/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>264238

*it's been a dream since I was atalented /diy/erto have my own arcade room

>>264238

*..since I was young (it seems to convert what I meant to say to "atalented /diy/erto")

bump

Look up MAME. It's an emulator that I used for my machine. Just find an old computer at a thrift store and install. It should do the trick

>>264254

thanks man, I was almost gonna leave out that question for /v/ and /g/; I'm glad I didn't.

I'll check it out. As for buying a computer, I should be okay to use this 8 year old one I have lying around. (though i'm willing to buy another if the hardware's not good enough)

It was originally the family computer from when I was younger, but we all have our own computers and/or laptops now, so they're letting me have it.

bump

This is a slow bored so be very patient. My friend and I are making one but are procrastinating a lot. It will get done eventually. Best of luck to you. I may periodically pop in to answer questions but as of right now I haven't the time to spare.

>>264272
Slow board

I remember talking to friend who made one. he used a shitty old DELL running MAME and I forgot were he got the emulator board but it was really cool. it was a silicon wafer with PS2 in and out and rows of slots where you slide the wire in and tighten the screw above it. and each slot emulated a keyboard stroke and if you know anything about basic wiring its really simple from there

>>264300
>>264272

thanks, and yeah sorry if I seem impatient, I usually go on the faster-paced boards so I'm probably too used to that.

I have a big update now: I have decided what software to get thanks to a kind /g/entooman. I'm going to use "Maximus Arcade".

It's a frontend program that can be booted into straight away (no GUI boot). It's compatible with MAME as other people have suggested.

I'm going to bed now, but please don't stop posting - I'm going to keep this thread open to check on when I wake up.

>>264311

sorry, forgot to put my name in. Confirming this is OP^

>>264238
1- Hyperspin will solve all your booting problems, etc. Game menus and shit.
2- Get those cheap USB ps2 controllers, you can solder wires into them easily. For parts, I would recommend any sanwa/seimitsu parts. You can import them from akihabarashop or FocusAttack. If you like american parts, I dunno man.
3- Learn woodworking, or do it like me and just fucking do it on the go. My first woodworking project was my arcade cabinet. Tools are essential and will affect the outcome of the cabinet, mostly precision on the wood cuts. Dimensions and shit...well, I used autocad to do my blueprints.
4- game music. Fuck everything else.
Pic is my first arcade cabinet before some serious beating, being stolen and being played for almost 24/7 for about 3 years. Looks like shit, but works. If I had cash I would make a new one.

Just a tip: use LCD monitors, it will save on wood and it will be easier to mount. But if you care about input lag and authenticity, go for CRT monitors (you'll need a bezel or it will look like shit, like mine does) or the originial arcade monitors.

Since we are on the subject, any tips for making an arcade controller?

>>264356
Cont.
For wood I'd recommend 1,5cm or 2cm MDF.
For tools I'd recommend a table saw, orbital jigsaw, a simple saw, a powerdrill, loads of screws, glue or wood glue.
The bezel could be made of either acrilyc glass or normal glass.
Painting & cabinet art is a whole area in itself.
This site specializes on joystick controllers, but will help you in almost everything you'll need.
>>264368
slagcoin com/joystick.html

Pic: my cabinet on early stages.

>>264370
Correction: Not bezel, I meant marquee.

>>264370
Thanks a lot, mate.

The /diy/ sticky has some links to sites for this.

eg: http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Main_Page

>what controllers would you recommend me getting for it?

If you're building your own cab you may as well make the control panel too. You can buy Happ, Sanwa or Seimitsu arcade parts and mount them to the panel. They're controlled by simple microswitches.

You can either get a purpose-built arcade control board like an iPac to wire those switches to, or if you want to do it on the cheap (an iPac is like $50) you can check your local thrift stores/swap meets for old USB gamepads to cannibalize for their circuit boards.

The microswitches from the arcade controls can be directly soldered to the digital button contacts on the pad (face buttons, D-Pad), then the gamepad will think you're pressing those buttons when you hit the arcade buttons/throw the stick.

>>264245

Nevermind that. A very stupid troll resulted in a very stupid word filter.

>>264356
>>264370

Adding my two pence-

Hyperspin is a nice front-end but it has nothing to do with the boot process. If you want to hide the boot and splash screens you need to modify Windows, and your BIOS if possible.

see: http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Hiding_Windows

I'd recommend plywood over MDF for strength and weight. MDF also takes fasteners very poorly unless they're bolts straight through.

Ply needs to be laminated instead of just painted, though I'd recommend lamination for MDF too just because it's a more appropriate finish and makes art application and removal easier.

Countersink your bolts or screws and use bondo to fill and make the wood flush again. Apply T-molding to your edges and laminate (even just cheap vinyl is better than nothing). This way you can build for strength without worrying about the wood's finish. Most traditional arcade cabs are built this way for a reason.

Happ: "American" style, big and bulky under-panel. Built to withstand a lot of abuse. Meant to be mounted in thick wood panels (like 3/4"). Their sticks typically mount with carriage bolts and have long handles to reach through wood. Their buttons also have long threaded sections for reach, and attach using a plastic nut on the threaded section under the panel. They use widely available standard microswitches, which are easily changeable if you need to replace a worn switch or want to use a different make.

Sanwa & Seimitsu: "Japanese" style, smaller and more compact than Happ. Meant to be mounted to thin metal or plexiglass panels. Their threaded buttons are short and their snap-ins cannot be mounted to thick wood at all. They tend to focus more on features like the feel of button plungers, switch engagement distance or joystick restriction so you can fine-tune how your stick behaves (esp. diagonals). These parts are a lot less durable than Happ but still leagues beyond generics.

Bat top vs ball top:

Ball tops are controlled largely by wrist action and tend to be fast, yet the flicking motions this promotes can lack accuracy. This issue can largely be negated by attaching a restrictor gate to the stick underside that best matches your control style. Hitting diagonals too often by accident? Use a restrictor that partially blocks off the diagonals so they're harder to hit unintentionally. Sanwa/Seimitsu sticks are mostly ball-top.

Bat tops are controlled mostly by forearm arm action, which is slower than wrist flicking but offers more control. Happ sticks are mostly bat-top.

The differences are actually rather minor so your best bet is to use whichever is more comfortable for you.

One thing to note though- while Sanwa & Seimitsu offer bat top options, bat control tends to place more force on the controls, which the Japanese sticks don't deal with very well long term.

wow, I really can't thank you guys enough. Thanks for not giving up on this thread while I was gone.

I haven't read through all of this yet - just letting you guys know i'm here now.

>>264356

you're probably not here anymore, but, just in case..

do you still have the autocad blueprints? I won't copy it, but it'd be good to have a basis to build from. This goes for anyone actually; if anyone has any arcade blueprints, please link me.

My biggest concern however is how to set up the buttons. How do I connect them to my pc? how do I get my pc to recognise them? how do I configure them to act as different keys?

>>264661

The whole process isn't too hard anon, but it is a little daunting.

You'll find plenty of help in our facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/194861703858251/

or on

http://www.koenigs.dk/mame/eng/

Arcades are seriously awesome.

Alright, I have an idea, OP:

There's a spinoff site from 4chan called canvas. Sign up for canvas, or don't, but contact an admin named dmauro (I think). dmauro is rumoured to run an arcade somewhere in (I forget the city... I want to say new york or chicago). If you can, maybe talk to him? You might be able to not only build arcade machines, but turn it into a business venture.

>>264665

thanks, I'll take a look

>>264670

I'm from England so I can't get there unfortunately, but thankyou.

>>264670
>business venture

I hope you realize too many arcades all over the world have been shutting down over the past 4 years. If you have a good reason to open an arcade now please share it.

Whatever you do OP, try not to design something like these: http://www.wickedretarded.com/~crapmame/

>>264665

I'm >>264681

Also a Britfag. Best place you can buy stuff from here is gremlinsolutions, I've used them before and are great. A lot of our facebook group is Yurop based so plenty of help in there, plus about 5 more britfags.

>>264699
I use akihabarashop.jp I think they're cheaper most of the time, but they don't stock Happ if I recall correctly.

>>264661
This one's indended for a CRT monitor(red square), if you'll use a LCD monitor, you can cut about 20 or 30 cm from the back.
These blueprints don't have any supports. Everything in it is in milimeters.

>>264699

thanks, i'll make sure t go there when i buy the parts

>>264703

I'll check out these too, thanks

>>264712

thankyou. I've never done this sort of thing so this is a huge help.

bumping

>>264546

/diy/ is a slow board. It takes a while for threads to fall off of it.

>How do I connect them to my pc? how do I get my pc to recognise them? how do I configure them to act as different keys?

You need an interface. As mentioned before, you can buy a keyboard emulating interface like an iPac (which maps by default to standard MAME key assignments), or you can hack a gamepad so that your arcade stick and buttons control buttons on the pad.

You can also hack a keyboard by tearing the controller board out of it and wiring to that, but I don't recommend this because it's a pain to figure out how the key matrix is laid out and most cheap keyboards aren't even designed to handle having more than a couple keys pressed at once.

>>264920

In addition to gamepads you can also use old flight sticks. Not for the analog stick, though that's doable if somewhat involved.

Rather because any buttons or hat switches will probably already be connected to wiring harnesses, which you can take full advantage of for a solderless solution.

>>265041

Get used to seeing these.

>running Street Fighter II Championship Edition in MAME
>set CPU difficulty to maximum
>fighting Blanca
>go into a crouching block after exchanging a few hits
>he just stands there a few paces away, completely still
>keep crouching but let go of block
>the INSTANT block is released he executes a Rolling Attack
>there's no visual indication in SF2CE of whether or not you're holding block while you're crouching
>motherfucker was reading my controller inputs

my bros and i did this a few years back and had tons of fun only ended up costing us around $600 mostly for the wood and the "high grade" dance pads

This probably won't help at all, but I was at an arcade today and I noticed that one of the guns on the "Terminator: Salvation" shooter game had become a chunk of plastic and wouldn't work. Having some experience with arcade machines, I figured rebooting the machine would re-connect the gun, and make everything work again (Because no wires were disconnected/beaten on/any of that)

Upon flipping the switch on the back of the machine, I saw this:

1.) BIOS screen for "Dell Optiplex 380" computer. This is a common Dell desktop computer
2.) At the bottom of the screen, it said "Loading Linux x.x.x" where x's were the version number.
3.) It then went into another screen that said:

"Terminator Salvation
Copyright ( c ) 2009 Play Mechanix Inc
Version: 01 . 25 .00 V5 RELEASE
Build: Sep 12 2011 16:45:00
[something I couldn't read]
Initializing
Starting communications interface
Could not open card reader ports
Checking game files. Please standby...
Verifying [something] files
Verifying certificates
Verifying .xml files
Verifying scene files
Verifying program files
Verifying config files
Verifying shaders
Verifying state [something] readers
Verifying general translation files
Verifying game translation files
System initialization complete...
Game starting..."

Then went into a screen that looked like the game's preview screen that said "Loading, please wait..." then, "Loading Gun Firmware. Please do not unplug guns or power off system..."

And then the game loaded. Sure enough, the second gun was now fully working and lit up.

Just a little story, if it helps. So, most modern arcade games apparently run off of desktop computers. You could always contact some arcade game makers (Like the company that makes Terminator: Salvation) and ask them how they do it, what they do, etc.

Enjoy, and I hope I could help!

>>266220

Yep, Play Mechanix makes PC-based arcade games that run as a dedicated app under Linux.

I'm pretty sure their peripheral firmware and drivers are custom, though.

Plenty of arcade cabinets still have their own hardware, but PC-based cabs are very common.

The funny thing is that while home builders obsess over details and do things like hack their machines to hide bootup BIOS screens, the real commercial cabs don't even bother.

>>266354

Haha yeah. The only reason I can think of is because hackers will be turning it on and off a lot, while in an arcade it stays on the whole day and only the employees see the startup and shutdown screens.

I've been building a cabinet off and on for about 5 months now. To wire up your own customer control panel is simple. There are a lot of youtube videos on how to do it. I would also recommend checking out Hyperspin as mentioned before.

The picture is my cabinet from a few days ago after the second layer of primer.

>>266668

Bit of advice for anyone wanting to put a coin door on their cab:

You'll want the front under the control panel to come out a bit or it'll be very uncomfortable reaching the coin chutes under the panel.