Building an arcade Machine.

Anything to do with games at all.
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Turok
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by Turok » Tue Nov 03, 2009 11:09 am

Drunken_Master wrote:
Turok wrote:I hate to say this, but why would you sacrifice a SUPER MARIO BROS 3 ARCADE OMG BEST GAME IN THE UNIVERSE!!!!!!!!!! to make your custom machine?



:lol:

Duh.

It wasn't. The whole cab was built from scratch.
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Well you put the pics ass backwards then, causing a pime taradox and all that.

That is awesome though. How does he do the software stuff, though? Does he use a NES? Can it play just one game or is it an emulator with everything you want?

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Drunken_Master
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by Drunken_Master » Tue Nov 03, 2009 11:17 am

PC with emulators installed.

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TheTurnipKing
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by TheTurnipKing » Tue Nov 03, 2009 3:08 pm

Drunken_Master wrote:PC with emulators installed.

Hence the hidden keyboard.

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Trinity
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by Trinity » Tue Nov 03, 2009 7:06 pm

TheTurnipKing wrote:
Drunken_Master wrote:PC with emulators installed.

Hence the hidden keyboard.



I'm probably, no, definitely not going to have a keyboard onboard. I may choose to have a wireless keyboard and mouse at some stage but to start with the machine will be controlled by the joysticks and buttons.
The Frontends for Mame are great at allowing control via joystick so I will choose one (MAMEFE, GameEX or Maximus Arcade) and go with that.

But yes, it's all going to be PC based.

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Trinity
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by Trinity » Fri Nov 06, 2009 6:37 am

Bit of an update.


The Marquee (top sign), bezel (Screen sticker) and CPO (control panel overlay) arrived yesterday from www.mamemarquees.com - Excellent service with about a 3 week turnaround!!

However I've notices that the Marquee has a problem with the colouring inside the B of bomb and the A of jack - My fault totally as I didn't fill them in correctly. The CPO in particular looks fantastic. Pictures to come.
I may go back to my original idea of using 18mm MDF for the control panel as I think the vinyl will be hard wearing. The designs came in a sturdy tube so they need to be flattened out for a while - That will have to be at work cos I can't do it here with the kids around.

Next job - Order perspex!

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Drunken_Master
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by Drunken_Master » Fri Nov 06, 2009 6:07 pm

Trinity wrote:Bit of an update.


The Marquee (top sign), bezel (Screen sticker) and CPO (control panel overlay) arrived yesterday from http://www.mamemarquees.com - Excellent service with about a 3 week turnaround!!

However I've notices that the Marquee has a problem with the colouring inside the B of bomb and the A of jack - My fault totally as I didn't fill them in correctly. The CPO in particular looks fantastic. Pictures to come.
I may go back to my original idea of using 18mm MDF for the control panel as I think the vinyl will be hard wearing. The designs came in a sturdy tube so they need to be flattened out for a while - That will have to be at work cos I can't do it here with the kids around.

Next job - Order perspex!



Keep us posted with nice pictures and details of the budget and stuff. I'd do something like this, if I wasn't a complete mong when it comes to DIY.

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Trinity
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by Trinity » Fri Nov 06, 2009 9:09 pm

I haven't really set a budget limit (bad move) but expense so far


8' x 4' sheet MDF 18mm - £14.00
2 lengths 1" x 1" softwood - £8.00
X-arcade controller - £75.00
Graphics (inc postage) £96.00
PC - £40.00

Total £223.00 so far.


To buy -
*Additional buttons (will use the standard X-arcade ones for now but will look to get HAPP ones in time)
*Light for Marquee
*Contactor to power system on
*Perspex



Loads to do yet.

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Drunken_Master
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by Drunken_Master » Mon Nov 09, 2009 10:05 am

Trinity wrote:I haven't really set a budget limit (bad move) but expense so far


8' x 4' sheet MDF 18mm - £14.00
2 lengths 1" x 1" softwood - £8.00
X-arcade controller - £75.00
Graphics (inc postage) £96.00
PC - £40.00

Total £223.00 so far.


To buy -
*Additional buttons (will use the standard X-arcade ones for now but will look to get HAPP ones in time)
*Light for Marquee
*Contactor to power system on
*Perspex



Loads to do yet.



What graphics card did you get?

Price seems disproportionate in comparison to the PC. Was it one of those special ones, which displays the actual arcade resolutions?

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SEP
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by SEP » Mon Nov 09, 2009 1:16 pm

Drunken_Master wrote:
Trinity wrote:I haven't really set a budget limit (bad move) but expense so far


8' x 4' sheet MDF 18mm - £14.00
2 lengths 1" x 1" softwood - £8.00
X-arcade controller - £75.00
Graphics (inc postage) £96.00
PC - £40.00

Total £223.00 so far.


To buy -
*Additional buttons (will use the standard X-arcade ones for now but will look to get HAPP ones in time)
*Light for Marquee
*Contactor to power system on
*Perspex



Loads to do yet.



What graphics card did you get?

Price seems disproportionate in comparison to the PC. Was it one of those special ones, which displays the actual arcade resolutions?


I think when he's talking about graphics, he means the actual plastic bits with the Bomb Jack logo on them.

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Drunken_Master
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by Drunken_Master » Mon Nov 09, 2009 2:05 pm

MCN wrote:
Drunken_Master wrote:
Trinity wrote:I haven't really set a budget limit (bad move) but expense so far


8' x 4' sheet MDF 18mm - £14.00
2 lengths 1" x 1" softwood - £8.00
X-arcade controller - £75.00
Graphics (inc postage) £96.00
PC - £40.00

Total £223.00 so far.


To buy -
*Additional buttons (will use the standard X-arcade ones for now but will look to get HAPP ones in time)
*Light for Marquee
*Contactor to power system on
*Perspex



Loads to do yet.



What graphics card did you get?

Price seems disproportionate in comparison to the PC. Was it one of those special ones, which displays the actual arcade resolutions?


I think when he's talking about graphics, he means the actual plastic bits with the Bomb Jack logo on them.


:lol:

That'd make more sense I suppose.

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Trinity
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by Trinity » Mon Nov 09, 2009 9:10 pm

Did a bit on the control panel tonight. Basically I need to cut the MDF 2mm smaller than the overlay all around and I've marked out the button/joystick positions. I've also marked 4 (well 3 actually but only because my photocopy of the CPO is too dark) position which I will drill out at 6mm. In these postions I'll be fitting LEDs. Positions are both eyes on Bombjack and the bomb he is looking at and the fuse of the bomb in the bombjack title.

Got my dimensions for the perspex, will order tomorrow. I've gone with 18mm MDF for the CPO rather than the original 12mm MDF + 2 x 3mm Perspex, mainly because it would be difficult to do without the risk of scratching but the price for machined perspex was prohibitive.

Must post some pics soon.

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Moggy
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by Moggy » Tue Nov 10, 2009 5:26 pm

This is awesome. I am useless at making things but love seeing other peoples projects.

Hope it all goes smoothly for you Trin.

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Fatal Exception
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by Fatal Exception » Wed Nov 11, 2009 4:38 pm

This sounds amazing. The sort of thing I want to do :wub:

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TheTurnipKing
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by TheTurnipKing » Wed Nov 11, 2009 10:10 pm

Trinity wrote:Did a bit on the control panel tonight. Basically I need to cut the MDF 2mm smaller than the overlay all around and I've marked out the button/joystick positions. I've also marked 4 (well 3 actually but only because my photocopy of the CPO is too dark) position which I will drill out at 6mm. In these postions I'll be fitting LEDs. Positions are both eyes on Bombjack and the bomb he is looking at and the fuse of the bomb in the bombjack title.

Got my dimensions for the perspex, will order tomorrow. I've gone with 18mm MDF for the CPO rather than the original 12mm MDF + 2 x 3mm Perspex, mainly because it would be difficult to do without the risk of scratching but the price for machined perspex was prohibitive.

Must post some pics soon.

Look into arcade stick building, if you haven't already. Custom stick builders use perspex all the time, and they probably wouldn't if there wasn't a way to get it done cheaply.

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Trinity
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by Trinity » Thu Nov 12, 2009 6:38 am

TheTurnipKing wrote:
Trinity wrote:Did a bit on the control panel tonight. Basically I need to cut the MDF 2mm smaller than the overlay all around and I've marked out the button/joystick positions. I've also marked 4 (well 3 actually but only because my photocopy of the CPO is too dark) position which I will drill out at 6mm. In these postions I'll be fitting LEDs. Positions are both eyes on Bombjack and the bomb he is looking at and the fuse of the bomb in the bombjack title.

Got my dimensions for the perspex, will order tomorrow. I've gone with 18mm MDF for the CPO rather than the original 12mm MDF + 2 x 3mm Perspex, mainly because it would be difficult to do without the risk of scratching but the price for machined perspex was prohibitive.

Must post some pics soon.

Look into arcade stick building, if you haven't already. Custom stick builders use perspex all the time, and they probably wouldn't if there wasn't a way to get it done cheaply.


Yeah, I have done but the artwork is on high quality Vinyl so it's designed for the wear and tear of being on the surface. It will all come down to how good a finish I get when I shape the mdf/perspex/perspex. If it looks good, I'll use it.

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PCCD
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by PCCD » Fri Nov 13, 2009 2:26 am

Probably a daft question but are you essentially going to have a mini PC inside the cabinet to run the games or is there some technical witchcraft going on?

The Holly and Delusi wrote:PENALTY: Blatant lies. Five minutes in the Sin Bin.
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Trinity
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by Trinity » Fri Nov 13, 2009 6:51 am

PCCD wrote:Probably a daft question but are you essentially going to have a mini PC inside the cabinet to run the games or is there some technical witchcraft going on?



No, it's a full sized PC stripped down (won't need a dvd/cd unit and I will try to get as much of the case out as possible to keep the weight down).

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TheTurnipKing
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by TheTurnipKing » Sat Nov 14, 2009 1:04 am

Trinity wrote:
PCCD wrote:Probably a daft question but are you essentially going to have a mini PC inside the cabinet to run the games or is there some technical witchcraft going on?



No, it's a full sized PC stripped down (won't need a dvd/cd unit and I will try to get as much of the case out as possible to keep the weight down).

You could probably just mount the PC board to the case itself. Isn't that how real arcade machines work?

Indeed, I wonder what the practical minimum PC spec is for this kind of thing? Surely there must be a Linux distribution dedicated to arcade machine emulation? *investigates*

AdvanceMAME: http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/cd-readme.html

It seems you could even boot AdvanceMAME from a USB key, so a hard drive isn't even nessecary, and it would make getting new games onto the system reasonably practical. You could literally just open it up, unplug the key, plug it into another PC, copy the game across and put it back.

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Trinity
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by Trinity » Sat Nov 14, 2009 4:56 pm

Ideally it will boot straight into the frontend of mame rather than flapping about with the windows logo etc.


I was tempted to go down the Supergun route but disliked the limited number of games available at any one time. My new monitor appearred today too - 19" instead of the 17" one I had. This makes up nicely for my cock up on the bezel.

The one things I haven't got at the moment is time to work on it. :evil:

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Trinity
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PostRe: Building an arcade Machine.
by Trinity » Sun Nov 15, 2009 9:10 am

The new monitor is excellent. 4 bnc inputs, s-video, vga, 3 audio in, 3 audio out, pc audio in. It's a CCTV monitor so it has picture in picture too.
The downside - All the controls are on the front of the display so I will need to rewire the lot and put buttons somewhere on the cab if I want control.


If it's not one thing, it's another.

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