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Galaga Bartop 19" LCD Rotating Display *UPDATED 11/26/12*
Ritalin:
--- Quote from: Singapura on January 15, 2008, 03:35:57 am ---Since this is a table/bartop you might want to consider making a detachable panel for the trackball. Things get really crowded with 2 joysticks and a trackball and you'll want a bit of space to comfortably spin the ball.
--- End quote ---
Thanks for the suggestion, and a good one at that.
Is there a link to a connector to purchase for making detachable controls?
I have no problem even making the two-player controls detachable as a removable "side-car" when needed.
Ritalin:
dmworking247, thanks for the link and excellent. Wow, your project was eerily similar, (except I can already tell that you have much much much better woodworking skills than I will ever have. :)
It's starting to sound more and more like detachable controls would be the way to go for a trackball or two player controls. Since there's something "special" about a trackball mounted on the fixed controls, I think the idea of making all two players controls detachable is a much better idea.
Your point about making the display fixed for manual rotation also makes sense.
I could just make this thing vertical and be done with it, but Aliens and Robocop look so good in the horizontal mode!
As for the performance of the machine, I'm a computer geek and I've spent a frustrating week getting everything running VERY smoothly. After trying out SpyStyle's DOS boot disk, Gamelauncher, MAME32 and others, the very best way to get things running smoothly for me was to use Tiny Windows XP with the Explorer interface completely removed from Windows, and an old version of MAME (in this case, MAME 0.65) I tried all sorts of flavors and options, and this works perfectly. I also needed to install MAME 0.85 just to have MAME create xml files for MALA, and then go back to using MAME 0.65.
Performance is shockingly good, especially considering this laptop is driving an external display at a high resolution.
Ritalin:
--- Quote from: leapinlew on January 15, 2008, 08:27:11 am ---Galaga Themed small bartop:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=68683.0
I also used a laptop for this project.
My advice would be to ditch the rotating idea. It'll force you to build a cabinet with a very large monitor enclosure to deal with the rotation, or the rotation will be such a pain you'll quit doing it. Put it behind some smoked plexi and you won't even notice the wasted space on the monitor.
--- End quote ---
You're the one who got me addicted to this stuff! Yes you!
That Galaga theme is exactly what pushed me over the edge into an actual build. I honestly think that's the coolest project I've ever seen here. Yours is really small, and excellent, but I think I want to essentially just expand the scale to accommodate my 19" LCD.
Everyone is right about the rotation. I should give it up and just make it vertical.
However, it's like pocket kings in Texas Hold 'Em that you just can't fold when an ace comes on the flop and you know you're probably beat. I'm struggling here! :D
IG-88:
--- Quote from: Ritalin on January 15, 2008, 12:41:00 pm ---"....the very best way to get things running smoothly for me was to use Tiny Windows XP with the Explorer interface completely removed from Windows, ......"
--- End quote ---
A little off topic here but would you mind describing a little on how you did that? I got a copy of TinyXP. What else did you do to it? Did you have any driver issues? As others have said, those are some tough games to run on such a low spec machine, I'm impressed. :applaud:
Ritalin:
--- Quote from: IG-88 on January 15, 2008, 03:47:50 pm ---
--- Quote from: Ritalin on January 15, 2008, 12:41:00 pm ---"....the very best way to get things running smoothly for me was to use Tiny Windows XP with the Explorer interface completely removed from Windows, ......"
--- End quote ---
A little off topic here but would you mind describing a little on how you did that? I got a copy of TinyXP. What else did you do to it? Did you have any driver issues? As others have said, those are some tough games to run on such a low spec machine, I'm impressed. :applaud:
--- End quote ---
Actually, if you're using TinyXP, you're all set. The TinyXP install CD has explorer removed already. It's setup to dramatically reduce CPU usage by Windows. For me it was a struggle of finding the exact combo of an OS and and old MAME version and settings to get things working. I tried doing DOS only then Win 98 SE and then finally settled on TinyXP when I was really impressed with the performance.
For my setup, MAME 0.65 was the one I needed to use, but I had to use MAME 0.85 (I think...it was a later version of MAME) for a brief moment to generate XML files to use with MALA.
Also the setting that drove me CRAZY trying to figure out was to turn OFF the setting for "Stretch using Hardware." When I had this on (it's on by default) the resolution was always blurry. Turning it off did the trick.
Hope any of this info helps.
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