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Dream features for a new PCI-e card for arcade games?

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John Blund:

Hi!

Today Santa is in town, and is taking up requests.  :notworthy:

I am thinking of making a PCI-e card for PC's. But the thing is that I want to make something to make new arcade games with jamma connectors. This year I will start at a new school that is dedicated at learning how make custom computers. And arcade games is custom computers, so that would be fun. I have been designing electronics for over 15 years. But now I'm ready for the next step  :cheers: No emulation will now be necessary, today you can integrate complicated integrated logic designs, in one or two standard chips. New graphics chips, sound chips or CPU:s, custom memory configurations, or what ever.

What would be a great card do you think? Do you want to have the card connected to a PC, or should it be stand alone. And what features would be nice? All old nice problems that you hate can be solved if they just are mentioned. If nothing else, I'm thinking of a stand alone card to make new games on. And that could run old games without emulation as well, even if that is not my primary target. When it is finished I am thinking of making it all free. And if there is others that want to join, it could be an open project from start to end. But at this stage it would just be cool if you had something that you have been looking for, that you have not found yet. :P

What is your dream that needs to become true? :dunno

emphatic:
Hey man, glad to see you posting here! I think that a JAMMA board that can be programmed from a PC using USB would be convenient. I know very little about creating games myself, but I think some kind of encryption would be important too as it might attract small game studios to release games to the home arcade crowd (or are there any operators still working today that would pick this up?).

My wishlist:

1. JAMMA edge connector
2. JAMMA+ connector with a standardized connector that is easy to get hold of for buttons 5+6
3. Stereo output (low level) as well as the amplified mono on the JAMMA edge connector
4. Standalone, small-footprint JAMMA PCB - No need to hook it up to a PC or additional hardware such as ATX PSU

Perhaps discuss this with the author of GroovyMAME and get a list of common components this hardware can replicate (or is it emulated?) and see if GroovyMAME can use the components directly instead of emulating them using software. Kinda like using a GPU's hardware acceleration for playing back HD video instead of having the CPU + software do it.

Note for BYOAC regulars, have no fear about the above poster being "that guy" btw. I had a conversation about arcade hardware with "John Blund" (Swedish for "Sandman") last evening at a party, he's not crazy.

John Blund:
Well I think that making your own hardware in logic, is a bit like a black art these days. But there is still some of us left.


Now to get on with the wish list to Santa  :o.

1 JAMMA... no problem.
2 JAMMA+ with more buttons... no problem.
3 Stereo sound... no problem.
4 Stand alone card without -12V (ATX PSU)... no problem.


Yes, but I think that you come with an even greater more genuine Idea. Maybe some kind of API could be used to configure half breeds between MAME and logic replicas of arcade hardware. That would be way cool. I'm not sure what the most common components in arcade games is. But lets say I implement two Z80 chips, configurable address space, ROM and RAM and two AY8910, and some different graphics hardware to begin with. Then we could get at least 50 to 100 games working as hardware replicas.

But I would need someone to help me with making a custom version of MAME. Then I could do the hardware design, and write the drivers for Linux and Windows for the card. This will be all needed to get cycle exact hardware replicas of these games. It would not be emulations any more. In this way, the feeling would be great and NO ONE could ever complain that it's not the real hardware.  :cheers: If you want to get any more real than this, then you have to connect the old arcade PCB's we all have stacked in piles ;). Then all die hards don't have to switch boards any more to get the purist touch. No more lag or glitches ever, as in the old times!!!

I think it could be quite doable. There is open source logic descriptions of most processors used in arcade games, so the hardest parts is already done.

I am quite willing to make this happen. But I surly don't know anyone, that know MAME inside out. If there is someone that is willing to modify MAME for this purpose. Then I will make the hardware to make the old games run from these configuration descriptions that we will send over USB to a stand alone card (yes you can make a PCI-e on the board also for flexibility, and can be a great during development). What I need is someone to talk to about this, that know the ins and outs of MAME. And someone that are willing to spend time modifying MAME.

I think that would be a great start... If you know anyone, that may know anyone, that is capable of modifying MAME, then let them know. Then it would be great. If I cant find anyone thats willing to spend time modifying MAME, then I will just do a board with JAMMA. It would we fun to run own games in a arcade cabinet also.

Wouldn't it be great with real hardware and to skip software emulation of hardware? No more bios startup  :laugh:

emphatic:
There is of course the legality to consider. MAME's license is pretty straightforward on what's allowed and not, there are a couple of free roms out there, but most games supported by MAME is copyright protected and making multi-game cards is frowned upon. Therefor, getting a MAME dev onboard a project like this might be difficult at best, they might even oppose it.

404:
instead of builing your own pci-e card, why not modify the bios of existnig cards to allow 15kz signals on lower resolutions and use that as a thesis for school

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