Arcade Cabinet

maddness

maddness

maddness

Soldato
Joined
13 Dec 2003
Posts
6,695
Location
UK
Hi there, I'm seriously considering building / customising an arcade cabinet to play retroware / emulation

its a new sort of area for me but I'm confident I can get it done

I have a rough idea what I need and the cost associated but I'm wondering if anyone has done anything similar or any sites I can visit?

I know the brains behind it would be a mid range PC
2 arcade sticks config (USB) (at least covering the megadrive / snes buttons)
a nice decent sized 4:3 screen
5.1 surround speakers
2 stools
I would like a nice silent / quiet operation
I could even implement arcade games into it, id love to give final fight arcade a bash / space invaders / joust / pac man lol

I don't need a coin operated system (its only for use in home)
I don't mind making the cabinet (I have the tools) or modifying pre built

any input would be greatly appreciated

man I'm psyched up :p
 
Sorry i can't be any help but please keep us upto date as this is something i wouldn't mind having a crack at at a later date
 
You know that you can get an arcade OS aswell? i saw one somewhere, i forgot the name of it but it boots straight into that when you turn on your comp. Great for picking which system you want to play :)

what systems are you going to emulate? mid range stuff would do up to Dreamcast/PS2 which is probably more than enough.

now more stuff on the wii is being emulated aswell at basically full speed so that is something to consider.
 
Perfect_Chaos said:
You know that you can get an arcade OS aswell? i saw one somewhere, i forgot the name of it but it boots straight into that when you turn on your comp. Great for picking which system you want to play :)

what systems are you going to emulate? mid range stuff would do up to Dreamcast/PS2 which is probably more than enough.

now more stuff on the wii is being emulated aswell at basically full speed so that is something to consider.
Click to expand...

since the pc is going to be the backbone then i could do anything really but im going to stick to a few like snes / megadrive and a few others

an arcade os would be soo cool, would mean everything can be done using the joystick controls rather than the keyboard mouse, giving it the proper arcade feel
 
go to the byoac forums mate, all the info you could ever need!!!

As for an OS, Use the MALA frontend and get windows to run it on boot, you can even change your windows booting splash scree to something relevant and you'd have a seamless arcade experience with no hint of windows :)
 
Chris [BEANS];13878206 said:
go to the byoac forums mate, all the info you could ever need!!!

As for an OS, Use the MALA frontend and get windows to run it on boot, you can even change your windows booting splash scree to something relevant and you'd have a seamless arcade experience with no hint of windows :)
Click to expand...

sweet will check it out later
 
yeah thats all that they do with quiz machines, there is one in the pub around here and when its turned on you can see windows 2000 but it still goes straight to the main menu of the games.

I remember looking on the bay for an arcade machine to play some retro games only a year or so back, but they were selling for around 600 quid. sit down table top type. I'm not exactly sure how much empty cabinets sell for, but im also certain you could make a really good arcade cabinet along with everything needed for half that price.

could possibly get everything and do it yourself for about 400?, depends if using LCD or CRT aswell as that can add a fair chunk onto the price.
 
The easiest way to have a retro arcade cabinet is to try and find a normal working jamma arcade cabinet on ebay.

Then you take out the motherboard in the machine and stick in a pc. The motherboard is connected to a Jamma harness which is basically a big slot so you then can buy a j-pac which lets you connect this harness to a pc.

Then buy a aracdevga graphics card and that lets you hook up the arcade monitor to the pc. Then load the pc with mame and a front end.
 
virtua-fighter-2.jpg


I've just made mine over the past month :D

I'm using an x-arcade stick which works as a Keyboard emulator which cost me £70. Overall I only spent £100 but I got the wood for free + my old PC (P4 3.2) and old monitor. So I only had to buy the odd tool, paint, arcade stick and speakers (£20). You can find a bit of information on my website about how I built it and how it came to be.

I suck at DIY stuff but I managed to do it by myself but I was lucky enough to have access to some big machinery to cut out the main pieces. Mines a very basic machine and not very professionally done but I didn't really want that anyways :P

I found this website useful:

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

Also check out my website for more pics etc:

http://www.maxisdomain.co.uk/arcade-cabinet/arcade-design/106-arcade-cabinet-after-painting-2
 
haha i was just looking at that, im going to set aside a month for this project

preparation, research, i might look into getting a cabinet but if I cant ive got a friend
who can do all the hacking and sawing in his toolshop

is there any point in using a lcd, like a dell 20" 4:3 (dell 2001 fp)
or if i go for a crt i can probably go for a 22-24" dell / sony trinitron,
which should be quite cheap
 
I would go for CRT if you are playing more of the older games as it just has that look that LCD doesn't. But I was using and LCD 17" for a while and everything still looked fine but made some of the older games look a bit harsh.

Building is the easy bit tbh, its the planning etc which is difficult. Like realising after 50% of it has been made that I had nowhere to put the keyboard where it was usable, everything inside looks pretty rough but that was mainly to do with my lame carpentry skills.
 
Looking on the bay you can buy a pre built (original) fully working cab for £250, you could use this as a base instead of building one from the ground up.
 
It would probably be easier just to buy an empty case but they are very simple to make... well they must be if I managed to :P

If you need any info <maddness> I can try help you out.

+ Cheers Kreeeee it is awesome to play on, also make for a decent jukebox :D
 
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