Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum

Main => Project Announcements => Topic started by: Artemismeow on June 18, 2011, 04:52:04 pm

Title: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: Artemismeow on June 18, 2011, 04:52:04 pm
Making a bartop arcade. Calling it the danny jr. arcade (dk jr themed)using and old laptop. Running mala and win xp sp3. I have so far:
1 gutted the laptop.
2 installed the front end
3 installed an external power switch
4 installed waaaaaaaaay too many games on it
5 I have some concept sketches will post when I can get to my home compy.
 
I am going to make this for my nephew his bday is in july. This is the first arcade I will try to make.
Yea I might be in over my head with this project :)


Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: IG-88 on June 18, 2011, 04:55:37 pm
Welcome to the club  :cheers: You're off to a good start posting here. Bar none the best place on the net for questions and answers.

Make sure you post lots of pics and details!!
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: Charlie97L on June 18, 2011, 05:00:20 pm
Yay!  Welcome!  I'm just finishing up a bartop kit build myself.  I will watch yours and try to help if I can, it posed some interesting challenges for me.  :)

good luck!
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: Artemismeow on June 18, 2011, 05:06:13 pm
Front end note over 6000 games I need trim the list. Also it chokes on neo geo games.  :embarassed:
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: Artemismeow on June 18, 2011, 05:23:32 pm
It chokes ondonkey kong
 :hissy:
installing directx 9
 Pic of external switch
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: Artemismeow on June 18, 2011, 05:38:17 pm
Thank you ig and charlie I feel iam learning a lot. But help is welcomed
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: LeedsFan on June 18, 2011, 05:38:48 pm
What spec is the laptop? DK is a classic old game that should not need much processing power at all.  Are you running any additional artwork when playing the games like bezels and backgrounds etc?  I know from exprerience that turning those off on low end PCs can fix the problem.
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: Artemismeow on June 18, 2011, 05:49:53 pm
900 mhz pentium m radeon card of some sorts and 128 megs of ram :cry:
dx 9 fixed some games but dk is still crawling. Maybe its the rom  :dunno


Chrlie
your the grid bartop was my inspiration

Also street fighter runs well. See pix
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: Charlie97L on June 18, 2011, 05:53:10 pm
what version of MAME are you using?

i had a lot of issues finding the right version/roms.

you're probably going to have to scale back to an older legacy version if you're only running 900mhz.
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: Artemismeow on June 18, 2011, 06:00:27 pm
 :banghead: I think its the ram, 128 is only enough for the os.  :hissy:
and charli might be right since the version of mame I got was off mamedev.org new release


Thinking of getting arcadeos would that be less demanding?
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: Charlie97L on June 18, 2011, 06:23:31 pm
yeah the new release is optimized for computers way faster than a 900mhz.

your ram should be ok, that's in line for that processor, you just have to backtrack through the MAME legacy releases to find one that'll work with your PC specs.  i'd say it'll likely be early 2000s (release year).
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: IG-88 on June 18, 2011, 06:27:35 pm
What version of roms are you using?
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: Artemismeow on June 18, 2011, 06:53:34 pm
Well there is an older mam
e in saints book will try that. Uhm rom version? How do I check? :dunno
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: Artemismeow on June 18, 2011, 07:42:43 pm
Well mame32 from saint's book works but mala doesn't read the game list anymore
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: lettuce on June 19, 2011, 03:31:10 am
Get a verion of micro xp or tiny xp, just search in google. Its design for running on VERY limited hardware
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: IG-88 on June 19, 2011, 09:00:43 am
Get a verion of micro xp or tiny xp, just search in google. Its design for running on VERY limited hardware

Agreed. With one of those "optimized" or "srtipped" versions of XP and an older matching set of mame and roms (think v65-v85) your games would fly on that machine. I've gotten TinyXP to work on a P133 with 64mb ram with plain old Mame32v36 with classics like pac, dk, burgertime phoenix, ect ect.

Saved alot of old Boat Anchors, as Spystyle used to say, from going overboard.

Another nice thing about these tiny or micro versions is that they come with driver packs that have darned near every driver for every piece of hardware that was ever made. So unless your laptop is some weird off brand, Tiny will automatically install all the right drivers for your hardware during the O/S installation. So when its done all you need to do is slap on mame, your roms, and your FE and it's ready to go!!
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: Artemismeow on June 19, 2011, 09:17:27 am
Kewl tiny xp then.  Will work on that by wednesday :afro:
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: Artemismeow on June 29, 2011, 11:36:57 am
oh wow. well using the version of mame that came with saint's book worked great.
 also tiny xp is pretty awesome.  :notworthy:

sorry I am a total noob but:
I am not using a keyboard I am using a chtulu board is there anyway to remap the key that exits the games ? right now it's set to esc. and I couldn't find how to change it on mame. :(
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: Donkbaca on June 29, 2011, 12:07:23 pm
If you hit tab when in a game, its under the user interface menu  I can't remember the name of the option, but you can set the exit button there
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: emphatic on June 29, 2011, 12:22:45 pm
If you hit tab when in a game, its under the user interface menu  I can't remember the name of the option, but you can set the exit button there


IIRC - "GUI cancel"
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: Artemismeow on June 29, 2011, 11:50:41 pm
Gui cancel, well i'll be. Kewl mostly finished now i just need a good plan or maybe a kit
Title: Re: Making a bartop arcade.
Post by: bluemini17 on July 01, 2011, 06:34:15 am
try http://bartoparcade.katorlegaz.com/ (http://bartoparcade.katorlegaz.com/) or http://www.koenigs.dk/mame/eng/drawweecade.htm (http://www.koenigs.dk/mame/eng/drawweecade.htm) for some inspiration. for my bartop i took measurements off my full size cab and scaled it down http://youtu.be/O_YuvmyjfOA (http://youtu.be/O_YuvmyjfOA)