odie Posted August 20, 2014 Share Posted August 20, 2014 Hello my name is Jamie and I have always dreamt of building a arcade system but never acted on it. Then about two weeks ago I saw a video in my YouTube feed about hyperspin and it blew my mind on how cool it looked and what a great community was supporting it. I also could not find basic up to date recommendations for a PC when doing searches, so I apologize for kicking an over done topic. So now I am planning on building an upright arcade, not sure if I will build or get a flat pack. But in the mean time I found a used tankstick that I will play around with while I learn more about hyperspin and building a cabinet. I don't plan on using it in my build. But what I am lost on is what to use for a PC. Back in the day, think late 90's and early 2000's I used to put my own systems together but now I am really out of the loop on hardware. I use my tablets and laptops and no longer measure out how many fps I can get when I overlock. So what I would like to do first is get a system built or purchased so I can learn how to work within hyperspin while I debate on how to build a cabinet. Now my budget is small as I want to put most of the $$$ towards the cabinet. I would like to keep it under $400 if possible, unless I put it on my bestbuy card that has free financing for a year. What are some good bang for the dollar systems? Is building your own better? I plan on mostly Mame of old uprights and older home systems. I have a ps4 and xbone for new games and don't plan on new PC gaming. I am totally psyched on building and learning, just overwhelmed and way out of the loop regarding a PC. Thanks in advance and warn me if I need to put on some flame retardant underwear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
byttle Posted August 20, 2014 Share Posted August 20, 2014 i think you would get a better response from the people over at www.reddit.com/r/buildapc as well as being able to see what the latest build types are and general knowledge of what is good nowadays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamaster14 Posted August 20, 2014 Share Posted August 20, 2014 It depends on what games you will be emulating. But if you are mostly going to be playing 8/16-bit console games and some older arcade games you don't need a super rig for a PC. You also have the benefit of not needing to worry too much about heat since you will be building an upright cabinet, with plenty of room inside of it. $400 shouldnt be too restrictive for you. especially if you buy a mini-itx board with most of the hardware onboard. I'd suggest getting a solid sate hard drive, as you will REALLY see a boost in performance, especially during boot up. and a fast boot up really goes a long way disguising the operating system and making it appear as if you are booting right into hyperspin/emulation. Here is what I'm using in my NESPC, which will be emulating NES/SNES/Genesis/Mame - Arcade '>ASRock Motherboard Micro ITx AM1H-ITX - $60 AMD Athlon 5350 APU, 2.05Ghz - $60.00 Kingston 240 GB SSD - $115 CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) RAM - $95 $330 total. Throw in another few bucks for cables and another 70-100 for an operating system and you should have no issue staying within your budget What I would suggest, and what I have done, is to install hyperspin + the emulators/games you plan to use on your desktop or an machine you have laying around that has the same or less specs then what you plan to use. this way you can tell if you have enough juice. I used a 4 year old sony vaio laptop with a core 2 duo processor and 4 GB of Ram and 5400 RPM hard drive and havent had any issues running NES/SNES/SEGA/MAME output through HDMI onto my living room TV. only issues are a slow boot time, which is remedied by going with a Solid State drive in the final build. Again, id REALLY suggest doing an install on a machine you currently have to see how it handles hyperspin. its also going to give you some good practice working with hyperspin and all the 3rd party applications you need to use, so when you build it on the new hardware you already know what you are doing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odie Posted August 20, 2014 Author Share Posted August 20, 2014 Thank you Jamaster14, that was very helpful as I was just guessing on options. I priced out those parts on amazon and I was able to get all those items plus a 18 inch Sata 6gig cable for 316$ shipped to my door. But to further show my lack of being on top of tech I assume these micro systems need a power supply style adapter. Any other cords? Also as far as getting data onto it, what would be suggested? I assume I don't need it to connect to the net because of it being a dedicated PC, would I just download when needed from the net and disable or use thumb drives or external hard drives to transfer data? Also would people suggest not even using a case for the system? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odie Posted August 20, 2014 Author Share Posted August 20, 2014 Thanks byttle I will look at that. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glendog Posted August 20, 2014 Share Posted August 20, 2014 Im in the same situation to im new on here I've looked around and ive seen that you can use a Dell Optiplex the small desktop pc its also upgrade able so you can change the ram etc in them. ive just got one off Ebay for £50. You can also get a Flat-pack bar-top arcade for hyper spin on eBay their site is Arcadewape.co.uk if need they'll do all your wiring and install HS for you. This is what im having done Hope this helps Glendog Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamaster14 Posted August 20, 2014 Share Posted August 20, 2014 Thank you Jamaster14, that was very helpful as I was just guessing on options.I priced out those parts on amazon and I was able to get all those items plus a 18 inch Sata 6gig cable for 316$ shipped to my door. But to further show my lack of being on top of tech I assume these micro systems need a power supply style adapter. Any other cords? Also as far as getting data onto it, what would be suggested? I assume I don't need it to connect to the net because of it being a dedicated PC, would I just download when needed from the net and disable or use thumb drives or external hard drives to transfer data? Also would people suggest not even using a case for the system? Yea, you will need an AC adapter for the power supply, the power is already onboard with a connector on the back plate. here is the link to the power supply i purchased: http://www.amazon.com/19v-3-42a-65w-Replacement-Adapter/dp/B0037ZKBB8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406222670&sr=8-1&keywords=19v+3.42a+65w+replacement+ac+adapter as far transfering data, i mostly just transfer files over the network/internet. you could also use an external usb hard drive or a usb memory stick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamaster14 Posted August 20, 2014 Share Posted August 20, 2014 Also, I'll mention this one more time as i think its really a worth while test, install hypersin andthe emulators you will be using on hardware you have and test it out. this will really tell you what kind of hardware you need(more/less powerful) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odie Posted August 21, 2014 Author Share Posted August 21, 2014 Yes I am planning on doing that with my laptop, great advice. It is an i5 but it is a laptop and I know the laptop processors are not on the same level of a i5 desktop CPU. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rust2dust Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 Go as high end as your budget will allow.....If you buy outdated junk and can't install your favorite games/systems. It will be too late and you will be kicking yourself. Better to have a little overkill than ..... .awwwww it kind of plays the game but it's a little laggy... Dual or quad are affordable 3.0 ghz or faster Lots O ram Decent video card Ssd drive Bingo bango... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dark13 Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 Best bang for bucks ,right now, seems g3258 http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?35458-New-CPU-Really-cheap-and-possibly-awesome-for-Hyperspin-amp-Emulation Anyway it will cost more than you expect to spend because you need also a videocard, a z97 motherboard and a good heatsink. Anyway you can save for now buying a cheap videocard and using the default heatsink (do not overclock for now), upgrading the rig over years. In the very end you will spend more but you will have a better machine, capable of rivalling even a 4670k when overclocked. BTW very few emulator needs >4gb of ram (6gb is recommended for dolphin but basically it will never use so much ram), so being on a tight budget 4gb can be enough for now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamaster14 Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 Go as high end as your budget will allow.....If you buy outdated junk and can't install your favorite games/systems. It will be too late and you will be kicking yourself.Better to have a little overkill than ..... .awwwww it kind of plays the game but it's a little laggy... Dual or quad are affordable 3.0 ghz or faster Lots O ram Decent video card Ssd drive Bingo bango... it really depends what you are using it for. if all you are playing is 8-bit and 16-bit games, you really are going to be wasting alot of money on hardware that isnt being utilized and can be done with hardware 1/3 as powerful. sure, if you want to emulate some of the more recent consoles or games, you will need better hardware. but you can pretty much emulate 8-bit console and arcade games on a calculator. not need to kill your budget for hardware that is well beyond your needs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albert_c Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 Since you are interested in old arcade games, you have to approach it from the point of view of what your display shall be. These old games look terrible on modern-day high resolution LCD screens, but really come alive when playing on an old CRT arcade monitor. If your display is going to be an LCD screen/TV, you will need a beefier system; the system listed above is a good start for your budget. Reason being is that with MAME's HLSL CRT emulation settings, you can make these old arcade games come alive again and look pretty damn close to how they played on an old CRT (check this link for details). But enabling MAME's HLSL settings is pretty CPU intensive. Hence you need a beefy system. I found these HLSL settings and find them to be fantastic! But, if your cab is going to be a CRT based machine, you can pick up a used Dell Core 2 Duo based PC for about $100 or less off of eBay (shipped) or Craigslist. Make sure to pick up a system with an ATI based video card and use GroovyMAME. The right ATI based cards have hacked drivers which can output a 15khz signal which can be accepted by a CRT based arcade monitor. Going this way will force you by and large to use Windows XP rather than Windows 7 but that is ok, because I find there are issues with joystick only navigation in Windows 7. Most cab builders use Windows XP. Read this thread to find out more about GroovyMAME and which ATI cards are supported in the hacked drivers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dark13 Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 Wait... HLSL is the only thing in mame to use videocards. HLSL filter is applied trought videocard's shaders, so a decent videocard is mandatory. Just for example, in my p4 3ghz htpc even ghost'n goblin was 50% speed with ati x1550, after upgrading to 9800gtx+ HLSL is totally usable, just as 1080p video can be seen trought DXVA offloading cpu. Consider that right now a 60$ modern videocard should be on par with a 9800gtx. P.S. modified hlsl files are mandatory, normally hlsl file will use bilinear filtering on image before sending it to videocard's shader and that's what create the "exhaust" monitor look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odie Posted August 21, 2014 Author Share Posted August 21, 2014 Since having room is not going to be an issue maybe I should look at an ATX board so I have a little more upgradeabilty. What about taking Jamsters recommended memory and hard drive and using a GIGABYTE GA-F2A88XM-D3H FM2+ AMD A88X (Bolton D4) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FU829ZQ/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER And a http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0095VPBFY/ref=gno_cart_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER AMD A6-5400K APU 3.6Ghz Processor. If I need to I can add a video card beyond the one built on the processor if it is not enough. Thoughts? Also I want to thank you all for your help so far. This my first thread and build and I really appreciate the discussion and ideas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albert_c Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 Well, have you decided on your cab being CRT or LCD based yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odie Posted August 21, 2014 Author Share Posted August 21, 2014 I have the option of both actually. I may see how it looks on my LCD that has a 4s response if I do go that route I may try one of those filter boxes that you plug the video into before the tv. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albert_c Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 The highest card that GroovyMAME supports is the HD4890. You can pick that up used (or any HD3000-HD4000 series card) and it will run all your arcade based emulation, even Taito Type X2. Pick it up on ebay so you can keep the flexibility in case you go LCD with HLSL enabled or CRT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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