Classic Arcade Games Emulation With Mame

The main attraction at the Arcades has been the Arcade games. I'm sure a lot of you have heard of classics like Space Invaders, Gunsmoke and Super Sprint. Unfortunately these games and Arcade cabinets have vanished these days. PC's are so powerful with its CPU, graphics and online gaming capability as well as consoles that Arcade gaming is becoming retro. But for many of us the old Arcades are with us. MAME is an emulator where one can play the classic games. Right now there are more than 2000 games that are fully playable. The emulation is near perfect as the roms are downloaded from the real arcade memory. The MAME emulator is not only available for PC but also the consoles, such as the XBOX.

There is a large interest and community that appreciates the option to play their favorite Arcade games, remembering the old days. Still many will agree its not the same excitement with a keyboard or joy pad. However with a MAME Cabinet it can be close enough. A MAME Cabinet is like a real Arcade. You have the main components like Arcade controls, arcade monitors and coin doors. Often people use their PC but hidden inside the cabinet and there are even ways to hide the Windows desktop. There are a good amount of frontends to choose from. A frontend is being the software which helps you load the games. With the correct setup, one can program them for other emulators too. Maybe you want to include games for C64, Amiga and Sega or would want to install a Jukebox with your favorite tracks. Whatever you like its all up to you! It is quite some work building a MAME cabinet. You might try you're luck and find an old Arcade machine and restore it, maybe keep some of the parts too. Still there are lots of online stores for the parts if you were to build a cabinet from scratch. Just search on the net. As the display you could easily use a PC monitor, a more authentic option would be to use a graphic cards s-video output and wire it to a TV. To play all the games in their native resolution you would need an Arcade monitor. However if you are based in Europe where there are CRT Scart TV's you can use them together with an ArcadeVGA graphics card via the Scart cable, this combination turns your TV into an Arcade monitor. For any setup, there is always the MAME emulator where we can have fun with all the best Arcade titles.