/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.4777561]

Anybody ever build a MAME cabinet?

I don't know if it would be worth the effort, I think I'm probably content with a computer and a USB joystick.

[Anonymous No.4777569]

>>4777561
Try a USB arcade stick for a middle ground

[Anonymous No.4777594]

They're entirely too much effort. Unless you really only give a shit about one particular genre of game, you'll never make one that meets all your needs. Sure, you can put 4 joysticks, a track ball, an analog dial, a flight stick, and a racing wheel on one control panel, but then you'll have built a horrible monstrosity.

Then there's the question of the monitor. Do you do it right and get a multi-frequency CRT? Then what do you do about vertically oriented games? Those aren't cheap, either. Do you cheap out and put a shitty LCD in it? At that point, why bother having the cabinet at all?

Okay now what about the software? Are you going to stick with MAME or do you want to emulate other consoles as well. Remember, MAME doesn't emulate a lot of 3D games well. Are you going to install some nifty front-end like Hyperspin? Are you going to go through all the effort of downloading gigabytes of box arts, preview movies, etc? Are you going to have the entire ROMset installed? That's thousands upon thousands of games, the vast majority of which you have never heard of and have no intention of ever playing. Are you going to curate the list? How are you going to decide what games to include? Are you going to sift through thousands of ROMs and pick and choose which ones you'd like to play?

The questions go on. If you're a richfag, just pay somebody else to make one for you. If not, just stick with a PC.

[Anonymous No.4777603]

I'm building one right now. It's a gigantic pain in the butt

[Anonymous No.4777610]

>>4777561
It all about the monitor. If you can’t get a good CRT in it, what’s the point?

[Anonymous No.4777643]

>>4777610
Yeah. I'm not a turbo-autist about playing old games on LCDs in general, but an arcade cabinet? Come on.

[Anonymous No.4777653]

I tried for years to do the MAME route, ordered a huge 27 inch Wells Gardner monitor. It broke in shipment, had to lug it back to Fedex and have a replacement sent.

I get a second one again, and find it doesn't fit in my cheapo arcade cabinet I picked up. So my friend gets creative and uses his power tools and we managed to wedge it inside, the catch is once it got in, there is no getting it out without pulling apart the cabinet. I get it working, is awesome and works for a few weeks...then one day...monitor dead.

I don't know anyone who could work on them and it just sat there languishing until I eventually sold it to a friend of a friend who thought he might get it working. He never got around to it and the project died.

I used to be anal about LCD's but now shader tech has caught up so much the only thing you're missing out on is a nice bubbly-screen. But even that can be masked by some smoked plexiglass. I might try again one day with a flat screen.

[Anonymous No.4777656]

>>4777561
It's a deep rabbit hole if you choose to go for it
If you have a cohesive plan for a control setup, game list and side art dig in!
But if you're just looking to put a full mame romset and play it here and there, what's going to happen is you'll have an MDF heap that you play for two weeks and it will just sit there. If the latter, might as well stick to PC with a joystick.

[Anonymous No.4777707]

>>4777561
Yes, I've built one. They are thoroughly enjoyable. Computer and joystick doesn't compare.

[Anonymous No.4777714]

>>4777610
It's very important to get a CRT, but don't be too picky about what kind of CRT. Get something you know you can work with and will fit easily into the cabinet.

It's better to have a finished cab with a PC monitor or a television in it than a half-finished cab that sits that way for years and never gets played.

[Anonymous No.4777735]

>>4777594
>Do you do it right and get a multi-frequency CRT?
Who would intentionally choose to do it wrong? Anyway, getting a multi-sync is only one method. Fixed frequency monitors are fine.
>Then what do you do about vertically oriented games?
Mount the monitor in vert mode? Or simply realize they are not suited for this usage and don't play them if it bothers you too much to use pillarboxing. Otherwise: pillarbox.

As to the rest of your questions there is a simple answer: stop trying to do everything and do a few things well. You don't have to install every game under the sun. You don't even have to install ROM packs. I don't. I pick a game I want to play and gather the roms for it and get it configured properly, then I stick to playing that game for a good while. No switching games every few minutes.

Extra Note: Pilloxed vert sizes on corresponding monitors

for 3:4 on a 4:3 screen
13" needs a 19"
19" needs a 25"
21.5" needs a 29"
25" needs a 36"

[Anonymous No.4777737]

>>4777714
why is having a CRT so important? Why not use a scanline/aberration filter? I use it with NEStopia and it looks uncannily authentic.

[Anonymous No.4777738]

>>4777561
What game is that on the screen?

[Anonymous No.4777763]

>>4777737

CRT's used to be important for me because LCD's always appeared washed out with ghosting and poor blacks. But LCD technology has caught up that the differences are much more negligible now.

I know there is all this talk of input lag but frankly that is all Neo in the Matrix shit that i've never noticed in my life.

[Anonymous No.4777793]

>>4777737
lag, motion blur, and black levels
>>4777763
LCDs always use some kind of cheat to get better black levels, and it doesn't work well in video games. And it creates lots of lag.

[Anonymous No.4777815]

>>4777793

I bought a Sony Bravia and the black levels are almost OLED black and that is with LEDs. And again, I have never noticed the lag, if I push a button on my WIRELESS bluetooth controller on top of the image processing, Mario jumps instantly in front of my eyes. I'm not living in bullet time.

Maybe if you're going for speedruns or world records you care about this kind of thing but I don't.

[Anonymous No.4777838]

>>4777738
King of Kong.

[Anonymous No.4777840]

>>4777815
The recent Sony Bravias are great, like 13ms of input lag in game mode. Fine for most retro games.

[Anonymous No.4777970]

>>4777561
No, but I've built many cabs that weren't just for MAME. If you don't know how much effort is involved forget about it. You're in no position to even try. If you really want a cab start with a cab closest to what you think you want and mod it.

[Anonymous No.4778004]

>>4777815
>And again, I have never noticed the lag
You're a scrub and we don't care about your opinions.

[Anonymous No.4778016]

>>4777970
A cab can be as easy or as hard as you want it to be. Almost every major issue can be side-stepped one way or another

>don't want to mess with arcade monitor
Use a PC monitor or a television.
>don't want to mess with arcade PSUs and PCBs
Use a PC or a console to play your games
>don't know how to wire controls or solder
Buy a controller PCB with screw terminals and clamp on your quick disconnects.
>don't know how a coin door works
skip it entirely

>don't want to build a cab
Find an old cab and convert it. Just be careful to not destroy anything you take out of it. We want to make reversible changes.

[Anonymous No.4778020]

>>4777561
>Anybody ever build a MAME cabinet?
My friend did. He started with a Marvel Superheroes cabinet as a base, and gutted it entirely. He used a Trinitron TV removed from its housing as the screen, and spent quite a bit of time getting the controllers to interface with his PC. It works pretty good for what he needs, and does work nearly perfect. He mainly uses it for Marvel fighting games, but we have had great fun playing all sorts of bullshit on it. It took him years to get it perfect, and by then the thrill is gone. It is nearly a paradox with people like us (he and I and others)...once you get something so outlandish working, you somewhat lose interest.

[Anonymous No.4778027]

>>4778020
>spent quite a bit of time getting the controllers to interface with his PC
That's one of the easiest parts. What was his issue?

[Anonymous No.4778036]

>>4777970
Making a cab isn't hard. At all. Stop pretending it is even remotely difficult.

[Anonymous No.4778045]

>>4778020
> It took him years to get it perfect
I know this feel. Hyperspin and rocketlauncher are incredible bitches. Been working on it off and on for four years and just now have it set up right.

[Anonymous No.4778047]

>>4778027
>What was his issue?
Honestly, I think it was parts inside the stick that he could not source. He is absolutely a waste with things like screwdrivers and drills, but he taught himself how to fix it. I don't know squat about how the internals of a control stick works, but iirc it had something to do with a plastic bushing. He ended up having a friend who I don't know 3d print the exact part he needed. Something that the stick was not as responsive as he wanted. I am just going off of memory, but he wanted to preserve it as much as possible. The board was totally junk, but he saved it all.

>>4778016
>We want to make reversible changes.
This was his goal, and I think he did a good job with his soft non-hard work hands. He is an office drone. I build things for fun, and somehow was unable to help him in the time he needed....He had no kids at the time, while I had 2, so my days of boozing and building playthings for adults are very limited.

[Anonymous No.4778065]

>>4778004

Well if we're going to talk about scrubs, a typical douchebag like yourself insistent on input lag wouldn't even be building an emulation machine but only using original arcade boards.

[Anonymous No.4778068]

>>4778045

I helped a friend set up his, got Hyperspin and eveything but no matter how well you get it, there is always something that goes wrong that minimizes a window or crashes the emulator and you're fiddling with a keyboard to get back in, it can be a real pain in the ass.

I think the easier solution is to get one of those 700-in-1's and forget trying to be the "be-all, end-all" of cades.

[Anonymous No.4778224]

>>4778047
>He ended up having a friend who I don't know 3d print the exact part he needed.
If this was recent enough that 3d printing is an option I'm starting to think your friend is an idiot. Sticks are very cheap.

I might give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was trying to get some optical joysticks to work since you mention it was a cabinet originally intended for playing Marvel. Those are a bit trickier to get working properly, and can be expensive. Still, it shouldn't take weeks to finish, to say nothing of years.

[Anonymous No.4778228]

>>4778045
>>4778068
The delusion of hyperspin is you're trying to create something that looks like a commercial product out of a disparate group of programs that were never intended to work together. And you're trying to impress your friends and family who will probably forget about the experience a few minutes later. Hours and hours and hours of work for for very little payoff.

Just give up on it and focus on playing a few games at a time through individual emulators, vanilla mame interface, or retroarch.

[Anonymous No.4778238]

>>4778016
Well thanks for confirming that building a cab is easy if you don't build a cab I guess.

>>4778036
Says the kid who's never even assembled a prefab one let alone built his own. wew lad

[Anonymous No.4778241]

>>4777561
gonna ask this here...when I try MAME, it doesnt let me continue the games, as if I put in another quarter. what is usually the button for that? cant even find it on the input menu.

[Anonymous No.4778243]

I plan on building a take on one of these this summer and putting a 19" PC monitor on top of it.

[Anonymous No.4778246]

>>4778238
If you need help with the woodworking side of things this isn't the place to ask. But it's not hard. A basic cab can be cut and put together in a day.

[Anonymous No.4778247]

>>4778241
Look in the dip switch of your game make sure the game is set to allow continuing.

Default controls are
1 = 1p start
2 = 2p start
5 = coin

[Anonymous No.4778258]

>>4778243
The person who built this put a 29" Mitsubishi Megaview monitor on top of it. He built it because he wanted a cab for 31khz games. I am surprised more people have not built these things. They have a nickname but it escapes me right now.

[Anonymous No.4778260]

>>4778068
>>4778228
I actually have my set up nicely. You're right about it probably not being worth the work, but at least I know it IS possible.

[Anonymous No.4778270]

>>4778258
If I were building a cab like this now I think I would skip the two player control panel. There's just not enough room for two people to play a fighting game comfortably. I have seen some people build two of them side by side to recreate popular set-ups in Japan.

[Anonymous No.4778273]

>>4778243
>>4778258
>>4778270
These are called "cigar bob" cabinets named after a guy who used to bring them to early Evo events to play Super Turbo on them.

[Anonymous No.4778283]

Get a raspberry pi and a monster joystick. It's like having a mini Mame you plug into your TV for ~$150

[Anonymous No.4778292]

>>4778283
thing looks like crap, it's too small

[Anonymous No.4778458]

>>4778247
thanks, ill check it out

[Anonymous No.4778551]

>>4778246
Without the right tools and experience it's not just hard it's impossible, let alone to do it in a day. I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to prove here. I'd say you were trying to show what a big man woodworker you are but you act like someone too young to use power tools even under supervision.

[Anonymous No.4778753]

>>4778551
>it's impossible for a novice to saw a few pieces of plywood, mdf, and 2x4s and screw them together in one day
you must be one shite woodworker m8

[Anonymous No.4778762]

>>4777840
On standard definition analogue inputs?

Call me a sceptic but I don't believe that figure.

[Anonymous No.4778775]

>>4778762
It's in game mode which looks horrible.

[Anonymous No.4778925]

>>4777793
>lag, motion blur, and black levels

The other important thing people don't consider is refresh rates. Arcade games run at wacky refresh rates by modern LCD standards, they don't run at say 60hz, they run at weird shit like 55.017hz. Eventually the game and the display get out of sync and you get visibly torn frames and stuttering. The way to fix this on LCD is to buffer the frames with e.g. triple buffering. Congratulations, now you have introduced loads more input lag!

To be fair the very latest (expensive) LCD monitors with technologies like G-Sync finally solve these issues, but CRT vs LCD with the likes of Groovymame is night and day far better. You also get issues with LCDs with viewing angles. not a problem with upright cabs, but makes many of them useless for the likes of cocktail cabinets.

Also Jesus Christ people, keep things simple, most games only need a stick and two buttons, perhaps go with the classic Capcom 6 button setup if you have the room. It's embarrassing seeing all these retarded designs with trackballs and buttons sprayed all over them that are clearly physically painful to actually use.

[Anonymous No.4778980]

>>4778753
I'm actually pretty good. But subjective descriptions aside I've actually built a cab from scratch and know how much work is involved. Clearly you haven't and it's hilarious that you think all your big talk is going to fool anyone into thinking otherwise.

[Anonymous No.4778995]

>>4778925
Amen

[Anonymous No.4779036]

>>4777561
Candy cabs or gtfo.

[Anonymous No.4779056]

>>4778753
You sound like a child, stop pretending you can do these things nemo, you cant, YOU JUST CANT!

[Anonymous No.4779283]

>>4778762
No, on HDMI with a Framemeister. Sorry, I wasn't considering the analog inputs because no one should be plugging a retro console into directly into a TV through analog anyway.

https://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/kdl42w705b-201402233639.htm

>13.5ms leo bodnar input lag test

>>4778775
Game mode looks fine with retro games, not so good for modern 3D games.

[Anonymous No.4779385]

>>4778925
>The way to fix this on LCD is to buffer the frames with e.g. triple buffering.
I don't have experience with this, but I have read you can also use the newer LCD monitors with freesync and g-sync which will let the monitor update at different refresh rates.

[Anonymous No.4779398]

>>4779283
>Game mode looks fine with retro games
It may look fine in the sense it's a playable image, but it's going to be far inferior to even a crappy old consumer CRT television when put side by side. Game mode destroys the good contrast ratio of that television.

[Anonymous No.4781040]

>>4777594
That's why it's called A HOBBY.
You could make any kind of detailed and "complicated" activity sound boring or a chore, by the same reasoning building and painting model kits or painting at all.

Of course OP sounds like the kind of guy that doesn't really want to do it that much.

[Anonymous No.4781081]

>>4777561
I did since I chanced upon an cabinet that had been stripped of all but it's monitor for $40. They are a pain in the ads to set up but if you're the type who thinks they would like it, you probably would. Now it's harder to find cabinets as cheap but they are still out there.

After they are setup they are a lot of fun.

[Anonymous No.4781320]

>>4777561
I built a shitty one that's basically a bunch of wood planks screwed and glued together, which holds two arcade sticks and a trackball and has a place to attach a racing wheel, that fits over a ladder, which one of two small CRT televisions, one for horizontal and one for vertical, can sit at the top, while the main computer sits under. Looks shitty, but is surprisingly functional. It's also easier to move around than a cabinet, since you can move all the parts separately. I ain't got money or know-how for a proper cabinet, but if I did, I'd aim for something that could fit both my CRTs in at the same time.

[Anonymous No.4781373]

Ask Billy Mitchell LOL

[Anonymous No.4782385]

>>4781320
Pics of ghetto setup now

[Anonymous No.4782609]

>>4777737
Because low resolution pixel games look like shit on lcd's dumbass.

[Anonymous No.4783069]

>>4781320
Pics or ur gay

[Anonymous No.4783096]

>>4777561
I just take the bf to the arcade bar when I want the upright experience.

[Anonymous No.4783098]

>>4777737
Pixels don't map directly to phosphors, so the image isn't quite the same. And there's greater lag with LCDs. With old consoles, the shitty composite video makes a much bigger difference. Arcades had RGB connections.

[Anonymous No.4783135]

>>4777561
I have a core2duo lying around I have downloaded a lot romsets, snes, sega and pc engine and nes, will get fba and gba romset and will put into retroarch, only thing that is holding me is vga to rgb converter, I don't know about them, there is one local company selling them but I am quite unsure about them, since I have heard that a lot of the time they don't work and just show black screen

[Anonymous No.4784056]

>>4781320
>>4782385
>>4783069

I strongly feel I will regret this somehow, and not because people will insult it.
But, here it is with the vertical TV. It exists.

[Anonymous No.4784059]

>>4784056
if it works and makes you happy, i dont see the problem

[Anonymous No.4784193]

>>4784056
Oh god that's bad. But at least it's something. 99.999% of these threads of these threads are just faggots talking about thinking about it. But you should never show that to anyone, ever.

[Anonymous No.4784248]

>>4777594
This is actually a really insightful post, I've been wanting to build a mame cab for years but the dilemmas you describe a significant factor. If you are anywhere near a perfectionist it sounds like a recipe for disappointment. Not only do you have the different mame versions and rom sets as you describe, as well as front ends, that's before you even get onto the physical components. You have to be competent at woodworking, finishing and painting otherwise it will look like shit. Projects on BYOAC seem to be either top shelf stuff with laminates , t-molding and smoked plexiglass etc. or dog turd bare plywood. I can spend hours reading reviews and forum threads about Euro sticks Vs Happ competitions but am I ever going to bite the bullet and build the damn thing? Doubtful.

[Anonymous No.4784463]

>>4784056
It looks fine.

[Anonymous No.4784775]

>>4784248
He really did nail it right on the head. First post best post and all that. You quickly become aware of just how many control schemes there really are in arcade games when you think about making an all-in-one control panel for MAME. To play nearly all of them, you need at least a joystick, six buttons, a trackball, and an analog dial. The dial will work like dogshit for racing games, the trackball would be dogshit for simulating a flight sim yoke, and the joystick can and probably will be garbage for multiple games if it's not a 4/8/16 way. If you're a reasonable man, you take fpbp's advice and stick to games with a common control layout. If you're a pleb, you just use buttons/joystick and map games with analog controls to your digital control panel. If you're a perfectionist though, you will eventually turn into a mad scientist creating frankenstein's monster.

I just use an X-arcade (customized), a SNES pad clone, and a dual-shock, which is good for pretty much everything. Anything else is just an exercise in frustration.

[Anonymous No.4784931]

>>4784248
>>4784775
You know, nobody will force you to build a cab that has every kind of control under the sun. You can build a mame cab that has only one joystick and one button if you want (and you'll find plenty of games that only need this).


>I can spend hours reading reviews and forum threads about Euro sticks Vs Happ competitions but am I ever going to bite the bullet and build the damn thing?
Just pick one. You can switch sticks later on down the line.

[Anonymous No.4784972]

Built one it looked awesome didn't finish it properly and it was too big and a few years went by so i threw it out haha. I will get a full kit next time.