MAME Arcade Cabinet

[Trip]

I think this is going to be my next bored engineer project. We are looking at a house that has a ginormous basement which will become my manroom/moto garage. I will have plenty of room for my toys and plenty of room to add new toys. I have always wanted a classic arcade game, but I could never really decide which one I wanted most. I like pac-man, donkey kong, and all the classics; but I just see that taking up space after I get bored with the one classic game. It would also be cool to get one of those awesome 4 player games from my childhood like Gauntlet or TMNT.

Then I started thinking about it and decided I want to build a MAME cabinet from scratch, because it would be awesome and I could play any game. I could also customize the shit out of it.

Been looking at plans online, I think I want the classic display setup vs the gallery display.

Gallery:


Classic:


Classic just looks better, but I bet gallery is a little easier to play without fatigue. Think most of the bigger monitor plans are with the gallery too.

Definitely going to do 4 Happ 8-ways for the 4 player controls with at least 6 buttons for each player. Street fighter bitches! Then want a dedicated Happ 4-way in the middle for classics like Pac-Man. Debating making all the buttons clear with LED lighting, would look pretty sweet. May go ahead and do a track ball, never really played track ball games, but might as well wire one up.

I got a few months of planning before we settle into a house and I can start building, but this would be a fun project.

Talked to another sign guy and I want to design the artwork and mylar and have him print it out for me. Completely custom epicness.

[Gas Man]

The ultimate nerd cave?

I say get a walk out basement and turn it into a moto project garage extension.

[OneSickPsycho]

This is something I've considered doing a number of times in the past... IMHO, I wouldn't use a PC... Get an old Xbox and softmod it. The emulators for whatever reason always seemed to work better on there...

Also, I don't understand why anyone would just do a MAME only cabinet... I have a modded Xbox with everything from MAME to Atari to N64 and literally tens of thousands of games on it... 300GB HD - easy peasy... Oh, and there's like 50 Xbox games and a good bit of music on it as well.

[OneSickPsycho]

Oh... and, one of my ideas was to make the cabinet a sit down job like the racing games... I wanted to do a rotating control station in which you could flip between a racing wheel setup and a regular controller layout...

[Trip]

Originally Posted by Gas Man

The ultimate nerd cave?

I say get a walk out basement and turn it into a moto project garage extension.

That's a seperate room and already a given, probably going to ask for a lift for my birthday for it.

Think of the house I use to have and then the entire footprint besides the garage will be a walkout basement. This thing is divided up into 2 very big rooms, it will probably be turned into 2 big rooms and two regular bedrooms with a bathroom. The garage room will still be epic huge. Probably like two 1 car garages connected length wise. The other big room will probably be slightly bigger than the mancave I had in the other house.

[OneSickPsycho]

If you're going to do it, go all out. Get a surround sound system for the fucking thing too... I'd stick to something sub-600 watts cause you're going to be right in the fucking middle of the thing...

Fuck... now I'm jonesing for this project myself...

[Trip]

Originally Posted by OneSickPsycho

This is something I've considered doing a number of times in the past... IMHO, I wouldn't use a PC... Get an old Xbox and softmod it. The emulators for whatever reason always seemed to work better on there...

Also, I don't understand why anyone would just do a MAME only cabinet... I have a modded Xbox with everything from MAME to Atari to N64 and literally tens of thousands of games on it... 300GB HD - easy peasy... Oh, and there's like 50 Xbox games and a good bit of music on it as well.

It won't be solely MAME, it will definitely run a variety of systems. The power plant doesn't strictly have to be one system or computer either. I can get a monitor that allows me to switch between an xbox/computer/whatever. Still planning that part. I just called it MAME, because that's just a standard thing to call these cabinets.

[Trip]

Originally Posted by OneSickPsycho

Oh... and, one of my ideas was to make the cabinet a sit down job like the racing games... I wanted to do a rotating control station in which you could flip between a racing wheel setup and a regular controller layout...

I like the bench idea, but I will probably go standup. I think I like a classic look over functionality like the gallery setup.

[Trip]

Originally Posted by OneSickPsycho

If you're going to do it, go all out. Get a surround sound system for the fucking thing too... I'd stick to something sub-600 watts cause you're going to be right in the fucking middle of the thing...

Fuck... now I'm jonesing for this project myself...

Yeah, I do want to do this, one dude I saw made his a jukebox as well, it was pretty neat. It would be pretty cool to tie it in with my itunes airplay setup I currently have and be able to control it from my android phone/Mac/iPad.

[Gas Man]

Originally Posted by Trip

That's a seperate room and already a given, probably going to ask for a lift for my birthday for it.

Think of the house I use to have and then the entire footprint besides the garage will be a walkout basement. This thing is divided up into 2 very big rooms, it will probably be turned into 2 big rooms and two regular bedrooms with a bathroom. The garage room will still be epic huge. Probably like two 1 car garages connected length wise. The other big room will probably be slightly bigger than the mancave I had in the other house.

Awesome man... do it up.