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I am looking to build a bar top Mame machine.  First I would like to run down my set up and see if it should work.  I have some extra stuff laying around that I would like to use. Dell optiplex P3 1.2 GHZ with 512 meg of ram, 100 gig HD and square 17 inch LCD monitor.  I was not planning a touch screen, will I regret that decision?   As to the controls I was looking at using the mag stick plus since it is adjustable between 4 and 8 way. 

My main objective is to play defender and stargate along with video poker.  I don't would also like to play some items that typically used a central joy stick like packman and donkey kong.    I was looking to put the joystick to the left and sort of replicate the original stargate controls with a reverse, fire, inviso, hyperspace and smart bomb buttons.  I would also add 1 and 2 player buttons on the left.  For poker I would put 5 buttons below the screen and use the 1 and 2 player buttons for bet and draw.   Does anyone with mame experience think this would work out ok or would it be lacking in other areas?  Would the left hand joystick feel strange playing pacman?

P3?  For the old games that you mentioned a P3 might not even cut it, unless you run a very old version of MAME.  Keep in mind that the current core is designed around current hardware.  Discrete sound and further developments make even the oldest games run poorly on old hardware.  Old MAME builds on old hardware with XP might be the way to go.

Jason

I'm going through the same thing building a bar top poker with old computer parts.
With this one I'm using a P3 with 512 ram and only a 3 gig HD! Windows XP.

Don't laugh, it's just a prototype. I hope to refine it a lot.

(http://i891.photobucket.com/albums/ac116/groovecart/Picture006-2.jpg)

All the PE+ poker roms work perfect with this setup and MAMEUI32 vers. 0.129.1.0.

The controls have been the hardest part of my build. I found some square momentary pushbuttons that work OK for poker but I can't select games with them. When I first start the computer I have to use a mouse(or joystick) to select games from the list in MAMEUI32. I think this might be a limitation of using the MAME version with a GUI.

I can also play frogger and a few other games too but I might keep this small size as just poker and build a few more just like it.
Then maybe build a bigger one or two for other arcade and windows XP games and a great jukebox program I found.
Otherwise I think it would be strange to have the joystick off center or to have it in the way while playing poker.

I think I will try to run what I am after on the P3 set up before putting it in the cabinet.  I have a 2.2 p4 that I could use but the P3 is a fanless cpu with giant heat sink so I think the machine could be quieter with it.

The P3 will run the PE+ roms no problem.
Other newer games will probably need a faster processor.

I'm running my MAME table on an 10+ year old 1.2GHz P3 Toshiba laptop with Windows 2K. Works fine for all of the old games.

I would not rule out a laptop for a small machine.

(I really do need to get some new artwork)

You can pick up small network devices such as firewalls that are all-in-one embedded PC systems. These are P3 systems, 256 to 512Mb RAM (DIMM that can be removed and upgraded), SVGA, and I/O on one board.

Some of these even have Compact Flash card slots for drives and that's in addition to having IDE connections for 2.5" laptop drives.

These systems work GREAT with WinXP and MAME... or you can use one of the tiny Linux distros.

And you can pick these up for dirt cheap. Just look for USB ports, serial ports, etc on the back panel and open 'em up to see what's inside!

I have a few of those that were firewalls and they work great, very small form factor. I have an old Dell Optiplex dual core that's about the size of a cigar box. I also have about 4 AMD Athlon 1.8 boards with a gig of memory that I could use for the more advanced arcades.

I'm building 2 that will be poker/slots/keno/21 only, PE+ MAME table top machines as small as I can make them.

But it would be fun to build some others.
One with dual joysticks and maybe a trackball for games.
One with a force feedback steering wheel and pedals.
I'd also like to build a very small jukebox.
And I was thinking one of those pinball games that use an LCD mounted horizontal as the table top.

Where am I going to put all these?

I have several PE+ games working but some will not take coins even though the memory cleared and the slot version spin super slow,  is that normal? 

No, all my PE+ roms work as expected with MAMEUI32 vers 0.129.1.0.
If the memory cleared and you closed the door, coin in should work.
Spinning slow sounds like video card issues or possibly need to update Direct X??

I am on directx 11 with a 2 gig video card.  What is the right way to do a memory clear?

Same as the instructions for the genuine PE+ machines.

Open the door("o" on keyboard) then press "k" for at least 5 seconds, it might "ding".
Close the door("o" again).  Make sure that the "door open" message goes away too.
With the door closed and the "door open" message gone, press the "L" key.

You may get another error, in which case repeat these steps and it should work now.

PS0615 never says open when I push O  if I push it a second time the screen will blink.  if I hold K for 5 seconds and release it will open an options window at this point O will not close, I have to repeatedly hit k to get to the end of the options.

Well, my PS0615 says door open at the top of the screen when I push O???.
If you push K and get setup options then the door is open, otherwise pushing K won't do anything.
Anywhere in the setup options you should be able to push O and close the door returning to the game or the cmos error thing if the game is not ready to go.

Okay, I nuked my nvram file and reinstalled PS0615.

How to install

Select the game, when the first screen shows hit "enter"
You should get a green screen with "call attendent" at top.
Press O and get "door open, cmos data"
Press and hold K until it "dings"
Press O to close door. You should now have a blue"Call Attendant" screen.
Press O again.
Press K once and the game should appear with "door open" at the top.
Set your options how you want them and then close the door and you should be good to go.