Tips Wanted for Arcade Cabinet Hardware

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 4:09 pm

I'm going to start to put together an arcade cabinet. The first thing i want to do however is to get the hardware I need and make sure it can do everything I need before I assemble it into the case. I'm looking for the hardware to be able to pull off everything PSX and below, full speed. Can anyone give me some tips on what would be the best specs to accomplish this?

Post by **marshallh** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 4:46 pm

I'd guess anything at least 1GHz could work for a PSX, now do you mean a N64 too? If so, you'll need a lot more horsepower.

Otherwise, any crapola video card will do as long as it's DirectX- compatible.
You'll want at least 64MB of ram, preferably 128 for emulation.

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 5:06 pm

i think radeon 9200's are pretty cheap, and still pretty kickass

[edit: $100 USD direct from ATI.com]

x24 · Post by **x24** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 5:19 pm

you can get a radeon saphire 9250 for as low as $40 in a lot of computer stores..

Harshboy · Post by **Harshboy** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 5:33 pm

buy the Nvidia Gforce 6800...it's a 256 MB video card...also for processors, you might want atleast 1.6 GHz......i have a compy with 1.6 Ghz and it can run the psx games ok...with a typical FPS of 56 out of 60...so you might want to go higher.....make sure you got 512 MB of ram too........ 256 does it's job, but can't pull it off fully............Now N64....that's a whole other story.............Just double everything(except Graffix card) and you find the perfect arcade insides. My compy can do everything up to Xbox...............my specs are about as high as they can go

daguuy · Post by **daguuy** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 8:10 pm

my old compy used to emulate N64 at almost full speed and it's only 800mhz

Post by **SpongeBuell** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 10:05 pm

my compy is about 866MHz, maybe 256MB RAM (forgot exactly how much) and it runs most games I throw at it pretty well. I haven't tried PSX or N64, though. I tried N64, but it didn't like it (only because of the onboard graphics card, though)

loup · Post by **loup** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 10:30 pm

if you're at all interested in MAME, most games will run pretty easily under 500Mhz, but for a few you'll need at least 1Ghz. The slowest I've tried running N64 was a 1.2Ghz AMD, roughly equivelent to 1.8Ghz pentium, it worked just fine. If you're looking at running only older games, pretty much any graphics card will work, if you're looking for newer games (N64, PSX, some MAME) you'll probably want at least an ATI 9200. I would suggest 265MB of ram, but I'm sure 128MB would probably work too.

Part of this depends on what OS you will be running the emulators, you'll need more memory and a faster processor on WinXP than you would with say, Win2k or linux.

Post by **SpongeBuell** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 10:41 pm

loup wrote:if you're looking for newer games (N64, PSX, some MAME) you'll probably want at least an ATI 9200.

AFAIK, MAME is purely CPU based (well, and a little RAM, good luck with 16MB

Post by **Skyone** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 2:21 am

1.6 GHz AMD Processor
512 MB Ram
Use a 60-80GB HD for game storage.

This is what I used and it works smooooth.

xriverfalconx · Post by **xriverfalconx** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 8:06 am

x24 wrote:you can get a radeon saphire 9250 for as low as $40 in a lot of computer stores..

I have that card...it's a piece of junk really. A pure low end 256 card for the extremely tight budget person. Spend at least 100 min. on a 256 video card.

Foxx373 · Post by **Foxx373** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 8:49 am

I have gottes PSX emulation to run at full speed with an Intel PII 450Mhz machine, 128MB ram, and STB Velocity 4400 16MB 2X AGP card.

I have N64 Emulation runnng (as good as the emulators can get) with a 1Ghz P3 with 256MB Ram and Radeon 9000 set to 4X AGP @ 64MB Ram.

Every other console runs flawlessley, including MAME (i havent benchmarked all the stuff i have, but im sure packman doesnt need a P4 to run).

If you need help with the hardware/software design, PM me. Ive allready designed and helped build a few Cabintes.

xxxeagle · Post by **xxxeagle** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 9:03 am

Just get anything higher than a 400 mhz processor and about 256mb of ram a few emu programs and you'll be able to run psx at full speed with a decent video card. I read about this at the gp32z forums I think. I think they're is a program called bleem that emulates psx.

daleighan · Post by **daleighan** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 9:15 am

get a mac mini, It will emulate up to N64 at good speed.

Foxx373 · Post by **Foxx373** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 9:56 am

Bleem is a commercial emulator that was shut down and sued by sony. You actually have to pay for bleem! PSX emulator. There are FREE PSX emulators on the market, a simple google search will have decent results. ePSXe is decent if you have an IQ above room tempature. AdriPSX is good for noobs and idiots.