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kadrik0

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I’m thinking about swapping out my lcd mame cabinet for a crt cabinet. I’ve quickly learned I prefer the older games and love playing on a crt (pvm), supergun, and arcade controls. Before I start buying anything in 3 months I want to ask a few questions. Some of this is preference and others are just asking what works best.

1) If you are only going to get one which candy cabinet would you get? I’m leaning towards a blast city, aero city, or an egret. This will be used with a cps2, mvs, and groovymame setup so 31hz is a plus. Trying to get a 29” monitor witha 2 person 6 button cp.

2) Does anyone have a measurement of any of the above cabs with the cp off? Have to get through a 30” doorway.

3) I live in Missouri so candy cabs are hard to find. I know I could rent a vehicle and go to a coast but any recommendations on sellers who ship candy’s. Thought about coinops but seems very risky for one cab.

4) Probably going to put it together but has anyone tried arcade-one’s prebuilt hyperspin drives? He has a new one that is for crts only and was curious if anyone actually tested it.

5) Is groovymame worth it? I have real hardware with darksoft kits but everything I’ve seen with groovymame and other emus with crt driver looks awesome.

6) On the j-pac with a groovymame setup do you recommend plugging the vga directly into the j-pac or cab? 15 or 31hz?

7) With a j-pac any cheap but safe options for amplifying sound and how to do it? This is one part of the puzzle that keeps getting skimmed over in the how to videos but still unsure how to do it. Do I need an adapter to switch it to mono?

8) Any recommend chairs for a candy cab? I found a few low circular ones on ebay.

9) I don’t think I can do it since they are different jamma standards but can I hookup a mvs and cps2 to a jamma switcher? Any chance of having a j-pac, mvs, and cps2 on a 6 switch jamma switcher?

10) If it is possible to use a switcher is there an easy way to wire in the 4-6 buttons. Wondered if there was an adapter board I can use so I don’t have to rewire when changing boards. I thought about wiring something with a vga switch box.

Thanks for the help.
 
If you are good and familiar with PVMs quality then you need to stay away from trisych arcade monitors like on Blastcity.. I would advise a 15/24khz only.. personally I would go for an Aero city if you can find one (I think KC said he is getting some soon) since it has been reported that you can put in a domestic WG25" arcade monitor..

JPac - audio is a mistery as well, you need to connect the Audio cables to the JPac and have an amp or just bypass the cab and get an external amp and connect it to the speakers and the amp to GroovyMame directly.. there was a post here a while back of a site selling a Mini PC with a JPac and GroovyMame but not roms ready to be plugged and play..

As for GroovyMame - in my opinion, yes it is that good.. if you are a PCB purist your opinion will be different. The only PCB that I would not GroovyMame completely is the CPS2/NEOGEO because those are my favorite systems but I use multis for those.

Edit - the colors quality in PVMs are great for 15khz games.. the trisync arcade monitors do not do such as good job with 15khz colors.. the one on the NNC is supposed to be good with colors but I have not had one side by side to compare.. if the monitor that you choose has a direct VGA plug I would connect that directly to the PC.. I have had a lot of JPac setups and never had a problem over jamma only and connecting the PC to the JPac directly..

Another note that relates to me only since you mentioned 29" monitors is what you are looking for.. in the past I would not look at an RGB or arcade monitor smaller than 25" but now my eyesight prefers 17-19" monitors over the bigger monitors due to the amount of light coming from the CRT and the smaller pixels which make the games look sharper and clear. Hopefully you are young and don't have that issue:)
 
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1. The best answer is the one you can find, heh. If you want tri-sync though Blast City is probably your best bet as far as ease of availability. Aero City is not only 15khz only, it's a smaller monitor, doesn't sound like you really want one of those. Also the control panels are way too cramped for 2 player, I'd only use Aeros for single player or linked cabs myself. I personally think Astro City is the best all around cab for new buyers just because they're reliable and have the best parts availability since they're common. And a sexy classic, not any compromise.

2. Astro City is just shy of 30 inches wide, like 29.5, not sure if a Blast is really wider or not.

I don't do MAME or switchers, can't help with those questions. I think the general population here isn't particularly big on emulation, it's an original hardware crowd. I personally think it's not worth it to try and do a jack of all trades cab. Old games look better on dedicated 15kz monitors.

As for stools, if you want legit Taito stools and don't mind spending a little there's a great import deal over at Arcade Otaku where you can get 2 instead of the usual box of 5 you have to import:

https://forum.arcadeotaku.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=39231&sid=b0fd9973848bad5940f3eb88ec14eb23
 
An Aero City is not a 29" monitor first of all.

Secondly the cab will fit a WG monitor, but horizontally will need modifications to the frame holes.

Third, you're probably not going to find a cab locally, so whatever you decide on, add $500 on to then price for shipping.

Fourth, a JPac isn't going to handle the conversion of 31k to 15k, so whatever Mame PC you build will require either a crtemudriver compatible video card or one of the arcadevga cards the ultimarc sells.

My advice is a New Net City with a Toshiba Monitor.
 
As for GroovyMame - in my opinion, yes it is that good.. if you are a PCB purist your opinion will be different.
I'm only a purist when frame perfect and exact speeds really count. Fighting games mostly. Emulation is great. But I think if you set up a cab to be good with it you're compromising things that make the original PCB experience so good, and it's not worth it to try and have both in one cabinet.

CRTs, PCBs, all the stuff we love here, are honestly a giant pain in the ass. I personally think it's all worth it, why I have so many cabs, but I wouldn't feel the same if I didn't get the "whole experience". Once you start settling you might as well just stick with emulation and LCDs and make your life easier. That's just me though.
 
Well, of the three you mentioned the Blast is probably your best bet. It's 29", has an audio amp built in, plays nicely with PC's over a VGA cable, and is tri-sync.

Aero don't support 31k, aren't 29", and don't have an audio amp.

The majority of Egret 3 have a monitor of questionable quality (they come either with a Wei-ya chassis or a Toshiba one, and the large majority have the Wei-ya). They are tri-sync, but more expensive than the blast and again most of them have a meh PQ. They're a bit of a die roll. Get a good one and great. Get an eh one and you'd have been far better off with the Blast.

Egret 2 are not 31k nor do they have an audio amp either. So that misses most boxes.
 
You can use GroovyMame at 15k by the way, in case you weren't aware. It involves doing a bunch of switching around VGA ports on your GPU for the initial setup and some firmware patching to ensure it boots in 15k as well, but it's definitely possible and would be the best way of doing Mame in a candy cab.
 
Since you are coming from an RGB PVM environment I would not recommend a Blastcity.. trust me here, I have two Blastcities and when I compare the colors to an RGB monitor there is no comparison and the colors look washout on the blast when compared to a PVMl5/NECs etc. With that said, the Blastcity physically is the best looking cab that I have had and the better all around to my eyes but I don't like the monitors colors for 15khz stuff..the NNC might be what you are looking for but to my eyes that cab just looks like an ugly duck and I can not stand the looks of it.
 
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SNK...wanted to chime in here, and say that the 15khz on the Sanwa PFX's that got picked up recently, is easily on par with a Nanao Ms9, or some of the other, highly vaunted 15k monitors....it really is stunning running cps2 on my AWSD cab....
 
Glad to hear:) I was going to pickup 3 of those Sanwa PFX but the seller said that they don't quite fit the Blastcities and that there would be a gap something to do with being pure flat..

Right now big monitors are not my thing so I am keeping my eyes open on that mini cute repo project because I can get two and put 19" arcade monitors and I would be good to go.
 
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See...exact opposite here...should have sold my Star Trek Pinball, and bought all the monitors Mylstar had. I don't really care about the gaps...they are so pretty to play on, no one else that came over would have cared either.

I've got one 19 in the garage, as a backup to my roadblasters monitor....and that's all I should need. If I find one more, clean...i may jump...but for now...its 27" or bust.
 
7) With a j-pac any cheap but safe options for amplifying sound and how to do it? This is one part of the puzzle that keeps getting skimmed over in the how to videos but still unsure how to do it. Do I need an adapter to switch it to mono?


9) I don’t think I can do it since they are different jamma standards but can I hookup a mvs and cps2 to a jamma switcher? Any chance of having a j-pac, mvs, and cps2 on a 6 switch jamma switcher?

10) If it is possible to use a switcher is there an easy way to wire in the 4-6 buttons. Wondered if there was an adapter board I can use so I don’t have to rewire when changing boards. I thought about wiring something with a vga switch box.

Thanks for the help.
7 - Hopefully Im understanding this question correctly. If you want to connect jamma audio for the cab (or only direct from jpac board) to powered speakers or to an amp, you can use a line out converter (aka high/low converter). https://www.crutchfield.com/S-aaQm5caPjEe/learn/what-are-line-output-converters.html
First wire up the jamma harness (or jpac) speaker lines to the converter, then connect rca cables between the converter and the amp/powered speakers.
Here is an example LOC option (there are cheaper ones) that also comes with a really handy extension volume control that can be run to the outside of a cab https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LIAHSM4/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
61tUTRoV6%2BL._SL1000_.jpg
51ov9e6r4RL._SL1000_.jpg
81RMge9wJRL._SL1500_.jpg

Keep in mind audio amplification in this case will also amplify any line noise, so you may increase static

*If you have multiple RCA outs (both CPS2/JPAC > AMP > Speakers) , you will probably also want to look into a sound mixer that does multi rca in to single rca out, or an audio selector switch. That way you wont have to keep swapping out the rca cables when you switch jamma inputs

9. - Have a MVS MV1C, CPS2, CPS1, and Naomi hooked up to a 6 in 1 and it works no problem. Would think JPAC should work as well if added to the mix (have one somewhere maybe can test if I can find it). Someone more technical may have some experience into the dos/donts specific to a j-pac, only think i can think of is monitor sync could possibly be an issue but will let someone else weigh in

10. - Mitsurugi-w has a kick condenser board post for unsassembled units, you could check to see if he still has some. you would need to put together your own cables as well Capcom CPS1/2/3 kick harness condensers
qy9zl3.jpg


or if you want a pre-assembled solution RiddledTV from KLOV sells these multi fighter condensers on his site along with pre made cables. Have one of these and it works really well. Provided him a list of boards was going to use for the cables, this one supports CPS and Midway pinouts https://riddledtv.com/arcade/condenser_boards.html#MultiFighter
MultiFighter_200.jpg


*If you need a 6 in 1 switcher, the one RiddledTV makes is really good quality, includes -5v in case you have Midway boards like MK, unused jamma slots can be disabled a dip switch, by and you can swap jamma slots by holding down 1p/2p https://riddledtv.com/arcade/jamma_switchers.html#6way
 
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Thanks guys for all the help. The above tips helped me a lot.
 
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