Couple of questions about a MAME PC inside of an arcade cabinet.

[purbeast]

I am building a PC strictly for MAME to put in one of my cabinets and had a couple questions. I plan on using a J-PAC with the JAMMA harness and everything.

1. What is the best way to "turn on" the PC inside of the cabinet? With my light gun cabinet and a switcher, I have a few PC based games and I have setup relays to power on the ATX PSU when the switcher is on it. I could probably do this again, which requires hacking into the ATX PSU wires and stuff, but if there is a simpler way to do this I'd love to hear about it.

2. Is the extra cost of an SSD worth it for a PC being used strictly for a MAME cabinet? I plan on getting a 1TB drive regardless of SSD or not, but the cost is pretty different between an SSD and HDD. I know SSD would turn on faster, but just curious to hear if people think the extra cost is worth it.

I think that is all for now, thanks.

 

[Glorp]

I vote for SSD, myself. Less noise, higher speed, reasonable reliability, less power demand (usually), reasonable costs now, etc.
The typical PC usually has a setting in the bios settings somewhere that causes the machine to turn on by itself when power is applied.
You should still come up with a provision to power down the computer gracefully, rather than just pulling the plug on it.

 

[purbeast]

The typical PC usually has a setting in the bios settings somewhere that causes the machine to turn on by itself when power is applied.

Well how would you go about telling the ATX PSU to turn on when the cabinet PSU is turned on?

 

[Glorp]

Well how would you go about telling the ATX PSU to turn on when the cabinet PSU is turned on?

Have a single master power switch that powers up a power strip in the machine. Plug your pc, monitor, aux power supplies, fans, whatever into the power strip.

 

[purbeast]

Have a single master power switch that powers up a power strip in the machine. Plug your pc, monitor, aux power supplies, fans, whatever into the power strip.

Gotcha.

Yeah I was wondering if there was any other way to do this.

Now that you mention it, the PSU in my Maximum Force cabinet actually has a plug in it's main PSU but I don't think the one in the cabinet I am going to use for this. I piggy backed a power wire off of that that plugs into the ATX PSU's I use in my light gun cabinet. Next time I open my other cabinet I'll take a look and the PSU and maybe it has a plug on it. Don't think so though.

 

[TheShanMan]

I have a power strip that senses current flow in one of the plugs and turns the rest on or off accordingly. Then I installed a regular arcade push button in the top of my cab and wired it to the motherboard's power button input.

I have a small SSD as my boot drive (faster bootup) and a hard drive for all the mame stuff.

My setup works well for me.

 

[purbeast]

I have a power strip that senses current flow in one of the plugs and turns the rest on or off accordingly. Then I installed a regular arcade push button in the top of my cab and wired it to the motherboard's power button input.

I have a small SSD as my boot drive (faster bootup) and a hard drive for all the mame stuff.

My setup works well for me.

Good idea that I never even considered.

The 128gb SSDs are like $15 so I may just go that route.

 

[SCUBA King]

Last one I build I used these, I 3d printed a plate to hold it perfectly so I didnt have to massage the opening in the panel to look clean.

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Then on the inside, have all wired to common strip per @Glorp
Note, if you cant get the bios settings to powerup as you like, you may need to jump one pin on power harness to ground, most likely wont need to, but I did on a build I did using an ATX PS.

+1 for the SSD at a minimum
+1 for SSD for boot and 7200RPM for MAME.
I have done both, SSD only is worth extra $$$ IMO for everyday, but for MAME, its a great way to reuse smaller SSDs and old drives you may have stockpiled

 

[purbeast]

Last one I build I used these, I 3d printed a plate to hold it perfectly so I didnt have to massage the opening in the panel to look clean.

Amazon.com: Antrader 6pcs Inlet Module Plug Male Power Socket with 5A Fuse Switch 10A 250V 3 Pin IEC320 C14 : Electronics

Buy Antrader 6pcs Inlet Module Plug Male Power Socket with 5A Fuse Switch 10A 250V 3 Pin IEC320 C14: Power Cords - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

Then on the inside, have all wired to common strip per @Glorp
Note, if you cant get the bios settings to powerup as you like, you may need to jump one pin on power harness to ground, most likely wont need to, but I did on a build I did using an ATX PS.

+1 for the SSD at a minimum
+1 for SSD for boot and 7200RPM for MAME.
I have done both, SSD only is worth extra $$$ IMO for everyday, but for MAME, its a great way to reuse smaller SSDs and old drives you may have stockpiled

So having the OS/MAME on the SSD and roms on mechanical drive, there wasn't really any noticeable difference between that and having everything on an SSD?

I don't have any lying around, but the 128gb or so SSD are pretty cheap.

 

[SCUBA King]

So having the OS/MAME on the SSD and roms on mechanical drive, there wasn't really any noticeable difference between that and having everything on an SSD?

I don't have any lying around, but the 128gb or so SSD are pretty cheap.

Just heat, moving parts, noise.
I have swapped all mine stuff over to SSD, but you should be able to run off a high quality spinner.
Note, I have not played any of the newest supported platforms that will need more horsepower / space (Playstation, xbox etc) so I cannot give an opinion on those looking good on a spinner, but all the retro stuff plays with no noticeable lag etc off a high quality spinner.

 

[purbeast]

Just heat, moving parts, noise.
I have swapped all mine stuff over to SSD, but you should be able to run off a high quality spinner.
Note, I have not played any of the newest supported platforms that will need more horsepower / space (Playstation, xbox etc) so I cannot give an opinion on those looking good on a spinner, but all the retro stuff plays with no noticeable lag etc off a high quality spinner.

Yeah I'm looking to basically top out at 90's arcade games and not worry about any console stuff.

I was more wondering about the load times if there was any noticeable difference or not.

 

[Glorp]

You can fit a lot of MAME games on even a $20 128GB SSD.
I just bought a couple used Samsung 128GB SSDs from eBay for $18. They work fine.
I put one in a Need for Speed Underground, and the other in my old windows machine I used for eprom burning.

 

[purbeast]

You can fit a lot of MAME games on even a $20 128GB SSD.
I just bought a couple used Samsung 128GB SSDs from eBay for $18. They work fine.
I put one in a Need for Speed Underground, and the other in my old windows machine I used for eprom burning.

Yeah I am hoping to setup that Hyperspin interface which has a lot of videos/sounds/graphics and stuff in and of itself so I want to be sure I have enough space for all of that.

I could get a 1Tb SSD for like $65 or I can get an 128Gb SSD and a 1Tb HDD 7200rpm for like $50. Not sure if the solo SSD drive is worth the $15 more.

 

[Glorp]

I think you should get the solo SSD. Less to go wrong. Less noise. Less heat. Less energy usage. No moving parts. Faster.