Anyone use Mame?

If so, do any of you guys have recommendations for arcade style joysticks? The only ones i've seen around are the "X-Arcade" and the "Hotrod", both of which are 200 bucks. I'm lookin' for something a littttle more affordable.

Secondly, anyone use Nesticle? In Nesticle, the filenames of all my ROMS show only the first 8 characters in the filename, how do i get it to show the whole filename? Is this an option in the folder tools in Windows Explorer?

Finally, i would really appreciate it if no one flipped out about emulation or copyrights or morals or any of that [censored], cause i couold totally see where some people here would go nuts.

Thanks if you can help, thanks if you can't

Greetings!

Hotrod!!! Yes!!! I have one, and recommend it for most of the games. Unfortunately, my favorites require more of a spinner / trackball interface (Tempest!), and they don't sell that variation as a joystick unit. It may seem high, but it really gives you a classic arcade feel.

What I want to know is how can one play Crazy Climber like the arcade version, or Robotron 2084, where you need 2 joysticks to play effectively? Keyboard just doesn't cut it esp. for Robotron 2084 where you can shoot in a direction other than the one you are travelling in with 2 joysticks, not possible on the keyboard, AFAIK...

GRIN! According to the vendor, it is supposed to work very well. To be honest, I am not certain. This joystick is very good with the multijoystick games... I have not tried that one, though.

Dislaimer: In case of copyright debate, I own copies of all the ROMs I play...

Dislaimer: In case of copyright debate, I own copies of all the ROMs I play...

Sorry to start up the copyright debate, but I don't see the problem with playing the ROMS if you can't commercially purchase the games.

Has anybody here built a MAME machine (like a cocktail table)?

Sorry about that. I wasn't trying to open a debate, more heading one off.

I think there are some patterns that you can link to from mame.net. I have not tried building any : I can't handle a soldering iron, much less a saw!!! You can also get cabinets pre-fab from hanaho, but I don't know if it is really worth the price.

I started on a MAME project, even going so far as to locate a free cabinet. Unfortunately it couldn't hold the TV I wanted to put in it. Dismayed, I dragged the cabinet to the dumpster and kept my eyes peeled for a larger one. So far I've been unsuccessful, unless I wanted to pay $300 for a working cabinet and throw out all the junk inside. I don't have the proper woodworking tools to build a cab, sadly.

But I have a ton of controller parts, a custom spinner, even a 3" Imperial trackball like the ones that go into the Golden Tee games. But no goddamn cabinet. Sigh. Still looking.. Right now my new drum set has been keeping me busy enough to not be so upset about my stalled MAME project. But I will begin anew soon.

ARGH! I hate you all! I've been putting off building a cab for awhile, due to my apt. dwelling and not having the appropriate area to build it.

A good site for ideas on both cab building and just controller building can be found here...

http://www.arcadecontrols.speedhost.com/arcade.htm

MAME, ROMS ???????

please enlighten me......

Don't remember the exact acronym, but it's basically an emulator (the E of MAME) for the programs (ROMS) that used to run in the early video games. The ROMS are/were read only chips used to hold the programs in these old machines. The programs were extracted and can be run inside the emulator (a piece of software running on your PC/Mac/Linux box). So you basically get to play your old arcade favorites (the REAL THING) on your PC. Of course building a cabinet to hold your PC so you get the 'feel' is just so much cooler...not that I have, but now that I think about it...

-Zeke

That's Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. I too started putting together a cabinet but stopped due to losing my job and having to move, and therefore now not having any space to build it .....or should I say, space to put it once it's built. :/

MAME, ROMS ??????? please enlighten me......

You have GOT to be kidding me. What cave have you been living in?

Greetings!

Space has always been a stopping point for me. Every time I think about it, I debate between getting a cabinet (I am not handy enough to build one), getting a real old machine (Tempest) or streamlining a dedicated PC into a small MAME appliance. So far, the last is all I have managed so far...

I was looking into rigging up the hanaho joystick with a small case computer (like the Cappuccino PC) and just making a small box to house the computer, trackball and headphone jack (no need / space for real speakers). Maybe not even the small box, since the Cappuccino is so small. It can also be attached to the back of a flat panel monitor - not the best for gaming, but for MAME it should be fine. Nice and tiny.

You know, I was 95% sure that was it, but at quarter of midnight I didn't really feel like looking to be 100% sure (and I'm not the type to hazard a guess and be wrong). I knew someone'd fill in the blank letters! ;-)
-Zeke

I know a guy who races TVR's for a living, and he has a setup with a PS2, Nintendo and PC with MAME through a switchbox to a monitor so he can play any driving game he likes ... while sitting in a real TVR Griffith body shell with pedals and steering wheel hooked up.

Kinda cool, but kinda sad...in a geeky way:-)

Ne1 else noticed that http://www.mame.dk has pulled all the roms off? BTW, Me and some buds from work build a full-size mame cabinet complete with a 27" TV. ArcadeOS is running as the front end. I'll try to find some pics and post 'em.

Also, http://www.happcontrols.com/ is a great place to pick up the real arcade pieces. Then all you need is an I-pac http://www.ultimarc.com and you're set.

The full size cabinet lives at work, but I built a small, 1' x 3', controller setup for use at the house. works great, except whe I'm playing Killer Instinct (with U64emu) and am almost jerking the thing off the desk.

Did you build the cabinet frame? I was trying to find a prebuilt one that would hold a 27" TV to no avail. I lack the wood shop required to build a cabinet myself... Interested in building one for me?

Actually, yeah, we built the cabinet and all from scratch. Even went so far as to use T-molding for all the edges like the real cabinets. I wasn't involved in that part of it (Just the electronics and wiring and controls and such), but I can ask Steve if he'd be interested in building one for ya.

If you like sony playstation controllers, you can get this playstation to pc adapter. http://www.levelsix.com/pc.shtml
I bought two of the model that is 15.95. They both work totally awesome with windows 98. I had a hell of a time getting them to work with XP. If I hadn't already bought the two that I own, I would try the one for 16.95 that supports the dual shock vibration feature. If you use the playstation controller, you are getting both digital and analog control. They work pretty well with the games! I actually took a dual shock controller and drilled holes in the pads, bought an arcarde stick and some cherry bottons and wired them up to the playstation controller and mounted it all on a cutting board. It doesn't look pretty, but it was the cheaper thing for me to do!

here Is a link to some of the pics we took of the cabinet being built.

http://www.kenner.la.us/mason

Enjoy

Wow, that is a nice cab. The control panel size is EXACTLY what I had drawn up, except I had 4 8-way sticks, a spinner, and a trackball planned.

Here are a couple pics I did in my planning stages, the first was a rough sketch using Photopaint, the 2nd was the actual layout I was going to cut from.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/a/m/amc156/dreampanel101.jpg

http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/a/m/amc156/dreampanel201.jpg

Some day I'll find a big enough cabinet and restart this stillborn project.

They both look Nice. I assume you plan on tying the trackball/spinner into the player1 controls?

The only suggestion that I could make is MAKE SURE you mount your joysticks EXACTLY perpendicular to the player's normal standing position. We had slightly angled ours to let ppl stand slightly off to the side, does NOT work well at all, had to go in and remount the joysticks. Your brain automatically assumes a 90º angle to the screen. Don't try to outsmart your own brain. Other than that, the 4 player ipac should work nicely. Oh, and the trackballs are VERY expensive. ~$100 US for just the trackball alone, compared to $15 for each joystick.

You also may want to rethink your button layout. Go to an arcade, and look at theirs. You'll notice that the VAST majority of games put theirs in a straight line, not curved. This would cause problems on some games, especially fighting ones like MK and MKII and Killer Instinct, among others. Looks like you were trying to emulate the NeoGeo layout.

I assume you plan on tying the trackball/spinner into the player1 controls?

Not really. MAME supports them as analog devices entirely separate from the joysticks... But I was gonna throw on an extra button or two near the spinner/trackball wired into the same input as player 1's buttons.

We had slightly angled ours to let ppl stand slightly off to the side, does NOT work well at all, had to go in and remount the joysticks.

Thanks for the tip. Players 1 and 2 (with the seven buttons) will definitely be perpendicular. Players 3 and 4 are kinda off to the side and I'll be careful with how I position those.

Other than that, the 4 player ipac should work nicely.

Ipac, schmipac. I'm using 4 Microsoft Sidewinder joysticks. No need for an Ipac.

Oh, and the trackballs are VERY expensive. ~$100 US for just the trackball alone

My Imperial trackball (already purchased) was $80. The spinner was another $40. Not bad if you ask me.

Looks like you were trying to emulate the NeoGeo layout.

Somewhat. I wanted the top row to be Neo Geo like because I play a lot of Neo games. I originally (in the first preliminary sketch) had the Street Fighter style block of six buttons. I think my layout is a compromise, and I don't think it's too tough to play SF-style games, especially since fingers naturally curve that way (they're not all the same length, ya know!) I'm not sure how well it would work for Mortal Kombat, though. I kinda thought they'd go:

              high kick      block

high punch    low kick       run

low punch

.
or something. I don't think that'd be too bad. Never played Killer Instinct, so not sure how that'd be affected.

OOOh, Killer Instinct is an AWESOME game. Requires it's own emulator though, as the mame one isn't NEARLY powerful enough... If you want it, let me know.. It's ~600 Megs. I'd have to mail you a CD. No since in D/Ling that one over my 30k u/l pipe.

does anyone know where they would happen to sell those playstation to PC adaptors? I'm lookin' for a brick and mortar store? What the hell kind of place would carry something like that. Tried ::uggghhh:: Frys, they stopped carrying it.