Built one and still have it in the game room - we'll actually it's half in and half out in one of the doorways to the room because I have it full of pins.

My wife and I still play it occasionally; but our guests just love the excessive nostalgia one offers as you scroll through countless games. I have what I feel is a well layed out Frankenpanel; but, consoles are always a compromise using anything but the dedicated console controller. Fortunately, you can get USB versions of most all of them.

I still think vids are a good addition to a well rounded game room. MAME makes it easier to cram a bunch into a small space and that leaves more room for pins.

A good game of Super Puzzle Fighter II is always good fun... A great game of it borders on grounds for divorce.

I skipped the cabinet and built a nice controller that can sit table top and hooks to my media pc that has mame and other emulators on it.

Has 1 dedicated 4way, 2 - 8way, 3" trackball, spinner, and a slew of buttons cost some where in the 300 dollar range to make.
I recommend the iBuffalo controller for SNES/NES gaming:
https://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-Classic-USB-Gamepad-PC/dp/B002B9XB0E

Its 95% the real deal, if you want that 5% get a USB port adaptor for the real SNES controllers, I have both and can use either one without missing the 5% when I'm on the iBuffallo.

The NES,SNES,Genesis are going to look and play great the emulators now have these essentially perfect. The N64 not so much, most games are playable however, not bad enough to be a deal breaker for 80% games.
Most arcade games are emulated very nicely as well.

Its not that hard to build one yourself, with 4k you could build the mame cab and a new pc to run it and have enough leftover for a nice pinball too.

If you didn't like the arcade legends there's little need to buy a MAME

If it's consoles you like then buy a $200 Asus mini theater PC loaded with 80's & 90's console roms to play via a wireless Xbox 360 controller while sitting on the couch. It's fun & comfortable

It's lame IMO to play NES games on a giant arcade control panel.

I am a MAME enthusiast. For me it's just best used to play arcade games.

Really depends what you are looking for in your game room. Full on MAME/Hyperspin cabs are nice, as they offer a huge game selection for people with limited space.

The question should be what games do you really want to play? Even though MAME has a massive game selection, and including old consoles, you still might find yourself getting bored with it. If you have a favorite arcade classic, nothing can beat a dedicated cab. Playing on an original control panel layout for a particular game with a CRT is the best. Nothing like it. But you have to love that game and have some other variety in the game room. I would personally get two of you have some space. I just got a Vertigo from VPCabs, awesome little machine that can give you your fix of arcade games - 1 player and trackball games, along with virtual pins. I love the look of it, no other cab looks like it and even though it's an LED monitor, it makes sense in the cab. Whereas I feel that other traditional two player arcade cabs with LED's are kind of sacreligous.

Complement a vertigo with another cab and you are set.

I bought my vertigo for a little over 4K, wait time was 4 weeks.

Or you could always look at DreamHomeArcades, they make great looking MAME cabs, but expect to pay closer to 5k and wait time is 16 weeks. An arcade legends 3 is a great cab too. It's way better than the arcade legends 1. But game selection is fairly weak.

Really comes down to what you want to play. I find that when guests come over, they'll play games for a little bit and then get back to the party. So sometimes sifting through a game list of a million isn't the greatest; especially for the women. They want to play a game of pac man and a game on a pin and then they are done.

Something else to think about, Some MAME cabs can be super secretive to navigate around. So if you are having a party, guests walk up and have no idea how to start a game. That doesn't happen on games with exit buttons like AL3 or a vertigo. And never on a dedicated. There is something special about a dedicated cab, it has history and a story behind it.

If you can go with a game that's just a really sweet cab and that will get some play, you might be happiest with that.

Good luck man, the best place to buy dedicateds is Todd Tuckey. Barnone the best restorations on the planet earth for vids. Good luck!'

Looove mine, I would never part with it. It was a custom build by a guy who used to do them, but has folded up shop now unfortunately.

It gets played every week, probably as much if not more as the pins. I would say having all arcade games as well as classic consoles is a must for any game room.

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I own one too.
I like reliving the old games I used to play and discovering new ones.
In a pin collection, this will mainly get played by non pinheads.

Retropie. In my custom made DK cabaret.

I also have another custom machine I built that is Streetfighter.

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Have an incredible Hyperspin arcade machine for sale. Fully loaded with every emulator and complete ROMs for each emulator. All the controls you could want and also have a 4 player control panel with stainless steel joysticks that can be swapped on to the cabinet.

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/archive/32075

Before I got into owning pinball machines I was interested in arcade cabinets that played old console games. I went ahead and built 3 of them. One for NES, one for SNES, and one for Genesis. I ended up selling 2 of 3 once I started filling my house with machines. I still have the Genesis one for sale on CL for $200 with all the extra games and extra controllers. You can see my complete build pics on Instructables.com and play videos on youtube if interested. I had a lot of fun with them. Brought them to kids birthday parties and stuff and everybody played.

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I built one a little over a year ago and it is a nice addition to the gameroom. The kids definitely love it and the 4-player arcade games are a blast. TMNT, Sunset Riders, Blitz, NBA Jam, Golden Tee, all great for when people are over drinking. I did a pedestal arcade with a TV on the wall with a rotating mount, mostly for shmups like Ikaruga, but it works for virtual pinball too.

The console games can be tough with the arcade sticks, but like people have said, there are wireless USB controllers that work great. You can emulate most of them with a pretty inexpensive computer. I'm glad I have it and while I do enjoy pinball more, the cabinet does have its moments.

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If you have time to read it, here's a thread about my MAME:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/my-marvel-mame-arcade-just-arrived/page/4#post-3000113

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I think the purpose-built JAMMA multigame boards are better for an arcade cabinet than a PC running MAME.

The game selection is obviously better with MAME, but I think the JAMMA boards simply do a better job at preserving the overall arcade game "feel"; they require no explanation to guests who are coming/going and casually playing, and the more limited game selection avoids the paralysis of indecision which can result from being given too many choices.

I really detest endlessly tweaking software settings, finding ROMS (though I now have a fairly complete set), and dealing with routine OS/PC issues, and I like to keep this tedium out of my arcade games. Given that PCs are disposable commodities, my perception (not necessarily reality) is that a cabinet running everything off a single purpose-built board is more likely to last a decade or two and is more likely to do so trouble-free. I also appreciate that the JAMMA boards can be installed into old cabinets fairly easily and do not require modifications which would render the original boards unusable (possible to remove the JAMMA boards and return the game to 100% "stock" condition in many cases).

I think the best boards in terms of emulation quality are the "MULTICADE" boards (60 in 1 vertical and 19 in 1 horizontal - 99% of the games everyone remembers). The 19 in 1 is the only board I am aware of which preserves the dual joystick configuration for Robotron, and has the best emulation I have seen for Super Mario Bros. I have also experimented with the "Game Elf" boards; they contain a larger selection of games, but on some the emulation is not quite correct (fortunately though, the classic Namco games all seemed to work perfectly). Either would make for a fun machine which could be enjoyed hassle-free by people who are not nerds.

These don't look nearly as slick as some of the pictures posted here, but if you have no wood working skills (like me) and just want a quick and easy way to get up and running, you could get

1) a cabinet http://www.recroommasters.com/X_Arcade_Compatible_Cabinets_s/67.htm
2) and a Tankstick: https://shop.xgaming.com/collections/arcade-joysticks/products/x-arcade-tankstick-trackball-usb-included
3) any set of PC speakers like: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2
4) add your own PC, which can be any old PC with Windows XP that you were going to throw out anyway and you have a Mame arcade with almost no skills.
5) Add software. There are so many software options, I'm not even sure where to begin. I used Maximum Arcade because it comes free with every Tankstick purchase, but Hyperspin is very popular and well supported.

Some great looking cabinets being shown. But in my opinion, it's a mistake to not install a spinner. Not only for the obvious games like Arkanoid types, but a spinner makes a terrific steering wheel for all the driving and racing games. Super Sprint is a blast to play using the spinner for example.

I agree that having all the choices of emulators and thousands of games can be overwhelming to guests. That's why I have a dumbed down favorites menu on Hyperspin and a simple MAME32 frontend listing favorites. I can run either of those instances during parties or when friends come over and it keeps things simple.

While having the option of SNES, Playstation, etc is cool - realistically those games can't be played well with an arcade control panel. So no need to have those available to choose from when guests are playing.

I've been going back on forth on selling mine because I don't play it often anymore, and when I do, we play Shuffleshot and Golden Tee in MAME and that's about it. Sometimes Marvel Vs Capcom too.

I built my MAME machine a few years ago, set up HyperSpin with MAME, Neo-Geo, NES, SNES, Genesis, Model1/2, and Naomi emulators. Runs great, really turned out well. But... I don't play much. Months since last on now, but I like having it there anyway, lol. Sounds like you may or may not get much use out of yours, guess it depends on why you didn't like the legends cab. This won't be a ton different I wouldn't think, though Hyperspin is really nice for a frontend IMO.

Anyway, the console emulators run really well, feels right at home on the cabinet. There is a ton of time to be spent getting videos and images for the games setup for each system in the frontend, etc, if you're doing it yourself. Join up or check out emumovies I think it was and make sure they have what you want. Seems like there were some issues getting Nintendo content, maybe I'm remembering incorrectly though.

Only pic i have handy attached, next to my virtual pincab.

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Dude, I agree about the spinner, it definitively sucks not being able to play Arkanoid and I love Super Sprint and Off-Road. I've thought about going back to add it in.

I had a generic Dynamo HS2 with SFII Champion Edition artwork which I MAME'd for a few years.

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Last year I came across a "bastardized" Nintendo red tent which had been drilled and modified for to take JAMMA boards. So I managed to work out a straight trade for the red tent in exchange for my SFII machine minus the MAME setup. I ended up gutting the red tent and sold the original monitors and whatever else was inside that I didn't need such as power supply, boards and wiring harnesses. Not having to deal with arcade monitors gives me lots of room inside and reduces the amount of heat too. I picked up four Dell 19" 4:3 monitors for $50 and they fit perfectly as you can see. It worked out great because I am at net $0.00 for the left over shell and LCD monitors.

My daughter and her cousins are the ones which play MAME the most and it sucked playing games like TMNT because my old cab was only good for 2 players. It also became a pain when they would say I wanna be Donatello or Raphael when I only have Leonardo and Michangello mapped. Now with this new setup I get the best of both worlds with Players 1 & 3 and Players 2 & 4 on the other side each with their own screen too.

Here is a video of how the dual LCD works

Since I knew this was going to be my keeper MAME, I went all out with RGB controls and setup LEDBlinky so the controls light up interactively with whatever system or game you have selected too. This way it takes the guess work out of which button is active for each game. It literally was a pain to wire and in hind sight I should have probably put the red tent on my pinball lifter so this way I could have worked standing up right instead of hunched over. There is roughly 240' of wire as I went through two and a half spools of wire and I wanted to keep things organized and neat. I don't play MAME very often but given how small of a foot print my red tent takes up in the gameroom I am glad to have it there in case I ever get the itch to play some fighting games from my childhood.

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The nice thing about MAME is you can add or remove whatever games you want. If you want to see what roms are available you can go check out this site edgeemu.net

There is a 2-3TB Hyperspin/MAME hard drive setup that people clone and sell locally via craigslist for $150-250. I setup my Hyperspin/MAME from scratch and read the forums because I wanted to understand how to add/update themes and systems. I also didn't want to have 30 different versions of the same game like Street Fighter II or MahJong either

If you are willing to build your own and do some of the work yourself there is no way you will even come close to spending $4000 on a MAME. My red tent build here would have been well under $400 but I decided to splurge on the colorful controls from Paradise Arcade Shop. This part of the build cost me close to $350 but I wanted to keep the controls authentic to what I remember playing on which was not HAPP but iL (aka Industrias Lorenzo) as well.

Here is a link to my build.

http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/topic/601-video-man-hyperspin/

I also do printing for the community so when you are ready for graphics please send me a PM

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I'm inclined to agree... and even the lowly 60-in-1 boards have almost all of the games you'd actually want to play.

I'm wanting to switch out my trackball for a white one. It looks like I have a blue trackball with a blue led wired behind it as of right now. Can anyone recommend or provide a link to a good quality white led trackball?

The Bat-Cade shoots flames out the back. I designed it with the 1966 Batmobile in mind.

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If anyone wants a copy of the fully loaded Hyperspin drive, just ship me an at least 2tb drive from Amazon and whatever it costs for me to ship it back to you. If there's room on the drive, I'll add all my virtual pinball stuff too.

I like them so much....I have two...One is a MAME running GameEx front-end, and the other is a Jamma400-1.

If you are looking to do one of these, I highly recommend taking PoMC up on his offer to copy Hyperspin on a drive. It can be a pain to configure everything.

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Is the software configuration pretty generic typically, or is it more specific to a computer setup (i.e. graphics card related, etc?)

With a fully loaded Hyperspin drive, you just will launch a shortcut and Hyperspin launches and all the emulators and roms are loaded. What you'll likely need to do is go into each emulator you plan on using and configuring the controls to your control panel layout.

Has anybody had experience running Hyperspin in a vertical orientation? If so, how easy is it to reconfigure? I have a gutted Galaga cabinet I want to make into a MAME machine, but every rig running Hyperspin shows it running horizontally.

Totally agree. I have a spinner on both my homemade cabs.

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I'm more of a fan of pinball but I do like to bang around on a vid every once in awhile. The nice thing about mame machines unlike virtual pinball is the emulated experience is pretty damn close to the real thing. I really like having one dedicated machine that plays thousands of games so I don't have to worry about taking up too much space for the pins. Always a big hit when friends come over, nothing beats SF and beers.

Here's a few pics of my latest build I finished a few years ago...

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I have 3 multicade machines in my game room currently. Pros and cons to each type, so it really depends on what you want, and which issues you want or are capable of dealing with.

Multi Williams (Joust cabinet)
* This one is a fairly straight forward multicade that just plays 6 or 8 of the classic Williams titles.

412n1 Vertical JAMMA (Pac Man cabinet)
* This one is a JAMMA GameElf pcb, you can get prebuilt control panel, harness, a power supply, bezel, marquee, etc all from arcadeshop.com to basically make is a plug and play solution. I could probably get all the games I'd frequently play on the 60 n 1, but the 412 n 1 was only about $30 more.
* This one is dead simple for the kids to walk up to and pick and a game and play within a few seconds.
* Cost was about $700 including cabinet, maybe 15hrs labor.

MAME Slim Cab (custom built slim cab with 32" LCD)
* This one was built from scratch to only have a 20" deep footprint from the wall. Has an extra 4" at control panel, but stil has at least a foot less depth than most standard cabs. PC setup with MAME and MaLa frontend.
* Significantly more setup and tweaking involved including adjusting controls for most games individually in MAME. Control panel through iPac keyboard encoder ends up with some special non-intuitive button sequences to operate some of the menus and popups without having to use the real keyboard.
* Kids aren't able to walk up and play with adult assistance usually (kids are 5 and 8).
* So many more game choices though, and other EMUs for NES, SNES, etc available. Plus Daphne for laserdisc games. Just a more robust and capable setup if you can handle doing all the setup and tweaking.
* Buy a powerful video card, or you wont be able to run the nice CHD titles without video issues.
* The bigger your monitor, the better your vertical games will look since you lose so much of the screen that isn't being used on the sides.
* Cost was about $1500-2000 fully built, configured, with custom artwork. About 80-120 hours labor on this one.

I think a perfect setup for most people would be two multicade machines. One with a vertical game board (60 or 412 in 1), and one with a horizontal game board. You lose too many classic titles if you only have one or the other. If you just have room for 1 machine, go MAME with a frontend of MaLa or Hyperspin, just plan on a lot more config headaches.

...or you can use a nice 33" Wells Gardner CRT VGA/arcade monitor. Vertical games show up perfectly on a screen that size.

They do indeed, that's why I put a 32" LCD in my MAME cabinet.

I hadn't looked to see if any of the multicade PCBs handled both vertical and horizontal games though. The ones I've seen only did one or the other. So many options out there now though. Good times.

The 2019-1 multi board supports vert and horizontal games. It takes a little bit of work though.
I added games to mine that I wanted and that were missing.
Made it so vertical games were the proper aspect ratio on a horizontal monitor.
Added missing sounds. Added all the missing artwork for games like battle zone and asteroids deluxe etc. And added some bezel artwork for games like gorf, spyhunter.
Not hard if you have dealt with Mame before.

basically it's a mame build with a Jamma adapter. But more stable. And Not intimidating for anyone that comes over to play.
Simple interface. Screenshots. P1 Start to start a game. Hold P1 start for 3 sec to exit.

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/461746642.html?aff_click_id=bca54f3d7ad847e298510e74580e329f-1467319998454-08834-UneMJZVf&aff_platform=y#autostay

Turned this bad boy on and found em both on here:

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I've never played Jackal before. I've played a ton of console games in my youth but this is a fun one. Thanks for the recommendation bud.

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I had a layout like this myself but I personally wish I had just a classic cabinet, easier to move around and takes up less space.

Really it came down to never being used, so I took it apart recently. My advices would be Hyperspin front end, skip the spinner, make sure to have a trackball.

Two machines are no longer necessary if one is OK with a cocktail table format. How about a three-sided cabinet which plays both horizontal and vertical?

http://www.hollandcomputers.com/store/pc/Jamma-900-in-1-PCB-Classic-Vertical-and-Horizontal-Arcade-Multigame-Multicade-JAMMA-PCB-Arcade-Game-Board-for-3-sided-cocktail-2517p10633.htm

They also sell all the cabinetry needed, including a horizontal control panel which can be retrofitted to a vertical cocktail cabinet. They also have the appropriate JAMMA wiring harness with two sets of control wiring.

I helped my brother build a three-sided cabinet a couple of years ago. At that time there was a dual JAMMA interface board available (I haven't been able to find them recently); the board had a wired pushbutton switch which we mounted in the cabinet just above the horizontal control panel to change between the two boards. I did a lot of splicing and soldering to make the JAMMA harness, which was the hardest part. We used the 60 in 1 and 19 in 1 boards, and it turned out great. The 900 in 1 board above and premade harness would be a better solution at this time however (though it is a Game Elf board and probably does not support dual joysticks in Robotron - a necessity for some of us!)

It's easy. Just like horizontal pretty much, with a few tweaks in the mame.ini for rotation. Just make sure your video chipset can handle rotation, which most can.

Love me some Konami, but the Simpsons is juts a total pile of shit Gyruss, Hyper Sports, Yie Ar Kung Fu, jailbreak etc etc

Best unknown Konami game.... Battlantis.

Other under rated hidden gems:

Pirate ship higarmaru.
Solar fox
Interstellar (laserdisc/Daphne)

Spinner games:
Cameltry
Avalanche
Major Havoc

Spinner were the crappy MHs, original design is much better, as a track ball works better as well.

Havoc was the one game I played all the time before I took it apart...but once you look up that psycho playing it on youtube it almost takes the fun out of it. I tired frikkin 20 years to get past level 17 I think...that dude just rolls into the 30s

I think the best way is to build your own and tailor it to what you like. I built one and themed it and I love it. You can see it here:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,130924.msg1341119.html#msg1341119

Pandora's Box 4 is probably the best horizontal multi pcb out there right now, you should check it out.

I tried building a mame cabinet many years ago, gave up when I couldn't get the joints strong enough, tossed it.
Fast forward a couple years back, bought a gutted golden tee cabinet, made a television mount for a 24" TV, started to wire up the buttons, didn't have time and it was taking up a pinball slot, so ended up selling that for about what I invested.

Someday (soon) I want to either build a simple sitdown cocktail cabinet, or one that hangs on the wall. If you have a $4k budget, you can pretty much buy a MAME cabinet off craigslist in any city. Just make sure it's a real PC running MAME, not these cheap 400-in-1 boards. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it takes little effort and if you're going to spend the money I would get a real system.

Btw, for those that don't want to deal with the setup of hyperspin, the latest alpha of gamex evolution has a very similar user friendly interface to hyperspin now, and gamex has always been easy to setup:
http://www.gameex.com/

I bought a MAME cabinet a couple of years ago and LOVE it. I looked into the Dream Home guys along with a dozen other companies that build MAME setups. Dream Home was the most expensive of the bunch for sure. I went with another company that was like half the price of Dream Home but there were lots of delays and broken promises and while I'm very happy with the end product, I wouldn't recommend those guys.

A couple of tips for you.

1. Consoles are no good on a MAME cabinet in my opinion. I was hyped about console play on my arcade but the first problem I found was that I hated standing up to play those games. Arcade games are quick. Console games are not (for the most part). I ended up buying an HTPC fully loaded with Hyperspin and all the ROMs for like $600 and hooked that up to another TV so I could play the console stuff from my couch. I don't even recommend that though. Playing NES or SNES with an Xbox controller didn't feel right. My thought was to then go out and buy every original controller I could find and then buy a USB adapter so I could play the ROMs with an original controller. Still a problem though...the games do not play perfectly. Mario was the biggest offender. The timing was every so slightly off and it made Super Mario World unplayable. The slightest delay in a game like that can cost you your life and that leads to frustration. Here's what I FINALLY ended up doing. I bought original hardware for each system I wanted and then bought a flash cartridge for that system. You can load up ROMs on the flash cart and then play the real games on the real hardware. Flash carts are 100% the same as playing the original cart but some have added bonuses of save states, game genie built in, etc. StoneAgeGamer.com has flash carts for all kinds of systems: NES, SNES, Genesis, N64, Dreamcast, etc. If you are serious about console gaming, your money is better spent that route in my opinion.

2. For sure pay someone to at least set up the PC for you with Hyperspin, all the ROMS, etc. It's a HUGE undertaking to do it yourself.

3. Are you dead set on a full size arcade cabinet? You could get a bartop build for much cheaper. What's nice about a bartop is that you could play it on a countertop or a table in comfy chairs but you could also put it on a pedestal and play it at normal arcade cabinet height. If you have a 4k budget, you could easily get a bartop setup plus every console and flash cart you want and still have money left. I can't speak highly enough of going the console and flash cart route if you are really going to console game!

absolutely true in my opinion, although it's quite daunting and to be honest i'm glad my two projects are done. But i love playing both of them

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,133202.msg1414948.html#msg1414948

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