Got an arcade cabinet, need assistance

[Cyber-Mav]

so got a hold of this cabinet today from a relative. its not been used for over 2 years so was a bit dirty but cleaned up well. i dont have the key for the back side so cant get to the hardware thats running in it yet. if someone knows what sort of key i can get or if it can be picked etc?
what i do gather when powering it on its running x86 hardware and has a 160gb IDE hard drive.
wiring of the controllers looks to be a mess but dunno. need to get a keyboard onto it so got to open it up and check for usb port. maybe make an extension by drilling holes in the back and mounting the usb ports on the cabinet itself.

check the pics:

will be an interesting project for me to mess with. im interested to know how the controllers connect to the pc inside it. usb? or something else?

 

[Cyber-Mav]

got past the lock easily. looks like someone hacked an actual dell keyboard and used its controller to do the job lol. its a P4 3ghz with 1.5gb ram. 32bit win7. gonna need more power in this the crappy ati firegl 3100 card it came with cant even do full dx9 stuff so had to ditch it for a nvidia 310.
will do more faffing with this.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

some more pics of the insides.
the bios cpu code says its a p4 517. once i get my ssd in it with 64bit win7 will do more snooping around for full spec and see what the mobo can take cpu wise.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

The keyboard encoder seems to have limitations when both players play some keys dont get picked up.
Need to find something better

 

[Cyber-Mav]

iv read that for lowest lag an arduino ATmega32U4 micro can be used. anyone go any experience with it?

the cpu in the cabinet was a pentium 4 531. 3ghz 1mb cache single core 90nm job. iv flashed the board bios to latest version and spent £3.25p for a pentium D 925 which is dual core 3ghz 65nm job with 4mb cache so should be a lot better and going by hp support site is the highest cpu the board will take. will see how it is when it arrives
ram i upped from 1.5gb to 4gb today.

got to sort the controllers out though. 2 players is crap since button presses are missed and just doesnt control properly.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

iv been looking at the zero delay encoders but after spending some time reading up of arcade forums it seems they are very bad. its either ipac or arduino according to the arcade forums.
iv got an arduino on order now a leonardo so will see how things go.
windows based emulators are a lot more advanced than whats on the pi so going to stick to windows. i will look out for some small itx board parts if they come by cheap.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

iv got an arduino board on order so will give that a shot. seems to be a fair few guides and sketches going around on what to run on it.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Changed cpu today. Gone from p4 531 to pentium d 925. Massive difference. Cant believe how much faster it is in even general stuff.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

this is sorted now. adruinos being used for the joystick and buttons. no more wiring mess and most of all both players can press as many buttons as they want simultaneously without issues.
table has some spare space on it so maybe make a bigger cab to use all the space in future.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Lol yes its working great. Some extra buttons arrived now so need to drill some holes in the back to fit them.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Got buttons fitted. Also put in a old gt730 gfx card. Now using bgfx effects in mame for that crt look. Very good now.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Thanks for the reply forgot about this thread lol. Im not sure i can do much speaker wise with this bartop but im looking to go bigger in which case i will make sure the speakers are front facing this time.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

The mobo is a socket 775 but i dont think it supports c2d. Iv got a pentium d 945 in it at the moment. Not come across a mame game that runs less than full speed.
Would like to replace it with something more power efficient so less heat in future. Waiting to see if intel release a gracemont only core CPU. That would be ideal.
Arcade is not used often so not in any rush to do upgrades but looking to build a bigger cab that uses the full table space i have available.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

I got some parts lying around like a 4th gen i3 cpu but finding a cheapo itx mobo is an issue.
The gt730 runs crt-geom shader perfect in mame and it should run full speed too on the igpu of a 4th gen intel i3.
Also one of those thin client pc's would be ideal but how to use an external power switch with it??

 

[Cyber-Mav]

@Ravenger thats excellent do you have a link or model number for the smart plug your using?

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Got mobo cpu and ram from @Chris Beard amd 760k. Will get this into the cabinet to give it some cpu power over the pentium 4 era pentium d 945

Test rig setup to make sure its all working

 

[Cyber-Mav]

got this fitted into the cab now. cant believe how big a boost its given in bootup speed and even loading games. going from pentium d 945 to amd 760k is a large jump. games themselves run same as before but general response in the games menu is night and day difference. thanks again to @Chris Beard
waiting for some ram to arrive now, currently its got a single 4gb stick but i got 2 x 2gb coming so can use dual channel, much harder to find single sticks of 4gb ddr3 these days.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Good thing i changed it out. The old pentium 4 mobo had a lot of leaking and puffy capacitors. I wasn't getting any issues yet but it be just a matter of time. Will get some pics up

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Can see old mobo vs new setup

 

[Cyber-Mav]

I may be able to get away with using an apu and removing the gt730. Depends if i can get a high spec one for cheap. The 760k has plenty of grunt so don't want to downgrade on the cpu side much.