SybokTHS Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 [X-Posted to /r/Hyperspin, /r/Mame, /r/Cade, hyperspin-fe.com and emumovies.com] Hi Everyone, I have been gearing up to begin my first 2 player cabinet construction in the coming months and I guess this is my introductory posting to say hello and to express my enthusiasm at joining the hobby. This is going to be a long one so bear with me, please, I’ll try and make reading it as easy as possible. I have crossed posted this to other forums and sub-reddits to scoop a wider range of opinion. I apologise if this offends, it is not my intention just starting out and trying to garner knowledge from people wiser than I on the subject. I’ll highlight all my questions in bold-italics so if you just want to skim it will be easier to pick out what I am asking. I am going give my backstory now so if you don’t find this sort of stuff interesting please skip to the TL;DR I honestly wouldn’t blame you. I was sent off to an English boarding school at the age of 10 after my parents divorced and the living arrangement for both became unviable. It was there I met my best friend and we bonded over our love of offensive jokes, Aliens (movie) and video games. Living in a seaside town in the late 80s and 90s meant a lot of time was spent in arcades, the town in particular was a hive of them so I got to play a lot of games, was quite sad to see the decline of them and now there are only a hand full left. They are mostly full of novelty games and fruitys now though. I have always wanted to build a Mame cabinet, I always have my Emulator drive and a gamepad plugged in ready to go, but I just simply do not have the space to house an arcade machine. I have noticed recently he has also been playing more retro games so I guess his interest is still there. Over the years, as far as birthday and Christmas presents come, Dan has always been more generous to me (probably owing to the fact he earns more than me and does not have 2 kids) He has just moved into a palatal new flat which he is turning into an awesome bachelor pad so it will fit right in there. TL;DR Have a lifetime best friend who I am building this Cab for to say thanks for years of generosity. - WOODWORK My father-in-Law is a carpenter by trade so he was the first person I approached when I started looking into doing this. To my surprise he was really keen on helping which is fantastic because I am awful at anything DIY. He has access to heavy duty machinery so he can do all the cutting and bevelling at work and then build it all at home. A god send literally . I am going to use the Koenig’s plans as it seems the best fit for my requirements: http://www.koenigs.dk/mame/eng/stepprojectmame.htm Has anyone built from these specs? Any pitfalls I should be aware of? As far as artwork goes, I have no idea what direction I want to go with that. I’d like maybe to do an Aliens cab but don’t really know where to start, any suggestions After that I’ll have to work out a way to get the damn thing 30 miles over to his house without costing a fortune! - SYSTEM - The system I have built is cobbled together form parts I had lying around that were too valuable to get rid of. From reading people’s opinions it should be adequate but I would values any points of view about its viability. I think if I were to change up anything it would be to put 8gb RAM in in place of 4gb but DDR2 RAM is so expensive now. Mainboard Model ConRoe1333-DVI/H. Processor Intel® Core2 Duo CPU E4600 @ 2.40GHz Memory 4GB (2x OCZ Titanium CL4 Edition 2 GB DDR2 Ram - OCZ2T800C42G) Graphics XFX GeForce 9800 GTX+ - Black Edition - 512 MB Sound Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy SE Speakers Logitech X-240 Speakers (2.1) Monitor Fujitsu Siemens D19-1 19" TFT Monitor 1280x1024 2000:1 300cd/m2 5ms Black VGA/DVI Speakers Piano Storage 1x WD SATA II 160GB + 1x Seagate SATA II 500GB O/S Windows 7 Professional 64bit - EMULATORS - As far as emulation goes I think I don’t really want to go further than N64. Indeed I question how practical emulating N64 or indeed any of the below systems in a cabinet. What worries me about that is how the controls map. With most of the systems I list below the controllers don’t have more than 6 buttons. Has anyone comfortably run N64 games in a cabinet before? What are the opinions of the rest? The systems I am going to support are as follows: MAME 0.158 Daphne Neo Geo Nintendo Entertainment system Super Nintendo Entertainment system Nintendo Gameboy Nintendo Gameboy Color Nintendo Gameboy Advance Nintendo N64 NEC TurboGrafx 16 NEC SuperGrafx Sega Master System Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) Sega 32X Sega CD (unsure of this one due to the difficulty of sourcing ROMs) Sega Game Gear Sega Model 2 Atari 2600 Atari 5200 Atari 7800 Atari Jaguar Atari Lynx - CONTROLS - As I said above I will only be making a 2up cabinet so for controls, I live in the UK but there are a few arcade resellers. I found this set that looks good: http://www.arcadeworlduk.com/products/2-Player-Arcade-Joysticks-Buttons-And-IPAC2-Wiring-Kit-No10.html Anyone bought this or have experience with this kit? - FRONTEND I am going to use Hyperspin as the frontend for this. I know this I a polarising subject but I have looked at all the alternatives and I just love HS. Once I have I fully working I expect it will look excellent. I have had a few road bumps setting it up from the forum instructions but I have had better success using the guide Ryan (I think) from gameroomsolutions wrote: -shameless plug! http://gameroomsolutions.com/setup-hyperspin-mame-hyperlaunch-full-guide/ - CONCLUSION After this project is complete I intend to make a portable 4 player console to plug into a TV, then I can pack it away when I am finished and take it around friend’s house etc. Funny enough after I had told a few friends what I was planning and now they are all are asking if I can do it for them too… I may have started something I’m gonna regret! Thanks for reading! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richie_jones Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 I always like a good first post with a bit of background of the builder.. Good luck with your build.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richie_jones Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 My first initial advise would be don't skimp on the joysticks and buttons get some decent quality ones. Also viewing angle of your monitor is important you'll find your a lot higher up playing on a bartop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SybokTHS Posted February 28, 2015 Author Share Posted February 28, 2015 Hi! Thanks for the advice You know I am starting to hear that alot, about the controllers i mean, I might have to look into changing up. Good thing is I emailed the guys at this retailer and asked if they were planning on selling starter kits like this using some of the higher grade components and they said that they had considered it. Might have to chase that up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yatsey Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 i got my cab from arcade world and like richie_jones says don't skimp on the joysticks and buttons phone them up and ask them what they would recommend. i live close to arcade world so i went and collected my stuff and got to look at a few different joysticks and the cheap ones felt cheap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hitchhikingflatlander Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 Good luck with your project its a fun hobby. Be sure to read up a lot and look at all the options available to you. I built my cab first then discovered this site, total face palm, if I would have seen the amazing cabinets people have built and the effort going into them I would have done a number of things differently. My own cab looks like a high school woodworking project but at least it works and its functional. The next one will be heavily researched and planned out first. Can't wait to see what you come up with! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SybokTHS Posted March 1, 2015 Author Share Posted March 1, 2015 i got my cab from arcade world and like richie_jones says don't skimp on the joysticks and buttons phone them up and ask them what they would recommend.i live close to arcade world so i went and collected my stuff and got to look at a few different joysticks and the cheap ones felt cheap. Oh that's cool, How big is the place? So that's me decided then. I am going to get some Sanwa Joys and buttons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SybokTHS Posted March 1, 2015 Author Share Posted March 1, 2015 Good luck with your project its a fun hobby. Be sure to read up a lot and look at all the options available to you. I built my cab first then discovered this site, total face palm, if I would have seen the amazing cabinets people have built and the effort going into them I would have done a number of things differently. My own cab looks like a high school woodworking project but at least it works and its functional. The next one will be heavily researched and planned out first. Can't wait to see what you come up with! Thanks very much! Can I ask what you would have done differently? Also were you working from a set plan? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richie_jones Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 I have some basic plans if you'd like...what's your email Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hitchhikingflatlander Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Thanks very much! Can I ask what you would have done differently? Also were you working from a set plan? Well for starters I wouldn't have bought a Tankstick, whiles it been a functional off the shelf controller I would much rather had built my own to my specs and layout. I would also have spent more time on appearances and finishing touches. All that combined with a larger display, I game on a projector so I'm used to bigger screens than 21"! I also had intended mine to be a bar top without thinking that it would take up half of my bars real estate, next time around will be a full size cab. In all though my first build was a proof of concept on my part to just see if I could build a cabinet, I learned I could and family and friends have all enjoyed it. Looking back now if I'd spent a little longer in the planning phase I could have built something nicer though at least my next build I'll have the existing cab to play with during the build process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tredog Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 On your system, I am assuming you already have all of that hardware? If so, 4GB should be plenty fine (You don't need an anti-virus or many other programs running). If you have the funds for a SSD, it really helps with startup time/Video loading times when changing screens. I have a 120GB SSD with HS, all emulators and HS Media, then a second 1TB with all games/roms. I could of gone with a 500GB easy after eliminating all of the systems that I did. If you have on-board sound, the sound card would be overkill. I agree with others on the viewing angle of the "Fujitsu" monitor, I ended up going with a 22" 16:10 Acer monitor. Got it for free, but had to repair a bad capacitor (no big deal). The 16:10 works well with 4:3 games and if you do stretch full screen, games are not that skewed. Here is my Final list of emulators/games: (Hyperspin Frontend) all easy to setup for the most part... Mame AAE Atari Jaquar Future Pinball 3DO DW Jukebox TurboGrafx 16 TurboGrafx CD Nintendo Super Nintendo Sega Gen. Sega CD Sega Saturn NeoGeo CD XBMC Zinc I originally tried to do every system (a nightmare in itself) but ended up cutting any system that required more than I already had in my control panel layout. N64 was cut along with Dreamcast and Playstation for requiring an analog joystick for most games. Decided to build my own game console for these in the future and buy usb controllers on eBay to match each system. Atari systems were cut for requiring keyboard on some of the games I play, but I kept the Jaquar. Hand held games were cut due to poor graphics at 22". HOWEVER, you could add usb's to the outside of your cab and get controllers to hook up when playing N64. I almost did this, but playing while standing at an arcade machine was not really how I would play these games (better for sitting ) Sega CD / NeoGeo CD / TurboGrafx CD were NOT difficult to setup using Hyperlaunch... SuperGrafx did not have any titles that made it a big deal to have over TurboGrafx (and not in English for the most part) Finally, the video card may be light if you add modern games to the cab later down the road. I upgraded to a XFX ATI 6670 to run Guitar Hero III/World Tour and plan on getting a few modern LightGun Games later down the road. My 2 cents Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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