Building an arcade cabinet

u/Unicorn May 30, 2017, 07:37:28 AM

mmm smart
this project has got me thinking about my lattepanda and the lakka os that is currently on it... I kinda want to make it more portable now, maybr buy a 12" screen or something

u/p2 May 30, 2017, 08:13:19 AM

how about the power supply? If you added a mobile one like a car battery you could pwalk through the streets with it, sit down in the park, and start playing

u/Yuki May 31, 2017, 05:36:36 AM

Quote from: Unicorn on May 30, 2017, 07:37:28 AM
mmm smart
this project has got me thinking about my lattepanda and the lakka os that is currently on it... I kinda want to make it more portable now, maybr buy a 12" screen or something

Isn't that thing like the Raspberry Pi but with a x86? You might want to do some sort of portable Steam Machine if it's powerful enough to run some games on it.

Quote from: p2 on May 30, 2017, 08:13:19 AM
how about the power supply? If you added a mobile one like a car battery you could pwalk through the streets with it, sit down in the park, and start playing

That might work. The screen runs on a standard 120V, but the Raspberry Pi, while being sufficiant on 5V, might need at least 2.5A to run at least correctly. Anything less and some components like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth might stop working. On that note, I should check for a proper 2.5A power supply, I only have a 2.1A one and I had to run an Ethernet cable so it could access my ROM collection over the network.

u/Unicorn May 31, 2017, 06:27:04 AM

Quote from: Juju on May 31, 2017, 05:36:36 AM
Quote from: Unicorn on May 30, 2017, 07:37:28 AM
mmm smart
this project has got me thinking about my lattepanda and the lakka os that is currently on it... I kinda want to make it more portable now, maybr buy a 12" screen or something
Isn't that thing like the Raspberry Pi but with a x86? You might want to do some sort of portable Steam Machine if it's powerful enough to run some games on it.

Woah that soudns amazing... cool idea

But yeah a 64 bit 4gb pi sized computer

u/c4ooo June 10, 2017, 04:49:53 PM

Voted for this in the poll cause i appreciate the effort of making the wooden box to hold the raspberry-pi

u/Yuki December 13, 2017, 10:54:48 PM

Necroupdate: It now fits snuggly on a corner of my desk, I upgraded the CPU to some 64-bit Pentium dualcore 1.8 GHz I found in the trash one time and it runs directly on RetroArch. Next, should probably change the buttons to better ones (with lights?) and add/print some decals so it looks prettier. Also, optimize the software, of course.

Last Edit: December 13, 2017, 10:57:55 PM by Juju

u/Dream of Omnimaga December 13, 2017, 11:46:14 PM

And repair it since you said it's broken now?

u/Yuki December 14, 2017, 12:24:27 AM

That's what I say, I gotta buy new buttons.

u/Yuki April 30, 2018, 09:45:14 PM

Update: Upgraded to slightly better computer that used to run Windows Vista, installed Arch Linux instead with EmulationStation (kinda looks like a RetroPie, I didn't use their setup script but for all intents and purpose it's pretty much more or less the same as RetroPie but with custom scripts), a bunch of libretro cores, other goodies and a ton of games that runs well at 60 fps. It can also run Steam, but the Big Picture mode is insanely laggy, probably need a better graphics card. Oh, and the buttons are gone for the time being, so I'm just using a SNES controller instead.

u/gameblabla May 11, 2018, 08:38:00 PM

Good thing you switched to Arch Linux. (i would have preferred something like devuan/void linux but it's still better than Vista)
I heard that Lakka runs faster due to it running in KMS mode instead, you might want to give it a try.
Perhaps that could solve your issue with the big screen mode.

At some point, i was attempting to make an arcade thing using Big Attract as the frontend instead but the dude (who built the arcade) never came towards me again....

u/Yuki May 11, 2018, 10:17:24 PM

Yeah, I installed and configured each thing separately and manually (EmulationStation, RetroArch, I even installed Plymouth for a swell startup screen

), everything runs in KMS mode, early KMS is enabled and it runs as fast as it can. I tried Void at one point, RetroArch isn't running well in x64-musl for some reason but eh, I still prefer Arch.

Additionally, @xlibman bought a new graphic card and we put the old one in the arcade (an NVIDIA GT 710), even if it's a low-end card it really makes a big difference with the Intel integrated graphics, everything runs at 60 FPS and everyone is happy. Only problem is that the proprietary NVIDIA driver doesn't play well with KMS, but the open-source nouveau driver does the job well.

Last Edit: May 11, 2018, 10:19:27 PM by Juju

u/Yuki July 22, 2018, 06:20:02 AM

Bit of an update: bought a wireless adapter for Xbox 360 controllers, now I have enough buttons to run Nintendo 64 games (also any other thing that requires more buttons than a SNES controller have) at native resolution, which is way higher resolution than the N64 hardware allowed for. Which is pretty cool. Also improved how I can launch Steam games individually from EmulationStation, cause it somehow hated the SNES controller, but it plays totally fine now that I have a Xbox 360 controller plugged in.

Last Edit: July 22, 2018, 06:22:04 AM by Juju