THRobinson

Ya... though decisions like that are for both RaspPi and LaunchBox... though less with RaspPi becuase no PS2 games just PSOne. USB ports it is. ...and a 4:3 or 5:4 monitor. As cool/flashy as a big 24" Widescreen would look, I suspect I'd be looking at black bars on either side 99% of the time. Thanks

No worries... I remember conversations and avatars no problem, but names, I can't remember at all. I noticed that about N64 on the Pi... I never played an N64 (discovered women when that came out so gaming days were back-burnered for a while) but wasn't impressed. PSOne, was ok, not great either for the Spyro and MediEvil series... which I have to have because the nieces/nephews loved those games. How are the games like on an arcade build for stuff like God of War anyways? Now that controllers have those dual thumb knobs... will I be stuck needing a PS2 style controller to play PS2 games? I got a few of these off eBay for my original build idea, may put a pair under the monitor for connecting stuff like controllers and keyboards... though rather play an arcade machine like an arcade machine, not standing there with a PS2/3 controller in my hand.

Yup, I had that other thread looking for general feedback because debating between RetroPie and LaunchBox. Both have upsides and downsides... though, these are based on my limited experience with emulators. Though I'm sure a lot of newbies in my same situation. If I go LaunchBox, the cost goes up quite a bit from my $60CAD RaspPi to around a $300CAD used computer because as per the other thread, I'd be after a 3rd gen i5. Though, may be worth it simply because of the more modern games option, and LaunchBox is Windows based. I know Windows, I understand Windows... Linux frustrates me every time I have to deal with it. Because of that... despite extra cost, I am leaning towards the LaunchBox option. I will design the cabinet to hold a full motherboard and powersupply though, then regardless which way I go, it's future-proofed. RaspPi I may use for my original plan, make a game console. Then just buy those USB SNES controllers off eBay for $5 each. But ya... was me about specs... if I get a PC it'll be a 3rd Gen i5, 8GB ram, and either my GTX650tiOC card, or if the system comes with something better, that. Monitors so far (for sale locally) seem to be 1280x1024 5:4... I'm ignoring all monitors that don't have DVI/HDMI and response rates slower than 5ms. I don't want ghosting, or the added cost of an analog/digital converter.

I noticed that a few games were tall... was almost debating a widescreen and rotating it 90 degrees... I think some games like Pac-man were tall screens. But I think it would be the same as 16:9... such a low % of games would use it. God of War I managed to get working on my PC, just randomly played with screen settings and managed to get nice smooth graphics, but everything seemed slightly stretched and lots of the bad guys and interactive objects had a weird neon green glow/outline. I;ve since wiped out LaunchBox and RetroArch and started over again, haven't tackled PS2 yet but will try running 4:3 and see if helps. PC games... most games I play are BioShock, Borderlands and World of Warcraft... although I plan to have a pull out drawer for a keyboard to sit on, I can't see using an arcade machine to play games like those, especially Warcraft. Plus, my personal PC will be much better/more powerful so likely just use it for PC games. That's my thinking as well... 95+% of the games will be 4:3, plus it means a slightly narrower cabinet. I want to design something similar to classic arcades, but also slim and close to the wall because of space. I also don't want eyes like a pug... seen a few cabinets with 32" screens and look cool... from 10' away. From 2', that's gotta be hard on the eyes. Local guy (sorta local, I'm middle of nowhere so, 45min away is local) has an HP L1950g for $15CAD... 1280x1024, 5:4 (not 4:3), 5ms, 75hz, 800:1... spec wise, seems fine. Has DVI as well.

Been designing a cabinet for an arcade machine, still on the fence between RaspPi or LaunchBox... though finally getting some success getting LaunchBox working how I want on my PC... still sorting out some MAME and PS2 stuff though. Main debate is between ease of setup and cost. Either way, I need a monitor. Looking at used ones and was pretty gung-ho about a 22-24" Widescreen, but so far the games tested seem to be all 4:3 (makes sense given the age) and a 19" 4:3 monitor is the same height as a 16:9 23"... but of course, way way cheaper ($15CAD vs $80CAD). For those who have built cabinets... which way did you go? Widescreen? or the older 4:3? I would like to get the machine working with more modern MAME games and PS2 games... not sure if there are many games that 'need' widescreen. PS2 being 17yrs old, I assume many (all) games are 4:3. The MAME games I've gotten to work so far are pre-'95 games (all 4:3) but something like "Marvel vs Capcom 2" I can't get past the "loading" screen to know what aspect ratio it is. I don't think I'll have a lot of modern arcade games, haven't been to an arcade in over 10yrs so no idea what's out there, but definitely X-men and Streetfighter games. Too bad no vote feature on here... but anyways, just hoping for some feedback/insight. Thanks

Ya, I had no idea what it was but works pointed to the mame64.exe files... just for whatever reason, I have the controller turned on in the preferences, but once the games start, controller does nothing. That's my first thing to tackle. Software seems good... and I'm sure works great once I get it figured out. I'd like to try the full version and no issue paying for it, but seems silly to pay before I can get the basic version working first.

Well... made some progress. Basically, I had a pre-done image of retropie, grabbed the roms from that... apparently not as simple as that though. Spent hours last night, got some working through RetroArch. Watched a few how-to's that weren't too helpful, skipped a lot of information, but paused and read some setting in the background, setup my mame for the 2003 version and played Bad Dudes and Superman last night with the PS3 controller. Added in Capcom/Marvel and nope, wouldn't work at all. NES was fine. PCEngine not a chance. This morning I retried God of War and managed to get it running, played with the settings enough and got a good image... but a bit stretched looking and the enemies and some background images has a glowing green outline. So... wiped it all out and started over. Used THIS LINK for setting up MAME (focused on that for now) and it was a good tutorial, though the screen shot shows a " - nn.exe" at the end of the emulator path that mine doesn't have. Ignored RetroArch because wasn't finding it easier to use at all. Tested Bad Dudes and Superman again, and loaded right up. Except saying something about rom/chd needing dumped? I click the button on the PS3 controller to continue, but once started, no more PS3 controller. Tried an NES game, and loads fine, but again, no PS3 controller. Worked last night, worked to get past the "dump" error, so controller does work, but once loaded, it does nothing in the games. Any ideas? Why no PS3 controller? DUMP error? Green outlines is PS2? Also... the NES roms for example, on the RetroPie they (as are the MAME and all other games) are ZIP files... NEZ unzipped are .NES files... leave zipped? unzip? MAME I assume stay zipped, and the PS2 as I discovered need to be as well and as ISO files. Basically spent 6h yesterday and easily 8h today fighting on/off with this thing.

Finally got a few MAME games to work... Bad Dude and Superman. Mame_2003... put that in and seems to be working. Also got an NES game working which wasn't any trouble... MAME though, past 2-3h fighting with that thing and even then, 1 of the 3 games doesn't want to load. Question though, when I open it goes into a windowed mode... is there a way to make it go full screen while maintaining proper aspect ratio, and not see all the background junk, instead just black bars? or is that a Premium version thing?

Yes I understand, that's why I said "PS2 being 17yrs old or a Q9450 being 10yrs old, doesn't tell me if God of War will play or not" I also see on this site, a lot pf people saying stuff like a 3Ghz CPU, which is a bit vague because I can get a P4 3Ghz or an i7 3Ghz... I can upgrade the Q9450 to a Q9650 and have 3Ghz... or downgrade to an E8400 and still be 3Ghz. But ya, I know it doesn't matter if the CPU is newer than the system being emulated, that's why I'm trying to find out the min. required for GoW... GoW is my "Goal Game". Plus, I'm sure a good CPU needs to be matched with a GPU since I'm sure a lot of the more modern games are GPU dependant. In my case, I have a GT650Ti sitting in a box. Not sure if ideal or not... but I have it so, for now at least if I go this route it's what's getting used unless I get a good deal on a used PC that happens to have a better card. Found a decent priced used home built system, i5 3570k today... but bit too far to drive. But it's an option. Now that I'm home from work, I'll spend tonight figuring out this thing, hopefully play a MAME game tonight.

That would be for just STEAM games though correct? Well... soon as I said I need a few more freelance gigs a bunch just got handed to me, so now have the extra bucks for the budget, but no time. I'll keep poking around online for info, see if I can get things running smooth on my system first. Like I said, MAME starts to load and quits so, gotta get that working first. I'll grab Retroarch now and see how that works. Thanks for the feedback

So, probably a Q9450 would be fine for PSOne and older... Reason I'm asking about a Q9450 specifically is that my sister's system (that she and her family use) is a Q9450 and needs upgraded. If I was spending $X amount on parts, I'd rather upgrade her and use her old stuff if it worked for what I needed. But may not be the case. May have to up the budget a bit, get some more freelance gigs... I do graphic design work on the side, so, the project is also a design project thing for me, put those skills to use and make something pretty... I'll put the 'premium' stuff on hold for now until I sort out how to get this to work. Should be able to play most things on my PC, just gotta sort out the learning curve of using new software. System Specs: Asus H97-Plus | Intel Xeon e3-1231v3 3.4Ghz | 16GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 | Asus GeForce DUAL-GTX1060-O6G | Samsung 850 EVO 250GB Primary | Seagate Barracuda 1TB Secondary | EVGA SuperNOVA GS 650W | Corsair 300r Case | Win7x64 Pro

True... but a PS2 is now 17yrs old. So... processor wise, a Q9450 would be faster than whatever a PS2 had. Regardless... a PS2 being 17yrs old or a Q9450 being 10yrs old, doesn't tell me if God of War will play or not.

Thanks for the feedback... I knew about response time, didn't know about the input latency, I'll have to look into that. So PC wise for PS2 games, like God of War (loved that game) what specs would we be looking at? Would a Quadcore Q9450, 4GB ram and a GTX650Ti work? Searching around I see so many specs... people saying any DualCore will work just fine, and one guy with a Core i7, 32GB ram and an X-Fire GPU setup complaining it was still laggy. I'll probably have a couple of PS2 games installed, about 6 PSOne games (nieces loved Spyro) but mostly Arcade games from the 80/90s and of course the NES/SNES/N64/TurboGrafix16/etc... which I assume any quadcore will handle. I installed LaunchBox last night, then imported my MAME/Arcade library and when doing so I downloaded the Mame x64 app the installer linked to, then scraped for images and info... kinda like KODI I guess. So, I see some YouTube vids where the screens look really different. At about 3min50sec... what do I need to install to make the screen look like that? Also... so far nothing works. Only tested the MAME nothing else yet, and it was before work this morning so only played around for 20min. I copied the ROMS folder from my Pi over to my main PC's drive as a backup. I imported from the Arcade folder, and again, info scraped fine and everything but 1 seemed to import. When I click to play, it kinda darkens for a split second, says loading or launching (can't recall) and goes back to the main screen again. Hoping a simple fix? Is this something that's easier if I install RetroArch and use it with LaunchBox? Just testing on my main PC first... figured if I can get it working and I like it, then can make a decision of what to build... Win7 based cabinet, or a RaspPi cabinet... since depending on hardware, budget is a factor.

I've been using a RaspPi for the past half a year with a PS3 controller and RetroPie. I was going to build a game console, like an NES or PSOne etc... and make custom joytsick with arcade buttons etc... got most of the parts, but more I look at builds, the more I want a full size cabinet. And while searching, I came across LaunchBox... which I know, uses a regular motherboard, not a Pi. At that point now where I'm debating which way to go really, and had a few basic questions since I'm still researching a Windows based system vs RetroPie. I saw Launchbox on a YouTube video, and looked great, but also see stuff mentioned about bigbox, hyperspin, retroarch, attract mode... are those plugins? skins? different versions of a similar app? is ther a decent Wiki or something that lists all that stuff and what it's for? Does Launchbox come with all (or most) emulators already installed, similar to Retropie? If I wanted to play games from PS2, like God of War... what type of system specs would I be looking at? RaspPi was pretty good with most stuff but it only went so far... no PS2 games, and arcade games older than the early '90s. I'm not a gamer so, I'm not sure all what I'll be playing, but I know a few more modern titles for sure. Plus of course, all the '80s arcade games, NES/SNES/N64, Sega Systems, TurboGrafix16, etc... which I assume will probably play fine on a quadcore 4GB system with a decent GPU. I have a spare GT650Ti videocard I plan on using... nothing great but, I don't have the budget to build something like an i7, 16GB ram and a GTX1070 or something either. For a cabinet build, looking at something around 24" 16:9... would a TV or PC screen be better? 720p/1080p? Seeing that a lot of the under 29" TV's now are 720p... at 24" the 720p is probably good enough? Other concern is the response rate. For my PC, I made sure to grab something faster than 5ms, a lot of TV's I'm looking at seem to be around 15ms. I see a lot of builds with 32" TVs... any issues with stuff like ghosting? Main reason I'm asking is if not really enough of a difference to notice, I'll go for a TV simply because new or used, they seem to be cheaper than PC monitors once you hit 24" or higher. Will the Zero Delay USB boards work for the arcade buttons? I already bought the kit, for weeks I was planning the console RaspPi build... then of course, after I pull the trigger and buy stuff THEN I see this app and start rethinking it all again. Sorry for the noob questions, just looking for a bit of feedback to see which way I should go... once I start building, I don't want to re-rethink the idea again.