Arcade Pics

[fenring]

I just wanted to share my (mostly) completed cabinet with all of you. It's a modified Project Arcade 2 cabinet built to support a 27" LCD monitor. I truncated the back of the cabinet to make it thinner because I didn't have to accommodate a CRT, and built it so that I can remove the top half from the bottom for easier transport.

The shelf for the tank-stick is temporary. I do plan to build my own four-player custom controller with dual track-balls for Marble Madness, but that's a project in-and-of itself. Like some of us, I got into this project by first buying a tank-stick to play games on the pc, Xbox, and PS3. Soon after that I decided to build the arcade cabinet to support it. After starting the build and learning about the project, it became clear that I'd want to eventually build a custom controller. For now, this works pretty well.

With all due respect to the CRT purists out there, I prefer the versatility of an LCD for MAME. With antialiasing and other settings, I can get the screen to look pretty retro. When I play vector games like Tempest, my lines are almost as clean and sharp as a vector monitor, complete with the monitor shimmer I remember from back in the day.

Speakers are Klipsch 4.1, now using only 2.1. The volume control is visible next to the monitor glass. That will be relocated to the side of the custom controller when I undertake that project.

The cabinet is laminated with Wilsonart vertical-grade. It's more expensive than painting, but IMHO, painting is a false-economy. I had the cabinet laminated in a day whereas painting (and sanding, and painting, and sanding, and...) would have taken me weeks and created a gigantic mess in my shop. Just don't try to laminate in temperatures below 50 degrees F!

I used a lightly bronzed 1/4" tempered glass painted black on the back-side, masked to match the monitor bezel. The bronzing helps to reduce the LCD light-spill on the top and bottom of the monitor.

Things I still need to do:
-Coin door
-Need to mount the bezel-art (modified Star Wars arcade graphics already printed)(now done, see pic)
-Four-player controller

Thanks to John at Basement Arcade Grafx for his help and excellent service.

Higer-resolution pics are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tracy_brown/

[Corbo]

Very nice, especially the artwork.  It all looks to be finished to a very high standard, thanks for sharing!

[honkey]

That looks awesome! The only criticism I have is that the work you did is so far beyond the X-arcade control panel that it looks out of place. I love the look of Vader on there though!

Edit: oops, just finished reading your post... I skimmed before and jumped straight to the pics. Good call on replacing the control panel.

[Le Chuck]

That Luke and Leia image is iconic, well placed, and perhaps the most incestuous piece of movie art ever created.  Well done thus far.  Once you start your CP be sure and keep us updated.  I'd like to see this project finished.  John is awesome and his work always looks super.  Good choice.

What frontend are you using?  Have you made a StarWars themed layout for it?

[wp34]

Love the artwork.  I'm looking at the original Luke and Leia poster on my wall right now.   You integrated it well into the shape of your cabinet. 

I like the Vader image.  Did you make that yourself?

[HanoiBoi]

I like the Vader image.  Did you make that yourself?

+1.  Smokey, Skeletal and Vadery.  Well done.

[ragnar]

Impressive work for a first cab.  Nicely done.

I'd love to do something like it in the future.

[BobA]

Very nice work    It will only get better when you get a 4 player panel and controller.

[fenring]

Love the artwork.  I'm looking at the original Luke and Leia poster on my wall right now.   You integrated it well into the shape of your cabinet.  

I like the Vader image.  Did you make that yourself?

I would love to take credit for the Darth Vader ghostly image, but I found a high resolution image online that I modified. The original image was white and I changed it to red to mimic his lightsaber. If anyone's interested, I can post the high-res image to my flickr page.

[fenring]

What frontend are you using?  Have you made a StarWars themed layout for it?

I'm using Hyperspin right now, though it needs more computer resources to run than my old Pentium 4 has to offer. I'm actually in the market for a front-end, but everyone who plays my arcade prefers to just type the names in on the raw MAME text screen. Tthe choices for front-ends are dizzying and the configuration of them is often confusing and esoteric to all but the software's developer. Flexible and custimizable, but not entirely user-friendly or intuitive. I just know that when I type "marble" into the MAME text screen, all I have to do is push the enter key and I'm in gaming Nirvana. In Hyperspin, I've got to navigate past hundreds of "Mahjong" games (does ANYONE play those??) just to get to "Marble Madness". I know that I can set up favorites, but even that hitches and is excruciatingly slow on my Pentium 4.

[Le Chuck]

I'm using Hyperspin right now, though it needs more computer resources to run than my old Pentium 4 has to offer. I'm actually in the market for a front-end, but everyone who plays my arcade prefers to just type the names in on the raw MAME text screen. Tthe choices for front-ends are dizzying and the configuration of them is often confusing and esoteric to all but the software's developer. Flexible and custimizable, but not entirely user-friendly or intuitive. I just know that when I type "marble" into the MAME text screen, all I have to do is push the enter key and I'm in gaming Nirvana. In Hyperspin, I've got to navigate past hundreds of "Mahjong" games (does ANYONE play those??) just to get to "Marble Madness". I know that I can set up favorites, but even that hitches and is excruciatingly slow on my Pentium 4.

HS is an awesome frontend but does need to be customized to slim down your gamelists.  MALA is not as resource intensive but requires a lot of setup as well.  If you want something that will be a smooth interface on a slower system I'd go with MALA before HS but that's me.  Both have their pros and cons.  Fact of the hobby: you are going to have to log the hours on either FE set up for a good experience.  BTW, with either FE you go with I'm pretty sure you can set a ROM (Marble Madness) to load on start up so that you don't even have to press anything.  Just an idea. 

[mgb]

Looks great. 

I love the artwork. Laminating was a wise decision also.

[fenring]

I'm using Hyperspin right now, though it needs more computer resources to run than my old Pentium 4 has to offer. I'm actually in the market for a front-end, but everyone who plays my arcade prefers to just type the names in on the raw MAME text screen. Tthe choices for front-ends are dizzying and the configuration of them is often confusing and esoteric to all but the software's developer. Flexible and custimizable, but not entirely user-friendly or intuitive. I just know that when I type "marble" into the MAME text screen, all I have to do is push the enter key and I'm in gaming Nirvana. In Hyperspin, I've got to navigate past hundreds of "Mahjong" games (does ANYONE play those??) just to get to "Marble Madness". I know that I can set up favorites, but even that hitches and is excruciatingly slow on my Pentium 4.

HS is an awesome frontend but does need to be customized to slim down your gamelists.  MALA is not as resource intensive but requires a lot of setup as well.  If you want something that will be a smooth interface on a slower system I'd go with MALA before HS but that's me.  Both have their pros and cons.  Fact of the hobby: you are going to have to log the hours on either FE set up for a good experience.  BTW, with either FE you go with I'm pretty sure you can set a ROM (Marble Madness) to load on start up so that you don't even have to press anything.  Just an idea. 

You're right, I definitely need to dig deep into customizing the experience on Hyperspin (or MALA, or whatever front-end I end up using). I've been so wrapped up in getting the hardware done that I really haven't given it a lot of attention to this point.

[arximidis]

Very good!!!
I really like the artwork

I would prefer the controls not look separated from the cab

Nice work!!!

[Hoopz]

Vader looks great!  I'd say you need to change the Luke and Leia pic though.  Who wants to look at Luke with his shirt open?  Change that around and it'd win a Mamey!   

Outstanding job!   

[Le Chuck]

Vader looks great!  I'd say you need to change the Luke and Leia pic though.  Who wants to look at Luke with his shirt open?  Change that around and it'd win a Mamey!   

Outstanding job!   

No way. Luke is badass. You wouldn't put a burkha on the Venus de Milo would ya?

[wp34]

I'm looking at the original Luke and Leia poster on my wall right now.   

I'd say you need to change the Luke and Leia pic though.  Who wants to look at Luke with his shirt open? 

What are you driving at?