What os for mame cab?

[jox43w]

Iv finaly orderd my hardware! E2220 2.4 ghz 1mb level c cache. 2gb 800mhz ram and a arcadevga card cant wait for it to arrive! I have xp on my everyday comp but its oem so cant use it in my new rig! I have an old pirate xp but i cant get sp2 does mame need it? I dont know anything about the front ends people use in cabs can any one recomend me one that just boots into mame? Also isit possible to use othes emus in my cab? Which ones will work with the arcadevga card? Finaly im using an old scart tv as the monitor i know arcade monitors cant display high resolutions but as its a tv can i watch videos on it?

[FatTrucker]

You can use any emulator with the arcadeVGA and most PC games as well.

With a scart TV you can get a pretty arcade authentic picture, but will also be able to watch normal video etc with it. Windows and high res images (anything above 640x480 max) will look sh*t though.

Front-Ends to download and play with that support multiple emulators, functions and can be auto booted straight into the FE:

Game-Ex - smart, very easy to set up but commercial so full version costs $$$.

Mala - Nice, skinnable, good functionality, moderately easy to set up - Free

Mamewah - (my favourite) Extremely flexible, skinnable, loads of skins to download from many sources, set up has a steep learning curve for novices - Free.

You might also want to consider 3D Arcade which while not as practical for every day use has the 'Wow' factor when showing the cab off to friends. Several very nice, animated skins, also includes a virtual arcade with hundreds of detailed 3D models of the actual cabs to download where you can walk around the arcade in 3D and walk up to the cabs to select and play them - very impressive.

Download some and have a play to see which ones suit what you're looking for.

If you're going to run a few different emulators then sticking with Xp is probably the way to go (for the moment anyway). Not sure about the emu's themselves (which should all be OK with SP1) but afaik a lot of Front-ends require .net framework 2 which I think is a component of SP2.

Again the best way is to download and try some out.

Hope that helps.