YAFARO (Project Code name: ICWHUTUDIDTHAR).

[tunes0710]

Welcome to "Yet Another Flynn's Arcade Rip Off."

So, I have been thinking of making a cab for YEARS, ever since I first got involved with MAME in 2007... yeah, I procrastinate quite a bit... plus I have never had (nor still have) ANY kind of DIY skills. I'm the guy who gets his cousin round to put up a corner shelf :-(
Assembling computers, yup.. no issue, have been doing that for nearly 20 years, but anything outside that.. forget it.

So why now?

Well, I've just moved in to a place that has a large living room, so much so, that the room almost has a natural split in to living area and "DaveCave" area... so what better to put in there than a MAME cab!

I've been doing bits of research on and off for nearly 8 years... and because so much has changed in that time, I'm still just as confused as when I started... however when I saw Chances' Cab, I knew that was the Baseline to work from, and better still.. he has included so much information and drawings, that he has done a lot of the hard work for me!

Where shall I start?

I live over 100 miles from my cousin now, so work will be S.L.O.W. and because life always seems to get in the way, I am setting myself a 13 month timeframe to get this completed.. essentially before my 36th birthday in October next year!

I realise I am not a perfectionist.. and as this is my first attempt at a build, I know I'm going to make lots of mistakes and getting stuff wrong, so I don't think I will try and get things quite as elegant as Chance has, but I will strive to do the best I can.

What have I decided so far?

I want 4 player... my desire for WWE Wrestlefest, TMNT and Gauntlet is strong, plus god knows how many others I haven't discovered yet.

LCD (or LED LCD) screen, yes, it isn't as authentic as a CRT or preferably an arcade monitor, but they seem easier to work with (VESA mounts etc).

My PC will probably be an I5 or along those lines, as I want to run Hyperspin FE, so aside from MAME, we can enjoy other retrogoodness.

Will there be anything unique?

Ummm... well I had a thought about trying to mount a little 7/8" liliput touchscreen monitor somewhere and having that run some sort of Jukebox, so we could either have in-game sound, or it play some music stored on my network/stream from spotify/etc.

Do I have any initial questions for the guys/gals on forum at Arcade controls?

YES! god yes... far too many to mention, but I think one of the main questions I'm pondering is regarding the TV/Monitor.

For those that have done it, have you put anything in front of the TV? If so, what? Glass? Plexi? or with any lighting in the room would it cause glaring on the TV itself?

Also scanline generators, are they worth it? Do they improve older games (or make them look authentic?), or is it just something the purists prefer?

Please don't expect this to be a fast moving thread, this is the sloth of all cab builds.

Cheers,

Dave :-)

[Phreakwars]

Have you decided on a motherboard yet? Myself personally, I can't say enough about using ASUS brand.

Why? Because of a very nifty feature in them that most any arcade builder would want to take advantage of... the ability to change your BIOS boot screen. Great way to hide the fact that what's inside is just an average computer, while displaying a custom boot-up logo.

Quick video of what it looked like on my son's before I finished programming everything else:

[vwalbridge]

I have never had (nor still have) ANY kind of DIY skills.

If you are not much of a DIY'er...then at a minimum, I'd drop the extra liliput screen. This is build is going to a real challenge for anyone, no sense in making it even more complicated for yourself. Plus, I don't even know where you would put it on a "Flynn" build anyway. Perhaps Chance himself could comment on that.

Also scanline generators, are they worth it? Do they improve older games (or make them look authentic?), or is it just something the purists prefer?

Don't bother with scanline generators. As far as I know, you can't shut them off so you will have stupid scanlines on every single screen. And they will be the same scanlines for every game. There is a time and a place for scanline generators, and in my opinion, this is not it.

Rather, just get a good video card and use HLSL. (google it if you don't know what it is). It's much more flexible and can be turned on/off per game and adjusted per game. (Like pac man for example sometimes had red color offset that can be mimicked.)

[tunes0710]

If you are not much of a DIY'er...then at a minimum, I'd drop the extra liliput screen. This is build is going to a real challenge for anyone, no sense in making it even more complicated for yourself. Plus, I don't even know where you would put it on a "Flynn" build anyway. Perhaps Chance himself could comment on that.

Haha, sorry, I was quite vague, I'm not going to be doing any of the building myself, my cousin (or one of my other friends) will be doing it, but it will just be weekends/etc, hence why I said progress was going to be slow.

Don't bother with scanline generators. As far as I know, you can't shut them off so you will have stupid scanlines on every single screen. And they will be the same scanlines for every game. There is a time and a place for scanline generators, and in my opinion, this is not it.

Rather, just get a good video card and use HLSL. (google it if you don't know what it is). It's much more flexible and can be turned on/off per game and adjusted per game. (Like pac man for example sometimes had red color offset that can be mimicked.)

I was thinking a Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 or, maybe if I put a bit more cash aside, the 980 Ti. I had heard about HLSL in MAME, so had pondered that as an alternative, but it's good to have someone confirm it! :-)

[yotsuya]

The greatest of luck with your build.

[tunes0710]

Have you decided on a motherboard yet? Myself personally, I can't say enough about using ASUS brand.

Why? Because of a very nifty feature in them that most any arcade builder would want to take advantage of... the ability to change your BIOS boot screen. Great way to hide the fact that what's inside is just an average computer, while displaying a custom boot-up logo.

Quick video of what it looked like on my son's before I finished programming everything else:

That looks really nifty! I've always had great reliability from ASUS, so will probably choose them again. Once it's all up and running, I'll look to do all the little tweaks, bypassing explorer.exe etc to try and make it look as un-computer-y like as possible!

[yotsuya]

Many Intel boards allow you to do the same thing.

[rball5]

I was thinking a Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 or, maybe if I put a bit more cash aside, the 980 Ti. I had heard about HLSL in MAME, so had pondered that as an alternative, but it's good to have someone confirm it! :-)

Please don't waste your money on a top of the line video card (the 980ti is about as expensive as you can get right now).  Build something with integrated graphics & upgrade if you need to...  I'm running MAME, daphne, nebula (neo-geo), nes, snes, neo-geo, and atari systems with onboard graphics from my g3258 processor.  I've seen no reason to buy a dedicated card.  I can't imagine needing a beefy card for anything something with arcade controls would run.

[vwalbridge]

I've seen no reason to buy a dedicated card.  I can't imagine needing a beefy card for anything something with arcade controls would run.

Good quality HLSL without FPS drops and stutter will require a discreet video card. Not top of the line, but something decent.

I've done some simple HLSL with Intel's integrated HD graphics but if you are building a full cab that "plays everything" then do NOT use the integrated graphics.

And don't even get me started on the tweak(s) you have to make to get .mp4 video files to not play scrambled inside Hyperspin. (It's possible, I've done it) But you don't even need to mess with that if you just get a decent graphics card.

[rball5]

Didn't know about HLSL requirements and I didn't have the patience to get hyperspin working so I don't know about its requirements (Maximus Arcade was a simple solution).  I downloaded all of my movie files from emumovies & converted them to avi (Maximus Arcade doesn't work with mp4 files).  I haven't noticed slowdowns anywhere. 

I still say the 980ti is overkill for an arcade build...  I'd guess the newly released budget 950 card would be a good fit at a fraction of the cost.  I planned to buy the 950 when it was released, but after building my cabinet I've seen no need (I'll mess with HLSL at some point, so I may end up with one).

[Malenko]

woof.  Welcome to the fleet.

YATAD

[vwalbridge]

(I'll mess with HLSL at some point, so I may end up with one).

If you don't have HLSL enabled on your LCD cab, then you don't know what you are missing. Sure, it's not a CRT...but it's a heck of a lot better than MAME's abysmal default.

Depending on how much motion blur, blooming, shaders, etc that you enable....the harder you are going to push your video card.

But yes, it's easy to add a discrete card later at any point. So play with it on the integrated card and see if it works for you. Be very careful of even the slightest FPS drops. That will really mess with your mind on some games.

[tunes0710]

So a small update.
Have found a local merchant that sells reclaimed timber, and he has a contact that can cut the panels to shape for me, and that person has a contact who can do large scale printing to print out a 1:1 outline to be cut out.

Am looking at TVs, so far will probably choose a Samsung UE32J5100, unless anyone can make a better recommendation.

[RxBrad]

Many Intel boards allow you to do the same thing.

The Foxconn H97M Plus on my rig also has this capability.  Since my cab has a widescreen monitor (yeah, I know), I had to do some stretching of the image to make it look right, because the BIOS displays it fullscreen as if it were on a 4:3 monitor.