MegaloMAMEiac MAME Project - post

MegaloMAMEiac MAME Project

I like to write, so if you don't like to read too much, skip down to the section that interests you.

Short Bio/Where my motivation comes from:
I'm not sure which one of the next two stories contributes most to my compulsion to collect arcade video games. I'm not even sure which one came first. I think it was the hair cut one, but I'm not sure.

When I was a kid, about 10-11, my mom would take me to a place called EJ's Little People to get my hair cut. They had a Tempest cabaret on free play there. I would play while my little sister got her hair cut, or while my mom and sister went to a nearby mall for at least an hour. Loved playing that game.

Around the same age, my parents loved going to Las Vegas. We would got at least every other weekend. Nothing else for a boy my age to do in Vegas besides play every single game in their massive arcades. I have fond memories of getting lost in the arcade at Circus Circus, nothing but games as far as the eye can see. Everyone once in a while, you'd see the trapeze act start. Then end, then start again. I would be there just THAT long. My parents would meet me for lunch, and dinner, and then, if we weren't doing anything tomorrow, I'd play until whenever that night.

Around the same time, I remember asking my parents for a video game as a birthday gift. They actually looked into it, and couldn't justify the price, being that the games would typically start out at about 5k. Of course, they were looking into buying a brand new one, and not the used ones that had out lived their profitability and were being let go for a fraction of their new value.

I started going to video game auctions in 1996. Started with a Simpsons 4-player and a non-working APB. Now, I have 11 cabinets, three or four of which are projects, and I have no space in my garage. I have to move a game to get to the sprinkler timer.

A few years ago I discovered MAME. It made the problem of collecting and finding room for every arcade game I'd ever spent more than $1.00 playing a little less important. I wanted to make a MAME machine, but all the cabinets I had collected so far just didn't seem right as my "dream" MAME machine.

About the Megalo 410:
So I happened upon this Megalo 410 sometime last year locally on eBay. Once it was in-the-house approved (read: "wife said it's OK"), I rented a trailer and was at the seller's door that same evening. I've wanted one for a long time. I'd passed up on chances to get it because of distance and other incidentals, and now, I'd finally gotten one! The big screen is awesome. And the fact that it's a sit down, Japanese style candy cabinet just made it all the more cool. I always figured it'd make a great MAME system, since it's made for conversions rather than a dedicated game, and, of course, because of the HUGE screen! :oD

The cabinet itself could use a new paint job. Lots of marks around the coin door key where it looks like someone tried to get an instant refund. The video display had seen better days, its all fuzzy. A good cleaning inside and out got the image looking a little more vibrant (seems like it sat in a place with ALOT of smoking). But despite all the cleaning, it was still fuzzy. After finally figuring out how to get the screen off, I peered down the inside the lenses to discover some kind of schmutz inside the lens housing themselves, not on the lenses, way down on the...uh...CRTs(?) themselves. You could see the image down in there being distorted by this semi-translucent crustiness. The red was clean, but the blue and green were partially covered with what I can best describe as dried up ocean water...it looks like salt crystals or something. I think the previous owner mentioned cleaning out the Red, so I just have to get back there and clean up the blue and green and it should be restored to optimum clarity (for a 10-year old RPTV, anyway). I understand I'm not getting 1080p here, but I expect to get a pretty decent image.

Project begins:
The other piece of the puzzle was always how to get it working on the Megalo without spending on the ArcadeVGA card (I am slow AND cheap!). The Megalo 410 has a VGA style input port on the side. However, it looks like from the jumpers inside the system, it can only accept up to 31Khz refresh rates. With most video drivers stopping at 60, I assumed I was stuck with coming up with the $100 for the AVGA card.

Then came Soft15kHz. :) Praise be to SailorSat! Because now it looks like I can run at 15, 24 OR 31 even. Not sure if I'll see a difference on that screen between 15 and 31, but it's nice to have the option.

I started by re-habbing an old socket 478 system that died from spontaneous power losses. Funds are low right now due to other hobbies, so I had to work with what I have. The power supply was fine. I narrowed down the problem to something to do with running a CD drive by itself on one of the IDE channels. Hooked up the CD drive as slave with the HDD as master on the first channel and it works. Sounds like it should be the default configuration to begin with, right?, but I used to run this system on a RAID, which technically could be called channels 3 and 4, so the CD/DVD was on it's own channel all by itself.

So I figure for now I just want to get it running, and then I'll look at stripping the windows down to a bare minimum for performance. Eventually, I may use it as a second computer as well for internet surfing and whatnot, so I may have to set up a dual boot with performance on one side, and functionality on the other.

The system is no slouch: P4 2.8, I believe. Doesn't quite synch up well with my motherboard (an Albatron PX845G Pro II). I traded the original CPU, a 2.53 with a friend without knowing that I'd have problems. CMOS sees a 3.2, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case. In any event, it defaults to a measley 1.6GHz, I'll definitely have to tweak that a bit. Between reboots for updates, I tried 150 (150X16=2.4Ghz), and it wouldn't boot, I had to clear the CMOS to get going again. I think it tried to synch up the memory timings automatically as well, and that might be where my problem is. Plus, I'm using one 512 stick of PC2700 and one 512 stick of PC3200 (I think). Good times.

It's also got a Radeon X1600 card. Probably waaaay overkill for this purpose, but for now, I'll go for it. Eventually, I'll probably swap it for the Radeon 9500 in the computer in the loft. It would probably still be overkill, but, eh, you use whatcha got.

I also bought a J-PAC from back when I did have money. Originally I was going to use it to convert my 25" vertical JAMMA cab for vertical games, but, with the Megalo wired up for JAMMA, it's just too easy to use it in there for now. Eventually, I'll order another keboard encoder and use the J-PAC elsewhere, especially if I can use the existing VGA input to display the image.

So, that's the next step: getting the image up on the screen.