Building My Arcade Machine log

Optimus Prime

On another note i found this image online, it looks amazing in full rez and will go great with my illuminated blue buttons, I think its better than the space invaders one i was doing up. what you think?



Just need to marquee it up now, not sure what text to put over it? I generally dont like the idea of putting mame stuff all over it.. but dont want to call it Keiths Arcade either! what do you guys have on your marquees?

Myrddin

keithgeo wrote: »

Ok thats cool, but, take a look at this

http://www.arcademachines.ie/shopping/product_info.php?cPath=3_30&products_id=92

Now i cant see the back of this but im guessing there is nothing on the back? that this is basically just a door and you need to buy other parts for the back? like if i stick a coin in there im assuming it just ends up on the floor in the back of my cab?

Seems to be advertised as just a door, I think €40 is rich for that. Contact Mitch for a coin mech & door

nacimroc

Coin doors are crazy expensive considering what you get. You can get coin mechanisms cheap on ebay etc, but it is impossible to try find the right coin mechanism to match the right coin door.

I would also say try mitch. They would be heavy duty, long lasting ones he has as opposed to fleabay ones.

Optimus Prime

To match up with that image i posted above as the control panel i messed around in photoshop today and created a text style with similar colours to go over it. The text "Arcade" can be changed to anything really but so far i havent a clue what to put in there. This is what i ended up with anyways. Obviously this is a tiny version the actual one is huge, so some quality may be lost here.



I think along with the image above as the control panel, and considering my buttons are Blue lit leds i think this might turn out looking decent. Im out of ideas anyways so i think this is probably what ill end up going with. Will look nice with a backlight behind it id say.

Andrew76

keithgeo wrote: »

To match up with that image i posted above as the control panel i messed around in photoshop today and created a text style with similar colours to go over it. The text "Arcade" can be changed to anything really but so far i havent a clue what to put in there. This is what i ended up with anyways. Obviously this is a tiny version the actual one is huge, so some quality may be lost here.



I think along with the image above as the control panel, and considering my buttons are Blue lit leds i think this might turn out looking decent. Im out of ideas anyways so i think this is probably what ill end up going with. Will look nice with a backlight behind it id say.

I think that looks excellent! Ok you've spelt Arcade incorrectly but... ah just joking.
Really like the background image and the different shades of blue, and the word "Arcade" is perfect imo.

Optimus Prime

Haha im an idiot i actually spelled out Arcade about 3 times there trying to spot my mistake until i actually read the rest of what you wrote and realised you where joking!

Myrddin

keithgeo wrote: »

Haha im an idiot i actually spelled out Arcade about 3 times there trying to spot my mistake until i actually read the rest of what you wrote and realised you where joking!

I did the exact same thing...3 scans until I read on...damned Andrew76

Andrew76

Funny thing was I had spelt incorrectly as "incorreclty" so had to ninja edit. :pac:

Optimus Prime

Im starting to have some doubts about these illuminated buttons, will it look too much like a slot machine? Im thinking of buying normal buttons the same colour as the ball top. what do yous think?

Andrew76

Personally I wouldn't be a fan of illuminated or flashing buttons or joystick balls etc on a cab. They'd just make it look like a slot machine/jukebox as you say and possible take away from the center of attention the screen. Not sure I see the point of them on a cab anyway as your going to be looking at the screen most of the time not the buttons. Any lighting should come from the screen/marquee/coin door button if you have one.

Simpler the better I think. I prefer one colour for P1 joystick and buttons and then a second colour for P2 controls, then a different colour again for both start buttons so three in total. It's personal preference I suppose as you're the one who'll be looking at it most of the time.

Myrddin

Andrew76 wrote: »

Personally I wouldn't be a fan of illuminated or flashing buttons or joystick balls etc on a cab. They'd just make it look like a slot machine/jukebox as you say and possible take away from the center of attention the screen. Not sure I see the point of them on a cab anyway as your going to be looking at the screen most of the time not the buttons. Any lighting should come from the screen/marquee/coin door button if you have one.

Simpler the better I think. I prefer one colour for P1 joystick and buttons and then a second colour for P2 controls, then a different colour again for both start buttons so three in total. It's personal preference I suppose as you're the one who'll be looking at it most of the time.

+1

I 'd go with illuminated start buttons alright, but game buttons lit up would be too much of a distraction for me...

Optimus Prime

Thanks lads, I think your both right, looks like ive a bunch of buttons to buy! I think i will go with one and two player all the same blue colour though, if they are on that control panel image above i think any other colours might look out of place?

Andrew76

keithgeo wrote: »

Thanks lads, I think your both right, looks like ive a bunch of buttons to buy! I think i will go with one and two player all the same blue colour though, if they are on that control panel image above i think any other colours might look out of place?

Good point. I forgot about the background image, it defo has an impact on which colours to go with. Which image is going to be used as the cp background, the top one on this page? And the marquee is the one with "Arcade" written across it? I think the marquee one looks great. It's hard to get an idea of what the cp one will look like, it's not too "busy" is it? Will the controls get lost in that image? Do you want the controls to blend in without getting lost or do you want them to stand out a little bit?
Heh i'm posing more questions than answers!

Optimus Prime

haha yeh the marquee is the one with arcade on it the other one will be the control panel shaped a bit like this \____/ on the bottom. i think the blue ones the same colour as the ball top might be ok, because they are a lighter blue then the actual control panel. ill have a think about it. i definatly think the led ones are out the window though..


Off to the trading forum with my LED push buttons haha..:pac:

o1s1n

I also agree with the two lads on the bottons. It's a shame that you've already bought the illuminated ones. Ah well, if you ever want to build a slot machine... :pac:

Can you have the start button only illuminating when a credit has been inserted? That would be pretty damn cool.

ondafly

keithgeo wrote: »

haha yeh the marquee is the one with arcade on it the other one will be the control panel shaped a bit like this \____/ on the bottom. i think the blue ones the same colour as the ball top might be ok, because they are a lighter blue then the actual control panel. ill have a think about it. i definatly think the led ones are out the window though..


Off to the trading forum with my LED push buttons haha..:pac:

it might be possible to not wire up the power for the LEDs ? save you having to sell them on etc.

Optimus Prime

I know in mame you can tell it you have led buttons and it only powers on the buttons in use. eg streetfighter 2 would have all six lit up, but games like Donkey would only have the one button thats in use lit up. Overall though i think it would look too vegas with all the lights.

From what ive been reading you can power them off a floppy drive cable, its possible to just use the buttons on their own but i think that would just look like the leds where wasted and need to be replaced. i think ill just buy the happ buttons they are only 2 quid each on arcademachines.ie

Not sure about lighting up with a credit inserted.. thats sounds cool, ill have to look into that!

ondafly

keithgeo wrote: »

I know in mame you can tell it you have led buttons and it only powers on the buttons in use. eg streetfighter 2 would have all six lit up, but games like Donkey would only have the one button thats in use lit up. Overall though i think it would look too vegas with all the lights.

From what ive been reading you can power them off a floppy drive cable, its possible to just use the buttons on their own but i think that would just look like the leds where wasted and need to be replaced. i think ill just buy the happ buttons they are only 2 quid each on arcademachines.ie

Not sure about lighting up with a credit inserted.. thats sounds cool, ill have to look into that!

have a look here for Sanwa buttons - I bought them for my machine, and they are the exact ones used in arcades

http://www.arcadeshop.de/index.php?cPath=103_91&osCsid=c6638594a03f50170651ecd1a62629f9

Optimus Prime

Cheers, ill have to check the diameter of the holes in my panel now, because i already have the holes drilled and they might be slightly too wide? the ones i built it for had the screw on thing on the bottom.

ondafly

they come in 3 sizes - 24mm 30mm 40mm and just pop in place. I picked up a circular saw drill bit from b&q and literally just drilled each hole and popped the buttons in. simple as.

ondafly

heres a diagram of the 30mm

kevin2me

Hey Keith,

Great thread going on here,
i must put my 2 cabs on separate threads next week and start few threads.

Thanks I bought those chrome leds buttons off Keith
I used have a Button Kit with same buttons in Cocktail Cab below:
but only used 6 of 17 buttons, so have full set again now
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK0hzOA17WA

They lit up buttons to use per game, and when not in a game,
they do a show for u, diff sequences during boot up and in frontend.
Got an LED Board of gremlin solutions to do this.
So definitely do similar on upright cab.
Its 2 player with xarcade trackball in middle withs its own 3 buttons.
So ill maybe have it yellow red blue 2 times per player
and white LEDs across top of CP.

Best of luck below,
looking fwd to updates Mate,
Kev

PS I used flat drill bit 28mm for holes,
xarcade buttons fitting just right, but chrome ones didnt synch perfect bar top 2mm on them has counter sunk part thats wider tahn top,
but once tighten up underneath, its doesnt budge one bit, so thats handy out.
Also xarcade werent long enough for my 18mm MDF CP, where as had no such problems with chrome ones,
save me them getting a router

Optimus Prime

Thanks to Steve_SI I have all the themes and preview videos for Hyperspin setup now.

And with EnterNows help got a couple of those roms i couldnt get going working.

Tomorrow i start priming and painting the wood.

I created a menu theme for Hyperspin using the graphic im going to use for my control panel and marquee. You can have a look here if your interested.

MAME Theme

Also i created a Jukebox menu theme for hyperspin too. this one will use a video if you name if jukebox.flv and place it in the main menu\videos folder. Im trying to find a compilation video of music but cant seem to get one anywhere. you can download that here if you want it.

Jukebox Theme

Optimus Prime

Ive primed all the bits except the sides and control panel now, going to do them the weekend and let them dry out for a week, then next week light sand them and paint them black.

I also bought 12 Blue Happ buttons and 2 white one\two player ones off Gremlin solutions which have arrived to replace the light up ones i sold off. Of course they are a slightly different coloured Blue not to the Ball top on my joysticks which is annoying! But ill deal with that down the road.

Im going to rebuild the pc with windows 7 this week too, nearly there now, rolling on near 8 Months since i started this!

ondafly

keithgeo wrote: »

Im going to rebuild the pc with windows 7 this week too, nearly there now, rolling on near 8 Months since i started this!

it will be worth it in the end !

Optimus Prime

Ive a different pc setup now because the lag in Hyperspin on loading themes was really starting to annoy me!

I know have a dual core 3.0ghz pc with 8Gigs of ram and a 1gig graphics card running Windows7 64bit on it and its working great, no delay in the intro video or themes loading. (Thanks to Steve and Enternow for the help on this issue)

FYI if you are setting up hyperspin and have just rebuilt your pc, the keyboard buttons dont work right for some reason in Hyperspin until you install your sound card drivers. pressing esc to exit seemed to be just pausing the game until i realised it was in fact just not displaying the "yes, no" exit confirmation. when i installed the sound card drivers it worked fine. also to note when enabling game saves, when you edit the hyperlaunch.afk file dont forget to compile it aftwards or else you will spend a lot of time trying to figure out why the games are not saving!

So i think thats the pc side of things finally setup. It is possible to bootskin Windows7 easily enough, for now i just removed the default Windows7 bootscreen by editing the boot up options in msconfig. Its just a black screen at the minute, and i changed the logon screen to black too. It still says "welcome" and "Windows7" on the bottom when logging in and i dont think you can rid of that but at this stage ill leave it for now and look into it more later. I just hid the taskbar and desktop icons and have Hyperspin in the Startup folder.

I was going to remove the windows shell from loading in the registry and change it to hyperspin.exe but that creates another issue for me. My mini wireless keyboard that im going to use for the jukebox has volume controls on it, but if you dont load the windows shell then it doesnt allow you to change the volume as its loaded with windows. Doh, so hiding windows instead of stopping it completly seems to be the only way to go.

So just the practical things left now of Priming, Painting, assembling and wiring it all up. Maybe in another 3 months ill be finished! I have to order that artwork too.

Andrew76

I can't remember if you already posted the answer but did you find the exact cause of the lag? 8GB of RAM and a 1GB gfx card seems crazy just to run Hyperspin and Mame. Is the card just needed for Hyperspin and loading themes/vids?
I'm wondering how the Ultimarc PCI-e card with its 512mb will work with it.

Optimus Prime

Mame and everything else ran fine, just the video launching Hyperspin was jumpy and the theme loading too. I think it was down to the graphics card in the other pc to be honest, it wasnt great only a 256 or something. This one also has a bit of video memory too which could have helped. Also i noticed on Hyperspin, when you first install it no problems with the themes, BUT if you remove some of the emulators from the main wheel, ie your just left with two say MAME and a Jukebox, then it becomes very laggy. I think its because it repeats just those two, like you have on the wheel, mame, jukebox, mame, jukebox etc. for some reason it seems to cause an issue.

In Fairness, if i had issues with this pc with its 8gig of ram etc i would have smashed it off a wall haha.

Optimus Prime

Just a quick update on this.. finished the control panel, heres a couple of images..





Just have to order the art, finish the priming\painting, put it together, get a marquee light, and wire it up!!

Hygro

are you ordering the x-arcade artwork?