My First Bartop

Newellj79

Very well done! Love your bobble theme! I am starting to considering building one of my own.

Thank you very much! I highly recommend giving it a shot. As a kid I never would have thought I would have my own arcade machine, and even for all the mistakes it still feels pretty cool to know that I built it myself!

coldnpale

I am sure it is. Recently I finished perfecting (according to my tastes) my retropie box.. with custom systems for my favourite game series and custom backgrounds, on/off switch and led, menu music, etc

Now I have to starting planning bringing this to the next level and a bartop surely looks great.

caver01

@newellj79 said in My First Bartop:

As a kid I never would have thought I would have my own arcade machine, and even for all the mistakes it still feels pretty cool to know that I built it myself!

Funny, I just said almost these exact words to someone recently. I feel the same way.

BaviaanNL

@andrewh said in My First Bartop:

I made my bartop last winter, and it's one of the best things I've done to date. I had a bit more woodworking experience going into it, but a lot of what you've described is very similar to my experience... So, yeah - you'll notice every tiny imperfection, but pretty much nobody else will, and it shouldn't take from the enjoyment you'll get using it. Just be careful you don't spend more time tweaking it than playing it (I believe the ideal ratio is around 50:50 ;-) )

Anyway, great job, and here's to many years of happiness with it!

In case you're interested, here's the one I made, sitting on a pedestal I subsequently designed and made so it could have a permanent home

Very nice build, what are you resting the bar top on? Did you also make it yourself or can that be purchased somewhere?

AndersHP

Looks very nice indeed! I love the photo of your kid playing it. I never tried the N64 emulation, thought it wasn't good enough on a pi?

Do you have any other game recommendations for kids friendly games?

AndrewH

@baviaannl said in My First Bartop:

Did you also make it yourself or can that be purchased somewhere?

I sketched it up in a cad program and then cut and assembled it myself. There's not a whole lot to it really, although making sure the drawer fit and worked well took a bit of care.

Newellj79

@andershp

Thank you for the compliment. N64 for games generally run horrible. Mario Kart seems to be one exception to the rule and runs pretty well for me only exhibiting the occasional audio glitch. As a result it is the only N64 game that I have. Worth mentioning that I'm overclocked to 1300mhz...

SgtJimmyRustles

Looks good man! Nice work.

caradebalde

This is really nice. Would you share the plan(of the stand)?

BJRetro

@Newellj79 different topic perhaps but with a pi3b+ and overclocking and using the right mupen64plus plug-in (the “auto” one now makes things a bit easier) there are a fair amount of n64 games that run well. On my bartop I have about 220 total games and the rule I self imposed was that for non arcade games the games had to be at least “arcade style” to be included. So I think I may only have Wave Race 64, Cruisin World, Killer Instinct 64 and Mario Kart 64 on there from N64 but there are many others I have on my console setup that run well, like Super Mario 64, WWE No Mercy, and Super Smash Bros, but which I didn’t decide were “arcade enough” to go on my bartop. I would definitely try experimenting.

Newellj79

@caradebalde said in My First Bartop:

This is really nice. Would you share the plan(of the stand)?

Thank you for the compliment. My family and I our still enjoying it. I tweaked these plans on the fly to suit my own purposes: https://www.instructables.com/id/2-Player-Bartop-Arcade-Machine-Powered-by-Pi/

For example, I knew I wanted a deep control panel to accommodate for the 4 buttons at the top and still have plenty of room to rest my wrist on while playing. Unfortunately because I just tuned it as I went, I don't have any firm schematics to share. :(

caradebalde

@Newellj79

Thank you!!