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Looking at building my own, but wonder about evolution

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DssTrainer:
Hi everyone. I've been doing a bit of research on mame arcading and came across this forum so I figured I'd check it out.

Here's the deal....

I've been using emulation for consoles and mame on my PC for many years now. About 5 years ago, my brother bought a large arcade system called "The Time Machine" from a small company online. It was a Mame Arcade, and offered about 20 different emulators and some 3000 game roms.

I recognized it right away as emulation but my brother just thought he was getting some magic arcade machine with all the games on it. All the same. He dropped like $4000 on it and when he first got it, some controls were a bit off for certain games. Ignoring that, he was happy with it.

About a year later he inquired about some games that were promised to be available in an upgrade. The company sent out a new mobo and vidcard from what I remember... and I think a cdrom of new stuff. After which, nothing really worked right.

After we had emails back and forth with the company, we couldn't get it to work and forgot about it for a while. A few months later we tried to contact them again, and they were no longer in business.

So recently I took it upon myself to figure it all out. After figuring out all the pieces, I see it is simply:
- a 2.4G Pentium 4 with 512MB Ram
- a 160G harddrive running WinXP sp1
- a Mamewah frontend
- an IPac/4 joypanel
- a 27" CRT arcade monitor.
- a Huge-Ass cabinet

At this point, the CRT is mostly Green, tho the "no signal" message is red. When the system starts up, it starts to load windows and it looks to be a very minimalistic xp install so it loads Mamewah right away. But then it goes to a flashing screen and never starts.

So I'm looking into that, but as I delve deeper, I'm thinking about how this is really just the same think as my computer at home, but with a big joypanel.

So I begin thinking. Why do I see so many people making their own bigass arcade cabinets for their Mame Arcades. With the world going smaller and flatter, and not to mention prices coming down for flat screens... but still high as hell for a low-res 27" CRT. I would think I would see more people making Flat panel arcade systems to save on space, but still have that arcade feel.

I figure that the main reason is the "classic" feeling of a true arcade and perhaps the restoration of old machines that have a working CRT. But I don't suffer from that problem, as I think the less room it takes up, the better. Especially after moving my brothers Time machine up and down his basement stairs.

So are there more people making LCD based arcades now? I have a design in mind for making my own arcade, but it would basically be a panel with a flatscreen, mounted on a thin rack-style VESA mount, allowing me to range my monitor size from 19" monitor to a 60" HDTV with a few screws. The Marquee would be optional, and rest above the monitor on the same VESA rack.

I'd also probably put more than just games on it. Jukebox and Video player comes to mind of course, but also I think I'd like internet access and browser on it, perhaps a fold down joypanel to convert it into a normal TV to watch cable on, and I think if I used Windows, I'd have a way of utilizing it to play other games like Grand Theft Auto... basically making it an all-purpose unit.

Essentially the only "Arcade" thing would be the joy panel. The rest would be a Media Center PC.

So is the main reason for these arcade monstrosities the "Classic" feel & parts availability? or are there some other limitations I'm not seeing?

csa3d:
I'd say there are a few camps around here on the boards.  You have the folks who want nothing to do with new technology, and just want the preserve history and old memories.  These folks will only use original parts.  Then you have the middle ground people, who for various reasons, are ok with using a TV vs. a CRT, the controls don't necessarily have to be authentic.. they just want a cab that suits their budget and needs.  The LCD crowd I would say, has picked up steam as of late.  Maybe it's due to the ease of screen rotation, maybe the drop in price, and probably due to the fact the Knieval (board member) and a few others have been kicking out a bunch of really great looking thin cabs.

So my two cents is that it's a combination of believe, price-point, and tolerance to change.  ;)  Build what works for you.  I've seen great examples of all three categories mentioned above here on these boards.  Just be warned that no matter which crowd you join, you will make enemies!  :laugh2:

-csa

DssTrainer:

--- Quote from: csa3d on February 27, 2008, 09:07:16 am ---I'd say there are a few camps around here on the boards.  You have the folks who want nothing to do with new technology, and just want the preserve history and old memories.  These folks will only use original parts.  Then you have the middle ground people, who for various reasons, are ok with using a TV vs. a CRT, the controls don't necessarily have to be authentic.. they just want a cab that suits their budget and needs.  The LCD crowd I would say, has picked up steam as of late.  Maybe it's due to the ease of screen rotation, maybe the drop in price, and probably due to the fact the Knieval (board member) and a few others have been kicking out a bunch of really great looking thin cabs.

So my two cents is that it's a combination of believe, price-point, and tolerance to change.  ;)  Build what works for you.  I've seen great examples of all three categories mentioned above here on these boards.  Just be warned that no matter which crowd you join, you will make enemies!  :laugh2:

-csa

--- End quote ---

LOL thanks for the response. I figured there might be some old-school design mindsets... I will have to check out Knievals designs as well as he seems to be versed in the "thinner" side of arcading.

Thanks!

NoOne=NBA=:
I think the big thing keeping people from using old LCDs, vs. the old TVs and CRTs they are using, has been primarily the refresh rate.
The older displays couldn't display the graphics quickly enough to keep them from ghosting.
The thing that's been keeping use of new LCD displays down has been the price.
As the price has dropped, and performance has improved, people have begun using them more.

As a side point, cabinets don't HAVE to be huge to fit a 25/27" display.
I've got a Jaleco Pony sitdown cab that takes up less floor space with a 25" in it than my Vindicator machine with a 19" in it, both with two player controls on them.

patrickl:
The problem with LCD now is that they all seem to be going for widescreen. Almost everything above 20" is widescreen these days.

I had hoped the 24" 4:3 models would come down in price, but they seem to have disappeared.

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