Adventures in MAME land

Post by **gannon** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 7:40 pm

So...decided that since I have a break, I need to do something with it. Instead of the wise choice of finishing the tons of projects I have laying around, I've decided to build an arcade cabinet! I'm not sure of the full hardware specs I'll be installing yet, maybe even just some consoles

Progress & Parts:

And the madman at work

jeroen · Post by **jeroen** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 7:55 pm

Stil amazes me how handsome you are for a geek. (in a non gay way, no offense gay people)! Cool project. But how about buying a nintendo vs board for 30 bucks (I know places that sell them for that cheap) and have a "real" arcade machine?

khaag · Post by **khaag** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 10:34 pm

Shouldn't a mod know better than any body that this belongs in the arcade forum?

Haha, looks good though. Good luck! I like what you did with the front of the control panel part. Very stylish

Post by **gannon** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 12:33 am

I figured here was more specific since it's a "case", not a full machine, but I suppose since it even has a sticky on the topic

dudex77 · Post by **dudex77** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 8:22 am

[quote="jeroen"]Stil amazes me how handsome you are for a geek. (in a non gay way[quote] yeah their are a couple of people in the forums that when I saw pictures of them it was a total surprise that they were on the internet and not out having lives. I like the shape but wont having a rounded bit in the fornt be a female of the dog species to bend?

Post by **gannon** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 12:19 pm

Not planning on bending the front, just having it inset a bit and straight.
I think I'll try cutting the frame and some of the sides today

Post by **gannon** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 3:39 pm

The cuts aren't exact or entirely straight. I'm planing on clamping the sides together once they're cut out and evening them out with a good sanding.

Took a break from the panels to cut out some of the frame. Hoping I can borrow a circular saw for the 2nd panel, hard to cut the long straight lines with the jigsaw.

If you're not careful the board will snap off when it's almost done getting cut. Luckily it happened on the inside of the control area which will be covered up.

Post by **bicostp** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 4:26 pm

The cuts aren't exact or entirely straight.

Why are you using a jigsaw for straight cuts?

You should use a circular saw for the majority of the cut and then the jigsaw to finish the corners, the cuts will be a lot straighter.

Post by **gannon** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 5:37 pm

bicostp wrote:Why are you using a jigsaw for straight cuts?

Because *I* don't have a circular saw

Anywho, couldn't contact a relative with one, so I decided to continue with the jigsaw.
Here are the sides lined up and clamped, ready to be evened out:

After that I screwed them together through the holes I'll be using to screw them to the frame (don't have many clamps)

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 4:30 am

MDF is a good material to work with, I used it a lot when I made a television and display cabinet, and other things, for the house. If you use some "D" shaped pine for the edges on the MDF you can have a nice rounded edge which looks nice after being painted.

Post by **bicostp** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 12:48 pm

gannon wrote:
bicostp wrote:Why are you using a jigsaw for straight cuts?
Because *I* don't have a circular saw

Then clamp one of those 2x4s to the part you want to cut and use it as a straightedge.

Post by **Skyone** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 6:12 pm

Blech, I love MDF's smoothness and form, but its sealant creates the most disgusting dust ever.

Post by **gannon** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 10:36 am

bicostp wrote:Then clamp one of those 2x4s to the part you want to cut

Alas, none of my clamps are big enough for that. Not a bad idea though

Might not be able to get much more work done on this until Wednesday though, damn holiday taking up a 3 day chunk of work time

Post by **gannon** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 11:19 am

Since I don't have much time to do cabinet work until tomorrow, I decided to do a bit on the other hardware/software.
Currently I'm using my "2nd best" pc that I replaced in late November stripped down. The controller is a standard X-Arcade 2 player refurbished model (works great and wasn't that much more than building my own with cost+time considered).
I'm using ubuntu 6.06.1 currently and am playing around with different boot settings and configs.
With an X session I can't get mame to function properly by using X, but SDL works (doesn't scale though). Might reset all the configs to see if that changes things.
Straight from the terminal I can get mame working with svgalib fine. The main problem so far is finding a good svgalib mame frontend that would work.

I might even give up on my linux modding fun and go for windows since it has more software support all around, but I'll save that for when I get frustrated and give up

Post by **bicostp** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 12:56 pm

Well, <s>if</s> when you finally get sick of farting around with Linux (or the extra time spent fiddling with it is more than it's worth) and use Windows, pick up a copy of <a href="http://www.gameex.net/">GameEx</a>. It's free to use (though you get a splash screen when you open it), sorts games several different ways, and can support just about any emulator that launches from the command line. I use it for all of my HTPC's game launching, and Meedio Ultimate takes care of videos and music.

There are some game launchers like AdvanceMenu and Lemon Launcher that would work, but it looks like they're all SDL.