Author Topic: Making a bartop arcade. (Read 4215 times)

Artemismeow · « **on:** June 18, 2011, 04:52:04 pm »

Making a bartop arcade. Calling it the danny jr. arcade (dk jr themed)using and old laptop. Running mala and win xp sp3. I have so far:
1 gutted the laptop.
2 installed the front end
3 installed an external power switch
4 installed waaaaaaaaay too many games on it
5 I have some concept sketches will post when I can get to my home compy.

I am going to make this for my nephew his bday is in july. This is the first arcade I will try to make.
Yea I might be in over my head with this project

IG-88 · « **Reply #1 on:** June 18, 2011, 04:55:37 pm »

Welcome to the club

You're off to a good start posting here. Bar none the best place on the net for questions and answers.

Make sure you post lots of pics and details!!

Charlie97L · « **Reply #2 on:** June 18, 2011, 05:00:20 pm »

Yay! Welcome! I'm just finishing up a bartop kit build myself. I will watch yours and try to help if I can, it posed some interesting challenges for me.

good luck!

Artemismeow · « **Reply #3 on:** June 18, 2011, 05:06:13 pm »

Front end note over 6000 games I need trim the list. Also it chokes on neo geo games.

Artemismeow · « **Reply #4 on:** June 18, 2011, 05:23:32 pm »

It chokes ondonkey kong

installing directx 9
Pic of external switch

Artemismeow · « **Reply #5 on:** June 18, 2011, 05:38:17 pm »

Thank you ig and charlie I feel iam learning a lot. But help is welcomed

LeedsFan · « **Reply #6 on:** June 18, 2011, 05:38:48 pm »

What spec is the laptop? DK is a classic old game that should not need much processing power at all. Are you running any additional artwork when playing the games like bezels and backgrounds etc? I know from exprerience that turning those off on low end PCs can fix the problem.

Artemismeow · « **Reply #7 on:** June 18, 2011, 05:49:53 pm »

900 mhz pentium m radeon card of some sorts and 128 megs of ram

dx 9 fixed some games but dk is still crawling. Maybe its the rom

Chrlie
your the grid bartop was my inspiration

Also street fighter runs well. See pix

Charlie97L · « **Reply #8 on:** June 18, 2011, 05:53:10 pm »

what version of MAME are you using?

i had a lot of issues finding the right version/roms.

you're probably going to have to scale back to an older legacy version if you're only running 900mhz.

Artemismeow · « **Reply #9 on:** June 18, 2011, 06:00:27 pm »

I think its the ram, 128 is only enough for the os.

and charli might be right since the version of mame I got was off mamedev.org new release

Thinking of getting arcadeos would that be less demanding?

Charlie97L · « **Reply #10 on:** June 18, 2011, 06:23:31 pm »

yeah the new release is optimized for computers way faster than a 900mhz.

your ram should be ok, that's in line for that processor, you just have to backtrack through the MAME legacy releases to find one that'll work with your PC specs. i'd say it'll likely be early 2000s (release year).

IG-88 · « **Reply #11 on:** June 18, 2011, 06:27:35 pm »

What version of roms are you using?

Artemismeow · « **Reply #12 on:** June 18, 2011, 06:53:34 pm »

Well there is an older mam
e in saints book will try that. Uhm rom version? How do I check?

Artemismeow · « **Reply #13 on:** June 18, 2011, 07:42:43 pm »

Well mame32 from saint's book works but mala doesn't read the game list anymore

lettuce · « **Reply #14 on:** June 19, 2011, 03:31:10 am »

Get a verion of micro xp or tiny xp, just search in google. Its design for running on VERY limited hardware

IG-88 · « **Reply #15 on:** June 19, 2011, 09:00:43 am »

Quote from: lettuce on June 19, 2011, 03:31:10 am

Get a verion of micro xp or tiny xp, just search in google. Its design for running on VERY limited hardware

Agreed. With one of those "optimized" or "srtipped" versions of XP and an older matching set of mame and roms (think v65-v85) your games would fly on that machine. I've gotten TinyXP to work on a P133 with 64mb ram with plain old Mame32v36 with classics like pac, dk, burgertime phoenix, ect ect.

Saved alot of old Boat Anchors, as Spystyle used to say, from going overboard.

Another nice thing about these tiny or micro versions is that they come with driver packs that have darned near every driver for every piece of hardware that was ever made. So unless your laptop is some weird off brand, Tiny will automatically install all the right drivers for your hardware during the O/S installation. So when its done all you need to do is slap on mame, your roms, and your FE and it's ready to go!!

Artemismeow · « **Reply #16 on:** June 19, 2011, 09:17:27 am »

Kewl tiny xp then. Will work on that by wednesday

Artemismeow · « **Reply #17 on:** June 29, 2011, 11:36:57 am »

oh wow. well using the version of mame that came with saint's book worked great.
also tiny xp is pretty awesome.

sorry I am a total noob but:
I am not using a keyboard I am using a chtulu board is there anyway to remap the key that exits the games ? right now it's set to esc. and I couldn't find how to change it on mame.

Donkbaca · « **Reply #18 on:** June 29, 2011, 12:07:23 pm »

If you hit tab when in a game, its under the user interface menu I can't remember the name of the option, but you can set the exit button there

emphatic · « **Reply #19 on:** June 29, 2011, 12:22:45 pm »

Quote from: Donkbaca on June 29, 2011, 12:07:23 pm

If you hit tab when in a game, its under the user interface menu I can't remember the name of the option, but you can set the exit button there

IIRC - "GUI cancel"

Artemismeow · « **Reply #20 on:** June 29, 2011, 11:50:41 pm »

Gui cancel, well i'll be. Kewl mostly finished now i just need a good plan or maybe a kit

bluemini17 · « **Reply #21 on:** July 01, 2011, 06:34:15 am »

try http://bartoparcade.katorlegaz.com/ or http://www.koenigs.dk/mame/eng/drawweecade.htm for some inspiration. for my bartop i took measurements off my full size cab and scaled it down


Main	Restorations	Software	Audio/Jukebox/MP3	Everything Else	Buy/Sell/Trade
Project Announcements	Monitor/Video	GroovyMAME	Merit/JVL Touchscreen	Meet Up	Retail Vendors
Driving & Racing	Woodworking	Software Support Forums	Consoles	Project Arcade	Reviews
Automated Projects	Artwork	Frontend Support Forums	Pinball	Forum Discussion	Old Boards
Raspberry Pi & Dev Board	controls.dat	Linux	Miscellaneous Arcade	Wiki Discussion	Old Archives
Lightguns	Arcade1Up	Try the site in https mode		Site News


Unread posts \| New Replies \| Recent posts \| Rules \| Chatroom \| Wiki \| File Repository \| RSS \| Submit news