MVS-4 25 Cabinet Restoration job

[jtslade]

OK I am brand new to this site and I wanted to say hello. I am starting my 1st arcade restoration project and it is with a Neo Geo MVS-4 25 cab.

This will eventually be a MAME cab but don't flame me just yet, I am restoring this NEO GEO MVS to look exactly as it did in its glory days before some a-hole turned it into a lame special forces elite lightgun game. SO that being said I would appreciate any help that anyone has.

I want to try and make this thing as authentic as possible with certain limitations.

- I am not drilling holes to suit a street-fighter setup, 4 buttons per player is fine by me. I want this thing to be identical to the way it looked originally.

- I live in Germany and getting a wells garner (Zenith original) monitor shipped is pretty much not possible so I am going to install a 25 " TV tube.

I have a 1.7 P4 with a geforce 5200 AGP and 1.5gb of ram. Lots of HD.

- I need any advice on the specifics of TV mounting, which buttons and joysticks are authentic. Repainting, mounting, electronic wiring.

- Is a Arcade VGA worth it for Svideo output to a TV.

- I will be needing to get a new control panel layout that matches the original.

- I am also trying to find credit LED's and how to interface them with MAME.

- Don't worry I will use the search function and study each step before I do anything (ie discharge a TV) but I am just saying hello and if you have any words of wisdom let me know.

_ I have attached pics of the cab. Brace yourself for what some loser did to this once beautiful MVS cab. Other than that it is in good shape.


-Don't worry I make it look the way it should. NEO FO' Life

This is the hole they made for the lightgun, would a big button mapped to the ESCAPE key be the best? Any thoughts?

This is what it will look like when I am done with it. I just need some help.

I like the color of the competition's here but are they authentic, this is a pic of my friends real MVS-4 25"

 

[chris1]

Welcome to the Forums..Good luck with the project,keep us posted as it goes..

I like the Blue sticks myself,they caught my eye..I hve a set of red in my two slot.

 

[Hewitson]

Horrible joysticks. No cab outside of North America should have bat tops installed in it.

 

[jtslade]

joysticks

Thank you guys for quick responses!!


Some history on both machines..
Well they both started life in the USA on various military bases, I think it hopped from base to base before ending it run a on a US military base in Germany. The original MVS in the last pictures is from the US. Then it was converted to the military special ops game. So it is a US cab, I just wanted to know if that was the norm for the US MVS's..

 

[chris1]

Thank you guys for quick responses!!


Some history on both machines..
Well they both started life in the USA on various military bases, I think it hopped from base to base before ending it run a on a US military base in Germany. The original MVS in the last pictures is from the US. Then it was converted to the military special ops game. So it is a US cab, I just wanted to know if that was the norm for the US MVS's..

When you say both machines>Both the MVS machines in your pictures were on a military base?
How did you happen to aquire these machines.?...I asume the seller told you the history of them=awesome..

I love the History aspect of it/them..........curious as to who hopped it from base to base before it ended it's run a on a US military base in Germany.
Was it the military moving it with other machines for soldiers........was someone in the military a Neo fan and moved it/them with them when being transferred to another base..

 

[ArcadeBen]

Nice Cab

Nice Cab, looks like you have a great cab for the project. The control panel looks like it is in good shape still. Dont forget Electricgrave's cp layouts here
http://www.neogeomvs.com/
You could always fill that hole in with bondo if you think it is too big and going to detract from the look of your cab.

Good luck with the project!!

 

[Jaelus]

Looks very restorable. Should be a fun project. I'd plug up the light gun hole with wood filler, sand it, and paint it to make it authentic, but you could put a pause button there if you wanted. See if you can carefully peel off the overlay, front, and side art - there might be something usable underneath.

 

[jtslade]

When you say both machines>Both the MVS machines in your pictures were on a military base?
How did you happen to aquire these machines.?...I asume the seller told you the history of them=awesome..

I love the History aspect of it/them..........curious as to who hopped it from base to base before it ended it's run a on a US military base in Germany.
Was it the military moving it with other machines for soldiers........was someone in the military a Neo fan and moved it/them with them when being transferred to another base..

Well the MVS game that a friend of my has in perfect shape in the pictures was bought from a German company that managed all of the amusement games for Ramstein Air Base here in Germany. As you may or not know gambling is allowed on base here in Europe and a slot machine makes 100 times more money than an arcade game. So they are getting rid of all arcade games on base in favor of gambling. Kind of sad when gambling addictions are very high amoung military service members (but money beats morals almost everytime).

These machines moved from base to base on a C-130 transport many years ago along with everything else that comes here, bread, milk, ammo, and MVS machines.

My friend is a German teacher who is in the German Army and works on base, he is a huge fan of arcade/pinball games and let me know about another MVS cab he got that was great shape.

Anyway thank you for the responses and I will be posting tons of pictures as I restore this one.

 

[jtslade]

Looks very restorable. Should be a fun project. I'd plug up the light gun hole with wood filler, sand it, and paint it to make it authentic, but you could put a pause button there if you wanted. See if you can carefully peel off the overlay, front, and side art - there might be something usable underneath.

Yes I started to peel it and it has a beautiful Neo Geo logo underneath. My buddy said for me to use a hair dryer to make sure when I peel it off for good and make it clean.

Of course I'll post pics when I do it.

 

[jtslade]

Original Monitor in my MVS cab

Since I am putting a yet to be bought TV in my MVS Mame cab. I needed some help on which TV is best.

1. I know that features that are sought after for televisions are
- Svideo or Component
- resume/save settings and input after power off

I have a 25" hitachi (old) with svideo but is this ok

The model name listed on the chasis is a

Wells Gardner 25K7193

Is the diagonal size for this 27" or 25"

- Do I need to buy/create a chasis for this, I also noticed that there is a bezel (wood painted black?) around the front of the monitor on the restored MVS machine is this available anywhere?

 

[jtslade]

Original Photos for everything

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30329886@N08/


German Spy Hunter pinball machine in pics, it is in mint condition.

It's just like a US Spy Hunter pinball but it takes old DM's.

 

[chris1]

Well the MVS game that a friend of my has in perfect shape in the pictures was bought from a German company that managed all of the amusement games for Ramstein Air Base here in Germany. As you may or not know gambling is allowed on base here in Europe and a slot machine makes 100 times more money than an arcade game. So they are getting rid of all arcade games on base in favor of gambling. Kind of sad when gambling addictions are very high amoung military service members (but money beats morals almost everytime).

These machines moved from base to base on a C-130 transport many years ago along with everything else that comes here, bread, milk, ammo, and MVS machines.

My friend is a German teacher who is in the German Army and works on base, he is a huge fan of arcade/pinball games and let me know about another MVS cab he got that was great shape.

Anyway thank you for the responses and I will be posting tons of pictures as I restore this one.

Thank you for posting that..I love reading about this kind of stuff.

 

[Grinwing]

I would think any TV with S-video should be fine. As far as the video card, all you need is a card with S-video out, you don't need the Arcade VGA as you don't need to drop the signal down to the 15hz refresh rate that an arcade monitor uses.

 

[Hewitson]

I would think any TV with S-video should be fine. As far as the video card, all you need is a card with S-video out, you don't need the Arcade VGA as you don't need to drop the signal down to the 15hz refresh rate that an arcade monitor uses.

Yes he does. Thats exactly what a video card's TV out does, halves the horizontal sync to 15khz.

 

[jtslade]

Video Card choice

I know a good bit is preference but what do you guys have in your mame machines, if you mess with Mame.

AGP vid cards are so cheap these days that I would be ok with getting another one.

The Nvidia AGP 5200 I have has DVI out and composite and VGA but no svideo.

In research some people favor the use of an ATI, stating that the video out is better.

If my memory serves me I tend to remember my ATI cards in the past (too many to count) have all had pretty decent TV output.

If someone has any thoughts it would be much appreciated.

 

[voodoodoctorx]

if you are going to use a TV i would use a modded XBOX instead of that PC since the TV-out on all graphics cards gives you a muddy washed out picture.

your 25" hitachi should go right in

you can always make a monitor bezel out of black posterboard

these sticks "look" alot like the originals

 

[Hewitson]

if you are going to use a TV i would use a modded XBOX instead of that PC since the TV-out on all graphics cards gives you a muddy washed out picture.

It does, but I believe itd be alright for games.

If your TV has component video, you might want to look into getting a DVI to Component adapter.

 

[Drewmantrivia]

A friend of mine grew up on that base in the mid 90's. His father worked for the food services for the base. I showed him your post and he remembers playing some metal slug and Samurai showdown on those machines. Very cool find man!

 

[Grinwing]

I know a good bit is preference but what do you guys have in your mame machines, if you mess with Mame.

I actually have an arcade monitor that is out of some 19" touch screen machine that is already set up with the correct cord for plugging into a computer. Made the setup an easy deal.

 

[jtslade]

Video Card Choice

Anyone had experience with the

ATI X1650 line of video cards with Svideo output. The reason this card is catching my eye is the on board TV analog output chip made by Xilleon. This is the same chip in high end TV encoder boards and set top boxes.

The board is cheap at $59.00 so I just wanted to know if anyone else has experience with it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102781

I will run a complete comparison of the current

AGP Nvidia 5200 FX board I have now (no svideo output) with a VGA to Svideo converter cable (5 bucks) and the ATI card.

I was also going to do an entire section on getting TV's to look their best with MAME via SVideo. Anyone that has tips (Advance mame, command line options, etc) It would be appreciated.

 

[jtslade]

Ultimarc Mag Stik Plus

Would these Ultimarc Mag Stik Plus joysticks be a good match for my MVS to Mame project restoration. The bug reason I like them is for the ability to switch from 4way to 8way without having to lift the control panel.

http://www.ultimarc.com/controls.html

http://retroblast.arcadecontrols.com/reviews/joysticks/ultimarc_magstikplus_part1.html

The appear to be similar to the joysticks found in some of the MVS cabs I have seen on HardMVS and in pic around the net. The big difference is the metal stick pole not being black but having a chrome shiny look.

This is for a mame cab that will run everything from pac man and galaga to TMNT and every MVS Neo Geo game ever.

Thanks for any input anyone has.

 

[jtslade]

Ultimarc Mag Stik Plus

Would these Ultimarc Mag Stik Plus joysticks be a good match for my MVS to Mame project restoration. The bug reason I like them is for the ability to switch from 4way to 8way without having to lift the control panel.

http://www.ultimarc.com/controls.html

http://retroblast.arcadecontrols.com/reviews/joysticks/ultimarc_magstikplus_part1.html

The appear to be similar to the joysticks found in some of the MVS cabs I have seen on HardMVS and in pic around the net. The big difference is the metal stick pole not being black but having a chrome shiny look.

This is for a mame cab that will run everything from pac man and galaga to TMNT and every MVS Neo Geo game ever.

Thanks for any input anyone has.

Anyone try these out?

 

[JammaGuy]

www.happcontrols.net

Never had any problems. I like them alot!

-idosk8

 

[JammaGuy]

This is the hole they made for the lightgun, would a big button mapped to the ESCAPE key be the best? Any thoughts?

I'd say if you really want a mame machine... Then yes, this is an okay spot for it. I would use some wood filler, and fill the tiny holes, then sand it down and repaint it first.. But a nice desecrate escape key pushbutton would work great.

-idosk8

 

[jtslade]

I will do that, thank you for the reply

Thank you for the reply, I will def do that!!!