Hey guys - I'm in the process of making a new cab (first one in 9 years!) and due to being completely out of space in my house I want to make something a little smaller than a traditional standup. I have a bunch of questions (and will probably have a bunch more as I go) so I thought putting them all in one place might help.
I have a little bit of familiarity with Raspberry Pi in that I bought one, installed RetroPie and stuck it in an NES case for some console gaming. That said, I think I want the Pi to behave differently for an arcade cabinet:
1. I want to wire up a
Male Power Socket w/Switch on the back and use the switch to power on and off the cabinet with a single button press. Is this doable? I've seen on/off tutorials so I assume so but not sure with this type of set up or if I need a standalone button. I do not want to have to answer "yes/no" to power down. This needs to be SIMPLE.
2. From looking at other projects, it looks like I can customize the RetroPie menu - are there any good tutorials on how to do this? Ideally, I'd like to boot straight into the game list that has custom graphics with the marquee and video of the game in action. Like this:
This is a Pi powered cabinet with a custom menu by @Vidiot here at byoac. Ideally, I'd remove the boot up font and the raspberries that appear and replace it with a custom splash screen that goes straight to the game menu.
3. Is there a way to combine emulators into one game list? I plan on running MAME and Daphne (and MisFit MAME if that is possible) but do not want to back out to a separate "console" menus.
4. Does "Attract Mode" or "Kids Mode" remove the ability for the user to get to any other screens other than the game list? I do not want someone to be able to change any settings.
5. Does an iPAC hooked up through USB work like it does hooked up to a PC? What is the best way to wire the controls with the Pi?
That's all for now. Thanks.