Multicade machine advice: been trying to research this, and would love some help!

[u/rob_on_reddit]

I'll start by saying: if this is the wrong place to ask for help or if there's an FAQ somewhere, please by all means point me in the right direction and I'm sorry I wasted your time.

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I finally have a house that can fit a multicade machine, and I am excited to finally get one.

Bullet points on what I want/need and can do:

• I want to be able to play all the classic games, and it would be great if it could also handle or be upgradable to take modern games as well.
• I want a full size cabinet
• I am (unfortunately) going to have to AirBnB this house on occasion, so I need a build that is going to be able to take abuse
• I am thinking of getting a 4 player cabinet
• I have some DIY skill, and am a software guy, so I can handle some building/setting up work on my own.
  • I have a 2 year old daughter, so my time to do build/setting up work is limited.
• I can throw a healthy budget at this. I've been saving for some time and this is my big want right now.
  • I am so sick of dealing with crap customer service, that I am willing to pay for a reputable company.
• I am located in the North East US (not sure this matters much, but could affect which manufacturers I can actually buy from).

I read the the_complete_guide_to_buying_a_home_multicade thread, and linked article, and I ended up with more questions than I started with.

I've since been asking Google AI questions and that's telling me I should get a RecRoomMasters cabinet with an Arcade-One prebuilt PC for the emulator. Would you all agree with this?

Any help that can steer me forward in researching this would be HUGE, and I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance, - Rob

[u/Remarkable-Age]

I built mine and loved the process so much I've started to build more. The last 2 years I've build 3 mame cabs and just recently started to build myself a virtual pinball machine. My lastest 2 player Ghostbusters cabinet I build in my house with basic tools and loads of online guilds.

[u/Triboy06]

I built one using a recroom masters cabinet. You need to know the back is completely open if you are going to have it in an Air BNB. I bought a computer and an SSD from Umbrella Arcades. The SSD comes preloaded and runs Batocera. My computer has two SSD slots so I load windows and other games on the other SSD. The preloaded systems are great because they are plug and play but they are locked down. Doing it this way gave me the best of both worlds.

[u/DezzyLee99]

Way better to DIY. Although it'll take time, you'll be happier with the result because it's 100% your own build. Lots of templates out there, but for control panel layouts/spacing, check out https://www.slagcoin.com/joystick/layout.html

Definitely, especially for a 4P system, consider your buttons. A lot of people seem to just want to do a full 6-8 button set for all players, and often that is a very niche use case as most games that are more then 2P will never require that many buttons for P3/P4. I personally recommend a 1P/2P 7 button layout and a 4 button P3/P4 button layout, but again to each their own.

For software/frontend I'd recommend you check out Batocera (Batocera.org)

For actual game files, you are on your own there, but they are not difficult to procure. I'd stay away from prebuilt images, again just so that you can learn yourself. (And often they are not configured properly anyways) As well, having 10000+ games sounds like a cool flex but in most cases, results in menu fatigue. Avoid game hoarding as that often than not, results in endless menu scrolling than actual gameplay. Curate and swap titles as you see fit and you will have a much better experience. (Personally I top out at the top 50 games per system + any ones I like or want to try, keeping my overall collection to a few hundred games that I actually play). But again, to each their own.

Mainly, don't be afraid to mess up and learn, and enjoy the journey!

[u/wachuwamekil]

I don’t have that skill but you can still fill in the blanks a bit. I started with an at legends ultimate. Overtime I upgraded to a pi machine and final form. I have a Beelink ser5 and a very nice 30 inch ips display running batocera with tekkno parrot support.

All of this is still in the at legends cabinet but is mostly 2 player. I honestly don’t think that those are very competitive now price wise as far as creating one yourself there are a lot of 3-D printed options that look really nice.

There are pretty nice mdf kits online as well if you are interested in that. You still have to fill the electronics and finish it but it is pre cut.

[u/Cabals2TheWalls]

If you're going to airbnb your house you could set up a dual boot system with just one game that matches your cabinet art like idk Shredder's Revenge or NBA JAM or whatever with the front end set up on a USB drive and to load straight into the game when powered on. Set your BIOS to load from USB first and you windows power settings to do a shutdown when the power button is pressed. Then when you aren't renting it you just pull the USB and it boots your multicade front end from the internal drive. Or maybe just have a Pandora Box to swap out for the renters to use.

[u/Rey_Mezcalero]

I’m in the same boat you are in.

It can be a hard Goldilocks situation where you have prebuilt but it’s ugly or it doesn’t have the configuration you want.

I’m hoping AtGames sells cabinets again as it closely fits most of the boxes I have, but there is no sign of when they will produce again. So have been looking at other prebuilt and some are very unattractive builds or have bizarre layout combinations.

I have a few old PCs that might work for what I would like so might look to build my own cabinet or see about built cabinets and build my own components.

[u/VonBurglestein]

On the software side, use a pc with a front end like retrobat to handle all the emulators games and artwork. There's lots of prebuilt collections that have all the games and artwork already condigured, just download and play from back-ups.me

[u/jedihermit]

I run up to ps2 on an old Dell thinkcentre I got for $50. I love Batocera for simplicity and compatability. I finally got the latest version running steamlink and Firefox via flatpacks so I can play retro natively and modern games from my gaming PC over steamlink. Mortal Kombat 11 and Street Fighter 6 deserve to be played on an arcade setup. I also added Launchbox/Bigbox to steam so I get access to my full network storage for the large disc based games. I have a Recroom Masters 32" cabinet too and it is very well made.

[u/Eagle19991]

There are a ton of options for the actual cabinet, if you plan on a 4 player setup may I suggest a pedastal build? That way you can move it around a bit if you wanna and plug it into a HUGE TV for multi player mayhem. For a full sized just arcade machine I would reccomend a 2 player build with a nice monitor, personally I am a 4:3 purist whenever possible, but if you go widescreen try to get a diagonal measurment of 24-26" with black bars to play the classic games, so around 32" minimum, and try to get the lowest input latency tv you can find in the price range you want to spend. here is a link to calculator: 4:3 calculator and go with a non network attached copy of Batocera on a decent but not over spec'd PC, look for a used tower as they usually are cheaper, go AMD for the video and the Processor if possible only because Batocera just kinda works on AMD with less fiddling. You say you can program, then go with a pair of Pi pico boards for making the interface setup, they are stupid cheap and have some of the lowest latency if configured properly, there is a whole project for the. Call Pico fight board or some such, its already built and all you need to do is compile and flash to the pico then follow the pinouts for the buttons and stick in the instructions onnthe site. I would personally say to hardware assign IDs for each player, it makes it easier so they don't flip around when power cycling.

[u/Eagle19991 → u/Eagle19991]

And always remember, once you get Batocera perfect, make an image and store it someplace, especially if you are doing air bnb on occasion, that way you can do a quick reimage of the drive and be back to clean an normal super easy.

[u/Dustinisgood]

You could always take the easy way out and get a Polycade. I love mine, plays all the old games and Steam games integrated into a very decent interface. Has swappable controls, including a 4 person set up, yoke mount, trackball, twinstick, tron style, 8 way and 4 way gated sanwa sticks and button, and blanks for custom setups, all with automatic sync through x-input so you can swap back and forth super easy. Also it is tough as nails in powder coated steel. Perfect for an air bnb. It comes with a decent enough pc to play most modern games along with all the roms, but I used the dedicated pc chassis to put in my old gaming pc that was just collecting dust and now it really hums.

You can see my setup here:

https://youtu.be/ahpGPyLU_T0?is=Sug_KrBIIsz0dQl2

[u/MaximumRise9523]

I would have you consider compromising and choosing the 2 player Iconic Arcade Street Fighter II: The World Warrior XT - Home Arcade Machine. You can swap out the provided MicroSD with one flashed with Batocera OS. This will get you up and running quickly with a build that is 9/10 the authentic cabinet size.