MAME GUIs/Building old school console game box

[Auspice]

I'm building a PC to hook up to my HDTV in order to play old school games and whatnot without needing to jump through the dozens of hoops to attempt to upscale my NES/SNES/64/etc to HD and I remember seeing a really awesome GUI program that ran on XP but apparently I never bookmarked it.

Ideally I'd like to toss all my old school games onto this machine and use the 360 wireless gaming adapter to hook up my 360 wireless controllers to it so I can play from my couch. I'd fucking love if I could dump my save files from my old carts onto a PC to back up saves from my childhood(a la USB reader for SNES game carts) but not sure if it's worth the trouble.

Anyone have any experience making a MAME box like this or have any idea what GUI program I saw?

EDIT: Apparently the guy who made that USB mod is going to start selling them. snega2usb Too bad they're going to be nearly $100. :/

[Deimos]

There are many front-ends for this sort of thing. Searching around a bit on google can probably find some that aren't listed there, as well. Maximus Arcade has looked like a good one to me, though it isn't free.

[MogKnight]

I currently have a DVR/Mame Box being made at the moment, I'm just waiting for an opportunity to get myself a good cheap HDTV for it.

For the UI, I personally used MAMEWAH as it not only lets you launch games straight into Mame but it also supports emulators for other systems. The UI is skinable very customizable so you can make it look pretty nice. Could even make it into a DVR box if you wanted.

As far as using a wireless 360 controller. It's fine if you intend on not using the triggers and all your emulators will accept dpad input from hat POV inputs. If they don't, you're gonna need to find special drivers for it which was something I had to do to get trigger macros working for FFXI. I don't know where these drivers are offhand, mainly because they're Japanese. >.>; Someone else might know though.

[SephYuyX]

Hmmm, im now tempted to build my own..

[SephYuyX]

Esh, this is a lot more involved than I thought. I forgot how many styles of button configurations there are. Fighting, driving, track ball, etc.

Nice design Build a MAME Cabinet in 24 Hours
Interesting modular control unit using the design from above Doc's MAME Cabinet - How to build a cabinet

Gotaa find some more arcade designs, and button configurations.

[Auspice]

I currently have a DVR/Mame Box being made at the moment, I'm just waiting for an opportunity to get myself a good cheap HDTV for it.

For the UI, I personally used MAMEWAH as it not only lets you launch games straight into Mame but it also supports emulators for other systems. The UI is skinable very customizable so you can make it look pretty nice. Could even make it into a DVR box if you wanted.

As far as using a wireless 360 controller. It's fine if you intend on not using the triggers and all your emulators will accept dpad input from hat POV inputs. If they don't, you're gonna need to find special drivers for it which was something I had to do to get trigger macros working for FFXI. I don't know where these drivers are offhand, mainly because they're Japanese. >.>; Someone else might know though.

Awesome; MAMEWAH is exactly what I was looking for, thanks! I knew about the trigger issue with the 360 pads already since I've used it before on my existing comp. It's really lame that it only recognizes the triggers as another axis instead of allowing you to choose. >_>

I'm not looking to build a cabinet or anything, I'm just hooking the PC up to my TV in the living room to play my games. Putting all this shit together just makes me wish there was an easy way to upscale the old school consoles without destroying the picture like HDTV upscaling/sampling does.

[SephYuyX]

Found a perfect design
http://www.mameroom.com/images/UAIIQuadKit.jpg
http://www.mameroom.com/ProductDetai...ID=UAIICAB27E4

Found specs for it free np. The control box is seperate so it's possible to have a different layout than whats pictured.

[Auspice]

Does anyone have any recommendations for USB controller adapters? I'd like to be able to use NES/SNES/N64 controllers at least but the USB adapters I've found are $20-30 each. I bet there's no chance anyone has ever made a multi console USB adapter huh?

Now I need a new CPU since my buddy gave me an old PCIe video card he had sititng around so I can use my other mobo. The new build should be a shitload faster.

[Isiolia]

Does anyone have any recommendations for USB controller adapters? I'd like to be able to use NES/SNES/N64 controllers at least but the USB adapters I've found are $20-30 each. I bet there's no chance anyone has ever made a multi console USB adapter huh?

I have one I got at Wal Mart years ago for $10 that's PSX/PS2, Gamecube, and XBox I think. Mayflash seems to make something similar, and one that's PSX/PS2, DC, and Saturn.

I haven't seen multi-adapters for the pads you mentioned though.

[bungiefan]

I got a PS2/N64 USB adapter off of Lik-Sang years ago. It's clear blue plastic with the word BOOM on it. I also used to have a JoyPort USB that had PS1, N64, and I think Saturn input on it, but it was Mac-only from before OS X. There's still got to be adapters like that on the market for at least two controller types.

Play Asia sells Super Joy Box 5 Pros for about $15 each last I looked, and those let you use 4 PS2 controllers at once. I use those for my NES and SNES input, and just about anything else except N64.

[Auspice]

Hmm, is there a way to input composite/s-video to a computer? I was thinking of the TV Tuner cards but those only have coaxial which would only help for my NES, right? Hell, at this point if a device that let me hook my Coax/AV/SVideo console connections to it and connect to my PC to output on my HDTV that was under $100 it'd be worth using that instead of buying a bunch of USB controller adapters.

I've heard bad things about VGA boxes but would that be my only option?

Off topic:

Lik-Sang

;_; Moment of silence.

[Mabubeezareel]

I'm a bit confused on what you're actually trying to accomplish here. Do you want to use emulators and ROMs on your PC, but use your TV as a monitor? Or do you want to input the video out from your actual consoles into your PC, and then use your TV as a monitor?

If the former, then all you need is:

1. Emulator(s)
2. ROMs
3. USB adapter for controller(s)
4. VGA or HDMI or DVI->HDMI cable

That's what I'm currently doing at home. I have a DVI -> HDMI cable to use my TV as a second monitor, and a PSX -> USB adapater using an original Dualshock as my lone controller for all my emulators. Also have a wireless mouse that I drag over from my desk to the couch.

[Isiolia]

Hmm, is there a way to input composite/s-video to a computer? I was thinking of the TV Tuner cards but those only have coaxial which would only help for my NES, right? Hell, at this point if a device that let me hook my Coax/AV/SVideo console connections to it and connect to my PC to output on my HDTV that was under $100 it'd be worth using that instead of buying a bunch of USB controller adapters.

I've heard bad things about VGA boxes but would that be my only option?

Depends on the card. Some do. Most of Happauge's lineup seems to have Composite/S-Video, even their $50 HVR-1250.

Having used that sort of solution to play console games without a TV before though, I'd say that the results may not be as good as you'd hope. Emulators, IMO, would be the nice way to go for output to an HDTV, as you'd have scaling/filtering that a TV-card may not do, or may not do very well.

Does your monitor simply not have the input options? Or do you just want to keep things clean? The latter I can understand, I have my old consoles in a back room on a tube TV, only 360/PS3 in the living room XD

I'd consider maybe going with N64 adapters only. That controller is pretty different, whereas the NES and SNES are pretty easily approximated (though it wouldn't be as authentic).

[bungiefan]

Newegg.com - Leadtek Tuner Card TV2000XP/EXPERT PCI Interface - TV Tuners & Video Devices

That's what I have in my computer, with coaxial, composite, and S-Video input. NewEgg discontinued it about a year ago though, but it was $40 the whole time they carried it. There should be similar stuff still on the market. That one worked great with DScaler.

The problem you are having isn't upscaling itself, it's the crappy upscaler in your TV. Your computer will upscale for you, and does a better job of it, so a TV input card won't be a p[roblem as long as it doesn't have processing delay. A VGA box can be like your TV, it might have a crappy upscaler if you don't buy one nearer the high end. Unfortunately, the one I have is also out of production, since i made my setup a few years ago. My ViewSonic NextVision N5-2 works great and has component input and support for progressive input.

[Auspice]

The easiest solution is to just deal with the shitty upscaling on my TV but I'm an uncompromising bastard who refuses to do that or throw his old school consoles into another room to play on a crappy old CRT. I'm just trying to figure out the most effective way to preserve the visual integrity of my old school systems and still be able to play them in my living room.

I'm just trying to figure out the most effective way to do that whether it's:

-Via emulation which I'd rather not utilize since it's going to cost a fortune to buy adapters for my controllers to play them the "real" way
-Somehow going through the computer to preserve the picture quality and simply blow it up to fit the screen

[Auspice]

Bumpity bump since I finally got everything hooked up. Running the machine at 800x600 gives me a really nice picture on my old school consoles and it runs silky smooth!

For the time being I'm sacrificing and using a 360 controller as my gamepad until I further decide what to do with my old controllers and possibly buying usb adapters.

Only issue I'm running into now is inability to output in 5.1 even though my integrated sound card supports it.

http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=pr...=1&prod_no=197

This is the mobo I'm using and I'm outputting via optical cable to my Onkyo receiver. Is this a limitation of the sound card? I used to have 5.1 hooked up to my PC with this motherboard when it was my desktop but I had separate plugs for each channel which I obviously can't use to plug into my receiver in the living room; hence the optical cable. I'm assuming the problem is that the 5.1 speakers on my desk were analog and for whatever reason I can't output 5.1 digital through the optical cable.

[Lost]

As far as I know of, you cannot output 5.1 or 7.1 out via optical or HDMI ( if your board supports it ) due to copywrite protection ( I think? ). I just know it's not possible as of now because nVidia hasn't put it in the drivers to support it. I've seen it somewhere that someone rewrote nVidia drivers to make it possible. I believe I saw it on the XBMC forums.

I had the same problem when setting up my HTPC and instead having a sperate audio output and video output. To solve this problem I bought a ASUS EAH4870 DK/HTDI/1GD5 Radeon HD 4870 Dark Knight, but i doubt you want something like this for your MAME.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-291-_-Product

[Auspice]

Yeah, I guess I'll have to deal with stereo sound. Hell, the highest console I'm emulating is N64 and I don't think that supported 5.1 so I guess no loss there.

[Lost]

I was wondering, what are the specs for the computer that you use to run the software for the MAME? Also, what's the OS and the software you use to emulate the games? I've been thinking about building one of these myself.

[Auspice]

MSI P4N SLI mobo
3.0 Ghz P4
1 gb DDR2 667 mhz RAM
ATI x700 pro 256mb video card

I haven't installed a GUI for it yet since I've mostly been installing emus and adjusting the settings. Right now I just have Jnes, ZSnes, and Project 64. Since it's all really low res source, I'm only outputting at 800x600 but it looks really nice.