old arcade game - upgrade time!
JBWolf
Posts: 405
Hello,
I have an old 'Police Trainer' arcade game, light gun, first person shooter, 2 players.... you know, one of those old 500lbs games with less computational power than a modern watch.
Got it at an auction many years ago and have played it so much that the top 10 high scores are a long sentence taunting the next player
Well I'd like to upgrade it with an emulator to support as many games as possible.
Currently it only has 2 light guns, but they are properly mounted on the two sides which leaves plenty of room on the console area for buttons & joysticks to be added.
Unfortunately from the research I have done, the propeller (my absolute fave MPU), is just a bit underpowered for such an audacious desire as mine.
I would like to find an emulator which has many games (especially 'point blank' my nostalgic love) which can run on a micro-atx intel platform with an older (GeForce 8800GT) nvidia GPU & USB light-gun/buttons.
So far the only thing that I have found is MAME, but I literally have just discovered it and have yet to try. The level of Windows hardware support looks great and their attention to detail such as input response is more than I expected, they also boast a unique ROM database of almost 4k games.
I have played NESticle & Genecyst on my pc for many years and enjoyed them immensely... but I would like to find more of the games that we actually used to play in the arcades, not on the old 'blow it out to clean' style cartridges.
I believe I still have a few Aladdins Castle tokens around!
I would like to know if anyone has tried MAME and if you would recommend it for a PC upgrade to an old arcade game system.... I need a software solution.
I will do what is necessary hardware wise... ditching the old electronics and likely the monitor too if needed, to install a modern monitor and barebones/micro-atx pc and buying a crazy ebay joystick buttons combo such as this one.
Then I could play Galaga and Point Blank.... What do you guys think?
Sorry to say 'I' so many times
Piece, JW
I have an old 'Police Trainer' arcade game, light gun, first person shooter, 2 players.... you know, one of those old 500lbs games with less computational power than a modern watch.
Got it at an auction many years ago and have played it so much that the top 10 high scores are a long sentence taunting the next player
Well I'd like to upgrade it with an emulator to support as many games as possible.
Currently it only has 2 light guns, but they are properly mounted on the two sides which leaves plenty of room on the console area for buttons & joysticks to be added.
Unfortunately from the research I have done, the propeller (my absolute fave MPU), is just a bit underpowered for such an audacious desire as mine.
I would like to find an emulator which has many games (especially 'point blank' my nostalgic love) which can run on a micro-atx intel platform with an older (GeForce 8800GT) nvidia GPU & USB light-gun/buttons.
So far the only thing that I have found is MAME, but I literally have just discovered it and have yet to try. The level of Windows hardware support looks great and their attention to detail such as input response is more than I expected, they also boast a unique ROM database of almost 4k games.
I have played NESticle & Genecyst on my pc for many years and enjoyed them immensely... but I would like to find more of the games that we actually used to play in the arcades, not on the old 'blow it out to clean' style cartridges.
I believe I still have a few Aladdins Castle tokens around!
I would like to know if anyone has tried MAME and if you would recommend it for a PC upgrade to an old arcade game system.... I need a software solution.
I will do what is necessary hardware wise... ditching the old electronics and likely the monitor too if needed, to install a modern monitor and barebones/micro-atx pc and buying a crazy ebay joystick buttons combo such as this one.
Then I could play Galaga and Point Blank.... What do you guys think?
Sorry to say 'I' so many times
Piece, JW
Comments
Why not install MAME on your PC and see what it's like? I know nothing about it but it seems to be the "goto" standard in the retro gaming world.
Personally I would be very sad to see an old classic game machine destroyed by gutting it and replacing it's monitor with a flat screen. These things are a piece of rapidly vanishing history. Perhaps you should sell/donate it to some one who would take care of it and just run MAME on your PC.
I would be using the original machine as a mold for the modded one. Coppying it as much as I can, using the guns as plugs for molds so I could make new ones. Copying the case, whatever it takes not to destroy the history.
What condition is your unit?
SNK makes the NEO GEO arcade system that has the games stored on cartridges.
MAME on a PC, running whatever OS you feel best about, delivers a great cabinet experience.
Those old monitors can be driven by modern graphics cards. You do need to do some exploring and testing to develop the modes needed.
http://derrick.mameworld.info/docs/Tutorial/VideoModes/Custom_Video_Modes.html
Lots of other documentation where that came from. Search a little.
First step would be to understand how the video system works and setup a means for input from a video card. Do your testing from a PC, and get to understand that screen and what it can do resolution / refresh wise. From there, setup your video modes, and entertain another round of testing with MAME.
Lazurus and friends can help you with obtaining files to test with.
http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9068
http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=13205
While the first one isn't all that rare, complete units are advertised for $500 or more on eBay.
The second seems to be a bit more rare, and may be worth a bit more if it's in good condition.
Anyway, hacking apart a functioning, classic game is ... ... AAAAAAARGH!
Make your own out of plywood and chipboard, paint it and have fun, but please keep the old game intact!
You can see the sides of the machine have been painted flat black over the vinyl stickers of the previous game and changed it to police trainer.
Right now the sides are just black, but at the right viewing angle, you can clearly see the name of the previous game it once was.
It does have a 'police trainer' arcade sign on the top above the monitor (which is simply printed on paper and slid in over the light bulb), but the sides of the machine are just painted flat black where I imagine a genuine police trainer would have art. so it's not so 'original' and would probably take the lowest category in collector value, not to mention the condition is/was pretty bad. The light guns are terribly beat up and did not work when I brought it home, obviously from many years of frustrated players. I had to take them both apart, replace the trigger buttons (luckily the exact same as what is used in a logitech mouse).. also had to replace the final focusing optic on one (real glass!) and replace a few corroded parts and connectors on the circuit boards.
The plexiglass over the monitor was so scratched up that after I repaired the light guns, it would block shots completely or refract an inch or two in certain spots... so I had to cut a new piece.
Really the game as a whole is in terrible condition, but with a lil TLC, it now works & plays great!
I have to let the monitor warm up for about 5 mins (otherwise it's all blurry)... haven't looked to see what kind of input it uses, but if I can get it to work with a VGA connector for the micro-atx pc, then it will not need to be replaced.
If one of you has the burning desire to rescue it from my evil plans, I will sell it for $500 as that would cover probably 2/3 of the cost to build a replacement. You must take care of shipping though as it is easily 300lbs... guessing closer to 500lbs. so thats only about $1 per pound! Your'e starting to get interested
There is so much room inside the case that there's no need to remove the police trainer board, I was planning to make a switch to allow playing police trainer again if desired instead of the upgrade. I repaired it roughly 7 years ago and my friends and family have all grown tired of this game and agree it would be fantastic to have a neo-geo type upgrade to play different arcade games.
Just curious what kind of input on the subject I would get here and hopefully some technical experience with MAME.
I downloaded MAME last night, think I just got the binaries though... believe the roms are somewhere else on the site as what i downloaded was not even 500kb. I'll check it out soon... but I did see some videos of MAME games on youtube that looked fantastic, even saw that 'point blank' rom is available! We want to play that and classics such as rampage, smash tv, super offroad and others that we havent seen in what seems like a lifetime ago.
If it's the first edition game, the monitor is some sort RGB+Sync signal, and if it's the PoliceTrainer 2, it should be VGA.
If the cabinet is as you describe, then you're right; it has pretty much lost all value for the collectors.
OK, sounds like this machine is well toasted. I had visions of a pristine Missile Command machine in my mind.
If you can add some enhancements and keep the old guts as an option that would be great,
I got a set in the early 2000's through the Tombstone project. Other efforts continue today.
At the time, I was building MAME for IRIX and needed to do some testing to find out what an R5K CPU could realistically do given GCC and the SGI MIPS Pro compilier suites. And I got paid! (that story over a beer only)
Anyway, it is very important to separate any distribution of the two. MAME is well tolerated as a historical reference, sometimes the only one interestingly, and all of that depends on being smart about it all.
***Huge Smash TV fan here, BTW
Here is one, not sure if it is the same ......... This one is in Illinois, has a Vegas location
http://na.suzohapp.com/amusement_products/arcade_game_parts/
And here is a vintage arcade game broker that might give you some idea of values...........
http://www.vintagearcade.net/
Suzohapp might be able to supple a whole new cabinet.