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Not a big fan of pre-JAMMA games. Don't like the hassle of setting them up, and honestly don't enjoy /most/ of the games' gameplay. But there are a few games I'd like to own, and almost all of them are on the 60-in-1 (Congo Bongo, Zaxxon, and DK3 are favorites). About the only other vertical pre-JAMMA titles I can think of I'd like is Super Zaxxon.

I remember people saying that one of these multiboards is actually good, and I think it was this one?

https://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/store.pl?sku=60IN1PCB
 
I have that at my work in the breakroom in a cocktail setup.

It's not too bad - although they have modified all the games to take some things out of the home screens (presumably so they could say it's not the original game)... nothing that messes with gameplay however.

The only real issue I have with this is that the sounds for Gyruss are god-awful, makes the game unplayable IMO.

But for the rest - DK, pacman, mspacman, zaxxon, scramble, all pretty decent - especially for the price and its truly plug and play.

Matt
 
There are a couple things I really like about the iCade 60 in 1

1. It can save high scores for all the games. I don't think the initials are saved, but I know the scores are.
2. It can operate in single game mode. You go into the service menu and disable all but one game. Doing so enables it to display the attract mode of the game, 2 players can play, and normal game continuing is possible. It also boots very fast in single game mode.
3. Over all, to me, it does not feel like an emulation board and runs most of the games very well (Some may comment on sound, but I have not had many issues)
4. Speed and game hacks - There are speed and other hacks that can be enabled for some games. For example, Pacman and Ms Pacman have speed hacks and can change dots to hearts. Galaga has a bullet speed hack. Dip switch settings are changeable and store for each game.

So, for the money, it is a killer value and well worth the purchase.
 
I got one off ebay for vertical stuff, and its a great bang for the buck. Very finicky with power, and you can use it vga or cga. I mainly bought it for Ms Pac man and DK3.
 
But for the rest - DK, pacman, mspacman, zaxxon, scramble, all pretty decent - especially for the price and its truly plug and play.
I'll have to pull my board out of a box and verify, but I remember DK having scratchy sound for Mario's walk. Also, Time Pilot's audio was pretty garbled as well.
 
I wonder if there's a workaround that could be done to improve the audio on some of these games. Kind of like how there are fixes for the 161-in-1 MVS cart.
 
I've heard the iCade 60 in 1 has some input lag issues and the sound quality isn't the best.

Most of the classics guys on KLOV swear by ArcadeSD (Emulation based with games loaded on an SD card) and the Bit Kit (FPGA based) as the only multi games worth playing. They're both community created devices as opposed to a Chinese cash-grab so there's at least some desire there to make it accurate.

The cost of the Arcade SD and Bit-Kit is quite a bit higher than the 60-in-1 and the supported games list has a lot of overlap with the 60-in-1 but there are some games that the 60-in-1 has that the others don't have.

ultimately it comes down to what games you want to play and how much accuracy in the emulation you're willing to pay for.
 
Hmm. Bitkit doesn't have anything I'm interested in on it at all except Pengo (which is on both other boards).

ArcadeSD however adds in Super Zaxxon, Bagman, and Super Bagman to the lineup. But has "Popcorn music" Pengo instead of just Pengo? Also adds in a bunch of horizontal games. It seems like the best option, and if it's highly regarded I'll go with that one.

$300 is less than I'd pay for two of the games anyway, so it still seems super reasonable to me.

I know I could setup yet another MAME setup, but I'd rather just have something I can toss in the cab when I want to, and pull out when I don't want to use it. MAME is cumbersome and takes up a cab somewhat permanently.
 
@brentradio is big on these things you you might want his take on it too. He's the one who encouraged me to design cases for both the Bit Kit and Arcade SD

You could also go with a JAMMA Pi board or something too.
 
You could also go with a JAMMA Pi board or something too.
I've had nothing but bad experiences with Pi's and MAME.

But I super appreciate the help, and hopefully brentradio will chime in too :).
 
I'm not super keen on the Pis for emulation either, the more I look into the the more problems there are with it.Personally I have a MAME PC with CRT_EmuDriver in an old Nintendo cab that I use for classic games but I did spend a little time with both the ArcadeSD and Bit Kit and both of them are pretty neat little devices. You can tell they were built by KLOVers as they don't have the typical stink of the normal X-in-1 Chinese shovelware. Most notably they seem to aim for quality emulation on each game over quantity of games they can shove on the device.
 
Damn all of you - I didn't know the ArcadeSD even existed.... now I will probably need one....
 
@twistedsymphony, yeah. I have a MAME setup in one of the Vewlixes, and another in one of the candies (not easy rotate) with CRT_EmuDriver, so the vertical 60-in-1 was really appealing since I wouldn't need yet another setup for vertical games.
 
Did I hear my name?

:D

I'm far from an expert on any of these, I just like to have MORE GAMES!

I own the following:

I-Cade 60 in 1

ArcadeSD

BitKit

Arpicade

Each has it's own good/bad, so hear goes.

I-Cade 60 in 1 - Cheapest option by far. Vertical only. Good selection of games. No high score save. Some games to have bad/scratchy sounds or other minor problems. But if you just want to play the games then this is fine.

ArcadeSD - Expensive, and no more games will be added. Has a great selection of games, both vert and horz. Great menu. No screen flip option. High score save is iffy, not 100%. If you paid for and own one of these, you will most likely be happy. Cool 3D printed case available from TwistedSymphony.

BitKit - Cool kit, not too expensive. Not a lot of games, but more are being added. Vert games only. Nice menu. Saves high scores. For what it is, I really like this kit. Cool 3D printed case available from TwistedSymphony.

Arpicade - Medium price range. Tons of games. Vert and Horz available. I have a Vert MicroSD card and a Horz MicroSD card for this. Gameplay is fine, basically just mame. Nice menu.

If I were to buy only one of these kits, I would go with the Arpicade setup from highscoresaves.com just for the fact of all of the games you can play. I purchased mine with the pi included and both the SD cards. I did go through every game on the cards and removed the ones that wouldn't load. (not sure why they are on the card in the first place). But now that that's done, I really like this kit. Like I said, tons of games.

Hope this helps!

:D
 
Hey @brentradio - for the ArcadeSD, you say no screen flip option - do you mean in cocktail mode player 1/2 doesn't flip?
 
Hey @brentradio - for the ArcadeSD, you say no screen flip option - do you mean in cocktail mode player 1/2 doesn't flip?
Nope, I mean if you install this in your cab and the monitor is upside down, there is no way to flip the screen to be right side up in the menu. This mainly affects the Vertical games. The Horizontal games seem to be in the normal monitor orientation for a normal jamma pcb. But the Vertical games are opposite of most normal jamma pcb's. So if you have a Horizonatal cab, then you will be fine. But if your cab plays most jamma pbc's in the Vertical position, then the ArcadeSD will be upside down with no easy way to fix it (as it's opposite most normal vertical pcb's).
 
there is no standard for which direction the screen is rotated for vertical games. it depends on manufacturer preference.
I mean. It's more like there's the Namco way (clockwise), and then almost literally everyone else (counter-clockwise). :P
 
I mean. It's more like there's the Namco way (clockwise), and then almost literally everyone else (counter-clockwise).
I did a goolge search for "ROT90" and "ROT270" against mamedev once... it's nearly 50/50

check out the vertical games on the F3 multi... it's close to half and half there too.
 
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