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    Insert Coin (Level 0) DisastrophE's Avatar
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    Default MAME noob here

    So I have been seriously considering picking up an arcade cabinet from here http://www.xgaming.com/store/arcade-...arter-machine/

    I know that it would be a lot cheaper if I were to just pick up and old cab and convert it but I do not have the know how nor the patience to do that so I think this is my best bet. I just have a few questions for you guys.

    1. What kind of monitor do you recommend? I don't really care to have the old "arcade feel" to it, I am just looking for the best picture. Do you guys use an actual arcade monitor? A regular CRT TV with S-Video or an HDTV?

    2. What do you think is the best MAME frontend out there? I need something that supports multiple emulators because I plan on putting everything from Atari 2600 to Playstation and Dreamcast on it. I am leaning towards Hyperspin or Maximus Arcade. I will probably use Hyperspin though because it's free and looks bad ass

    3. What is the easiest way to get a full MAME rom set? Is there still websites out there that will burn them all for you? Or would you recommend a torrent website? I am not too familiar with those but I am sure I can figure it out. I am just worried I may pick up a virus or something by doing that.

    4. Am I going to need a beefy PC to run everything? Do I just need a dual core or should I go for a quad core? Also now with Windows 7 taking over do you think I will have any compatability issues?

    Anyway I think that was about it. Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.
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    I'd say answer questions 2 through 4 using your existing computer...that part is pretty easy (except for getting reliable PSX/DC emulation).

    If I was in the market for teh romz right now I would simply buy somebody's modded xbox...might be more cost effective than buying a bunch of DVDs, and you can use the Xbox in a pinch as your emulation box.

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    Insert Coin (Level 0) DisastrophE's Avatar
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    Well I haven't had any problems with ePSXe for Playstation emulation. That seems to be the best, though I haven't tried to emulate anything from the Dreamcast so I may end up omitting it if it proves to be too difficult.

    I'm sorry Kid Ice you kinda lost me with the modded xbox comment. Are you trying to say that a modded xbox may have all the MAME roms on it already? I don't really want to do that considering I already have a modded xbox though I don't have MAME on it at the moment. I have heard that most games either don't run at full speed or don't run at all so I haven't bothered tinkering with it.

    Does anyone know if a comprehensive list of all the MAME roms exists? If I can find one I may just pick and choose which ones I want. However I would rather just get them all. I guess my preference would be just to use a torrent website. I just want to make sure that way is reliable. Has anyone got any types of roms this way?
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    Insert Coin (Level 0) Hari Seldon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DisastrophE View Post
    What kind of monitor do you recommend? I don't really care to have the old "arcade feel" to it, I am just looking for the best picture. Do you guys use an actual arcade monitor? A regular CRT TV with S-Video or an HDTV?
    Best picture, arcade monitor, a regular TV with S-Video is good enough though.

    Quote Originally Posted by DisastrophE View Post
    2. What do you think is the best MAME frontend out there? I need something that supports multiple emulators because I plan on putting everything from Atari 2600 to Playstation and Dreamcast on it. I am leaning towards Hyperspin or Maximus Arcade. I will probably use Hyperspin though because it's free and looks bad ass
    Hyperspin.

    Quote Originally Posted by DisastrophE View Post
    3. What is the easiest way to get a full MAME rom set? Is there still websites out there that will burn them all for you? Or would you recommend a torrent website? I am not too familiar with those but I am sure I can figure it out. I am just worried I may pick up a virus or something by doing that.
    Underground Gamer.

    Quote Originally Posted by DisastrophE View Post
    4. Am I going to need a beefy PC to run everything? Do I just need a dual core or should I go for a quad core? Also now with Windows 7 taking over do you think I will have any compatability issues?
    Don't expect to run everything in a full romset at full speed, most 3D emulation in MAME runs like hell even with a powerful system. Dual core should be enough.

    Quote Originally Posted by DisastrophE View Post
    Does anyone know if a comprehensive list of all the MAME roms exists? If I can find one I may just pick and choose which ones I want. However I would rather just get them all. I guess my preference would be just to use a torrent website. I just want to make sure that way is reliable. Has anyone got any types of roms this way?
    It does, Underground Gamer has full sets available.
    Last edited by Hari Seldon; 11-22-2009 at 03:33 AM.

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    Great Puma (Level 12) NE146's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hari Seldon View Post
    It does, Underground Gamer has full sets available.
    Also, http://www.pleasuredome.org.uk/ is a good torrent site for Mame roms and unlike Underground-gamer you don't need an invite.

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    Quote Originally Posted by DisastrophE View Post
    Are you trying to say that a modded xbox may have all the MAME roms on it already? I don't really want to do that considering I already have a modded xbox though I don't have MAME on it at the moment. I have heard that most games either don't run at full speed or don't run at all so I haven't bothered tinkering with it.
    If you have a modded Xbox with a bunch of roms I would think you could just use those ROMS on your MAME cab, unless you feel you have to have a fully updated sets of ROMS/the latest version of MAME.

    Most modded Xboxs that I've seen not only have a ton of arcade roms, they usually have fullsets of VCS, NES, Genesis, etc. (it sounded like you wanted to make your cab as all-inclusive as possible).

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    Oh ok I see what you were getting at. Yea I was going to shoot for the most updated version of MAME roms as possible. And thank you NE146 I currently have them downloading now

    As far as putting my Xbox into the MAME cab I would rather have a PC in there. Mainly because its easier to move an Xbox from TV to TV than it is to move a PC. I may just end up selling my modded Xbox once I get the MAME cab up and running because I most likely will just use that for any emulation I need done. Plus the PC has better compatability as far as PSX/Dreamcast/N64 goes.
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    Great Puma (Level 12) NE146's Avatar
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    Personally I LOVE the old xbox for Mame (& other emulation) but the fact is it can't play a good number of the larger/newer roms.

    It's still great by the way (I play Donkey Kong & other games on my xbox allt he time), but yeah the PC is the way to go for the latest & greatest.

    Quote Originally Posted by DisastrophE View Post
    And thank you NE146 I currently have them downloading now
    Hey no problem. I'm a big fan of Usenet over torrents, but in this case I make an exception. Let there be no mistaking it for anyone who's searching these forums for "mame roms"

    Pleasuredome for full, Complete sets of latest mame roms -> http://www.pleasuredome.org.uk/index.php. No invite needed
    Last edited by NE146; 11-23-2009 at 09:54 AM.

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    Well looks like I got pretty much everything answered that I needed. I think I am going to hijack my own thread for a bit here.

    Now in our day in age of dual core and quad core processors and top of the line video cards, why do our computers now still have a tough time emulating arcade games from 10-15 years ago? Shouldn't the technology now be able to handle that? I'm sure I am missing one glaring problem but I'm not really tech savvy so it doesn't really make that much sense to me.
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    Great Puma (Level 12) jb143's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DisastrophE View Post
    Now in our day in age of dual core and quad core processors and top of the line video cards, why do our computers now still have a tough time emulating arcade games from 10-15 years ago? Shouldn't the technology now be able to handle that? I'm sure I am missing one glaring problem but I'm not really tech savvy so it doesn't really make that much sense to me.
    It's because that's not the intent of MAME. Being able to play games is just a side effect. They're going for accuracy in emulating the original hardware(which weren't using quadcore processors and modern 3D graphics cards), not speed. Also, using the 3D functionality built into todays video cards, you'd get slightly different output from card to card, which is against MAME's philosophy as it wouldn't be true to the original. If you want speed over accuracy & preservation, there are other emulators you can look into. MAME however works great for more games than most of us will ever have time to play through.
    "Game programmers are generally lazy individuals. That's right. It's true. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Since the dawn of computer games, game programmers have looked for shortcuts to coolness." Kurt Arnlund - Game programmer for Activision, Accolade...

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    drowning in medals Ed Oscuro's Avatar
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    I know the MAME team uses the "playability is just a side effect" argument, but there's sure a lot of options to make it more playable. More to the point, how can you "preserve" the feel of the game when it's crawling along?

    That said, I 1000% agree that the games need to be correctly emulated before they run at 100% speed (although it does raise an interesting point when you can't tell if a game is naturally slow and glitchy, or if your hardware is having issues that you might not be able to spot looking at the speed percentage counter). Wanting that original feel is why I use pSX over ePSXe (the filtered emulator).

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    drowning in medals Ed Oscuro's Avatar
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    Also, back on topic: You can either get an Ultimarc ArcadeVGA (The comparison on their page is misleading, but if you use it with a "classic" early- to mid-90s PC monitor you should get pretty close results to a classic arcade monitor, although you may be limited in playing newer games) or you can just get a newer monitor (CRT or otherwise) which won't look much like an arcade monitor but will work fine for a wide range.

    Keep in mind that difficult solutions using real arcade monitors will typically only work for one type of game or another - lores, medium res (games like Sega's Scramble Spirits, the boost in resolution is immediately noticable), or higher resolutions. Actually, I think the medium resolution monitors may work fine with crash era and earlier games but it might not look like "the real thing."

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    Well I am not necessarily looking for the "arcade look" per se, I am more just looking for the best picture possible. If I were to get a standard arcade monitor, would my best bet be to pick up that video card for it? Will I notice a significant improvement in picture quality using that card with an arcade monitor over a standard video card?
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    drowning in medals Ed Oscuro's Avatar
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    "Best picture" is a theoretical thing. If you want pure blocks of color like a modern computer monitor would make, then an older arcade monitor is not the right screen for you - but keep in mind that these games were mainly developed for older CRT monitors. I recall reading that an unusual physical effect of the CRT caused Three Wonders' blue screen background to be displayed as black in MAME for some time, for instance. Doubtful that would work correctly on an LCD monitor or the like. But generally speaking, there shouldn't really be any problem using whatever monitor you can find, and they should all provide an acceptable picture, assuming they're compatible with whatever syncs / resolutions you're feeding 'em.

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    Alright thanks a lot Ed. I guess I will ponder that for a bit although I am leaning towards just getting the arcade monitor. Now all I have left is to play with Hyperspin and see if I can get it to do what I want it too. I may just go with Maximus Arcade. It may not look as pretty but it's a lot easier to configure.
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    drowning in medals Ed Oscuro's Avatar
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    I would like to point out that I'll be using a 19" Trinitron PC monitor (ultrafine dot pitch - it's the P992 if you want to look it up), with real arcade PCBs, when I get it fixed. I'm looking at about $40 total to get a nice monitor (it would've been only $17 if it had been working right in the first place, added on a ECS cable to tweak the thing's settings digitally). It's pretty versatile despite needing a VGA signal, and looks great even though there's no "classic" thick scanlines. It comes down to taste really. I usually play games I own on PCB in MAME on an LCD screen and couldn't be happier. To borrow and mangle a line from photographer Ken Rockwell, it's your frame of mind, not the equipment, that makes it look good.

    The XRGB-2 was a bit expensive, but the video card you'll be using to drive an arcade monitor alone will cost what I spent on a monitor (rather lucky find actually) that will plug straight into any MAME machine.
    Last edited by Ed Oscuro; 11-24-2009 at 04:54 PM.

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    Insert Coin (Level 0) danny_galaga's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jb143 View Post
    It's because that's not the intent of MAME. Being able to play games is just a side effect. They're going for accuracy in emulating the original hardware(which weren't using quadcore processors and modern 3D graphics cards), not speed. Also, using the 3D functionality built into todays video cards, you'd get slightly different output from card to card, which is against MAME's philosophy as it wouldn't be true to the original. If you want speed over accuracy & preservation, there are other emulators you can look into. MAME however works great for more games than most of us will ever have time to play through.
    Some games in MAME seem to get slower with newer versions, so you might want to experiment with different builds. I'm pretty sure some of the front ends will allow different emulators, so you could also have whatever the latest build is for most games, and then say V90 or whatever for those favourites that now run like crap on the latest (",) The front end menu will still just have the name of the game to select, but behind that it will choose between the two versions.

    I'm still using V78 myself...

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    drowning in medals Ed Oscuro's Avatar
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    I don't know what exactly you mean by "slower." Lag (more frames pass than usual between the player making an input, and the change being registered on-screen, even when using manual stepping between frames) is always bad, but "speed" (i.e. the emulator running faster when you turn off the throttle to see how many % it can climb above 100%) doesn't really matter; accuracy matters, and that's been improving. If you are stuck with an old computer and can't get games to run fullspeed, an old build may be the best you can do, but MAME really needs the fastest CPU possible (on newer games). You gotta upgrade occasionally to do MAME seriously. I'd say that the Core i5 looks like a good choice for MAME as building a system around one isn't too expensive, and the chip is oriented around the fastest single-threaded performance possible as it can shut down unused cores to boost the speed of one significantly (almost like having a fast P4 again).

    I'd say that lag should be improved over where it used to be.

    As I recall there was some lag introduced around 0.112, but it's gotten better again. Savestates (if those matter to you - I like coming back to a correct high-score list, and also being able to savestate practice occasionally) are getting fixed for more games, more games are working, and constant improvements to the code is making the lag picture better overall, not worse. If you have a chance to try out 0.135, I would certainly do it. 0.70 is getting close to when I started using MAME, way back in 2003. It's had ups and downs since then but I'd say that lately it's generally been on an upswing.
    Last edited by Ed Oscuro; 12-13-2009 at 01:29 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ed Oscuro View Post
    You gotta upgrade occasionally to do MAME seriously.
    It depends on whether you are an archivist, or want to build a cab. Then what matters the most is that the games you like run as smoothly as possible, since i think the OP wants to play them on a cab. I must admit i haven't tried MAME any later than about .95 but there was definitely a lot of folks having probs with some games that ran perfectly in one version, only to drop in performance in a later version. Maybe lately everythings improved, which is good news but my advice still holds- if you are having probs with a favourite in one version, try an earlier one...

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    drowning in medals Ed Oscuro's Avatar
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    Good advice, although I don't believe it's easily feasible to hunt down ROM sets that work with old MAMEs - just finding old builds can be enough of a challenge.

    On the other hand, I don't think you have to be an archivist to appreciate the extra accuracy in newer MAME builds.

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