What's new
By:
Filters

Just getting started

F

freekiefae

Beginner
Joined
Jan 13, 2024
Messages
11
Reaction score
6
Location
USAs
Hi,
I'm Freekie!

I have no former background with arcades, but generally build my own gaming PCs.

I got interested in this forum since I was gifted a Soul Caliber II commercial cabinet last year. It was in rough shape when I got it; needed a lot of clean-up.

It required months (yes, literally months) of sanitizing and deodorizing. Bur now, I am ready to pull it into my dwelling and start having fun with it.

In the short term (1-2 months), I'll probably enjoy the current state.

The medium term will likely involve some emulation option (like a J-PAC on a surplus office PC). Long term will almost certainly be an FPGA of some sort. MiSTercade is looking pretty awesome, but I get the feeling that MARS might be worth the wait.

I'm definitely open to advice, guides and substantiated opinions.
 
Is there a place I can go to get up on my jargon? I'm new to this world, and even though I've spent a few weeks trying to pick up the lingo it has been very slow going.
 
freekiefae said:
Is there a place I can go to get up on my jargon? I'm new to this world, and even though I've spent a few weeks trying to pick up the lingo it has been very slow going.
Click to expand...
Try arcade-projects.com ;)

Just ask questions, people here are happy to help. What are some words that are tripping you up to start?
 
Thanks Aurich!

My over-arching goal is to play the largest possible collection of good arcade games that I can without excess modification.

A practical example would be the relationship between ODE (Optical drive emulator?) and IDE (Internal drive emulator?). Most of the terms I see used here I can just google, and get to a reasonable answer within a minute or two but I don't understand what it means for the world of home-brew arcades. How do I even determine if that is a relevant principle for me to understand to accomplish my arcade objectives.

For instance, My medium term plan should be pretty simple compared to many of the projects I've been seeing here. But spending just a few days look at MAME options that might apply to my NAMCO 246 cab, it seems like there are already 4-5 different possible cards just for a JAMMA to PC adapter (I see at least two that have this community's endorsement (Ultimarc+ 2.0)). I also see some teasing for an option that there may be a way to emulate straight from the 246 controller (which would also be cool, but I don't really begin to understand the abilities and limitations that come with that path.)

Does anyone in these parts have a youtube channel or something like that for the nitty-gritty, how-to stuff?
 
It sounds like your primary interest is in emulation right now.

People certainly do that here, but I would say the focus at AP is using real hardware. For a more MAME-centric community you could also try http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php

If I had to guess I would say the bulk of emulation people use here is probably MiSTer. It's not going to give you the same size library as MAME, but it will do it more accurately, for the most part. Which is probably why a forum that's primarily about real hardware prefer it. It's the only form of emulation I run myself these days, I'm really not up on MAME anymore.

ODE's don't have a ton of relevance for arcade hardware, that's mostly about consoles. You would use an ODE to run games on a Saturn or Dreamcast without needing discs for instance.
 
Thank you! That is extremely helpful!

I am really considering just jumping straight to MiSTer. I have more aversion to fiddling around with the sub-par, then I do with the cost difference.

I've seen references to MiSterCade. Is anyone else suppling that sort of kit?
 
freekiefae said:
Thank you! That is extremely helpful!

I am really considering just jumping straight to MiSTer. I have more aversion to fiddling around with the sub-par, then I do with the cost difference.

I've seen references to MiSterCade. Is anyone else suppling that sort of kit?
Click to expand...
I use Mistercade. There are alternatives, one by a member here iirc, but I don't have experience with them.
 
Thank you, ShootTheCore!

I've gotten a lot out of the first video! I look forward to watching the others!

I have to say the level of friendliness and support for this community is awesome!!! I have literally worked for corporations that were not this friendly or organized.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top