Transformarcade

[warjunkie]

Okay so this is going to be the thread for my first arcade cabinet.

I have been thinking about making something like this for years, and last week, did a google search about it. suffice to say I have idea's and know what I am going to do.

It will be called Transformarcade, using a autobots vs decepticons theme from Transformers.

This is a quick sketch of the cabinet I have in mind.


Features I want:
- 2 player, joystick and 6 buttons.
- under cp drawer housing 2 hand controllers for players 3 and 4. This will allow extra players to jump in without requiring a really wide cabinet.
- 2 lightguns, which may be holstered on the side, or housed in the drawer.
- kick plate will drop down revealing at least one pedal for time crisis.
- brushed aluminium autobot/decepticon symbol on the side, to have a neon glow from behind it.



To run it, I have an old HP Pentium III pavillion pc that I no longer use.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/prodinfoCategory?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&product=61063#

I have to go to my mother's house and pick it up, I intend to wipe it back to new, and install MAME and a few other emulators on it. Hopefully it will run well without having to upgrade it.

My favorite arcade game have always been lightgun shooters. As such I think I may have to go with a television and also install a PS2 inside the cabinet. This seems to be a simple solution as I can just change between channels easily. I would appreciate thoughts on this.

I don't know how big to make the cabinet until I know what size monitor I will be using. If I play TIme crisis 2 on it, It will probably have to be a decent size to make up for the split screen aspect. Also a large size will allow the machine to act as a sort of media centre as well.

[Namco]

Sounds good, but I can't see the sketch. Did you take the image down?

[Hornpipe2]

A machine of that speed may struggle with certain MAME games.  My P3 550mhz running dmamepp .106 (FreeDOS 1.0) does ~30-40fps on 1980s classics (Galaga etc), a little better on 1990-1995 modern shooters, and much worse on 1997+ games.  Your results may vary.

Couldn't hurt to try though and certainly you can swap out a PC for a new one when you've got it available.  The price can't be beat anyway : )  Good luck with your project!

[warjunkie]

I haven't taken the sketch down, but here is a direct link http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f204/Warjunkie_/transformarcade.jpg

i found this site for using guncon2 on a pc. So I may not have to worry about a dual setup (which is good because I would prefer to not have to switch between programs). However, thinking about it, I may need to either get a better pc in the future or use my playstation. If I go the playstation route, I may look at options for having all the shooting games on there at the same time. I guess I will have to see.

[drventure]

Oh damn, I thought your cab was going to transform 

I can see it now,

MECHA-PAC- MAN!!!!

[BASS!]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akNJ6S2UqsE[/youtube]

Maybe it could do this

[Pinball Wizard]

Oh damn, I thought your cab was going to transform 

I can see it now,

MECHA-PAC- MAN!!!!

I was expecting something like the  Rototron project. Still, the project can live up to the name if the ambiance is brought to a high enough level.

[Yvan256]

I was also expecting something similar to FlatCade (name pending).



Please note this is one of the earliest revision (version 2 or 3), I'm now at revision 8. Gotta love Sketchup!

[jimto]

I was also expecting something similar to FlatCade (name pending).



Please note this is one of the earliest revision (version 2 or 3), I'm now at revision 8. Gotta love Sketchup!

The only thing harder than building that cabinet would be beating Rygar. I picked up a Rygar cab a few weeks back for $125 and it has reminded me how much I suck at it.

[Yvan256]

The only thing harder than building that cabinet would be beating Rygar. I picked up a Rygar cab a few weeks back for $125 and it has reminded me how much I suck at it.

I guess it depends on the person. For me, beating Rygar is easy, building such a folding cab is going to be a major challenge.

[javeryh]

That folding cab looks really nice but how would you connect the monitor and marquee light to the computer and stuff in the bottom half?  You need to run some wires somewhere! 

[Yvan256]

That folding cab looks really nice but how would you connect the monitor and marquee light to the computer and stuff in the bottom half?  You need to run some wires somewhere! 

You are assuming that the computer is in the bottom half. It isn't. The Mini-ITX form-factor allows you to put a computer into a very small area. 

The only wire that will need to connect between the top and bottom is the PS/2 wire from the I-PAC. I'm thinking about building a home-made magnetic connector similar to the power cable on Apple's laptops.

[drventure]

Just add some arms and legs, plus a head with glowing eyes and, by george, you'll +have+ something 

[Yvan256]

Just add some arms and legs, plus a head with glowing eyes and, by george, you'll +have+ something 

You're kidding, right?



... right?

(Optimus Prime model made by Davie in Google Sketchup)

[warjunkie]

heh, i wish i had the ability to create a magnificent transforming arcade machine.

My mate manged to score a pentium 4 pc for me that his work place is getting rid of. I'll go check it out tomorrow night.

edit/ okay, i was looking for australian sites to purchase parts from and found these. http://www.in2amusements.com.au/shop/index.php/2/179_Arcade_Buttons_-_Translucent_Illuminated.

[drventure]

@yvan256
That is HILARIOUS! Didn't think anyone would actually take me up on that.

I'll have to get the plans from you for my next build 

[Yvan256]

@yvan256
That is HILARIOUS! Didn't think anyone would actually take me up on that.

I'll have to get the plans from you for my next build 

That's quite easy to do. All you need is a regular cab and then you add some arms and legs, plus a head with glowing eyes.   

[SithMaster]

The bezel needs to have a truck grill on it.

[Necroticart]

here I found the Optimus Prime helmet for you
http://www.target.com/Transformers-Revenge-Fallen-Optimus-Changer/dp/B001SUATGG/ref=sc_qi_detaillink?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_r=0WD9HGG5903C2T8CQRG0&pf_rd_p=436115101&pf_rd_i=B001SUATGG&pf_rd_s=right-1&pf_rd_m=A1VC38T7YXB528&pf_rd_t=5101
and you can even hack your speakers into it for the voice effect 

[CheffoJeffo]

You may want to search for "Optimus Prime Experiment" ... IIRC, AD had some interesting ideas and folks assembled some cool artwork that may be of use to you.

[Namco]

Maybe you can find Peter Cullen and pay him to do some voices for your cabinet. You can record him saying "Insert Coin!", or "Please Select an Emulator!". Go to a DOS prompt and type in "C:\Mame\mame -listfull > prn", mail the 131 pages that come out of your printer along with a high capacity voice recorder to him and ask him to read them aloud into the voice recorder. Cut it into individual voice samples and put them into the front end, bob's your uncle.

That'd be awesome!

[opt2not]

I love the Optimus Prime idea!  If you can pull this off, it's going to be AWESOME!

Are you going to go for that shiny painted car surface as well? It would be awesome to get that nice finish, though probably a lot of work to do so.

[csa3d]

All I'm sayin' is be careful on the player 2 joystick placement!   
-csa

[warjunkie]

okay i have decided to go with 2 ultimarc u360's using it's 8 button input.

I am not going to go with the oversize cp. I am going to just aim at building a simple 2 man arcade to begin with and modify from there.
I like glowing button effect that is in the neon mame. but am having a hard time locating the wico leafswitches, in both blue and red.




question: what effect does plexiglass have on lightguns? And what does the "smoked" or "bronze" tint offer over plain plexi?
Does anyone know if it is possible to make the ball top of the U360 joystick glow?

[Gamester]

Warjunkie, not sure if you're set on using true leaf switches, or if you know the difference, but if you want glowing buttons, these are a good choice too...  I don't think they were available back when Neon Mame was created: 

http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=73&products_id=281

[warjunkie]

Wow thanks for the link gamester, I hadn't actually checked out groovygamegear yet, (don't know why, their site is GREAT)

Those buttons are perfect and the micro-leaf switches they have sound pretty good, does anyone know how well they work and last?

[warjunkie]

Okay, so i purchased a television, this is the closest one i could find.
http://www.in.lge.com/Product/Products-Details.aspx?cat=215&pid=4880&subcat=Ultra%20Slim%20TV&parent=Television

It's pretty wide, (that doesn't bother me) and after seeing various pics of the showcase type cabinets, I find myself torn between the two.

Been pretty busy with family in town for my mother's 50th but hopefully I can pick up the pc sometime in the next couple days.



I notice that most people go with the 6 button layout, but i notice a few people who have done 7 and 8 button layouts as well. Can someone tell me if there are a lot of games that need these extre buttons?


These are the decisions I need to make.

4player cp or 2 player cp /w controllers (hand-eld) you can pull out?
trackball?
spinner?

Im gonna take the measurements of the television tonight and start designing options. I might draw up a showcase and regular upright. To see what it might look like

[Yvan256]

I notice that most people go with the 6 button layout, but i notice a few people who have done 7 and 8 button layouts as well. Can someone tell me if there are a lot of games that need these extre buttons?

4player cp or 2 player cp /w controllers you can pull out? trackball? spinner?

Im gonna take the measurements of the television tonight and start designing options. I might draw up a showcase and regular upright. To see what it might look like.

6 vs 7 vs 8 buttons layout:

• the 6 buttons layout is usually to be able to play Street Fighter and similar fighting games, where you need 6 buttons in a 3x2 pattern.
• the 7 buttons layout is a mix of the buttons of Neo-Geo and Street Fighter. The rightmost bottom 3 buttons are shared as the lower 3 buttons of Street Fighter and the B,C and D buttons of Neo-Geo.
  Here's a picture of the control panel of my first cabinet:
  
  
• the 8 buttons layout... I'm not sure where that one comes from, to be honest! But lots of people seem to be using it, so there has to be a reason for it.
  

If you're going for an arcade cabinet, controllers (you mean hand-held gamepads?) aren't supposed to be a valid option IMHO. Consoles games are meant to be played sitting in a sofa in the living room.

You only need to decide if you're going to play mostly 1/2 players games or 1/2/3/4 players games. The same goes for the trackball and spinner. Do you want to play on a busy control panel? Sometimes more is less.

But anyway, to decide what you need on your control panel, you need to make a list of the games you'd like to play on your cabinet. From that list, you will see if it's worth it to have 4 joysticks, a trackball, a spinner or even steering wheels. If you have a list of, say, 200 games, and only 3 or 4 games use a spinner, is it worth it to you?

As for designing options, I recommend that you give Google Sketchup a try. It's available for Windows and Mac OS X, it's easy to use and it's free!

[Gatsu]

I believe one of the tekken cabinets had PS2 plugs so you could bring your own controller in to play at the cab instead of using the joystick and buttons on the CP.

So it can be a valid option IMO. 

[trendyscotsman12]

that folding arcade machine is so cool.

get building that lol


soz had to add this to the thread

[Beretta]

That folding cab looks really nice but how would you connect the monitor and marquee light to the computer and stuff in the bottom half?  You need to run some wires somewhere! 

You are assuming that the computer is in the bottom half. It isn't. The Mini-ITX form-factor allows you to put a computer into a very small area. 

The only wire that will need to connect between the top and bottom is the PS/2 wire from the I-PAC. I'm thinking about building a home-made magnetic connector similar to the power cable on Apple's laptops.

remember you still need to have a cable for power, if you put the computer in the top half just remember you'll have to deal with a power cord up there.. rather that be rounted some how to the bottom half and then out to the outlet or if you have it plug directly into the top half.

[WhereEaglesDare]

BUMP.  Any progress on this at all?  Or did it die away?

[Yvan256]

BUMP.  Any progress on this at all?  Or did it die away?

Do you mean warjunkie's project, or my folding design headache-inducing concept?