beat the P3 in the specs department. Plus right now I don't want to drop the money on an ArcadeVGA card so I'm trying to figure out the DOS based arcadeOS so I can use that to get me the 15kHz for the video into the JPAC. I feel like I'm living in 2002 trying to get this going. I'm really considering ripping the arcade monitor and replacing it with a spare PC monitor and be done with it. I'm not likely to notice or even care if the picture resolution isn't a perfect match.

I would do both.

No. For me I see no advantage to this. I'd only look to use it for MAME, so it's an either/or not both.

[IronBuddha]

(a gfx card wouldn't do any good, though. MAME still doesn't use gfx card acceleration, for some reason)

I still don't understand why to this day it's still like that. It would be awesome if someone would create Mame to run on your gfx card cause then we'd finally be able to play newer games.


As to the question of this thread I say go with a PC, my friend uses mame on Xbox and you can't play no where near as many games as PC, and I don't even use a super computer or anything like that for my games.

[XYXZYZ]

Well, if your PC monitor is the right size, and you have a spare, and don't plan on playing any actual arcade boards, then that wouldn't be such a bad idea. You'd be dropping about $80.00 (Shipped from England) on those Xbox adapter cables anyway.

[XYXZYZ]

I still don't understand why to this day it's still like that. It would be awesome if someone would create Mame to run on your gfx card cause then we'd finally be able to play newer games.

Someone did, it was called MAME plusplus or something like that, it ran games like Gauntlet Legends pretty well using glide wrappers and stuff. The MAME dev team had a cow (that violated the license) and refused to update MAME at all if the project wasn't stopped.

[Ed Oscuro]

That's hilarious, and reinforces my belief that someday they're going to emulate the mechanical and thermal workings of the boards so you can crash them by putting digital duct tape over the vents. True story.

Honestly, I do like the more accurate graphics, though.

[kingpong]

I still don't understand why to this day it's still like that. It would be awesome if someone would create Mame to run on your gfx card cause then we'd finally be able to play newer games.

Did you read my post just a few above yours that explains why MAME doesn't use your gfx card and why using it wouldn't help you play newer games?

[RadiantSvgun]

Well, what kind of cab are you getting? Some Cabs have multi-input monitors that support rgb and vga.

[IronBuddha]

Did you read my post just a few above yours that explains why MAME doesn't use your gfx card and why using it wouldn't help you play newer games?

Heh uhh no As soon as I read his post I quoted it before reading the rest of the posts.

[Goblin]

Well, what kind of cab are you getting? Some Cabs have multi-input monitors that support rgb and vga.

I'm not getting a new cab, I've had one for over 10 years. It is a SF2 which is actually in a converted centipede cab, the monitor might be original there is no name on it but there is a 1981 date on a label. The cabinet doesn't get much use at all since I only have about a half dozen different JAMMA boards. When people are over the game inside usually ends up being the one we don't want to play. By the time I climbing in the back and change the board, the moment has passed.

Today I received the JPAC, and unfortunately it isn't exactly as it was described in the auction. The disk/manual didn't accompany it, and it didn't ship with the cable either. I have a keyboard cable, but not the keyboard to USB or the monitor to monitor cable. This is goofy in that it has the male pins on the JPAC 15 pin sub-d not the female. The seller offered to return my money or knock $20 if I keep it. I'm going to look into discharging my arcade monitor tonight and then seeing how the PC monitor looks in the cabinet. If it works okay then I'm going to keep it and just run mame32 and not worry about using DOS to output the right resolution.

[Goblin]

I ended up pulling out the RGB monitor and shoehorning my 19" VGA into the cabinet. That was actually a bit harder then I expected, but thanks to a hand saw I managed to make it fit. It looks great. The only downside is that I now have a stack of JAMMA boards I can only use with my supergun. That is okay since I can emulate them all, and this way the cabinet will get more use then it ever did before.

Now I'm working to get the PC setup correctly. I messed up the better of my 2 spare PCs, so until I get some time to fix it I am using the P2. It is great for any of the classics, but is woefully inadequate for anything more. At least I have something working as I verify the hardware setup. I'm also trying out some different frontends and boot options. I want this to be completely transparent the user, so getting the keyboard out to shutdown or launch the emulator isn't going to cut it.