carPC, Kenwood DNX8120, MAME

Wizrd23 · 05-09-2008, 08:55 PM

Evening. I'm new to carPC's but not new to modding and electronics or computers. I'm looking for suggestions for a specific project.

I am installing a Kenwood DNX8120 this weekend in my 07 Camry. The unit has a 7in touchscreen with external video/audio inputs.

I had the idea today to add a small computer that could be used to emulate MAME games! This is the only functionality I want to use the carPC for.

My plan is to use a mini-ITX or smaller board with just enough power and storage for this application. I'll take suggestions! low power, small footprint, and preferably fanless. Thanks!

HiJackZX1 · 05-10-2008, 06:12 AM

You want to use MAME in your carrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..... I was actually going to do that, but there are only 4 arcade games I like.... Ridge Racer, Ridge Racer 2, Rave Racer, Ridge Racer 5 Arcade Battle... All are buggy on MAME and are unplayable, so I gave up and went with a Sega Genesis Emulator, since there are so many games for it.

Only issue I see with your setup is that those connections on the Kenwood are composite. Computers look really bad on a composite connection, the font is almost unreadable. From what I understand, even though MAME plays simple little arcade games, it requires alot of processing power to be stable... I really dont think a tiny PC will work.......I would go with a mobile dual core processor setup with a good embeded graphics card and at least 1gb of RAM for solid preformance.

Wizrd23 · 05-10-2008, 03:26 PM

Maybe I miss spoke using the term MAME. I was generalizing. I have a MAME arcade cabinet at home. MAME doesn't require much processing power at all. Only certain newer ROMs from newer arcade cabinets require power because the hardware emulation is intensive.

Mostly, I would be playing NES and Genesis games... plus some old old school arcade games like pacman, missle command, etc. So really it shouldn't take any juice at all. And I would probably build it on a simple linux distro with a frontend so I don't even deal with much of an OS.

So keeping in mind low power, and basic usage, what is the quietest I can get away with, using composite video feeds, and basic storage? Assuming we are talking Nintendo and Genesis type games that were always composite, and I really only NEED 10-15gb max for OS and emulator, front-end and roms... Is there a mini-micro-pico ITX mobo that includes flash based storage? Thanks!