New cab - bunch of questions.

[mike_bike_kite]

1) I'd like to use Unix for my next cab but I'm not sure what to use. Is there a pretty fast loading Unix that will allow me to run a Java arcade game on startup? is there a simple front end that would allow me to pick between a few of my own Java arcade games?

2) Has anyone used the rasberry pie with the zero delay board for button encoding? I like the idea that it's small and a little more robust than an ordinary PC so I could possibly put a set of cabs in my garage. This looked like the cheapest way forward as these games just use a joystick with a couple of fire buttons plus the coin and play buttons. This should also allow a slimmer cab which might come in handy. Any downsides?

3) Do people ever play steam (arcade) games on their cabs? are their cabs linked to the network to login, get high scores and send out achievements etc?

4) Is there a market for new (old style) arcade games or is the market pretty well flooded with 30 years worth of free arcade games? Do you think people would be interested in new (old style) arcade games for the PC.

[paigeoliver]

1. There are a bunch of tiny nixs out there, and I am sure there are front ends for them. No one will do your homework for you when it comes to that stuff.

2. By robust did you mean insanely less powerful and likely to corrupt the main storage? Then yes, they are more robust. I fail to see how a pi makes the cabinet slimmer unless you aren't talking about an actual arcade game and are talking about some sort of miniature tabletop toy.

3. Lots of people run Steam on their cabinets, however Steam won't run on a Pi. Also, the best setups will have a resolution too low for a lot of steam games. Most of the Steam games that are really cabinet friendly also have non-steam versions.

4. There are more new old style games released every year than anyone can possibly keep up with, even free you will be hard pressed to get people to play your game.

[mike_bike_kite]

1. There are a bunch of tiny nixs out there, and I am sure there are front ends for them. No one will do your homework for you when it comes to that stuff.

2. By robust did you mean insanely less powerful and likely to corrupt the main storage? Then yes, they are more robust. I fail to see how a pi makes the cabinet slimmer unless you aren't talking about an actual arcade game and are talking about some sort of miniature tabletop toy.

3. Lots of people run Steam on their cabinets, however Steam won't run on a Pi. Also, the best setups will have a resolution too low for a lot of steam games. Most of the Steam games that are really cabinet friendly also have non-steam versions.

4. There are more new old style games released every year than anyone can possibly keep up with, even free you will be hard pressed to get people to play your game.

1) I figured the best place to find out would be to ask here but I guess I could download each version of Unix and then try a few different front ends each time - just seems like a bit of a waste of effort if someone already has the knowledge.

2) it only needs to be as powerful as the game requires. I have an i5 3570K in my main PC and the games use a tiny fraction of the power of one core so there's no real point using a full on PC. The cab could be slimmer & smaller because you don't need the full PC motherboard (with cooler in place) or the large PSU to power it or the HDD. I suspect also having a hard disk living in the garage is more likely to fail than an SD card in the same environment.  YMMV.

3) was a separate question really, I'm building the cab for my own games but I was looking at using steam for distributing the games to other folks cabs (that's if they wanted them). The games obviously use the standard controls.

4) Maybe I won't bother then. I had a guy build a dedicated cab around one of my games before and I quite liked the idea but it's probably more viable avoiding the market all together, saying that, it's probably more sensible to avoid the PC market too and just go straight to mobile!

[yotsuya]

To answer number 4, unless you have something really unique, I don't think you will sell too many old school-style cabs running a new game. I've seen some guys locally try to do that and they've sold a handful at best. Your best bet would be to design something that runs on a JAMMA style interface, so people can plug it into an existing cabinet.

[thomas_surles]

Let me get a game though.

[flavad99]

Regarding #2, I started out with a Pi in my cab w/ a zero delay encoder.  It works, however, for what you are trying to do, I would highly recommend that you get a PC.  I picked up a dual core 3.0 ghz that was only about $10 - $20 than the whole raspberry pi suite that you have to buy, and it gives you a lot more options than the Pi does.  Wish I went with this option first.  With a Pi, you can emulate up to a PSX.  With a dual core, you can emulate a significant portion of Gamecube and Wii games.

I wouldn't worry about space.