New here

[Warfusion]

Hey everyone new here. I love to build different things and do projects. I have a love for Retro games. Anyway can you all recommend some sources to learn. Aside from me looking at the forum for the next few hours Lol. Hope to become active here. Thanks for any help : )

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[Louis Tully]

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[Warfusion]

Thanks for the info I'm going to be going through it. I'm actually looking to build a small arcade cabinet using a raspberry pi for the games. I want to start small before I do anything on a larger scale.

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[Howard_Casto]

The Pi is NOT a good project to start with.  You'll have to deal with linux (a psuedo custom build at that) and a realitively new piece of hardware, two things you aren't going to find a lot of help on.  Even though the Pi is cheaper, it would be considered an advanced project. 

Start with your home pc and a hand built arcade stick.  Then try the Pi out after you have a better understanding of how mame and other emulators work. 

[kahlid74]

The Pi is NOT a good project to start with.  You'll have to deal with linux (a psuedo custom build at that) and a realitively new piece of hardware, two things you aren't going to find a lot of help on.  Even though the Pi is cheaper, it would be considered an advanced project. 

Start with your home pc and a hand built arcade stick.  Then try the Pi out after you have a better understanding of how mame and other emulators work.

I'm a big fan of the Pi but for arcade gaming and especially starting new I would agree with Howard on this.  The other thing you can do is look for old/throw away computers from friends/family/craigslist.  They'll use more power than the Pi but be much more useable than the Pi will.

[Warfusion]

The Pi is NOT a good project to start with.  You'll have to deal with linux (a psuedo custom build at that) and a realitively new piece of hardware, two things you aren't going to find a lot of help on.  Even though the Pi is cheaper, it would be considered an advanced project. 

Start with your home pc and a hand built arcade stick.  Then try the Pi out after you have a better understanding of how mame and other emulators work.

I'm a big fan of the Pi but for arcade gaming and especially starting new I would agree with Howard on this.  The other thing you can do is look for old/throw away computers from friends/family/craigslist.  They'll use more power than the Pi but be much more useable than the Pi will.

I'm not really worried I'm active in the raspberry pi forums and I'm proficient with Linux I have 13 years using it on all my systems. I also have a background in programming. My main challenge will probably be figuring out how to use the arcade controls for the games and connecting it to the pi. I have not done an arcade like this before but I have made computers into little retro gaming systems. It seems simple from how I designed it so far compared to some of the amazing projects have have looked at on here. Although I will defiantly take that advice on MAME and a hand build arcade stick. Have not made one yet and MAME is still somewhat new to me but since I found its written in C++ I can probably learn it through source after taking the time. If I fail its all part of the fun then you can say I told you so XD

[Well Fed Games]

I'm not really worried I'm active in the raspberry pi forums and I'm proficient with Linux I have 13 years using it on all my systems. I also have a background in programming.

 Looking forward to your project... I know myself and some others here would like to try a Pi build but it is a bit beyond us... glad to have an experienced user on the forum. Welcome!

[Warfusion]

I'm not really worried I'm active in the raspberry pi forums and I'm proficient with Linux I have 13 years using it on all my systems. I also have a background in programming.

 Looking forward to your project... I know myself and some others here would like to try a Pi build but it is a bit beyond us... glad to have an experienced user on the forum. Welcome!

I have way more about arcades to learn from you guys. I'm kind of jealous by the amazing projects here. Going to have to work hard to get to all of your levels .

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[kahlid74]

I'm not really worried I'm active in the raspberry pi forums and I'm proficient with Linux I have 13 years using it on all my systems. I also have a background in programming. My main challenge will probably be figuring out how to use the arcade controls for the games and connecting it to the pi. I have not done an arcade like this before but I have made computers into little retro gaming systems. It seems simple from how I designed it so far compared to some of the amazing projects have have looked at on here. Although I will defiantly take that advice on MAME and a hand build arcade stick. Have not made one yet and MAME is still somewhat new to me but since I found its written in C++ I can probably learn it through source after taking the time. If I fail its all part of the fun then you can say I told you so XD

Lol, the interface into the Pi is actually the easiest part from my experience.

[Warfusion]

I'm not really worried I'm active in the raspberry pi forums and I'm proficient with Linux I have 13 years using it on all my systems. I also have a background in programming. My main challenge will probably be figuring out how to use the arcade controls for the games and connecting it to the pi. I have not done an arcade like this before but I have made computers into little retro gaming systems. It seems simple from how I designed it so far compared to some of the amazing projects have have looked at on here. Although I will defiantly take that advice on MAME and a hand build arcade stick. Have not made one yet and MAME is still somewhat new to me but since I found its written in C++ I can probably learn it through source after taking the time. If I fail its all part of the fun then you can say I told you so XD

Lol, the interface into the Pi is actually the easiest part from my experience.

Going to sit down after I order what I need and make my first Control. I have not made one before and its going to be a fun project since I'm not to this hopefully It'll come out looking really well. After that I'll do the rest step by step but I don't want to jump in the entire project and mess things up.

[ark_ader]

Your Pi will be workable when ICS is possible (if you have the 512 version) otherwise you might want to invest in a ITX board or small laptop instead.

[Warfusion]

Your Pi will be workable when ICS is possible (if you have the 512 version) otherwise you might want to invest in a ITX board or small laptop instead.

Yeah I have the Model B 512mb rev 2. I was actually playing around with it today and started to install mame on it since I'm waiting on the parts I need for the control. I have tested running quake on it so no doubt it should have no problem running mame. I think I have seen links online about it but haven't looked at them as of yet. Question I have for all of you is actually I was planning on using a small 19" lcd screen my gf and I will probably use it to play Street Fighter and so will this screen be ok or should I go bigger lol.

[Howard_Casto]

Your Pi will be workable when ICS is possible (if you have the 512 version) otherwise you might want to invest in a ITX board or small laptop instead.

Yeah I have the Model B 512mb rev 2. I was actually playing around with it today and started to install mame on it since I'm waiting on the parts I need for the control. I have tested running quake on it so no doubt it should have no problem running mame. I think I have seen links online about it but haven't looked at them as of yet. Question I have for all of you is actually I was planning on using a small 19" lcd screen my gf and I will probably use it to play Street Fighter and so will this screen be ok or should I go bigger lol.

So I guess you do need a primer on mame and emulation in general then.  Quake ran on a 75mhz processor and 16mb of ram... aka nothing.  As a general rule of emulation, take the original processor speed of the arcade game them multiply by 10, that's the system specs you'll need. Of course if the game has samples, or is in 3d even those specs aren't enough. So you are limited to the classics at best.  I've seen a few mame installs on various forums and they were having trouble getting games as primative as Gradius running at full speed in mame.  I'm trying not to be negative, but as your first project this still isn't a good one because things aren't going to run as you expect them to.  Maybe your linux knowledge is going to help you out, I dunno, but thus far nobody has gotten anything significant to run on the Pi via mame. 

[Warfusion]

Your Pi will be workable when ICS is possible (if you have the 512 version) otherwise you might want to invest in a ITX board or small laptop instead.

Yeah I have the Model B 512mb rev 2. I was actually playing around with it today and started to install mame on it since I'm waiting on the parts I need for the control. I have tested running quake on it so no doubt it should have no problem running mame. I think I have seen links online about it but haven't looked at them as of yet. Question I have for all of you is actually I was planning on using a small 19" lcd screen my gf and I will probably use it to play Street Fighter and so will this screen be ok or should I go bigger lol.

So I guess you do need a primer on mame and emulation in general then.  Quake ran on a 75mhz processor and 16mb of ram... aka nothing.  As a general rule of emulation, take the original processor speed of the arcade game them multiply by 10, that's the system specs you'll need. Of course if the game has samples, or is in 3d even those specs aren't enough. So you are limited to the classics at best.  I've seen a few mame installs on various forums and they were having trouble getting games as primative as Gradius running at full speed in mame.  I'm trying not to be negative, but as your first project this still isn't a good one because things aren't going to run as you expect them to.  Maybe your linux knowledge is going to help you out, I dunno, but thus far nobody has gotten anything significant to run on the Pi via mame.

I'll still try maybe I can find a way but I'll try it before building a cabinet. If it fails I'll use a computer. I just love challenges and doing this during projects lol. I always end up going "should have listened to the pros" but then I go the other way.   

[Howard_Casto]

Don't misunderstand, I've seen some successful pi cabs as of late, but they run stuff like pacman, which I can run on a 5 year old cell phone.  If you are into those sorts of games you'll be fine, but if you want to run something even as recent as cps2 games, you'll run into issues unless you run a really old version of mame.

I think Haze pretty much spelled it out in another thread, but then again he's understandably a bit of a purist.