Need some advice for my first cabinet build

[toaks]

I am looking to build my first MAME cabinet. I need some advice on what pc components I need. I am not really worried about emulating consoles, but  I do want to be able to run pretty much any arcade game available and use scanlines on the games that had them.  Also what emulators would you recommend. I figured probably MAME and Daphne?  Any input would be appreciated!

[Seymour]

First of all: What's your budget? If it's low you should take a look on the G4560,  the brand new budget champion. With that you will be able to emulate pretty much everything, but if you want to run newer arcades like naomi2 you should invest in a good GPU and better CPU as well (or maybe not, that new pentium is a little beast)

[toaks]

Don't really have a budget figured out yet, just trying to get an idea of the max cost im looking at, an then i can strip it down if needed. I would like to be able to run the newest games but don't want to waste money if it's overkill for what I need.

[Coleman]

I've been also thinking about a MAME cabinet.  I have been looking for a way to make interchangeable control panels, but I have not found anything yet.

[SamSC]

Not sure what you mean interchangeable panels but I thought I would share what I did and maybe that helps. I built a MAME cabinet as my first project and that worked well for me. You will find it easier to worry about the components for just one emulator for now and you will want to build a second one and that is when you know what to put on your wishlist for ultimate gaming cabinet. I built a desktop for my first cabinet and recycled some old components I had lying around ordered my controls off ebay as a kit package with buttons and joysticks. Set it up as a two player cabinet with MAME and used GameEx as my FE. If you have the woodworking skills and an old computer the project can be done for under $500, I sold the desktop cabinet and recouped everything I spent and a little more and then I purchased a used Arcade cabinet for $125 gutted it built my current cabinet for about $700 this does not have to cost you a lot most of your MAME game don't require high-end graphics or a super computer just the opposite. And finally, I built one with the scrap lumber I had for my 6 year old great nephew. Someone else did it first but it was so easy to make I couldn't resist. Sold that one to my sister who presented to my nephew for Christmas spent under $100 dollars. All three were great fun to build and I want to find a good two player Arcade machine to work on next. I am including some pictures just have fun with it.

[Coleman]

Well for me, controls are king....

Let's say I want to play a track ball game.  It's not going to do if I have to use a joy stick...

My thought was that I should be able to change out the entire CP if I can setup an adapter/wire harNess that allows me to powe down the unit, swap out the CP and them power back on.

This way I could have 1 cabinet with a half dozen control panels that give proper controls for any game.

[f8lbyte]

For the actual PC build, I wouldn't buy brand new parts.  You can easily get a core 2 duo machine off ebay for less than $100 bucks, and it'll run most arcade games no problem.

[ecb116]

Hey buddy, nice to see that you are starting your own build! 

I have to agree with F8lbyte on this one. A core 2 duo will do just fine. 4gigs of ram and a decent gpu, like a gtx 460 or better and you are golden.