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first time building an arcade


3unter

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hey everyone, I'm planning on building my very first arcade.

so I'm thinkin of getting the X-Arcade 2 player stick with the trackball

and for the games I'm thinking of getting a hard drive from ( home arcade system )

so guys any good ideas of what should i add or do ?

should i check another arcades ?

what things i should avoid while building the cabinet ?

and for the pc, i would probably build a new one 

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and for the games I'm thinking of getting a hard drive from ( home arcade system )

Whatever you do. No matter what. No matter how good of an idea is seems like.

Don't ever, nevereverneverever, buy a pre-configured drive from anywhere. ever. For serious.

Instead grab the programs you need from here and the RL forums, follow the tutorials and video guides, and put it together from scratch.

If you buy one no one here will be able to help you, because we won't know what programs, versions, sets etc... you are even using and you won't know either.

You will waste a jillion hours trying to figure it out, re-downloading things you already have and trying to reverse-engineer the entire effed up drive.

You will end up scrapping it and starting over from scratch anyway. So buying one will cost you more, waste waaaaaaaaaaay more of your time (and ours) and be

roughly 1278% more aggravating. It will probably also smell vaguely of a fat Spanish man.

For the rest... Personally I don't like those X-Arcade joysticks as they don't look right and make cabs they're in look fake to me. Quality/compatability wise I have no idea.

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If you are building a cabinet you should seriously consider building your own control panel. I know the X-Arcade is popular and I have a few friends that have them. They're not bad but not my favorite to play games with but more importantly, if you have a cabinet you will want dedicated buttons for HyperSpin (like start, quit, genre, favorites, etc.). You can use "shift" type controls on the X-Arcade but other's will have no idea on these "special" button presses to make things work.

 

I also agree that a pre-built drive is almost worthless. The best you can hope for is that some of the roms are named properly so you can reuse them. Keep in mind that any drive you buy that is more than a year old build will not have RocketLauncher as the backend. That make it pointless.

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I also thought about buying an x-arcade because I was afraid to built a control panel. But on one hand I didn't liked the look of it in a cabinet and on the other hand, it was to expensive to order one to Germany I decided to do my own. Technically it's really easy when you buy an ipac 2. So just dare to create your own, there's enough help on the internet.

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By "build" what do you mean? You will do all the woodworking? You will buy an old arcade cab and fix it up? Is your plan to buy a prefabbed arcade cabinet?

 

What games do you plan on playing on it?

 

And yeah, don't buy the -hard drive. It is a waste of money. Everyone's computer is different and no one can setup a pre-made drive that will work on all systems. The guy selling it says that it will work. He says he will support you. But once he has your money, his tune will change. I know this 2nd hand because I met someone IRL that bought one of those drives. Also, you'll be on your own as no one will be able to help you undo the work that the person that sold you the drive did.

 

X-Arcade sucks. It really does. I bought one for my boss. It is awful. To find out alternatives, need answers to the questions above.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have an x arcade and it does work. (Saying it sucks is kind of harsh). But, I will build my own control panel on the next machine. The advantage of the x arcade is speed of build - it shows up ready for use. I think the cabinet build (for the x arcade) is more complicated though because the cp is too large and needs to be removable to fit through doors.

If you build your own panel, you can pick the buttons, use lights, special buttons etc. But it takes time to design and assemble. Personally, I like that aspect. Good luck.

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+1 on not buying the reconfigured drive - its far better to learn to install it yourself, plus when things go wrong when you start adding to it, and believe me they will, you will have a far better understanding of how it all works, and how to fix it.

 

Also if you come onto the forums with questions like "hey.. i bought this drive off some guy and now xxx system doesn't work -- help" you will find you get no help at all just a lot of verbal...

 

on the other had people will help immensely if you are trying to install the system yourself and have issues.

 

 

on the other point the X-arcade tank-stick...

 

these are a good way to get a working "arcade" control panel, but imho they are well overpriced for what they are.

one of my friends bought one, and I ended up replacing the joysticks for Sanwas for him (far better) as the original sticks were frankly cheap low end rubbish.

 

you can get better quality parts that do the same job for 2/3rds of the price. i know its seems daunting to layout and wire a control panel, but once done its a major "I did that" moment.

 

the end of the day the choice is yours, but my 2 cents are listed above  :whistling:

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  • 1 month later...

^What he said on the Tank Stick. Now don't get me wrong the tankstick is a decent plug n play product and I have one. But looking back now I would rather have built my own CP with better quality components. The wiring really is simple with the right controller board, like hooking up a pair of speakers easy.

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