mame build at last

sundodger5

At last getting around to building my long promised mame machine to go in my collection.
Looking to make my life as easy as possible by getting advice from the people who have done this previously.
The build is going into my 6 button electrcoin xenon cab and i will be using the original monitor.
What would you advise regarding hooking up to the cab? Particularly the monitor.
Raspberry pi or old pc components?
Any tips welcome.
Thanks

80s Synth Pop

cheapo option: Rasberry pi with pi2jamma adapter. Little bit of soldering required for buttons 4/5/6





best (but far more expensive) option:



-A PC with decent processor

-r9 380x graphics card (last graphics card made with VGA out though the DVI-I port). Install emudriver and run groovymame for pretty much pixel perfect emulation on your CRT.

-Ultimarc J-PAC to connect the PC to the controls and video. Has screw terminals for buttons 4/5/6

-Audio Amp (can solder power and audio left/right to the j-pac pins)

Inviere

Definitely build with a pc in mind, I find the Pi is fine for a quick pick up and play, but in a cab, I'd want something with the pure minimum input lag I could find...that's a PC with RetroArch's "Run Ahead" feature.

sundodger5

I assume the r9 380 is the rolls royce option?
In my head i was going to pick up an old i3 or i5 and throw in an nvidia 9500gt i have knocking about. It has passive cooling so will help with noise.
Barking up the wrong tree?

80s Synth Pop

sundodger5 wrote: »

I assume the r9 380 is the rolls royce option?
In my head i was going to pick up an old i3 or i5 and throw in an nvidia 9500gt i have knocking about. It has passive cooling so will help with noise.
Barking up the wrong tree?

They are around 80 euro and are great if you want to play any 3d games like naomi on demul (although interlaced 640x480 is a bit mad on the eyes on your hantarex monitor).

If you only want to play 90s arcade games then a lower spec card would be fine. A Radeon 5000 series or higher will be perfect for emudriver compatibility. Nivida cards are not compatible.

Google search for emudriver and groovymame to find out more. The 90s arcade games will look perfect on it.

I've a few cabs (including 2x xenons) with that type of pc setup and some with the pi2jamma. pi2jamma is actually great for 90s games and is silent.

eddhorse

This might be useful :
http://geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/viewtopic.php?id=295

Inviere

sundodger5 wrote: »

I assume the r9 380 is the rolls royce option?
In my head i was going to pick up an old i3 or i5 and throw in an nvidia 9500gt i have knocking about. It has passive cooling so will help with noise.
Barking up the wrong tree?

I'd go with the most grunt you can afford, because you might end up wanting to run things like SFIV, Radien IV, and other more modern arcade systems/games. If you build bare bones, you'll hit a limit in terms of what you can run. Don't go dropping silly money, buy used, but try not end up limited by specs if you can avoid it.