Your recent acquisitions, or what retro have you bought lately?

[Baker]

Sourcing parts is easy (points to sig and my thread in the sponsor forum ). Depends on what you're after.. The build is half the fun sometimes. The software on that cab and the pc is rather old too.

[MonoJoker]

Originally Posted by arcadejunkie

Thanks guys,

The thing I am considering is just how long it would take me to source a cabinet and then muck around with all the software etc trying to set one up myself... Not to mention sourcing parts etc.

Or I could just buy one and its all done...

I guess it depends how much .. its all down to the money, it only looks cheap now because it's at 99cents perhaps - lol

The cabinet looks nice though.

Aaaargh life is full of temptations! :S

The software is a doddle these days as is sourcing a PC to run MAME - even newer games don't need a lot of grunt or GPU. There are so many good MAME frontends now that you are spoilt for choice.

If you are going to buy pre-made be prepared to spend big $. Rarely do you get people prepared to let their cabinet go on the cheap, but you can get lucky. I scored my cab fully done for $250 as it blue screened randomly - stick of ram fixed that. I once scored a cab with PC in it for $30 off Ebay as it was poorly described in the listing. And the last one I picked up on these very forums for a song. So it's possible but that is 3 bargains over about 6 years.

If you don't have any luck finding a 2nd hand cabinet (they are getting rarer) then check out some of the pre-fab MDF kits. $400 for a 2p, 6 button upright isn't bad to get you started and they are very well setup - it really is just a matter of putting together your PC, IPAC, monitor, etc. In fact a lot of the mucking around with DIY is getting things to fit with an old rickety chipboard cabinet that housed one big board and a massive tube

Google Aussie Arcade it's a fantastic forum for getting into all this and they have a reasonable for sale section - it's where I scored my cabinet

[MonoJoker]

Originally Posted by Baker

You don't need to be running an old sound blaster in there... Likely that's what the guy had around when he was digging up the old computer for it.

He's marketing it well, but it's basically just a (seemingly) well done MAME conversion... Nothing super rare or anything like he's making out.

The listing is full of it (obviously) but there is SOME degree of rarity in that setup - arcade monitor, etc. Some people are stuck on the so-called realism of an arcade monitor but MAME emulates the screen lines, etc to make any PC CRT (and I've heard but not seen LCD too) look just as original (IMO). I'd much rather have the ability to swap out a 21" CRT for another than try and source a 26" arcade tube at today's prices and rarity anyway.

For the price that will most likely go for, I'd be sourcing a pre-fab upright and building from scratch. You'll learn a LOT about how it all works, you can customise things to suit YOU and you're not inheriting someone else's work plus a tube that could crap itself in a month's time

[Daft_Munt]

Just collected my stash of Japanese Saturn and MegaCD collection 22 games for less than $100 including freight.

[Baker]

Just got myself a nice setup working now - SEGA Mega Drive II, next to a Dreamcast, and a SNES next to a Nintendo 64 . N64 has the expansion pak too which I'm stoked about, although it looks like there are aftermarket ones out now anyway.

Thinking of doing a auto-region-mod on both Mega Drive and SNES as opposed to putting in switches to get 60hz. Don't need to do anything to the Dreamcast, it's a US one anyhoo :P (but running a VGA Box anyway!).

Got a bucketload of games for all as well

[dustar]

Originally Posted by Baker

Just got myself a nice setup working now - SEGA Mega Drive II, next to a Dreamcast, and a SNES next to a Nintendo 64 .

Here is my setup, Sega only :-)



The Mega Drive / Mega CD combo is hooked up at the TV in the DC demopod at the right side of the screen.

Last week, I bought this one on a local fleemarket, don't know if they were sold in Australia as well and if anyone can remember those:



Look at the box ... it's so 70's :-) .

[mike-s]

Nice find, it looks like it's in fantastic condition too.

[dustar]

Originally Posted by mike-s

Nice find, it looks like it's in fantastic condition too.

Yup, it's in pretty good shape. Only the box is written on it.
Tested it ( needs 6 x 1.5V C batteries ) and worked flawless.

From what I've seen, those consoles were made in 1977, which is a fantastic year -the one I was born into ;-) .

[mAJORD]

damn, that is awesome!

[Mau1wurf1977]

Originally Posted by MonoJoker

The software is a doddle these days

I'm finding the software and frontends are real time-pit. Every emulator has different command line switches and settings to work optimally. The hardware part is easy but I'm finding the configuring of all the software such a pain and passion killer

The frontend I will likely end up using is Maximus Arcade. 30 day trial and then you need to purchase it and it's still very manual and tedious to get going. But I got it going so it was worth investing the time. I didn't get far with Hyperspin unfortunately despite spending some time studying documentations.

Using just Mame and Mess for pretty much everything does make life a lot easier. But for consoles emulators like Fusion or BSNES are still the way to go.

[COMman]

Just add his lot to my N64 gmaes.


Click to view full size!

Also have a sega saturn coming can't wait

[Baker]

Originally Posted by Mau1wurf1977

I'm finding the software and frontends are real time-pit. Every emulator has different command line switches and settings to work optimally. The hardware part is easy but I'm finding the configuring of all the software such a pain and passion killer

The frontend I will likely end up using is Maximus Arcade. 30 day trial and then you need to purchase it and it's still very manual and tedious to get going. But I got it going so it was worth investing the time. I didn't get far with Hyperspin unfortunately despite spending some time studying documentations.

Using just Mame and Mess for pretty much everything does make life a lot easier. But for consoles emulators like Fusion or BSNES are still the way to go.

Be a bit award of Maximus - it's not really supported anymore, and it can be very painful to deal with. I've switched over to MALA for most of my stuff now, much easier to deal with!

[Mau1wurf1977]

Originally Posted by Baker

Be a bit award of Maximus - it's not really supported anymore, and it can be very painful to deal with. I've switched over to MALA for most of my stuff now, much easier to deal with!

I'll check out MALA. The trial version of Maximus is working well so far. At the moment I configures BSNES, Fusion, Mame and Mess with it.

[AthlonMan]

I'm considering buying an original Mega Drive 2 that has been in storage for years. Should I do it... shouldn't I do it... hmm tempting.

[Baker]

Originally Posted by AthlonMan

I'm considering buying an original Mega Drive 2 that has been in storage for years. Should I do it... shouldn't I do it... hmm tempting.

Of course you should