2 Player Desktop Arcade

[shanghaiguide]

When I was back in South Africa, I mused about building another arcade machine for my house there.
Lo, and behold, an advert came up on Gumtree for someone selling Arcade Chassis.

I visited them, and they turned out to be a Party Ride Rental place around the corner from my house in Observatory.  I checked out their chassis for sale, and explained that I make my own machines. They asked to see some pictures, and as it turned out, they were way more interested in me making them some machines than anything else!

So far I have the sample made up, and am about to make 10 units   Wish me luck!

Design is roughly based around a previous 1 player build I made, but expanded to be a comfortable 2 player widescreen.   Width is based off of using a 18.5" or 19" screen 480mm wide -> 500mm case size.

I'm not going MAME on this build - its going to be pure Jamma.  

So far, I've had the sample cut from my cad drawing, and ordered some of the parts - buttons and sticks, as well as all of the Jamma interfaces.  I've also ordered some of the smaller electronics - e.g. the PSU's and amplifier boards.

This is probably my first "pure" arcade build, but it feels like a natural progression after making a bazillion MAME builds.

Enough with the description, and onto the photos.

Buttons.

Button box by sheedl, on Flickr


Blade Runner EyeballsJoystick tops

If you could only see what I have seen with your eyes by sheedl, on Flickr

Speakers

Squeekers (Speakers) by sheedl, on Flickr

The sample back from the "factory" (really a guy with cnc machine and some boards!)

2 Player Case sample by sheedl, on Flickr

Sample rear

2 Player Case sample by sheedl, on Flickr

Sample #1 came out very nicely - in fact I was surprised at how nicely it came out, considering it was mostly barely more than just a mockup for sizing.

LCD Panel inside case

2 Player Case sample by sheedl, on Flickr


Sizing tested out - feels fine for 2 player - not cramped at all, and enough space.

2 Player Case sample by sheedl, on Flickr

Off it went back to the factory again for a day or two, so that the screen could be mounted into the chassis properly, and to change the thickness of the player control panel.

So far happy though

Weight of the complete unit is roughly 10kg, and its eminently cartable, which was one of the clients main concerns, and a build consideration.

Back from the factory, we now have a proper control panel -

Button and Stick placement set by sheedl, on Flickr

Having got the sample back, it was now time to get it running.
For my testing, I'm using a 1 cartridge NEO-GEO Jamma unit.  Size seems to be fine, although its a bit tight.  I'll be using a single board for the actual games so there will be more space in the finished units.

I'm going to be keeping the power stuff towards the rear of the unit in case of spills, although the wood should be pretty water tight.  Only the panel is MDF, the rest is laminated wood.

Here's a shot of the machine running

Untitled by sheedl, on Flickr


...and another one with the mockup sideart

King of Fighters 99 by sheedl, on Flickr

and one more with the joysticks properly installed

Untitled by sheedl, on Flickr

I'm probably going to paint the sample unit white with red edging, but I haven't decided yet.
Actual units for the client are going to be Gloss Black, with stickers on the sides.

As usual, more images when I get further along with the builds!

[firedance]

Nice looking bartop 

may i ask whats the width of the unit, am looking into making my own bartop, just getting some ideas together for now 

[shanghaiguide]

To quote myself -

480mm wide -> 500mm case size.

Screen is 19" wide (which measured out to 480mm inside / 500mm outside width).

[firedance]

D'OH, sorry i missed that 

same size i'm aiming for 

[Unstupid]

Couple questions... Why would you go with a widescreen monitor AND a jamma board?  Not too many jamma boards I know of run 16x9 resolutions.  What neo geo board are you using?  Most don't do stereo output.  Intact most jamma boards don't do stereo optput either..  If you are going to run 2 speakers off the jamma edge you may want to look for 16 ohm speakers so ya don't blow up the amp on the jamma board.

[shanghaiguide]

You can't buy large 4:3 sized screens anymore*, so 16:9 it is.

*I can buy raw panels in 4:3, but the cost of those is similar to buying a complete larger screen with psu, panel driver, shell, so why...  I don't want a 5" bezel on either side of the screen...

For the actual units will be using one of those embedded arm with SD card jamma board xx in 1.
Those have direct VGA out.  Yes, those are all evil copies running mame internally, but this is 20 years down the line, and you just can't get the original hardware anymore, so really its more a case of preservation than piracy by this point.

For the test run, using a CGA -> VGA converter / upscaler to convert the output from the NEO-GEO
The scaler works nicely - looks quite natural, plus I already had it. 

I'm running the audio through to a small amp - i've tied down the left / right through the mono input at the amp side so both speakers work.
I could mod the MVS board so that it has stereo, but it works, and I'd rather not mess with it - it is rather old, and still in good working condition otherwise.  I've been running like that for years without issue.  I believe the overheating issue you're thinking of only occurs when you have a stereo out and don't have the correct wiring in your jamma harness.

Using a NEO-GEO MV-1A, also have a few other boards for testing, as I like to collect older stuff.
For an overview of the board differences for NeoGeo see here - http://www.hardmvs.com/html/PCBcompare.htm

This thread details how to add stereo to a MVS board that doesn't have it by default (again, i haven't done this to mine, as it works, and i'm fine with mono output) - http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthread.php?108667-Mod-MVS-1-FZ-to-Stereo-How-to&s=ec791c1b5a7b3a052ea9cb2555820c90

[Unstupid]

*I can buy raw panels in 4:3, but the cost of those is similar to buying a complete larger screen with psu, panel driver, shell, so why...  I don't want a 5" bezel on either side of the screen...

Yea but none of the classic games were programmed in widescreen format so either you are going to be running stretched mode which would make most games irritatingly unplayable or if you run native aspect ratio you will still end up with 5" of bezel on either side of the action (it will just be blank pixels instead).  And got forbid you want to run vertical games like pacman... You'll end up with 7 or 8 of bezel...   

[shanghaiguide]

The 2 player cabinet is mostly for dual player fighters, shooters and other similar early 90's era games.
I've tested Metal Slug, plus a bazillion other NeoGeo titles.  All fine. 
Actually they look rather good. 
I've already spent a few hours play testing, cough, cough, and I'm quite happy with the result.
The upscaler I'm using does a decent job.

If it didn't look good, I wouldn't use it, I'd use a different display!  This is probably my 10th build, I do have a bit of experience with this 

The "classic verticals" don't look good on this, as you will have a rather large border each sides, but they do work.   Its not for those though.
Pacman actually looks fine - I've tried it.  Basically it looks like a 15" height screen + borders for pacman.  Perfectly playable.
I have a proper cocktail pacman unit at the office, some of the photos were taken on top of it, as it gets used for table space on occasion!

Suggest take a look at the http://flickr.com/sheedl set close up, and see the images.
(One small thing - the screen I'm using has a blue line in the left side - its faulty, probably from the back and forth to the factory, but otherwise you can see that the games look fine on it).