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I built a Retropie box for my nieces and nephew, and while setting it up I generally liked it, I found there was just enough lag to make some games really annoying to play. Is the next step up from that an Odroid board? Is there anything directly up from the Odroid, or would I have to make a bigger investment and get a NUC, or some such other random "mini-pc" box from vendors out there?
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Dec 23, 2018 12:17
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Well, the Retropie box I gave to my nieces and nephew went over like gangbusters. Initially when they opened it they were a little nonplussed, but by the end of the night they were fighting over the controllers to see who was the best at Street Fighter 2, Mario World, and Missile Command. At one point the youngest, my nephew, was scrolling through the menus trying to find something. When I asked what he was after he said "The girls were playing Ms Pac-Man. Where's Pac-Man for boys?"
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Dec 26, 2018 06:48
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I loved De Blob 2, but for a game that positions itself somewhat for younger audiences, the later levels can be seriously tough. You really have to move your rear end to get everything painted before times up. I wish the whole game was as laid back and chill as the early levels.
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Jan 2, 2019 16:09
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Thought some of you retro gaming fans might like this. Decided to see what a 3D interpretation of a classic NES game box would look like, so I did this weekend project. Separated everything into discreet layers, printed it all out, and mounted everything in a shadow-box. Came out pretty decent for something that cost lest than $20 in materials. 
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Sep 1, 2019 12:41
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ThunderFug posted:That’s super cool; are there directions online somewhere that show how to do a project like that? Not that I saw. This was just all stuff I came up with. If I did it again, and wanted to spend more money, I'd have the layers of art professionally printed, and the substrate they're mounted on laser cut, to give everything brighter colors and crisper edges, but otherwise is turned out decent.
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Sep 1, 2019 22:52
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Haven't spent much time in this subforum, but I thought I'd post a project I've been working on lately. I built a MAME cab years ago, but because of the size and cumbersomeness of it, it had to stay at my parents house when I was moving around. Now having got my Launchbox setup where I want with a few terabytes of stuff, I wanted to bring the arcade feel home again. Rather than build another full size cab, I decided to build a lap unit for the couch. This a basic box, MDF and ply. T-Molding along all the edges. I-Pac encoder inside, Sanwa JLF, Ultimarc Spinktrak spinner and U-Trak trackball, and IL buttons. The layout is a bit bigger than normal, but still very comfortable to play. I went with a very classic arcade button layout though, so this isn't for the latest fighters, this is for Snow Bros, Alien v Predator, Bubble Bobble, and the like. Art was created by myself; background and chrome is based on the Berzerk marquee, and I had to throw in original retro Pac-dude for some flair, without weighing down the design with 300 arcade characters which are so common with control panels. Printed by GameOnGrafix, who are the same guys who did the printing for the art on my full size cab years ago. They produce really nice prints at very good prices. No pics inside just yet, I haven't wired anything up yet other than connecting the spinner and trackball to ensure they were working. I'll do wiring this weekend probably, and snap a pic then. 
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Jun 17, 2021 06:09
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Code Jockey posted:That looks incredible, great work! It's very nice. I had one on my old cab as well, and I liked it so much I went back for another. It's customizable as well, as you can use it as is out of the box, or you can buy an additional small or large flyweight. That'll give you different levels of continuous spin. I went for the small flyweight; more spin than without one, but not the "spin forever" style of the large flyweight. I was happy to find that the modern I-Pac's also let you plug in a spinner and trackball right to the board as well. The I-Pacs I used on my old cab didn't support this from what I recall, and you either had to get the USB adapters for them, or get a separate Opti-Pac board. Now it's all in one, and keeps things simple.
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Jun 17, 2021 06:39
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George RR Fartin posted:I love the simple but professional layout and structure. Whenever I try to do something like that it looks like a 5th grader's first discovery of wood glue. Heh, I'm not much better. The underside of the control panel is a bit uglier, as I'm no expert at carpentry. I also tried to install some hinged stays on the interior edges of the box, to hold the top open when needed. I thought I had it figured, but when I had them installed they would bend the wrong way and hang up on the bottom of the box. Never got it figured, so out they came. The routing for the stick is a horror show, as this was my first time using a router. I live in a condo too, so my power tool use has to be limited as well. I thought "oh, no big deal, I only need to route the joystick area and the t-molding channels, it'll be fine". Cut to me finding out that a router somehow produces more dust than is physically removed from the wood, and me treading through drifts of sawdust in my living room. Oh, I also had preinstalled the hinges to the top, as well as the metal plates that meet with the magnet closures on the bottom. Then I apply the art and cut the holes, only to find I did that backwards, and the hinges are now at the front of the top panel, and the magnet plates at the back. They had to come out then, and reinstalled back in the correct place. But in the end it worked out. That's all that matters. As long as it looks decent and holds together, doesn't matter if it's held together with baling wire and snot under the surface. I've got parts coming in for my next project, a Gun4IR conversion on a PS2 Guncon. Hopefully that one will go a bit smoother.
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Jun 17, 2021 22:36
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Well, I didn't wait for the weekend. Had to do the wiring tonight because my brain made me do it. Went much quicker than other electronics builds, now that I had ratcheting wire-strippers and crimpers. Worked perfect right off the bat as well! I purposely gave a bit more room inside the base, in case I want to do a full portable build at some point. I could put a Pi4 in there and have a fully self-contained retro gaming rig. Even enough room to store a gamepad or two, and the forthcoming Gun4IR, inside as well to keep everything in place. 
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Jun 18, 2021 05:30
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Zaphod42 posted:This is so clean. I built a fight stick with addressable RGBs that I can control from an Arduino and its really really neato, looks great seeing the colors change based on your button inputs, buuuut Nice! I did the same for a dedicated fight stick I made a while back. Get some pics of yours in here. This was the one I did:  
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Jun 18, 2021 20:57
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Jun 21, 2021 21:21
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Here in Canada, ISP's will send you an email on behalf of american companies saying "we detected you downloading stuff". The emails also say in not so many words "they can't do poo poo about it though, so you know, whatever...."
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Jun 21, 2021 22:10
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Alright, next project on the go now. I'm going to build a Gun4IR setup for my Launchbox setup. Gun4IR is a DIY lightgun setup, and from what people are saying so far, is superior to the older Ultimarc Aimtrak system, and even the newer Sinden Lightguns, which uses a unique image detection algorithm. Everyone that's used it so far says it has the best tracking, and no need for a white border around the screen image like the Sinden needs. It can be much cheaper than the other options as well, but that's also dependent on the users ability to source cheap parts, as well as if they're already "tooled up" for the job. Downsides; you will need IR emitters around your display of choice, so not as clean as the Sinden. And of course, it's DIY, so quality will vary with your electronics ability. If anyone is interested in the Gun4IR, but doesn't want the hassle of building it themselves, RPEG Electronics has premodded Guncons (although I'll admit his prices are a bit steep). I mention RPEG as well, because they also have some lovely tutorial vids on Youtube on how to build various aspects of the Gun4IR system. So I went with his build technique for the IR emitters, with a few upgrades. Basic electronics were a duplicate of RPEG's method, but I put the finished units in tiny little matchbox sized project-boxes. Cabling was then sleeved, and ends shrink-tubed to keep it all clean. I also added an inline switch, so I can turn off the emitters when not in use. These are going to go on my main TV, so leaving them on and staring at IR for few hours might not be good for the eyes. Maybe it's fine, I don't know, but a switch solves any issue. Now I'm just waiting for my PS1 Guncon to arrive, and then I can start redoing the electronics inside of it for the second half of the build.   
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Jun 27, 2021 05:02
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Ineffiable posted:Honestly bitmap books has a really good sounding book on jrpgs so I feel like I should toss his one (it's a paperback after all) and get the bitmap books. I enjoyed their other books as well. Man, I was just coming in here to recommend Bitmap Books. I previously had their Artcade book, which celebrates arcade artwork, and today I just received "The Games That Weren't", about retro games that never quite made it to release, and "The CRPG Book", all about CRPG's through the years. I really love their stuff so far, and I could easily see buying up a copy of their entire collection of books over time. Just great tidbits of info and trivia, with lavish art from many eras of games. Huge tomes too, I think on average most of their books are about 450-550 pages.
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Jun 29, 2021 03:15
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You guys have got me interested in Densha De Go now. I've been thinking lately of getting a PS5 for a bunch of other games, but the PS5 can play the PS4 Densha game, right? Just need to create a japanese account?
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Jul 5, 2021 18:10
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Neither is perfect, but I'll take the american one over the others "I'm part of the Brother Label Maker family" design aesthetic.
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Jul 9, 2021 08:48
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Ofecks posted:This might be an unexpected New Popular Thing. My only evidence is getting lost myself in hardware restoration videos like this one (which also seems to have an ASMR angle, but isn't explicitly labeled as such): Pretty cool. Restoration vids have been pretty popular with antique items, but it's nice to see more modern resto vids. The one thing I personally don't like is the genre as a whole has tended towards no voiceovers, with maybe a bit of text at time explaining something. I get people like them as a chill out vids, but personally a lot of the time I'd just love them to go into loads of detail on what they're doing or thinking during each step of the process.
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Jul 11, 2021 17:04
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Maybe a degaussing coil could could fix it? I picked up one one I built my MAME cab, and it sorts any degree of picture weirdness that crops up.
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Jul 14, 2021 21:34
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Part 2 of my Gun4IR build! So I bought a Guncon off ebay from the UK, right before I went on a 3 week vacation. It was going to be one of the projects I was going to work on while I was off. Except it never showed up. Got my money back from the seller, so worked out in the end. Frustrated at that point though, I bought another of ebay, this time from Japan, with fast shipping. Showed up a few days later, and the project began. This is the new guts of the gun. The brains is an Arduino Pro Micro, coupled to a DFRobot IR Camera. I kept the side buttons from the gun, but added a mode button to the side, and swapped out the trigger switch for a cherry micro. Fairly simple build, just basic soldering. After that, just ran the Gun4IR setup software, tweaked a few things and calibrate, and now it works great in a bunch of emulators. It appears like a mouse to the PC, so it doesn't need any sort of special scripting for most emulators. Been blasting away in Lethal Enforcers and The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and having tons of fun.  Side-view showing the mode button I added.  View of the new IR sensor on the muzzle. 
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Jul 23, 2021 03:39
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LODGE NORTH posted:I do not know how much money goes into making these just for parts alone, but you should consider selling these. This is amazing and I would probably be your first customer. There is a guy already selling these premodded, with the trackers included. Very pricey, but really the only option if someone doesn't want to DIY one. https://rpegelectronics.com/products/gun4ir-light-gun-ready-to-play-namco-gcon45-black?variant=39683752362173. Zaphod42 posted:Ah, I should really slow down and read better. GUN4IR uses IR so it requires LED trackers eh? Well, I've already got some guns that have a similar setup. Yeah, I was thinking of going with the Sinden, since it doesn't need any trackers, but it had a few caveats. One, that every game has to have a white border around the edge for it to track, and that overall tracking is very, very good, but not great. That, combined with waiting for the Indiegogo campaign thing, which is apparently way, way behind at this point, made me go with Gun4IR. The tracking with the Gun4IR is amazing though, light years beyond stuff like the older Ultimarc Aimtrak system. Everything is snappy and responsive, it keeps calibration between sessions without the need for any software, and the software for tweaking is very simple to use (where stuff like Sindens is a GUI nightmare gone insane). There lots of extra optionals you can add on to the Gun4IR system as well, so you can add force feedback, and rumble, and LED's if you want. Support for addon pedals as well, if you want something like that for Time Crisis perfection. Plus I just like building stuff, so I was able to have some fun while spending a lot less than alternative options.
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Jul 23, 2021 07:32
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 08:57 |
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Silhouette posted:Is it possible to use a foot pedal from a set of Rock Band drums with the Gun4IR? I'm pretty sure it's just a simple on/off momentary switch since it has no actual internal electronics and hooks up to the RB drum control box with a 3.5mm bipolar auxiliary jack. I've never used one of the at-home pedals that were released for console shooters, but I wonder if they are as simple as on-off. I seem to recall the ones I've seen connected via a phone jack connector to the base of the gun, so they may be doing more than just binary states.
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Jul 23, 2021 15:16
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