CRT in the only way to go for older mane games. Centipede looks stupid on an lcd.

Turn off bilinear filtering. Enable the triad6 artifact. Run it all @ 1080p & enforce the aspect ratio.

It will look quite nice

This is what I did, convert a cabinet that was already supposed to be in effect a multicade. You can find these JAMMA Japanese cabinets (Blast City, New Astro City, any candy cab) from a few places including EBay. These are neAt because they are sit down cabinets. To get the spinner and trackball in there I did have to have a custom panel made. Run Mame PC in this cabinet and quite happy with how it performs. Have 3 of these so multiple people can play different games at one time. I can share more details on the build as desired.

IMG_5602 (resized).JPG

Unless I'm mistaken, I think Aurich was referring to the control panel, not the cabinet. I bought a cabinet from this company many years ago and I am still very happy with it. It's sturdy and fit for purpose. As an actual owner, I personally wouldn't call it "poop". Unless poop means well-built, convenient and not damaged in shipping. .

If you are going to get one of these I like this one best, but then you can see my predilection for sit down cabinets. So I have one of these too and the build quality is quite good. I use it for my PS4.

http://www.recroommasters.com/Xtension_Sit_Down_Pro_Arcade_Machine_p/rm-xt-sd-pro.htm

Pandoras Box 4 is what im currently using. Great product. Quick build as well. I use the VisionPros pretty much exclusively from Suzo Haap. The old makvision CRTs in big buck hunters were such epic junk I will never buy their product.

Hyperspin here, but it is difficult for the average fellow

In all honestly I went way crazy with my build trying to build it for every scenario out there, but that's what worked for me. Keep it to what YOU want and will actually use. Personally a pre-fab cabinet is not a bad way to go if you do not have the means to build it all our yourself. As others have recommended build your own CP.

BYOAC is a wealth of knowledge for this stuff! Enjoy the research part of it

My "Electrocade" build:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,146141.0.html

I'm a MAME minimalist and you make be want everything. You machine is very well done.

Build you own, it feels good. I built a cabinet that wasn't as deep to save some space, loaded MAME and Maximus front end. Even put some visual pinball on in with flipper buttons. Liked it so much I then built a mini Virtual pinball machine.

20161002_154423 (resized).jpg

20160910_211330 (resized).jpg

Qbert is easy if you have a switchable 4 to 8 way joystick with a square "gate". Really easy to hit the diagonals. If you are using MAME you just have to program each movement accordingly. Buttons on sides are for pinball sims (additional buttons on sides can be used for nudging or magna-save). Most pinball sims can be programmed to use those buttons. Zaccaria Pinball, The Pinball Arcade etc...

WOW. Anything you can share on the Multicade build??

You should of course build whatever makes you happy. My personal advice is skip crowding your control panel with a bunch of stuff you'll hardly ever use just for a couple of games. It looks cluttered, they get in your way, it's just not really worth it IMHO. That is if you're really doing this because you want to play games, I think some people get more joy out of designing it all, thinking up controls for every scenario, and just diving into a project. Which is great too.

All I could find is an old pic of my cab. Scratch build, and I wanted it to look like a real cab, and not a collection of controls. Like I said though, whatever makes you happy is the way to go.

deep6 (resized).jpg

This is what I've found to be my preferred button layout. I play quite a few fighters and this setup is a good combination of Capcom, Neo Geo, and Mortal Kombat.

7 button (resized).png

Here's a couple different machines I've built.
image (resized).jpgimage (resized).jpgIMG_1089 (resized).JPGIMG_0414 (resized).JPGIMG_0406 (resized).JPG

image (resized).jpg

These days, I'm more of a "cabinetless" MAME guy.

Years ago, I did a wall-mount unit, that runs off of a nearby computer. I like the concept (no floor space used), and it plays pretty well.

However, I've always thought that a lap-sized arcade stick was the way to go, and it seems the fighting game community agrees, as they have been doing that for a while now. I like this option since it allows players to sit anywhere, and use any screen.

I've built my own from scratch, and I've also made custom drop-in panels that fit the Mad Catz TE2. I plan to build more of these panels to deal with games with more unique panel layouts. The one pictured is a SHMUPS panel, which also was designed to be used for PCE/TG16 games. It also has extra holes drilled so I can easily rotate the stick to Q*Bert mode.

Next I need to build a trackball panel, a dual stick panel, and a Tron panel. Then maybe something completely nuts like an Exterminator panel, if I can find that type of stick anywhere...

IMG_0677 (resized).jpg

IMG_1957 (resized).png

IMG_1958 (resized).png

IMG_1972 (resized).jpg

IMG_1999 (resized).jpg

IMG_2007 (resized).jpg

Definitely the blank version (no titles). Either version of lines looks great!

Diverging lines. (agree with no title except on the marquee)
Or maybe abbreviate the title on the side as "The Matrix" no border and enmeshed with the lines.

MaLa - because it's the only one i know that can rotate and also drives the automated rotating CRT...

Jump to min. 1:10

MAME cabaret! 8K in 1 ~ NOS Wico 8-Way leaf switch Joystick, 6 back lit leaf switch buttons, 2 Midway Galaga fire buttons, 18.5" screen, polycarbinoite Capcom overlay, 300 watt 2.1 speaker system even the coin door works! Running Mame UI & Hyperspin!

e2ded09c57e8345bcca6dad95f47ee761b33b576 (resized).jpg

I added a microswitch to the coin return button which is now used to coin up the machine (and it's also the frontends shift button if you hold it down). Didn't want to add all kinds of "non-orginal" buttons to the control panel.

The coindrop also still works, except for the coin return obviously...

I've always played Q-Bert on my MAME cabinet using diagonally opposed buttons instead of a joystick. It's very intuitive and there's no misses when you don't hit/time the diagonals properly using a joystick.

Maybe try a black border (1.5")around the perimeter, with a white or gray or tron blue pinstripe separating the graphics and the border

Hi, I should read my forum post more. I used koenigs design with slight modifications for my cabinet. http://www.koenigs.dk/mame/eng/

Buttons and joysticks are cheap USB encoders from eBay, under $80 CAD for the entire set. Didn't want to pay a premium for buttons. Old 19" LCD monitor and HP core 2 duo tower from work, 1 GB low end Nvidia card. Maximus front end for MAME and virtual pinball. Printed the artwork on a wide format printer at work and attached with "Hodge podge". Marquee is artwork between 2 think layers of plexiglass and led light bulb behind it for low heat and life.

Chris