How much did your cabinet cost?
The Space Invader cost a grand total of AUD$1506. Details can be found here.
How long did it take to build?
The Space Invader took about 37 hours to build over the course of the month of December 2003. Details can be found here.
What sort of PC do I need?
mame.net advise that half of the games mame supports will run on a Celleron 600. My dedicated DELL PIII 450 plays classic arcade games flawlessly up to the complexity of Raiden (circa 1990), where it starts to drop a few frames. My main PC which is a P4 2.6G plays Mortal Kombat III flawlessly, but I haven't really pushed it further than that.
Official advice on system requirements from MAME can be found here.
What sort of Video Card do I need?
The best picture on a computer monitor and best performance running MAME is achieved with a MAME feature called "hardware stretching". This uses your computer's video card to stretch the image to your full screen size. If your computer's video card supports this feature you get a nicely blurred image that mimicks an arcade or TV monitor's automatic analogue image stretching. If your card doesn't support this you get blocky integer stretching that distorts the image. You can disable hardware stretching, but this significantly increases the load on your processor and results in an over-sharp, inauthentic image (IMHO). More information on hardware stretching can be found at the official MAME faq.
The 4mb onboard video card in my Dell PIII450 gave me blocky stretching, so I tried upgrading to a 16mb Voodoo 3 card. This didn't offer much improvement. I have upgraded again to a Daytona TNT2 M64 32mb card and this provides excellent support for hardware stretching, with nVidia drivers easily available for download. It cost AUD$50 from eBay.
Where can I get home arcade components in Australia?
You can get all the components you need and can't find at a hardware store or Dick Smith Electronics from OzStick. I have no affiliation with this company but their prices are reasonable, the range is excellent and my experience ordering from them was excellent also. In addition to controllers and components they carry stock of Ultimarc's I-PAC and other products, for about AUD$10 more than you pay by ordering from Ultimarc direct. Ultimarc also have excellent helpful service but they are a long, long way away in merry old England, and I had some difficuties with the shipping company. In hindsight ten bucks seems a very small premium to deal with a quick local agent.
How Do I Run Games in Vertical (Portrait) Screen Format?
This is done from the MAME command line using the "-rol" (rotate 90 degrees counter clockwise) or "-ror" (rotate 90 degrees clockwise) option. For example to play Galaga in vertical format on a computer where MAME is installed in directory mame on the c: drive you would type:
c:\mame\mame galaga -rol
NB: The full list of options available with Windows MAME is available here.
 
How can I Set Up Game Launcher and MAME for Vertical or Horizontal Games?
If you have a rotatable monitor you can set up your Windows PC with vertical and horizontal icons for Game Launcher, which each bring up just the games suitable for that orientation. This is how you do it.
- Configure MAME
Its a good idea to make a backup copy of your MAME installation before you start this, in case it all goes to shit, as can happen when one embarks on a journey of application configuration.
You are going to divide your ROM files into two new folders. Create two new directories in your MAME root directory called romsv (vertical games) and romsh (horizontal games). You need to configure MAME so it can still find them. Go to the directory containing your MAME executable. If you have a configuration file there called mame.ini (assuming your executable is mame.exe) open it, otherwise create a file with this name in notepad. Now add a line specifying the paths to your new ROM directories. If your ROM directories are in the same folder as your MAME executable, named romsv and romsh, you would enter the following line:
-rompath romsv;romsh;roms
Now copy your vertical game ROMs into romsv and your horizontal game ROMs into romsh. You can leave a backup copy in roms if you like, but move them to test MAME and see if it works with the new configuration.
- Configure Game Launcher
Go to your Game Launcher directory. Create two new subdirectories, "vertical" and "horizontal". Cut the entire contents of the Game Launcher directory EXCEPT the glaunch.exe file and the two new directories. Paste a copy of the rest of the files into both the "vertical" and the "horizontal" directories.
Open the "vertical" directory. Open the file glaunch.cfg in Notepad or similar. Set the "menu_orientation" to "1". Open the file mamescan.cfg. Point the "mame_rom_directory" to your "romsv" directory.
Open the "config" directory in the "vertical" directory. Open the file mame.cfg. Add the option "-rol" to the line "global_options". Set "rom_directory" to your "romsv" directory. Go back to the "vertical" directory and run mamescan.exe.
Now open the "horizontal" directory. Open the file glaunch.cfg in Notepad or similar. Set the "menu_orientation" to "0". Open the file mamescan.cfg. Point the "mame_rom_directory" to your "romsh" directory.
Open the "config" directory in the "horizontal" directory. Open the file mame.cfg. Ensure the line "global_options" does not include "-rol" or "-ror". Set "rom_directory" to your "romsh" directory. Go back to the "horizontal" directory and run mamescan.exe.
- Create Shortcuts
Create a shortcut on your desktop to the glaunch.exe file in your Game Launcher root directory. Right click on this shortcut and choose properties. Under the tab "Shortcut", in the field named "Start in:" enter the path to your Game Launcher "vertical" directory. Close the properties dialog box and rename the shortcut to Game Launcher Vertical. Copy this shortcut, rename Game Launcher Horizontal, and change the "Start in:" option to your horizontal directory.
- Test
Test each of your shortcuts. They should display the game menu and games in the correct orientation, and only list the games you chose for that orientation.
All of your dimensions and costs are in pinko millimetres and Australian pasos. How do I convert them to real figures?
Easy! Australian Dollars x 0.7 = US Dollars (roughly, this is very up and down at the moment). Millimetres divided by 25 = inches (roughly, this is a mathematical constant I can't be arsed looking up).
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