Bartop Arcade Project! Total Noob, but I got this...

[honkbahh]

Howdy howdy!

This is kinda a work in progress thing...

Super pumped to announce my bartop arcade project! I'll be ordering the widescreen bartop from Haruman. He's already been great with answering my questions.

I am pretty flexible with most things, but have a hard time getting away from the look of the chrome trim led buttons. I've seen them on ultimarc, paradise, and game room solutions. Everything I've read is a little old, so I'm not really sure if there is a tangible difference in quality between what the three offer anymore.

Because I haven't actually ordered anything yet I'll take any suggestions for a project starting in April 2017. Especially the type of thing like "I wish I would have done/known about..." The budget is a work in progress, but I'm not going to go crazy on anything.

I'll be running windows 10 (negotiable) and hyperspin. Primarily interested in old stuff, but will dabble in other stuff. I'll mostly play mame/arcade and daphne.

I'm also dumb enough to think I may be able to design the art...

Materials List:

widescreen monitor (i'll take suggestions!)

Thanks!

[Mike A]

don't get a widescreen. None of the games you want to play are in widescreen format.

[Richie_jones]

You can use bezels with a wide screen if thats what you prefer.  More importantly if your monitor controls are not accessible then you'll need one that powers back on after its been powered off.  Most dell screens do this..
I'd bin windows 10 for windows 7 but that's only my opinion

[honkbahh]

don't get a widescreen. None of the games you want to play are in widescreen format.

Thanks! I battled a while, and can still be convinced otherwise. I am leaning widescreen just because of the wasted real-estate if I got a 4:3. I figured I could just use the built-in mame bezels (I actually like them) and the filters to make it look like a crt and be the correct aspect ratio.

Anyone have any input on this?

Interestingly, I work at a high school and we've got 4:3 dells all over the damn place, and I'm sure I could rescue them from a future dumpster. A couple of model numbers i've seen are 1908ftp, P190Sb (December 2009), E173FPc (December 2004), but this is with zero searching.

[Richie_jones]

I think I have the 1908 in my tronbartop..it's a 19inch 4:3 nice monitor..

Sent from my SM-P900 using Tapatalk

[Mike A]

How would there be wasted real estate with a 4:3? All of the games you want to play are 4:3.

[honkbahh]

How would there be wasted real estate with a 4:3? All of the games you want to play are 4:3.

I mean to the left and right of the monitor itself in the cabinet. I'd need a big bezel on the left and right.

[honkbahh]

Damn that picture showed up huge... Not sure how to resize it. Sorry about that!

[Mike A]

Haruman can customize the dimensions. He also has a couple kits for 4:3 monitors. Give him a jingle. I bet he can work it out with you.

[honkbahh]

You can use bezels with a wide screen if thats what you prefer.  More importantly if your monitor controls are not accessible then you'll need one that powers back on after its been powered off.  Most dell screens do this..
I'd bin windows 10 for windows 7 but that's only my opinion

The only thing that drew me to windows 10 was direct x 11 support supposedly being greatly improved. Does that seem correct? I don't plan on playing a lot of new pc/arcade style games, but if that is the only difference i'd want to keep my options open. Thanks!

[Mike A]

I know I am swimming against the tide on this, but I hate widescreen monitors unless the games are native widescreen.

[honkbahh]

Haruman can customize the dimensions. He also has a couple kits for 4:3 monitors. Give him a jingle. I bet he can work it out with you.

Thanks again for the reply! I kinda like the added space for two people, but the biggest thing that scares me away from customizing it to shrink the width would be potential issues with the artwork. I figure there is a lot more available for the standard issue. Perhaps this is unfounded though. Thanks for helping me through this!

Besides the bezel issue, does mame do a good job of scaling to 4:3 well with the artwork and such. I like the look of the picture below, but have no actual experience seeing it in motion. I'll try to get on that with my old macbook laptop. Should be a close approximation

Mike, you kinda are swimming against the tide, but I am an over-analyzer. I really want to consider all options and viewpoints! Please keep them coming!

[Mike A]

If you are going to use a PC then you have a lot of options for easily configuring bezel artwork to make a widescreen work.

[rablack97]

You can go widescreen, just be prepared to adjust your scaling on your 4:3 games, or the retro gods will smite you for playing pac-man stretched out.

If you rescale your gonna have black lines on the left and right any how unless you add the dynamic bezels for all of your mame games that it would apply to.

[honkbahh]

I'm going to go with a 2 hard drive system. The smaller ssd with the OS and the other with the games and such. I'm looking to buy the big hd as soon as today. I'm feeling 3tb, but any suggestions or things to watch out for? I plan on using sata for both hard drives.

[Richie_jones]

If your buying a widescreen kit then why would you fit a 4:3 monitor as you'll have the wasted space down the sides anyway. Better to go with a widescreen then you have best of both worlds. Stick as much as a powerful pc in it that you can afford then you can have the option of wireless Xbox controllers to play modern games through hyperspin. Plus you'll have more space for 2 players on a widescreen kit..
Don't forget my point about the monitor have to remember it's power off state when it loses its power or you'll have to have the monitor power button accessible which can ruin the look on the front..

[honkbahh]

Good news! I bought the Haruman Widescreen kit and a 2tb WD blue/mainstream hard drive today, with sanwa cutouts and slices for the speakers. More importantly I got my wife's approval! Don't get me wrong, she was pissed as all hell, but I got it!

This drive will be for my game storage. I'd like to format it exFAT so I can use my macbook for file transfer and such. Any reason not to do this?

[honkbahh]

Here is something I threw together to see if the concept of a donkey kong and bubble bobble cabinet could work. The blue seems pretty harsh. Ignore the green bars, they will be covered. Suggestions please!

[honkbahh]

Finished! Big thanks to everyone on the forum, as well as other forums on the web, and haruman of course! Ran through metal slug 2 (literally) cause I finally had a few minutes to give the arcade a somewhat lengthy test run. 32 continues, but it was for science! By far the biggest challenge was rocket launcher and hyper spin. Thanks all!

[Titchgamer]

Congrats on your completion

[higinbotham]

Nice job on the completion, it looks great.  I love the Bubble Bobble theme.  I must say the room its located in is impressive, nice collection.   

[rablack97]

and you didnt hide the monitor bezel becausssssssseeeeeee?

get you some plexi paint the outside edges black.

[imJGott]

nice! i cant to get mine and to start working on it. ill need to contact haruman so i can get the file needed to get some vinyl art made

[honkbahh]

and you didnt hide the monitor bezel becausssssssseeeeeee?

get you some plexi paint the outside edges black.

I tried cutting a matte myself and butchered the hell out of it. Painting scares me a little. I'll going to order a matte from michaels and see how that works.

[scrubmonkey]

I bought the same kit - yours looks awesome!  What monitor did you end up using?