Build Your Own Arcade Kit

Shawn Walters writes "Xgaming, Inc., has announced availability of the new X-Arcade BYO Arcade KIT, a $60 solution designed to allow users to create an authentic arcade machine in their home powered by any PC, Mac or game console, no advanced technical skills required." Heck of a lot easier than building your own.

Comments

You'll also need ArcadeVGA

[tepples]

If you're trying to convert a standard JAMMA cabinet or a Dance Dance Revolution cabinet for use with a PC, notice that Most VGA cards can't easily output video at horizontal scan rates below 31 kHz, the scan rate of a 480p monitor. However, arcade monitors that follow the JAMMA standard expect RGB video at 15.7 kHz, the same as 240p or 480i TV. You'll need a special video card to handle this, namely Ultimarc's ArcadeVGA.

Re:You'll also need ArcadeVGA

[stratjakt]

Most ATI cards can, especially older ones based on Rage3D or early Radeons.

Luckily, these are the ATI cards that work well with linux. I'd suggest running linux with advanceMAME, or even X Windows with some custom modelines, because that way you can be sure that Windows won't accidentally try to set it to some bad resolution and as-plode your monitor.

Of course, every modern card comes with TV out, and for a homebuild cabinet, an $20 27" TV from the Sally Ann is as good a choice as a $900 27" monitor. If you have SVideo input, the picture will be just as good.

Frankly, I'd rather rebuild arcade cabinets as they are than shove a MAME box into one. It's just not the same. I'd rather have my dedicated Bad Dudes vs Dragonninja cabinet than something jammed with 2000000 mahjong variants. But then, I'd rather collect SNES carts than download roms. I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to retro-gaming.

Re:You'll also need ArcadeVGA

[enrico_suave]

you can use a TV out card with a Tv in your cabinet.

You'll probably want to go with svideo (as opposed to composite or coax *shudder*) connection to the TV.

If you want to use the original arcade monitor (which is similiar to a tunerless TV, with dangerous exposed innards --- except it uses RGB and sync connections) you can use an ArcadeVGA, an older card that'll clock down to 15khz and a VGA hack, or use ultimarcs J-pac jamma ready/capable encoder which slides into an arcade cabinets (well Jamma cabinets) jamma socket and again presuming a video card that'll clock down get you going with an existing cabinet/arcade monitor.

"Building" a Mame cabinet is no where as hard as it used to be because there's been great advancements in the mame cabinet building community, and a ton of support "niche" market providers to create products that make it really easy to convert an existing cabinet (or build your own)... hell there's even a book on the topic to step you throuh the process.

Project Arcade Amazon link with author's referral id

what was the question again? =)

e.

Re:You'll also need ArcadeVGA

[prockcore]

"Building" a Mame cabinet is no where as hard as it used to be because there's been great advancements in the mame cabinet building community, and a ton of support "niche" market providers to create products that make it really easy to convert an existing cabinet (or build your own)... hell there's even a book on the topic to step you throuh the process.

Yeah, it's not hard. I picked up Project Arcade from Barnes and Noble on a whim and then decided to build my own cocktail arcade. It wasn't that difficult. I spent $370 total.

Here's a couple of tips, first, using a keyboard controller for your input is neat, but very difficult to work with. Most newer PS2 keyboard "fix" the ghosting problem by failing to report the 3rd key in alignment. That means instead of ghost keys, you'll have keys that just don't show up.

Second, I had the idea, like many others I'm sure, to use a compactflash card instead of a harddrive. This was a bad idea, compactflash is just too slow. Advmame is 70 megs, it takes forever just to load that 70 megs into ram.

Third, for the love of god, use CAT5 for your wiring. At first glance you don't realize that each joystick is going to use 8 wires, and each button uses 2, and when all is said and done, you're going to have a clump of 80 wires that are difficult to manage.

Here's a nice little pricelist I compiled of my mame cabinet.

Finally, work out exactly how much of everything you'll need. It's pretty annoying to have to go to the store and pick up something you missed. You'll notice from my pricelist, there's the littlest things listed. I had to go to the store 3 times to pick up different sized wood screws, or a set of corner braces, etc.

Still gotta build it...

[Asmor]

All this is is a PCI card, from what I understand. I'm guessing it lets you wire the buttons and such to your PC and treat them as a game controller. Still gotta own or build a cabinet, which is either really expensive or really time consuming.

Re:Still gotta build it...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

It doesn't look like a PCI card. It looks like a signal interface or controller interface board.

Re:Still gotta build it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Please mod parent as wrong, wrong, wrong. Its a small board that has a ps2 port and serial connection on one end, and a bunch of screw terminals on the other to connect to a swath of buttons. At least read the pdf on the site. How this got 5, Informative destroys what little faith I had left in Slashdot.

The interface I used for my panel was a pair of 5 dollar 10 button USB joysticks. Rip out the usb interface, solder away. That's 10 bucks for 20 non-ghosting, plug and play buttons. Want another? Bust another 5 bucks. No dumbass keyboard hacking/matrix mapping needed. Won't necessarily work on DOS-based cabs, but most other OSs that would be MAME/emulator candidates love it. Those 10 buttons do not include the d-pad, which maps to the stick. That's enough buttons for: 6 button capcom layout, coin button, and start button. With two spares. There are no games in MAME that use more than six buttons for a player, no four player games that use more than four per player.
Before everyone goes, "HEY DUMBASS, WHAT ABOUT PS2!? THAT'S GOT LIKE A BILLION BUTTONS YOU RETARD!!", I refer you to the nice premade 10-20 buck PS2 to USB adapters that are made for nearly every console. Right tool for the job.

The only thing I think that is remotely interesting about X-Arcade sticks is their modular interface to other consoles. Else, I would stick to Happs. Figuring you saved all that money on the interface, splurge a little bit on the part you'll be touching you cheap bastard!

Re:Easier than building?

[shoolz]

What they are selling is essentially a 2 player X-Arcade joystick, minus the wood box to hold all the components together.

Board 59.95 + Joysticks/Buttons 19.95 + PC Adapter 19.95 = $99.85 VS. Buying it pre-assembled and paying $149.95

And as for quality... I have an X-Arcade and I have beaten the stuffings out of playing SF-style games and Metal Slug 1-5, and all the components still work perfectly after a year of abuse.
When I originally bought it, I had concerns about quality and switch life, so I ordered 20 extra buttons and 2 extra joysticks... and they all sit in their unopened packages because I haven't had to replace one yet.

*shakes head*

[enrico_suave]

I suggest Ultimarc's ipac encoder or groovy game gears Key Wiz which is what I used in my mame cabinet, fwiw.

and you'll want the obligatory (and sadly missing from the main post) link to Build Your own arcade controls site and very helpful forum/community

Although I used x-arcade parts on my cabinet, I think you'll be happier in the long run if you order from happs directly or buy happs parts from bob roberts.

e.

Re:Still Need a Cabinet

[Cymage]

If you are looking for just a cabinet then you should go to your local arcade auction...I got mine at an auction here in Atlanta run by super auctions.

Speaking of eBay, I will be putting my completed mame box up for auction later this week. If you are interested, let me know and I will send the eBay link to you. (If you don't want to go through eBay, I can send pics of the box and sell it direct).

Depends on the card

[tepples]

Some older VGA cards will clock the RGB output down to TV rate (which is what you want) in TV-out mode because they're running both the TV output and the VGA output off one RAMDAC. However, newer VGA cards with TV-out have dual RAMDACs, which scan the screen at two different rates. The VGA signal is too fast, and the TV signal is composite or S-video, which will only look black-and-white because most arcade monitors don't have a decoder.

Or you could get an actual TV and connect it to the TV-out, but then either you miss what's in the overscan portion of the display, or more commonly the video card shrinks and blurs the display to fit within the overscan.

Re:Easier than building?

[enrico_suave]

the quality isn't quite as good as happs stuff.

They use cheaper generic microswitches wich are clickier/louder and perhaps feel "different" in both their joysticks and buttons (as opposed to the cherry "nike" of microswitches).

The plastic on the buttons is thinner/cheaper.

They function the same, and are "arcade quality" but when I play something demanding like "track and field" on my cabinet, I kinda wish I upgraded to happs buttons. (or swap in some better microswitches)

Of course, for true nostalgic action (Dependingo n your age) you'll want only leaf switch joysticks/buttons that require periodic adjustment and contact cleaning =)

*Shrug* ymmv

rampy

Ok now read it again

[portwojc]

Look at it again. It's a lot more than just what you see.

It also brings your control panel compatability
with

Playstation One or Playstation Two
Xbox
Gamecube
Dreamcast
Apple

and your PC

A normal key encoder can't do this from what I have read.

I-PAC Anyone?

[TekMonkey]

The I-PAC interface from Ultimarc has been the long-time favorite of builders of MAME cabinets. They offer a 28-input interface for $40 and a 56-input interface for $65. That saves you $20 on what looks like is the exact same thing. Although, I had considered buying one of the X-Arcade two-player setups, because my soldering/electronical skills aren't great. If anyone can find a cheaper or more authentic one that can hook up to the PC easily, direct me to it.

Re:Slashdot: Advertising

[OldMiner]

This gentleman is a troll. He's referencing an April Fools' story from a couple years back, intended to be ridiculous and poke fun at such buffoonery. Any time a product is mentioned in a /. story, there are boobs accusing the editors of accepting paid advertisement. Let's face it: almost any news story is going to be potentially beneficial to some businesses. Sometimes, more than others.

Re:Still Need a Cabinet

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.arcadeshopper.com/emulation/ for cabinet kits

I had an X-Arcade Controller

[bigtallmofo]

I returned the X-Arcade two-player controller that I purchased. The joysticks are very low quality. They advertise that they're 4/8-way switchable (you NEED a 4-way joystick to play PacMan or ladder-type games like Donkey Kong or Burger Time) and I found the response of the 4-way mode far less than ideal.

As others have pointed out, Ultimarc is the place to buy the I-Pac to interface to your computer. The joysticks that Ultimarc sells are much higher quality (and the E-stick is high quality and super easy to install to boot!).

I honestly wouldn't buy anything from X-Arcade again. I thought their quality was very low.