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Need advice on building a 4 player cabinet

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omehegan:
Hey guys, I'm looking for advice on building a 4 player MAME cabinet. For some background: I built a 2 player cabinet for my company a few months ago. I bought a broken Neo Geo cab for $100, added a 21" CRT, Windows PC, and an X-Arcade dual joystick. Did some woodworking to fit everything in and put a few classic arcade titles on the system, and then set it up in our office kitchen. It has been a *huge* hit, much more so than I expected. Recently we've added games like NBA Hangtime, etc., and people have started clamoring for a 4 player system.

I think that just converting our current system to 4 player wouldn't work very well - it seems like you'd want a bigger monitor and more space for 4 people to stand side by side. I think I can get a budget to build an entirely new system, so I'm trying to figure out the best approach to take. I'll break this down by component I guess.

1. What should I use for a cabinet? It looks like a lot of people go for a showcase cab. That certainly looks like a good form factor, so unless people tell me it's not I will probably go that route. Next question is, where should I get one? There doesn't seem to be any point in paying for a working game and then gutting it. Are non-working showcase cabs common at all? I've looked at the North Coast showcase cab, and that seems pretty appealing in spite of the price.

2. What should I use for a monitor? The North Coast cab mentions that it fits a 33" arcade monitor, but I've never seen one that big for sale. Do I just buy a CRT TV?

3. What should I use for a control interface? The Lono2 looks good, but I've also looked at the KeyWiz boards. I guess I'm not really sure what the difference is or how to choose.

4. How many buttons should I plan for? I think I remember reading on another thread that you really only need 4 per player for the 4 player games. So I was thinking of making two 6-button stations for 2-player games, and two 4-button stations for 4-player games, for a total of 20 gameplay buttons (plus insert coin and player-select buttons).

I guess that's it for the moment. Thanks in advance for any advice you guys have!

PL1:
Welcome to BYOAC.   :)

FYI, you should read this thread about MAME and the workplace.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=120050.msg1272786#msg1272786


Scott

paigeoliver:
Ok, all your classic 4 player machines (TMNT, Simpsons, etc) had a 25" monitor. I would mimic that design if going with a CRT display.

If going with an LCD display you are going to want to mimic something closer to a showcase cabinet as LCD displays still have issues with viewing angles.

8-way joysticks with 4 buttons per player cover all the 4-way games (2 buttons per player covers 90 percent of them).

Make sure all the joysticks point up in the right direction, the side ones do not get angled (only the location of their buttons gets angled).

Also, if you already have a working 2 player system you can just make a second cabinet next to it with another 21" monitor with the player 3 and 4 controls installed, all running off the PC in cabinet 1.

DaveMMR:
For inspiration - The best scratch-built 4-player cab design (assuming it'll get done - but it's well on its way):
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=115203.0

It follows the plans of an actual arcade cabinet so there's no overcompensation for space you often see in a lot of 4-player rigs. And since you're plopping it in the office kitchen, you may be better off with this than going with the showcase cab. Plus I feel those types of cabs are more common to find than showcases (though I am wildly guessing basing on how many TMNT cabs I saw vs. showcases.)

As for your other questions, there's little difference between a regular cab and a 4-player (other than needing an encoder with more inputs) so what worked before will work with the 4-player cab.

paigeoliver:

--- Quote from: DaveMMR on June 07, 2012, 10:39:20 pm ---For inspiration - The best scratch-built 4-player cab (assuming it'll get done - but it's well on its way):
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=115203.0

It follows the plans of an actual arcade cabinet so there's no overcompensation for space you often see in a lot of 4-player rigs. And since you're plopping it in the office kitchen, you may be better off with this than going with the showcase cab. Plus I feel those types of cabs are more common to find than showcases (though I am wildly guessing basing on how many TMNT cabs I saw vs. showcases.)

As for your other questions, there's little difference between a regular cab and a 4-player (other than needing an encoder with more inputs) so what worked before will work with the 4-player cab.

--- End quote ---

So after all that reading in the thread I found a black painted TMNT cab with nothing in it!

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