@zen1th said in Cocktail table games machine build:

@zen1th said in Cocktail table games machine build:

Hi, I have seen a few companies selling cocktail table style games machines.

I know these often use Jamma boards, but wonder if anyone has built one of these tables using a Pi?

It looks to be possible, and I know I’ll need an IPAC controller board to connect Pi to buttons and joystick etc.

Has anyone done this already? Any obvious reason why it can’t be done?

Thanks for any help.

Any thoughts on this?

Lots of people have viewed the post.

😳

A IPS panel may be the best match for your setup (but with a higher price tag), or you go with a good (read: with a high viewing angle) TN panel.
(NB: Both techniques are of the TFT-LCD family. An LCD can be backlit by LED or by flourescent lamps. The latter are the bulkier and heavier flat-screens.)

Despite the fact that they want to sell their monitors, this article gives a not too technical overview about the panel types: https://www.viewsonic.com/library/photography/what-is-an-ips-monitor-panel/

Regarding the slower reaction time of the IPS in contrast to TN: I guess this can be neglected for retro games, which were developed when TVs with 50/60Hz were to be found in a household.

Maybe you can lend a TFT with IPS panel or know someone with an Apple device (Retina display) to evaluate the IPS capabilities, or can view the different panels in a consumer electronics store before making a buying decision.

One more thing: Depending how "noisy" your place is in terms of other bluetooth / wireless signals it may be advisable to use a dedicated USB-Bluetooth and/or USB-Wireless dongle, but this can be changed even once your arcade is built.

@tar 20250216_153830.jpg 20250216_154732.jpg
Got bored trying to figure out my sound isue in arcade. so did some more painting. think ive used all the space now

According to your diagram, if you swapped where P2 and P3 stood then you can have the same shader on all the games and things would be "smoother" with the video orientation being same for all games.

@jgeibel My pleasure. Some years ago, I used AM on my Linux PC and laptop before I got my Pi 3b and discovered RetroPie, which seduced me with its all-in-one-package simplicity.

But I still have my MAME 0.185 setup with AM, and I'll never forget this my "first love" among emulation frontends with its unparalleled customisability. 😍

I’ve just registered to say I love this! I’m currently building my long awaited man cave and would love one of these in it!!

I’m a complete beginner when it comes to raspberry pi etc but am pretty handy with the mechanics/electrical side of things.

An I ask what games you have?

Many thanks!

I'm just waiting for gamers to visit and play this cabinet as 2p.

@iandaemon What about the title "Lock N Chase" or that "Tower of Druaga" game, I remember in the Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk anime they had a cocktail arcade cabinet in the dungeon of that very game.

Tower of Druaga AoU.jpeg

@RetroPieVin Yeah, I've had no obvious problem with rotating the video prior to starting ES, but I'm running very "low resource" games in this instance.

Like I said depending on which emulator you use it could do either. You could use a split screen mode like MAME2010 provides when you put anything in cocktail video mode or you could use a dip switch for rotating the entire play area for second player like MAME2003 does. You could also use a shader in RA to achieve a split screen affect for simultaneous two player action. (The shader option wouldn't just be for the second player though.)

Here's some pics of my cocktail arcade - I am no carpenter and messed up on the corners but overall satisfied with how it turned out!

IMG_7089.jpg IMG_7105.jpg IMG_7104.jpg

I love the fold away control set.

On the first photo I was thinking "What is that semi circle thing? Is that a control knob?" and then I realized that it is the ceiling reflected. That does get me to a question. I know getting photos may be difficult, but how well does the screen show through when playing? These pics captured a lot of the reflection and so I was curious if that has been a problem for you while playing or if once back lite you can even tell there is a mirror in front.

@roll_sk Great work! One thing I'd have done differently is the position of the speakers. I would've put the speakers to the other two sides of the cab, so that the players could hear stereo sound. However, if stereo isn't a priority, there's nothing wrong with the speakers facing the players.

@packerswootwoot This is not an answer but here's a question for you. Why are you using MAME4ALL?

Any luck? Also, (I'm new to RetroPie) what are the steps you took to get the cocktail shader? I've been looking around, but have yet to figure out how to find it, let alone get it running. Help?

I'm thinking about a cocktail table and was wondering if you ever figured it out?

This shader has recently been rewritten by the amazing hunterk at libretro to create this effect at a very low processing cost in mame2003. You might have to tweak the parameters a bit in the retroarch menu or the code. It works great, and scales to fit the screen just like cocktail mode in mame2010.

https://github.com/libretro/glsl-shaders/blob/master/misc/cocktail-cab-portrait.glsl