What's new
Pinball info

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Found it! An old PC to run MAME

JT.

JT.

Site Supporter
Joined
Jul 24, 2011
Messages
2,962
Location
North West UK
I've just taken delivery of an Astro Blast arcade cabinet which I'm going to run with MAME, but the old PC I had to run MAME on won't boot up. Does anyone have an old PC (actually, I just need the motherboard, processor and RAM) available? I've read that something like a 3Ghz Core 2 Duo would be ideal, but I'm no expert on MAME so feel free to comment if you think something less powerful would be OK.
 
Should be able to sort you out a 2 or 3ghz pc.

Probably be sata rather than ide

Im in Belfast though so postage may be costly. If you dont get sorted locally let me know.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JT.
It depends if you want to run the newer versions of MAME and whether you want to use Windows. I've built MAME cabs before with 1.8GHz P4's that run perfectly with advancemame and advmenu in DOS. There used to be a boot disk called something like EasyCab that you could use to do the installation...

Is the Astro Blaster cab empty or just non-working? It would be a shame to break up a classic machine like that rather than restore it - and I've been after one for a while!
 
  • Like
Reactions: JT.
Mike Quayle said:
It depends if you want to run the newer versions of MAME and whether you want to use Windows. I've built MAME cabs before with 1.8GHz P4's that run perfectly with advancemame and advmenu in DOS. There used to be a boot disk called something like EasyCab that you could use to do the installation...

Is the Astro Blaster cab empty or just non-working? It would be a shame to break up a classic machine like that rather than restore it - and I've been after one for a while!
Click to expand...

Fear not, no breaking will be happening :) I'll just be plugging the PC into the jamma harness via JPAC. I got mine from @zpeakabonk on here, I think he has more.
 
I'm running exactly Advancemame and Advancemenu on a very low spec P4 on DOS (so can just switch whole cabinet on/off). This is great for playing and emulating the old classic machines such as Astro Blaster. The other thing to consider is are you using an Arcade CRT which may affect your choice of graphics card (mine was a Hantarex). I'd like to see a picture of the Cab if you can.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JT.
astyy said:
I'm running exactly Advancemame and Advancemenu on a very low spec P4 on DOS (so can just switch whole cabinet on/off). This is great for playing and emulating the old classic machines such as Astro Blaster. The other thing to consider is are you using an Arcade CRT which may affect your choice of graphics card (mine was a Hantarex). I'd like to see a picture of the Cab if you can.
Click to expand...

I'll be mainly running older games up to Streetfighter 2 era I guess. I'm using the monitor from the cab, and I have a couple of 3D gfx cards that should be OK with some software help output at 15 kHz.
 
I've just seen a picture of it in the 'Today Received' thread, that's far more recent than Astro Blaster, my monitor is oriented portrait for the early shoot 'em ups of that era (showing my age). I was wondering how you were going to play Streetfighter with 1 fire button!
 
I'm not as technically savvy as some the guys around here but my two-penny-worth is I built a MAME cab using an old 32-bit Dell Celeron running Windows Vista, no graphics card, plus a cheap-but-beefy Logitec 2.1 sound system. I.e. pretty crap PC but it works just fine. I loaded the latest MAME plus a few ROMs. Of course, I use the standard monitor that came with the PC so no problem with the lack of a graphics card.

My build is novice and basic compared to your project but if you're at all interested I put a post in thread MAME CAB BUILD under GENERAL DISCUSSION http://www.pinballinfo.com/community/threads/mame-cab-build.808/#post-71767
 
Jt you need to use grooveymame, and a pc with preferably a 4 series Radeon , this will allow you to run the games in their true resolution on your lovely new monitor.
I will look up the superb thread that a chap called cools has done on otaku forum
 
  • Like
Reactions: JT.
Go with a Raspberry Pi instead of a full PC - £25. Built my mame with one and it works great.
 
astyy said:
I've just seen a picture of it in the 'Today Received' thread, that's far more recent than Astro Blaster, my monitor is oriented portrait for the early shoot 'em ups of that era (showing my age). I was wondering how you were going to play Streetfighter with 1 fire button!
Click to expand...

Sorry yeah, Blast City not Astro..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom