Anapan wrote:I tried both XP and Windows 7, and since i'm not multitasking, or using any large amount of ram, as long as unnecessary services and programs aren't running, and all drivers are running well there really wasn't any difference. I ended up reverting to XP for simplicity.
Yeah, I'm sort of tempted to go w/ XP... but I'm planning to install that in a VM on my desktop. So I think I'm gonna do 7 on the bartop. (Plus, if I put XP on the bartop those 8GB of overkill RAM would be wasted! Haha.)
The optical is a neat idea. Having done this a few times, I really wish I hadn't half-transformed them into presentation pieces before forgoing the comfort of having them as desktop computers. It's fairly important to make the bartop easy to access as a computer, because even on my third attempt to make a simple arcade machine I've yet to have everything run exactly as I'd like. I constantly jump out of a game, and start tweaking settings with the controls, visuals, sound, etc. My friends say it's perfect, but sound lag or screen tearing is not acceptable.
Yeah, I'm definitely planning to just have a wireless mouse/kb plugged into it for when I do need to get to the OS.
I wonder if RetroArch could be made to do mostly everything if configured right to interface with SD progressive video modes?
I should note that I'm doing an LCD monitor for mine - so things like text readability and all isn't really a concern. I have considered getting a scanline generator, although that kind of goes against my "spend as close to $0 as possible" philosophy of this build. So I probably won't.
From what I've read, you can make Big Picture do mostly everything with less trouble than I had trying to make obscure emulators run in Hyperspin. There's a lot of utilities that will make all your games show up in it automagically in a wizard interface. The support is growing rapidly, so changes happen quick. If it weren't for the sub-par computer I'm working on for my latest cab project, I'd love to install steam and give that interface a whirl.
I've messed with Big Pic a few times in the past. I actually put together a makeshift cab prior - which was just an XP box w/ Big Pic at a standing desk w/ arcade stick. The problem was that the PC itself just wasn't capable of much so I didn't use it often. I also had made a SteamOS box for streaming to my TV. The UI is nice (and always improving) and everything is handled by controller. I can set it to just show installed games rather than my full library, and I can add non-Steam games to it. TBH, I feel like this is a simple solution that will address all my wants. And really, most of my wants are "simplicity," anyway.
With Dosbox games, see if you can get them in a GOG release. They're really friendly even if they use more system resources. The GOG guys did some great under-the-hood tweaks in most cases (modifying the games themselves as well as the Dosbox binaries). A couple of them were over-tweaked (screen enhancement) and I chose self-configuration with trial-and-error for my nostalgia.
Oh yes, yes. I've got some very appropriate games in my GOG library already - stuff like Escape Goat, Raiden Legacy and Street Fighter Alpha 2.
It also just occurred to me that Spelunky on a cab is probably amazing.
Anyway, I think I've got some downtime available this weekend, so I'm planning to do the test build of the PC components; install the OS; and then test various games using that cheapo GPU. I'll make a list of the games I'm testing and how well they run later.
