Just4fun: buggy boy setup

[Calamity]

Make sure you check Arcade OSD for display modes rather than display properties advanced.

[gurbzs]

Thanks Calamity! All 4 monitors working, arcadeosd shows the 15khz modes.
Didn't use 9.3 till now.

[gurbzs]

Yes. This system does the trick, 100% speed.
Not calibrated the monitors yet, this is a first check.

[Calamity]

Well that looks pretty good!! It's a pitty you run out of table space 

[gurbzs]

Well, it became an arcade wall instead of arcade machine...
And I didn't even use 37" screens...
People start laughing when they see it.
What's wrong with this world? 

[gurbzs]

Small sample on youtube.

[Paradroid]

What's wrong with this world? 

I know, right?! People used to laugh when they came to my house and saw 25+ TVs in the lounge room too. Good thing about my new place is that there is a huge space under the house. Don't tell my fiancée TVs are growing like mushrooms down there...

Your three screen setup is stupidly cool! When I get the chance, I want to do the same thing... but with 14 inch CRTs to keep things vaguely under control.

Nice work and thanks for sharing!

[gurbzs]

Thx Paradroid. We're on the same page I think.

If people just could look beyond certain borders.
For instance: my energy supplier went on a permanent vacation after learning that a groovymame dude with A LOT of glorious CRT monitors became his customer.
How about injecting local economy with this nice and quiet hobby....
Is this becoming off-topic??!

Thx again everybody who helped, I'm very pleased with the results!
Groovymame rocks!

[gurbzs]

Oh, one more thing: does anybody have experience/advice on controller input with these type of racing games?? Which kind of PC steering wheel will do the job?

[gurbzs]

The triple screen setup works great.
That brings me to controls.

I picked up a few older ms sidewinder force feedback wheels to get started.
After reading and tweaking a 360 degrees spinner controller seems more adequate.
Games like buggy boy and poleposition use a 360 degrees wheel.

After more google I stumbled on paddles, spinners and negcon.
I even found a steering wheel on the internet with negcon mode.

I have a few questions:

- which is the best option for 360 degrees steering like buggy boy or pole position?
- does anybody use the negcon option?

Thanx

[gurbzs]

To answer my own question:

best results, untill now, is with my trusty old trackball. Getting highscores with that.
The spinner with a attached wheel becomes a possibility now I got hold of an old hotrod joystick.
I could place a spinner with a tiny footprint as replacement for a button or drill a new space in the hotrod.

Tips and more experience on this? Please post.

[Dr.Venom]

Small sample on youtube.

Wow, really cool setup you've got there, makes me wanna play buggy boy immediately

[Paradroid]

Wow, really cool setup you've got there, makes me wanna play buggy boy immediately

100% agreed! I used to play the C64 version of Buggy Boy all the time. I've never played the arcade version but I'm sure it's superior in all ways.

I have two identical little 14" Thomson TVs with RGB via SCART. When a third one turns up, I'm gonna follow in your footsteps gurbzs!

[gurbzs]

Buggy boy was such a thrilling experience in 1986, I remember the island beach, the sun, europe's final countdown... We had C64 then and the arcade was way out of our league.
Great memories really come back with this game.

Recently I thought about downsizing this setup, even bought a few old commodore 1084s monitors, but not ready for that.

Anybody a tip on spinners/360 degrees wheels?
Trackball works great but ain't the same

[gurbzs]

Extra glorious groovymame footage

[Dr.Venom]

Hi gurbzs,

Thanks for posting this, it is really great to watch. Awesome showcase for groovymame!

I noticed that the sound effects play a noticable amount later than the on-screen action, which suggests you're using the default gm setup?

If that's the case, you might want to invest some time into getting GMASIO running on your setup, this is capable of getting the audio latency much closer to real hardware. (Thanks to intealls' great work on this.)

It will add a lot to getting an even more authentic experience, which I think you must be after

See here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=142143.0

Extra glorious groovymame footage

[gurbzs]

Thanx Dr Venom, I 'll give the GMAsio a whirl. Funny: I remember using Asio4all years ago when experimenting with music sequencers. I'm using a mac for that now. I have a spare old echo gina 20-bit card with asio/WDM drivers.

Is that also a option?

[Dr.Venom]

If you have the time it's best to try out all the options you have.

The experiences up until now have shown that some cards may perform better than others. It's also dependant on your total setup, so it's hard to say up front what will work best for your case.

[gurbzs]

Controller update: I am getting decent performance out of any wheel now, it's a matter of adjusting the settings.
The old ultra racer pc version mini wheel is ideal for couch playing. Pole position and buggy boy work great, arkanoid is the trickiest of them. Finding the right controller is a fun part after the screen issues.