I have finally ordered the Perspex bezel and marquee for the arcade machine. So while I wait for them to arrive, I thought it would be a good time to talk about the software that I am using for my arcade machine.
My original plan was to use the fantastic HyperSpin frontend. If you have not heard of it, I would highly recommend you check it out here - http://www.hyperspin-fe.com
I have spent a fair bit of time downloading and configuring this frontend for MAME and various old game consoles. It has been running really quite well on my main computer. However when I copied the files across to my old single core Atom pc, that was going to power my arcade machine, it ran pretty poorly. It was just not powerful enough. I was starting to think I should get a new pc, but I'm really trying to keep my costs down.
After a little research I have settled on using Game Launcher instead. This is very small and basic, but at the same time very nice looking and is easy to use. Check it out here - http://www.dribin.org/dave/game_launcher
I am also using an old version of MAME. This is again due to the old Atom pc that I am using. From 107 they released a new video engine. It's better, but requires a more powerful cpu and graphics card. For this reason I'm using version 106 with an regressed rom set. It runs all the 80s and early 90s games I want to play (that's when I was in the arcades as a kid) I'm happy :)
If you have not heard of MAME then check this link out - http://mameworld.info
I'll post some pictures with the bezel and marquee's fitted. Once that's done, it's just the base to finish.