Author Topic: Dedicated Mortal Kombat 9 (Read 10654 times)

tcleary · « **on:** June 22, 2010, 10:10:32 pm »

decided to just put an x360 in my MK2/MK3 cab and get controls wired up and go that route. so no lcd just using the monitor i have which usually runs in 640X480 but the x360 gave an option for 848 X 480. I tried that and it was a sharper picture so then I set the 360 to widescreen output and reduced the vertical until I got a letterbox proportion and I think it looks pretty good so I plan to run the game like this. I can't figure a good way to have an lcd in these cabs, it just looks weird. so I think this is the best way to run MK9 in an old school MK cab.

for now I just have two buttons kind of hanging on top for the guide button for each player. that's the only button I really needed. don't need the back button or the extra trigger/bumpers for anything. I may eventually drill holes on the side of the control panel for the guide button since I don't want to drill through the top. not sure what I'll do but this is ok for now, a bit ghetto but it's not bad. the paper around the monitor is move lists for MK2/UMK3 which I'll remove. i have full page printouts for the moves in MK9, it's way too much to try and put around the monitor.

tcleary · « **Reply #1 on:** July 07, 2010, 12:36:57 am »

changed my project, dedicated MK9 sounds like a good idea to me.

adidas1984x · « **Reply #2 on:** July 07, 2010, 07:33:51 am »

would you be willing to sell me the war gods control panel and buttons

tcleary · « **Reply #3 on:** July 07, 2010, 09:26:16 am »

sent you a PM about the control panel.

now I'm starting to think maybe an LCD tv would be the best display option for this cabinet, but I'm wondering how large of one I could fit in there. I would just run the xbox 360 in it so it would look great for xbox live arcade games, street fighter 4, and the new MK.

jholman76 · « **Reply #4 on:** July 07, 2010, 01:22:36 pm »

MK9??!? 9?!?!?

Man... I've missed some releases, me thinks...

Silas (son of Silas) · « **Reply #5 on:** July 07, 2010, 01:49:49 pm »

Funny you should post this as I was thinking about the feasibility of doing this myself. I really liked the MK series 'back in the day' but had no interest in it on a console. When I saw that E3 clip it did make me think of buying an otherwise dead cab and shoving a 360 in it.

I came to the conclusion it is probably something I would do when 2nd hand 360s are as cheap as the original XBOX is now and I can pick the game up for a song on eBay. I'll watch this with great interest!

severdhed · « **Reply #6 on:** July 07, 2010, 03:18:32 pm »

that large 3d button more than likely mounts in a standard button hole, which seems to be located where the normal MK3 run button was.

tcleary · « **Reply #7 on:** July 08, 2010, 01:09:20 am »

the large button is mounted in a small hole, it's actually a little smaller than the standard button hole, I could not fit a standard button into it, but it was close. and it is located pretty darn close to where the run button is on my MK4 panel, so yeah, drill it out a bit and you could easily put a standard run button there.

tcleary · « **Reply #8 on:** July 08, 2010, 01:14:13 am »

after looking around on newegg for an hour or so I decided on a 24" 1080p acer LCD that was like $200. it was close to 23" wide with the borders which leaves 1 inch on each side to work with. I was trying to find the biggest viewable monitor which was under 25" wide with the borders, but coulnd't really find much. there are a lot of 27" monitors that are around 25.5" wide, which is .5 too much, it's too bad because that extra 3" viewable would be nice. the 24" should do though, it's close enough to the original 25" that was in the cabinet and should be big enough standing right up to it.

it had a 2ms response rate and HDMI, so should work out. not sure how I'll mount the thing yet.

tcleary · « **Reply #9 on:** July 11, 2010, 01:06:44 pm »

did some work on this today, it's coming together!

tcleary · « **Reply #10 on:** July 12, 2010, 09:03:29 pm »

got the 24" lcd and mounted it with the vesa screw holes to the 3/4 board I mounted on the monitor brackets, worked out ok.

highlife · « **Reply #11 on:** July 22, 2010, 02:18:52 pm »

Have you already ideas for the side art? I'm thinking a long time to make a custom MK side art but I'm waiting for HQ pictures from MK 9 however MK 9 not playable is on my cab. I've found some picuteres and created my own Marquee maybe you like it.
I hope there will be a good Side Art.

BurgerKingDiamond · « **Reply #12 on:** July 22, 2010, 10:15:48 pm »

I like your idea for a MK9 cab, but I think it would look a thousand times better with a 4:3 monitor. I never like the way it looks to have a widescreen monitor in a cab that wasn't made for it. It's all out of proportion and there is so much empty space. Although if you chose 4:3 big enough to really fill out that cabinet you would probably have to sacrifice HD output, and go for an older CRT TV, because everything seems to be widescreen nowadays. I don't think you can find many 27" 4:3 LCD monitors...

tcleary · « **Reply #13 on:** August 31, 2010, 10:00:15 pm »

i like that marquee but it needs to say "MK9" or something like that

I have a MK cab with a 27" 4:3 tube and it's ok, i had the x360 in there, but next gen games simply look better on the 24" widescreen 1080p lcd. yeah it does look weird in there but after a while I don't really think about it. my arcade is not a beauty contest so it works for me.

severdhed · « **Reply #14 on:** August 31, 2010, 10:05:55 pm »

Quote from: highlife on July 22, 2010, 02:18:52 pm

Have you already ideas for the side art? I'm thinking a long time to make a custom MK side art but I'm waiting for HQ pictures from MK 9 however MK 9 not playable is on my cab. I've found some picuteres and created my own Marquee maybe you like it.
I hope there will be a good Side Art.

perhaps "ARKADE" would have fit better with the theme

childsremix · « **Reply #15 on:** August 31, 2010, 11:21:07 pm »

This is an awesome idea and depending on the actual layout of the buttons I may end up sticking mk9 in my multi jamma MK machine myself! Have they at all talked about the layout of the buttons will it be the same six buttons or are they planning on looking at this from a console perspective and using all 8 buttons?

amendonz · « **Reply #16 on:** August 31, 2010, 11:43:12 pm »

Cool stuff. I'l be watching with interest. Looking at building a mvc3 machine similar to this.

saloonstudios · « **Reply #17 on:** September 01, 2010, 10:41:35 am »

Quote from: tcleary on June 22, 2010, 10:10:32 pm

check out this footage of the new mortal kombat if you haven't seen it, it's looking good.

http://e3.gamespot.com/video/6266626/

I had no idea what I was missing. This potentially changes all of my plans as well. Thanks and can't wait to see what you come up with-
Although my cab is going to have an SD CRT, so that could feel like a waste of all the new HD gfx that this game will have...

tcleary · « **Reply #18 on:** February 02, 2011, 01:54:37 am »

time to get back on this. I traded my war gods cab for a painted over MK2 cab so I have a blank slate to work with. I saw some fight sticks that are coming out with the game and they have the old MK layout with the run button, so button layout will be easy enough, now I just need art.

I also did a ton of research trying to find the best lcd for an arcade cab and the best I could do was the dell u2311h. viewing angle is the main problem, if you want the monitor flush with the cabinet you will be looking at it at an angle most of the time. I had a standard cheapo TN panel in the cab and the viewing angle was garbage, the top of the screen would be unviewable in dark scenes in super meat boy.

then I tried rotating the cheap monitor and the viewing angle playing a vertical game (ikaruga in this case) was awful, you had to be right in front of it at the perfect angle, which would be impossible playing two players. the u2311h on the other hand looks pretty damn good at any angle, even when set to vertical. the only downside is it is 8ms vs 2ms of the other panel, but after comparing back to back I didn't notice the slower response rate enough to count, but the viewing angle and overall image quality was very noticeable. the u2311h is 1080p, so perfect for an xbox 360. you could use a 1920X1200 monitor, but the image will be stretched, which annoyed me when I tried it, I like having the proper aspect ratio.

so it's the monitor I recommend if you are planning on making an xbox 360 cab.

on to mortal kombat 9

my main issues with this cab are the art all around, and the monitor because I like being able to rotate it. right now I have the monitor just kind of sitting in the cabinet and it's kind of ghetto. the best solution would be some sort of mount that would allow you to pull the monitor out, rotate it, then set it back in place, but I don't know if that exists. If I get sick of ikaruga I may just mount it horizontal and be done with it.

so next up that can be worked on is the controls. I'm looking around for cheap fight sticks I can hack up.

Gatsu · « **Reply #19 on:** February 02, 2011, 02:28:36 pm »

Are you still going to make this a dedicated MK9 cab?

If so I'd drop the rotating monitor all together and just get a regular tv or non hidef arcade monitor.

just my thoughts...

BurgerKingDiamond · « **Reply #20 on:** February 02, 2011, 02:39:39 pm »

Quote from: Gatsu on February 02, 2011, 02:28:36 pm

Are you still going to make this a dedicated MK9 cab?

If so I'd drop the rotating monitor all together and just get a regular tv or non hidef arcade monitor.

just my thoughts...

+1
My thoughts exactly. You can get s-video cables for a 360. I've used one before, picture quality is good, and it will make it look legit like an old school cab. Widescreen LCD's don't look too good on an upright wood cab. The proportions are weird. A viewlix or something is another story.

tcleary · « **Reply #21 on:** March 14, 2011, 11:50:17 am »

I've been looking around for some sort of widescreen HD CRT. either an old 24" CRT, sony made one, but they are hard to find. or maybe a 26" widescreen hd tv, which are also really hard to find. if I can manage to find one I'll throw it in and put a bezel around it and it will look pretty good. in the meantime I'm just using an LCD in this thing. I think I'm going to do the same thing I did with street fighter and that is hack up control panels. they are making a version called "tournament edition" that comes with the game and a fightstick for $150. so I plan on getting two of those and making a panel out of them. I'll dump the 2nd copy of the game to bring the price down a bit. this will actually be cheaper than what I did last time with the SF4 sticks, those were $200 each, + $50 for the game so I dropped around $450 on it. this time $300 minus whatever I can get for one of the copies of MK9, so probably around $250 for the 2 player panel + the game.

As for side art I'm considering using the MK logo, I've seen some pretty cool looking versions of it. Then i'll just have to figure out something for the Marquee.

tcleary · « **Reply #22 on:** March 14, 2011, 11:56:54 am »

now that I think about it, a 27" 4:3 hdtv might work pretty well in the cab too. I got a 27 inch arcade monitor to fit in my other MK cabinet, so I might be able to fit a 27" 4:3 hdtv in, after taking the case off. I had an old sony 36" 4:3 1080i and hd on it looked pretty good, it just put black bars on the top and bottom so it was widescreen. i'm guessing on a 27" it would do the same thing. so the actual picture would probably be around 23"-24" and it wouldn't look weird in the cabinet like an lcd does. so maybe I'll go that route, I'll probably be able to find one for $100 or less too since no one values CRT tvs these days.

what will be a bit of a pain will be taking the TV apart and figuring out a way to mount it.

Donkbaca · « **Reply #23 on:** March 14, 2011, 12:32:06 pm »

Just build your own CP. It will look better and be way cheaper. The Mortal Kombat sticks are just happ competitions and the buttons are your standard happs buttons.

You are looking at 15 bucks for wood, 20 bucks for sticks, and 15 bucks for buttons, 2 controllers will run you around 60 bucks. a cp overlay will run you around 20 bucks or so. That's 130 bucks. It twill look better and be cheaper.

tcleary · « **Reply #24 on:** March 14, 2011, 04:08:17 pm »

you're forgetting the trouble of hacking 2 sticks though, add that in and the cost really isn't too much greater to just use 2 of these fight sticks, no hacking necessary. with the SF panel I took off the top piece and mounted that to a piece of wood. looking at these sticks I think I might be able to get away with just putting a hole in the wood and letting them rest on top, if I do that it won't look great though so maybe I will consider the other route, I'm undecided at this point.

Donkbaca · « **Reply #25 on:** March 14, 2011, 04:20:46 pm »

I just hacked 2 control pads over the weekend, wasn't that hard. I posted about it in my project thread today. Buy two of these:
http://www.vpgames.com/p-3724-mad-catz-xbox-360-street-fighter-iv-controller-sf-4-turbo-fightpad-assorted.aspx

then follow this:

http://shoryuken.com/f177/soldering-madcatz-sfiv-fightpad-179270/index2.html

It'll take you about maybe 2 hours to do. Haruman does hacks, I'd do them too if you didn't feel comfortable soldering, but its really straight forward.

Do whatever you are most comfortable with, but it wouldn't be that much more work to just make a CP.

Reptilz · « **Reply #26 on:** April 28, 2011, 05:52:12 pm »

Im too in the process of making a MK9 Cabinet powered by the PS3. Im using a painted black MK1 cabinet. I already have the PS3 installed and using a 24" LCD widescreen 1080p TV. Fits perfect, and the space doesn't look to bad, specially after I put up little Character Cards around the bezel arena.

All Im lacking is Artwork, I know what I want done, just need to find someone good with photoshop and someone else to print the artwork out for me.

tcleary · « **Reply #27 on:** June 15, 2011, 11:28:02 am »

I decided to just make my MK2/MK3 cabinet switchable between MAME and an Xbox 360. so all the MKs in one cabinet, seemed to make sense. I'm waiting on some hacked controllers and a MK4 cp top that I will wire up to the controller and then should be good to go. I need to get some extra buttons on the CP though and don't want to drill, so I'm still thinking about that. I need at least 4 extra to get the xbox and back button available for each player.

MK9 is a bit strange in 4:3 at 640X480 but it's playable. the characters are just smaller and the camera further away. I think it will be fine and I think it's cool to have the game running in an old school MK cabinet. I'll post pictures once I get it running.

i'm still uncertain how i'll deal with controls. I have someone sending me an extra MK4 control panel top so at first I was going to wire that up and just swap the top panel if I wanted to play mame or xbox 360, but since the xbox 360 controllers work with windows maybe I can get away with using just one panel to interface with the xbox 360 and the pc and have a usb switch in the middle. so then to switch between MK9 and and Mame I'd just have to press 3 buttons, one for vga video, one for audio, and one for USB.

we'll see.

Donkbaca · « **Reply #28 on:** June 15, 2011, 02:09:52 pm »

So this is all MAME? Not Jamma? If that is the case, all you need is the xbox controllers hooked up to a KVN that has USB and audio, like the one I have in my cab.

You need 7 holes, one fore back, start, and guide for each player and one for the KVM. I would suggest putting them on the top of your cab, that way nobody would see them if that is the case.

tcleary · « **Reply #29 on:** June 20, 2011, 01:00:07 am »

yeah, it's pc mame and an xbox 360 and i want to be able to switch back and forth without too much trouble. i want the extra buttons easily accessible. on top of the cab would be hard to reach. i'll figure something out and post some pictures once i figure it out.

eds1275 · « **Reply #30 on:** June 27, 2011, 12:43:46 pm »

Just to throw this out there, MK 1 2 umk3 will be out as one download on XBL
http://mkextre.me/2011/05/12/mk-arcade-kollection-summer-2011/

tcleary · « **Reply #31 on:** July 13, 2011, 12:28:22 am »

that's good news. I'll get that and be able to run the old games from the x360 without having to bother to switch to the pc. i'll still keep the pc in there in case I want to mess around with all the various versions in mame though.

update in first post. i finally got things hooked up


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