THRobinson

Funny you say that, because when I first tried RA....that's all I was trying. MAME's with years in the name.

I guess the next question is, in cases of ones like NES... is there a list of which are better or more commonly used? MAME... I have a 0.186 rom set, and a few CHD's (found a few Top 10 lists for CHD Mame's and just grabbed those instead of the full 550GB download)... so I suspect that will be straight forward, find the MAME core that says 0.186 and use that one. Not sure what's worse... at work right now, and unable to jump onto RetroArch and try this stuff out? or that my PC parts were delivered here and I can't build my system yet... the parts just sit on my desk, mocking me...

So... when you say 'cores' it's the same essentially as emulators correct? like an NES Core, SNES Core, Sega Genesis Core... etc? BigBox, not yet... been using the freebie LaunchBox so far, so a few things limited. Was about to buy BB when that contest popped up for a license so figured I'll hold poff a few weeks, just in case I win. But thanks for the info... didn't even think of that. My thinking was that 95%+ of everything I'll be playing will be 4:3 or those old tall MAME games... very little (if any) will be widescreen. Samsung's I got were $10ea, cost $12ea to repair... widescreen the same height would need to be I think a 24" so even used, woulda been a bit pricey. Used that money towards extra ram and cpu. If this works well, I'm pretty sure my "backup" Samsung will probably get turned into a single player table top for my niece. Though probably a RaspPi in her case.

DEMUL is what I have now... Seems to work pretty well, though still a few games I can't get running. If I remember, there was a SPAWN game for Naomi... not at home right now so can't remember but I think it was for Naomi. Missing files error.

It's well done though... that's why I figured the extra rendering might eat up some GPU resources or something. Well, I guess my weekend is now planned.

I haven't tried everything yet... and even then I only tried 2-3 games for each because was still learning how to make stuff work. Worst was NAOMI.... how's it with Retroarch? I haven't tried every system with DEMUL yet, just the NAOMI ones, and even then I have a couple that don't work well. Took a while to get PS2 working as well, God of War 1 and 2... PCSX2 worked, but was just random guessing to get a good image.

Neat, the overlay adds the curvature to the screen and edge shading to mimic a CRT? That's pretty cool... though gotta eat up some resources, no? I got a pair of Samsung 204B 20" 4:3 monitors a few weeks ago... both with bad capacitors, takes like 6min to turn on, and super dark. $10 a screen, and about $12 each for new capacitors and I soldered (with almost no soldering skills) new capacitors in and monitors look amazing! Best is... true 4:3 screen not 5:4 like most. So looking to go full screen with everything. But 1600x1200... so that 720p upscaling appeals to me a lot. Maybe when up and running I'll prefer the scanlines. Hard to tell looking at pics online vs playing the games.

Thanks guys... Like I said, I tried RA, but didn't do so well, but was also the first day or two of trying out a new system. I think I'll revisit RA again and give it another try. Also need to go buy some wood! Finally designed a cabinet I'm happy with. No idea about the paint though... was really eager to wrap the cabinet, until I got the quote for it. Ouch!

Ya, not really missing scanlines, or the hernia of trying to lift a 32" CRT by myself.

Nice... I'll have 4 AUX buttons on my build, definitely would want a combo setup to save/load.

Smooth... I'm old, I grew up with scanlines, I had enough with scanlines...

That was my next question, save states... some times I just wanna jump on and play for 10min and jump off again, but I don't want to play the same first 10min of games over and over again so saving is pretty important.

Parts just came in today for the arcade build. Upped my budget... I know it was recommended to get a 3rd gen i5 or better, also a lot of talk about at least a 3Ghz... decided that buying a used PC cost too much, because I'd be paying for a Case, PSU, HDD, etc that I didn't need. I bought an mATX board, 2x8GB DDR4 ram, i3-7100 3.9Ghz... then using my old 550w PSU, 1TB SATAIII 7200 HDD, and GTX650Ti OC. The 3D stuff is what I'm eager to see improved. Lots of the 2D stuff like NES/SNES that I see, usually just some overlay adding scanlines or something to the image which I'm not really into. I have a 20" 4:3 monitor to use, 1600x1200... so looking to make things smooth and crisp. So, retroarch is using 0.186... so my stuff should work (one problem I had was my old files, were random and no idea what versions) and I can upscale... that would be good. Fun seeing the old games again, but some don't seem to look as good as images I see online. Maybe that's why.

I tried Retroarch a while back, when I first started playing with LaunchBox, and at the time didn't see what the fuss was about... looked nice but, didn't find it very new-user friendly for figuring it out. Seen a few how-to vids since then that mention the same thing. I have had a lot of luck with the individual emulators though, finally think I have a grasp on MAME. I do see some mentions of Retroarch having some options for making games look better though? Not sure if upscaling, smoothing or what.... Seen a lot of posts about Retroarch vs Individual Emulators, but most responses were geared towards personal preference, having stuff all setup through 1 app, etc... what I'd like to know is 1) Can I make games look better with RetroArch? 2) For MAME, is there an advantage to use RetroArch (ie. making graphics look better) or since I've now gotten 0.186 sorted out, just use MAME/DEMUL for the ARCADE stuff, and RetroArch for the rest?

Ah... I was under 'other controls' and using 'power off' which wasn't doing anything.

This is where we can get creative, because you can get monitors that have the rotation part on the stand like my DELL has... Maybe a cabinet, side on a hinge and swings open. Monitor attached to the panel can slide out, rotate and slide back in... would have to be a square panel, and cable with 2' of slack. Or.... MDF panel, cut a circle out of it, then the rectangle out of that where the screen fits. Get some 1/8" MDF, cut 2 rings from that about an inch wide so that there is a 1/2" overlap inside/outside of the panel circle cut. Attach one ring to the front of the circle, attach the monitor to the back. Put into the panel and attach the second ring at the back. The rings will keep the circle from falling in or out, but will allow you to rotate the monitor. May need a small knob to get it to turn but, hey... that should work. And MDF if cut right would be smoother than plywood so should rotate. On the back add a few pegs to only allow it to rotate one direction and not too far. Add a small button to the side to toggle portrait/landscape. Wish I had thought of that before, but happy with the 4:3 I have.

Nice... and nice wood. Oddly where I am, all the places like Rona, Home Depot etc, once I enter in my postal code online, all the good plywood vanishes... including birch. Pine and spruce I think are my options, though I think one place sells maple. Not sure what a bartop would cost to wrap. Originally I was going to build a console, then it upgraded to a bartop, then figured why not make a big cabinet. Thinking was, if I had a tabletop, when not in use, I had no place to put it. If I made a full cabinet, I can add storage underneath, then I wouldn't need to store it, it would be storing other stuff. Of course, maybe I'll make a single player bartop with the extra screen I have. I gave up after a month of searching for a 4:3 monitor faster than 8ms, and finally bought an LG 19" 5:4.... literally an hour after I bought it someone posted a Samsung 204B 20" 4:3... then the next day someone posted 2 of them. And they were 1/3 what I paid for the LG. Bought 2 of them (one was sold of the pair so grabbed one from each seller) and sure enough both had the capacitor issues common with this screen.... dim screen, takes 5min to turn on, etc... but I risked it at $10 per monitor. Cost me $10/monitor in parts and I have virtually 0 soldering skills... took my time this weekend, and both monitors now work like new. I think I'll use one, keep the other as a backup for a while. The LG, now I have to sell.

So, how do you guys have the player buttons setup? 1 2 3 4 5 6

Debated that STEAM thing... started to look into it, then kinda forgot about it. Ah well... nieces/nephews seem eager to play it so, hopefully it gets some good use. I managed to (finally) sort stuff out. Finally clicked how it works, and managed to get MAME and a few CHD games and Naomi working. Though, when imported, I used that non-merged set that's around 125GB in size, and after importing, I chose to copy files to a folder to see how much transferred, it was under 15GB. Even then some not working (ie a SPAWN game gives me errors) and lots not scraping artwork. Next is to get premium, and/or bigbox... but they have a contest on now for a licence so, figured wait until that ends first.

Graphics is a bummer... I went to school for design so was looking forward to wrapping the cabinet, until I got pricing for it. Sides and control panel only.... no marquee or stuff around the monitor, and if I design it myself and apply it myself... still $400CAD to get printed out. I was hoping to grab an old PC on the cheap, but had so many people saying 3rd Gen i5 would be the bare minimum, that I ended up buying new. Used PC with an i5, mostly would have been paying for stuff I didn't need like the PSU, Case, GPU etc... and since rare someone sold stuff without those parts, well, was just as cheap to go new with warranty and more ability to upgrade. Plus, if this thing ends up gathering dust... I'll swap the guts to the RaspPi and sell it, use the PC guts to upgrade my sisters old Core2Quad.

That's a good idea... I wanted them on the front too but was worried about people leaning against them mid game and shutting things down. I may have to copy that idea. So, you have one to exit, one to enter the UI, and a pause... what's the 4th for? How does the save game stuff work with these? I was thinking Exit, Pause, Save and Load... in case playing something like Metal Slug and I don't want to start from the start again each time.

Not sure what the ultrimarc is, but assuming I don't have it. My OP has a link to the kit I purchased. Originally I was going to buy all the buttons and such separately, and I think it would have looked better that way too... but, going name brand the price after shipping and exchange was easily $100 more than the kit. Though will admit, part of me wants to sell the kit off on eBay or something and just get what I wanted originally, but, we'll see. I may build this thing and in 2 months never use it.

Nice amp... wish I had seen that before I ordered mine. I went for one of those eBay amps and I have an old 19v laptop power supply that I can use for it. Was on a DIY audio site and people said they're actually pretty decent little amps, so for $12 I grabbed one... though Hong Kong so still waiting. At a garage sale a few weeks ago, someone had a pair of Sony surround speakers (not sure what happened to the other 3.1) but they're pretty decent looking, massive magnet on them, 3-4" in size. Basically dismantled the housing and kept the guts. Haven't tested though... waiting for that amp. PC wise... I opted to up my budget a bit and bought a new board/cpu/ram. mATX board, didn't really see the need to go full size. ASRock board, never used ASRock, always used ASUS the past 12yrs because always had good luck with them. Hopefully the board is good. I didn't go i5, just outta budget, but did go i3-7100 3.9Ghz and used a bit extra towards getting 2x8GB dual-channel ram. Rest will be my old parts... 550w PSU, fans, 1TB SataIII 7200rpm drive, GTX650Ti-Boost, etc... idea being that in a few years if I'm using the cabinet a lot, I can find used upgrade parts like an i5 and a GTX1060.

I was wondering if a way to set the bios for that, CPU/RAM comes this week, so never bothered to open the box yet apart from making sure not broken (UPS here is brutal) I plan to have a master switch at the back, basically wire the inside like a house.... line in goes to a switch, switch goes to a receptacle box. Then plug in a surge protected power bar to that and everything plugs in to it. So... how do you have your buttons setup/assigned? My basic layout (not to scale yet, gotta do some measuring) will be like in the image.

Finally got most things sorted out, decided to go Launchbox over RaspPi, have some computer parts on order and some hardware. Buttons wise, I went for a kit and the seller was nice and threw in an extra coin button. Kit was for 8-buttons per player but only using 6. So, plan is.... each player has the joystick, 6 buttons, a Player 1 or 2 button, and a coin button. I read that it was a good idea to have about 4-buttons for admin stuff, which is what I plan to do with the 4-buttons I have left over in the kit. Questions are 1) What do most people have the 4-buttons assigned to? EXIT I assume would be one of them. 2) Do I need any more buttons? Realized this morning, I totally forgot about a power-on button for the PC. Which is why I decided to post, see what people have setup on theirs, and if I forgot any more buttons.