DIY Arcade Machine

HerculesAp · January 14, 2019

Hello Everyone.

As from the title, I want to build an arcade emulator. However, I do not want to build the Cabinet itself right now. I want first to build the core, the machine itself.

What I have: an old pc (windows 10) working nice and smoothly! Internet connection to download anything I have to, some money to buy a joystick or two and any necessary cables.

What I want to do is: When I power the PC i want it to load the emulator and there I can navigate nicely to whatever game I can play! I wish to do this with MAME (i doubt I can do that with WinUAE, but if yes that is awesome).

Anyone here who has done this, or has a nice tutorial with quite a bit of details and clear steps I would love to hear about it!

Thank you!

P.S: I watched the video from Linus, but that was more like a journey of how they did it, not an actual tutorial.

Taswell · January 14, 2019

@HerculesAp

I built one last year. Its not super hard, to build an emulator box. The hard part for most people is getting everything to startup without user input, getting a ROM library that works, and getting the front end to acknowledge that library. This is not an easy project and requires lots of time and money.

Im not going to go into detail since i would be here all day. Do it your own way its your project not mine.

1:)Start with getting a version of MAME and a library that works

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2:) Find a front end you like

there are only 3 well known and documented front ends on windows (from least work to most work- I have used all 3)

BIG BOX - plug and play mostly, Free game DB Media finder, cookie cutter setup

Maximum arcade - indie made version of big box, cheaper but not as automated, looks kinda like retro pie
HYPER SPIN - free, Complex, many hours of learning required, Be prepared to put in days of setup, but you can tweak anything you want

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3:) start working on getting everything working without a keyboard or mouse before you go shoving the system into something

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4:) work on automating start up and application launching and closing, You can go full Kiosk mode on windows and lock down everything - disable explorer and all that, but i just throw the stuff I want to launch in the windows start folder. Its slower but its easy to work on when shit crashes.

Windows registry auto login - just google it

Joy2Key -emulate keyboard shortcuts and keys for media controls and such

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5:) now you can go shove it in a cabinet- treat this as a separate project. (Mine is a Table Top with custom set of Vinyls on it)

there are 4 sizes Full, 3/4 scale, tabletop, Cocktail, and some special cases like Wallcades. Pick one based on your budget or talent with wood

Stuff needed for cabinet

Speakers/AMP

Control panel buttons/Sticks

Mounting hardware for sticks

Monitor

T molding if you want it

power strip

Switches and buttons ,for power switches and such

Marquee supplies, Lights,holders ( I have some white cold cathodes from an old build and tin foil)

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markr54632 · January 14, 2019

What do you want to accomplish? For older arcade games the arcade1up cabinets can be had for around 200. Get cheap usb encoders for the controller. Get a cheap knock off set of sticks and screw buttons and a raspberry pi. The included LCD can be used with a cheap 20 dollar display controller. There are plenty of how tos for this cabinet on YouTube.

If you dont like that idea cruise craigslist and see what cabinets you can pick up dirt cheap. Nothing needs to work. Replace the screen and insert the same parts list as above.

mariushm · January 14, 2019

You can buy cheap 17"-20" LCD displays refurbished or used, and those usually come with VGA at minimum, and if you're lucky DVI or HDMI (you can use a 1-2$ passive dvi to hdmi adapter to convert the dvi on monitor to hdmi if needed)

For example Newegg has monitors with 1280x1024 or higher from 30$ : newegg link

Just check the grade, buy B grade (minor scratches on plastic, maybe 1 dead pixel or something like that) or better. C grade are often with scratches on the glass or multiple stuck or dead pixels, or they don't have the monitor stand (which you won't care about but still).

Anyway, the point is you can open it and remove the plastic case and you have the actual lcd panel and the power supply on its back and that's all you need.

There's also a benefit with resolutions like 1280x1024 or 1440x900 because they're close to 4:3 so you can have console games that ran at small 4:3 resolutions scaled up by a round number (2x,4x,6x) without being stretched or distorted. For example, Nintendo SNES games are 256x224 and 512x448 so you can simply configure the emulator to do a x4 or x2 scale and you get 1024x896 (and you have some small black bars on top and bottom)

As for buttons the easiest would be to buy an existing usb based gamepad and simply open it up and solder two wires to each button traces and then install regular buttons on the case ... joystick's a bit more difficult and probably cheaper to just buy a ready made one.

HerculesAp · January 16, 2019

Taswell and marius thanks for the info!

Mark I am super confused by your post. What i try to accomplish is a DIY project with me using an old pc to turn into an arcade machine. Your post failed to provide me with any useful information. I want a DIY project, as said in title, if I wanted a ready cabinet I wouldn't be posting here. If you have any of those howtos on Youtube please send a link. I haven't found yet any informative one.

markr54632 · January 17, 2019

11 hours ago, HerculesAp said:

Taswell and marius thanks for the info!

Mark I am super confused by your post. What i try to accomplish is a DIY project with me using an old pc to turn into an arcade machine. Your post failed to provide me with any useful information. I want a DIY project, as said in title, if I wanted a ready cabinet I wouldn't be posting here. If you have any of those howtos on Youtube please send a link. I haven't found yet any informative one.

I should have read your post better. I thought you were looking more for an enclosure kit. The arcade1up kits are a very cheap premade cabinet with good aftermarket support. The cheap single core board can be replaced with an old pc, raspberry pi, or old laptop very easily.

This video was super helpful. Ignore the raspberry pi set up section and replace that with your old pc and front end of your choice. He covers basic setup of usb encoders, buttons, joystick. The section where he installs the LCD controller board can be used to use leftover displays from old laptops etc. The arcade1up cabinet can be replaced with anything even a cardboard box. The basic information there still holds true.