After years of decrying Mac owners as left wing computer snobs, I have finally put my PC days behind me and bought a Mac. It's a MacBook to be precise and I am totally in love. It does everything my PC did, but its like someone designed a computer operating system to actually be fun and intuitive rather than laborious.
But rather than sit here and go on and on about why Mac's are awesome (which they are), I'll actually focus on what I did with the boring ol' PC.
Like a lot of STG and arcade fans, I use mame from time to time to try out games I may want to own. I'm not a big fan of using it and definitely prefer the original hardware to an emulated version, but there are instances where it totally makes sense. Especially in an apartment.
I have become enamored with Donkey Kong 3 and the original Donkey Kong recently and have been searching out a dedicated machine for the better part of a month to no avail. Finding one really isn't the problem, though as I have run out of room in the gaming area. As it is right now, I have to move the CC to the basement or possibly in the partition off the kitchen (where we currently have our bikes) when I move the vs. cab in and getting another cab would mean even more moving around of junk to try and find space we really don't have.
So, I put two and two together and came up with mame.
My old PC was ok, not really top of the line or anything, but it runs mame fine - a perfect place to play DK 3 and the like on. I wiped the hard drive and set it up on my NEC XM29 and it sparkles. Super fun and easy to use, I'm really enjoying it. That is, except for the vertical tearing and lack of sound in some roms and the myriad of other problems with mame, but nonetheless, being able t play DK 3 in my gaming room without making any changes is pretty cool.
2 comments:
That is so bright and amazing on the NEC. I swear that monitor can make ugly games pretty.
You should set up a youtube series where the NEC performs an extreme makeover on old skool games that were not pretty on the dinky 19" screens that we were accustomed to in those wonderful American cabs.
Thanks for sharing!
:) That NES really is impressive, if I do say so myself. I fired up a ton of games in mame to check out how they look and stuff like Progear, Fire Shark and Guwange are so nice, it makes me wonder if I should ever get the boards....:)
I did forget to mention in the post that I will be making a a stab at beating Donald Hayes WR on Beastie Feastie at sometime in the future (~411K) and this is what I will be practicing on.
Through a bit of investigation, I found that all you need to do to make your Sanwa/Semitsu a 4-way joystick, is to turn the gate on the bottom of the stick - no replacing parts. Takes about a half a second. I'll be doing this to my HRAP so playing DK and Beastie isn't as much of a chore.
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