Just got my first cab! Its a Dynomite cop Sega cab, with the game still inside! JD is gonna test it 4 me, and I already stripped out the guts. Going to install 2 or 4 joysticks, 3" trackball on a new control panel I am making for it. I will post pics tmorrow!

I am planning on running mame on windows 98, and my machine is only a 500 megahertz. Does anyone know what I will need to play the newer capcom vs games?

If you want to be confortable with every mame games it's better to go with 2Ghz and more.  

I would skip using Windows and use DOS MAME. The overhead that Windows requires will severly limit what games you can play. If you use a nice frontend like ArcadeOS or Mamewah it will make for a nice easy cab to use.

Agreed.  Capcom Street Fighter generation and newer type games need more CPU and anything under 2GHz might show slowdowns/stuttering.

Furthermore, Windows is the better option when it comes to the graphics card usage (speed of putting up those old BitBlts graphics).  Mame32 will run fast and has many options such as windowing, vysnc waiting, and things you can fine tune the games with especially if you have a lower end CPU/graphics card.  DOS based mame doesn't use fancy tricks to take advantage of the graphics cards extra blitting speed as far as I know....

But there is a budget and preference for everyone so just do your best and enjoy the games that run ok on your particular hardware....

I'm planning on building one in the future with a cocktail machine... gonna even build a card table top for it for when you wanna play poker with the boys... take off the top and you play some games...

TWO GIGAHERTZ!!! Thats alot heavier than what I got lying arround, and I am not using my main computer! ! I guess I will run with the PIII 733 I got for now, and look for a deal on a 2+ gigahertz.

Damn! My cab that I am stripping down is INFESTED with tx security screws! Thanks to JD3 to lend me some bits for that, otherwise I woulda had to go buy some just to remove those!!!  

It seems to me that windows will run the tv out and graphic drivers much better, so I will try with that. Besides I have a sound blaster live and some kick-a** speakers from creative with sub to put in there. I just have one problem right now... The exterior of the wood frame is covered with a sort of plastic sheet lining. Is this sandable, or do I have to scrape it off somehow? I am hoping this is not toxeic, I will be doing it indoors after all...