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Budget Atari and Capcom arcade cabinets to see release this fall!


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Yes you do or it's not Tempest, I had this actual machine and that IS how it needs to be , that "brr" "brr" sound from the spinner. +1

 

Agreed. While you may not "need" to go very fast in regards to strategy/technique, you should have the ability to do so just as you do in the arcade game, or the game isn't right. :)

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Yes you do or it's not Tempest, I had this actual machine and that IS how it needs to be , that "brr" "brr" sound from the spinner. +1

it only solves the clicky sound, and free spinning dial. since the encoder is wrong, as i said,

it makes NO difference in gameplay for people that know how to play it, and get to further levels.

 

if you want to spin all around to enjoy the game, go ahead, that doesn't mean its right,

maybe you should be going counterclockwise all the time, or whatever.

 

playing the game properly makes more sense, that fiddling around just because you can.

 

From the Galaga play video it looks like Arcade1Up got the buttons and joysticks right, so I think Galaga should be a lot of fun. Now $50 cheaper. :)

the stick is way too tall, and the fire button is at the wrong distance, and doesn't feel right.

there may be some input lag on the firing.

 

the arcade joystick is 6 1/2 inches away, and scaled down to even 3/4 they got it wrong.

 

galaga-1up-side-comp.jpg

 

later

-1

Edited by negative1
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looks like theres more screen issues, and glitches.

 

never seen sprites that become semi transparent before:

...

-1

Likely defective display out of the box, covered by warranty.

 

OK! Well I went to Walmart and they had a Centipede on display :)

Cent.jpg

 

So I gave it a shot and was able to finally have my own opinion:

 

1. The trackball as been said, is cheap. It doesn't glide smoothly and kind of gave me the feeling like something like a piece of cardboard is scraping it underneath. That's obviously not the case but I'm just trying to describe the "feel" it gave me. Once you let go of it, your dude stops moving. So rolling smoothly across the screen to spray a wall in Missile Command is harder as you end up doing halting movement, with a hard stop after each roll. Ditto for chasing that last Centipede head on the bottom of the screen. You can roll it really hard and get some kind of residual movement, but it's not exactly ideal.

 

2. The response on the unit I tried was lacking.. it'd be ok for a lot of the game, but every now and then it wouldn't roll where I wanted. This was easily reproducible.. here I am just on the menu, simply trying to move upward with as consistent movement as I could. It's a 30 second video but you can especially see the lack of response at the 0:18 mark and above where it simply doesn't move. This obviously manifests itself in the games pretty annoyingly.

 

...

 

Now.. all that aside, I WAS able to have a relatively enjoyable game of Centipede and Millipede! Missile Command was just "ok".. as you really had to do a lot of rolls to get to where you needed to get to across the screen. I didn't try Crystal Castles.

 

Centipede was the only one I was looking to buy, but they only had Asteroids for sale, so it made my decision whether to buy easy, and I went home without one. :lol:. But yeah I don't know.. after experiencing it myself I'd have to say my outlook on it is "iffy" right now. If they improve the gameplay with the trackball hardware I'd be all over it.. cheap cab & rubbed out stickers and all. It's all about the gameplay for me and in that respect it just fell short of what I wanted, which is simply good trackball control that brought that aspect of the real arcade games home on the cheap. Now that said.. it wasn't exactly super "BAD" either! I did enjoy playing it for what it was worth. On a scale of 1-100 looking purely at Gameplay, I'll have to give this a score of 75%. Fix the trackball, and it's a no-brainer.

This demo unit doesn't look right, the trackball may have been abused in store. They are not commercial/industrial quality parts. If you do have an issue like this, take it apart for inspection. I thought I heard of trackball interference with the panel that was resolved with some washers.

 

These trackballs don't have ball bearings like an arcade trackball so they'll never be as smooth. Maybe some lubrication on the roller pins might help loosen it up.

 

----------

Yeah, that fire button on the galaga/galaxian machine should be right of centre.

Edited by mr_me
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What type of computer is in these? I figure to fit in a flat pack it's either built into the display, or a small pi type. Anyhow, lot of empty space inside, this would make a great frame for a name cabinet for those with not a lot of room for full size machines.

The breakdown from ETA Prime right when they came out, shows its the same processor as the Pandora's box.

They can't be modified, hacked, or expanded.

 

Only thing is to get a new interface and plug in whatever you want to the screen, but you have

to get the right one or there will be issues.

 

later

-1

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The breakdown from ETA Prime right when they came out, shows its the same processor as the Pandora's box.

They can't be modified, hacked, or expanded.

 

Only thing is to get a new interface and plug in whatever you want to the screen, but you have

to get the right one or there will be issues.

 

later

-1

or you could buy a better screen that is the same size and use it with a mame rig.

 

Or you could just not buy these piece of shit cheapass cardboard disposable toys and invest your money more wisely in a better quality cabinet/cabaret/diy kit.

Edited by John Stamos Mullet
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or you could buy a better screen that is the same size and use it with a mame rig.

 

Or you could just not buy these piece of shit cheapass cardboard disposable toys and invest your money more wisely in a better quality cabinet/cabaret/diy kit.

The only thing that I wonder about, is if people care about the graphics. Do they really cost that much.

 

Because if they want that, then its cheaper to get this, than to get custom made graphics, and slap it

on a generic mini cabinet.

 

Personally, i don't care.

 

But then saying that, I'm getting the pac-man cabinet, flaws and all.

 

later

-1

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it only solves the clicky sound, and free spinning dial. since the encoder is wrong, as i said,

it makes NO difference in gameplay for people that know how to play it, and get to further levels.

 

if you want to spin all around to enjoy the game, go ahead, that doesn't mean its right,

maybe you should be going counterclockwise all the time, or whatever.

 

playing the game properly makes more sense, that fiddling around just because you can.

 

 

the stick is way too tall, and the fire button is at the wrong distance, and doesn't feel right.

there may be some input lag on the firing.

 

the arcade joystick is 6 1/2 inches away, and scaled down to even 3/4 they got it wrong.

 

galaga-1up-side-comp.jpg

 

later

-1

 

Ah, sorry, should have clarified: I meant that the joystick and buttons actually work, as opposed to the trackball and spinner problems, when I said they got them right. :)

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What type of computer is in these? I figure to fit in a flat pack it's either built into the display, or a small pi type. Anyhow, lot of empty space inside, this would make a great frame for a name cabinet for those with not a lot of room for full size machines.

 

 

I commented about this in another thread. Some thoughts:

 

1) Only a 90 day warranty

2) It seems like they've got a somewhat higher failure rate than most electronics products

3) While Arcade1up says you'll be able to buy out of warranty replacement parts in the future, many people likely won't bother

4) It actually is a nice little cab, easy to work with and move around the house

5) It's easy to mod the lcd panel to take hdmi. If you'd want a custom control panel, you'd just need to mod/replace the control panel board. The Retropi hack video has already been up for a while

I think in 6+ months, there is going to be a decent number of these cabs that will have failed and people will be able to pick them up for cheap to nothing. At that point, you won't be able to build anything even close to as cheap for a custom cab than to use one of these. These would be especially good for making custom control layouts with the correct screen orientation. (eg, like a Defender/Stargate cab with the correct control scheme)

(At this point, someone will bring up the $350 Alpha-cade cabs. While the build is much better, the art isn't. The price isn't either. 350 + 100 (shipping) + screen + retropi = around $550-$600. You'd be able to build 5 A1U cab hacks for the price of one Alpha-cade)

So here's to Arcade1Up having a lot of success... so I can eventually get a dozen dirt cheap failed cabs to hack :)

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Anecdotally, it seems as though the raster-graphics-joystick-based games are faring much better in the A1UP lineup than games with vectors and/or analog controls.

 

It's not really surprising when you think about it. Raster game emulation and generic arcade joysticks and buttons are commonplace/robust enough to survive a fleecing from bean counters and come out the other side with a hint of serviceability intact. Spinners and trackballs, on the other hand, are too nuanced in their construction and finicky in their emulator configurations to have any hope of enjoying the same fidelity in this form.

 

If they stick with games like Pac-Man, Galaga, Burgertime, and the like then I think the gaming experience will be marred by fewer fatal shortcomings.

 

 

 

So here's to Arcade1Up having a lot of success... so I can eventually get a dozen dirt cheap failed cabs to hack

 

The prospect of readily available cabinets to hack was my primary interest in these things at the beginning, but it's looking like there is not much of anything on these things that I'd be able to keep and be happy with it. Maybe if I had a need for a quick low-usage MAME setup (i.e., for a trailer, enclosed patio, cottage, etc.), and I got the donor cabinet for free, I'd look into it.

 

To be fair, I still haven't played one of these things myself, which I should probably do before being so judgmental.

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Anecdotally, it seems as though the raster-graphics-joystick-based games are faring much better in the A1UP lineup than games with vectors and/or analog controls.

 

It's not really surprising when you think about it. Raster game emulation and generic arcade joysticks and buttons are commonplace/robust enough to survive a fleecing from bean counters and come out the other side with a hint of serviceability intact. Spinners and trackballs, on the other hand, are too nuanced in their construction and finicky in their emulator configurations to have any hope of enjoying the same fidelity in this form.

 

If they stick with games like Pac-Man, Galaga, Burgertime, and the like then I think the gaming experience will be marred by fewer fatal shortcomings.

 

 

 

 

The prospect of readily available cabinets to hack was my primary interest in these things at the beginning, but it's looking like there is not much of anything on these things that I'd be able to keep and be happy with it. Maybe if I had a need for a quick low-usage MAME setup (i.e., for a trailer, enclosed patio, cottage, etc.), and I got the donor cabinet for free, I'd look into it.

 

To be fair, I still haven't played one of these things myself, which I should probably do before being so judgmental.

 

 

Well obviously vector games won't have the POP that a real vector tube does (otherwise the backlight would be bright enough to melt the panel...). That said, the vector games on my 12-1 look good

 

With the trackball, on my 12-1, it's a bit tight and has little follow. That seems to be a pretty common refrain. However I recently played centipede with just moving my guy around at the bottom (not shooting) and dodging a bunch of 1-seg segments. The trackball was highly accurate and I lasted over 1.25min just dodging. However I think that this is an issue with making the trackball work well with the marquee game (centipede) and not worrying about how the lack of follow affects gameplay in missile command / liberator / quantum

 

Then the spinner... Yeah, it's garbage. That said, Tempest is still reasonably playable. But yes, after using it, the spinner really is garbage. I'm going to do some work on mine when I find the time. (I'll probably keep it simple, just the washers trick and some silicone)

 

For using the cabs for hacking? Every one that I examined has looked solid enough. The other major part is the lcd, which seems to have something like 10-15% of them being substandard (which is what you can expect with 'A' rated panels instead of AAA / A+++ rated). However if you get a non-substandard one, then the majority of people have rated them as good enough to outright good. That's also been my experience. So... while I wouldn't use it for a high usage "main" cab, I think they'll work out well for a lighter usage cab modded for games with different control layouts

 

 

On a closer note, I doubt I'll be buying A1U cab number 2 at the retail price. There's just too many ways to play these games with other means. I might be tempted to buy a used working Rampage cab if I could get it for $75-$100, but otherwise, no. I'd rather mod them to get it like I'd want. However that could change if A1U would bring out a couple of driving cabs with foot pedals...

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Well I was meaning just dropping in your own computer for a ready made mame cabinet, not actually using theirs.

 

The cabinet seems to be good enough quality, and like I said, street fighters controller was ok to above average. Not arcade quality, but beats out most arcade sticks I've had.

 

I just like how it looks, though it I got one I'd like tempest, or breakout.

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What the hell? They covered the controlls up? The one at the local store is set up to play. I can say the control panel is starting to show wear on the graphics from little arms playing the game, so I guess the print job isn't so good, though I imagine the rest will hold up due to not being a constantly touched surface.

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What the hell? They covered the controlls up? The one at the local store is set up to play. I can say the control panel is starting to show wear on the graphics from little arms playing the game, so I guess the print job isn't so good, though I imagine the rest will hold up due to not being a constantly touched surface.

i know, right? you would think as a demo, they would let people play it.

anyway, i already enquired with the manager to see if they will sell this

damaged unit off later on. maybe i can get it cheap.

 

later

-1

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ok, i'm going to throw my hat into the fire of 1up arcade, especially the dial controversy....

 

here's my challenge to people, either beat my highscore that i got on the asteroids machine

at Thinkgeek, with the clicky stiff Dial, using a modded dial (to spin smoother), or a

replacement Spinner on it, to simulate the arcade, and post a video of it, or screenshot

if you can't do that.

 

NOTE : the video is terrible, because when you shoot from the side, the screen angle makes everything look blue

however, you can see the last of the blue levels, the infinity on level 16, and parts of the round level 17 which is red.

 

1) i played at thinkgeek for half an hour, and got to level 20, and 152,000 points, which is the red levels

2) the stock stiff, and clicky dial was used

3) i was in a public mall, so i really couldn't set up a tripod or anything else to film...etc

================================================================================================

here are the screenshots

 

temphigh1.jpg

temphigh2.jpg

temphigh3.jpg

 

 

 

 

i think the game is perfectly playable, and the next time i will try to get to the

yellow or blue levels, and try to film it properly if i can.

 

YES, i know the clicky sound is annoying, and the dial is super stiff, and is NOTHING

like the smooth spinner of the arcade. The arcade up encoder is 4.2x faster, so we

can't do anything about that.

 

The game is PERFECTLY playable as is, because in Tempest, you NEVER need to spin fast

to play. You use slow controlled movements a segment to the left or right, especially

in the upper levels with the pulsars and fuses.

 

Anyways, good luck if anyone does it, i'd be interested in knowing what you control

you used.

 

later

-1

Edited by negative1
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Why does the spinner "click". People have said it becomes smooth after installing some washers to add separation from the panel. Is that true. Some lubrication should loosen it a bit.

 

The movement being faster than the original arcade might make-up for the tight spinner. It can also be considered a cheat.

 

What the hell? They covered the controlls up? The one at the local store is set up to play. I can say the control panel is starting to show wear on the graphics from little arms playing the game, so I guess the print job isn't so good, though I imagine the rest will hold up due to not being a constantly touched surface.

Arcade1up has already recognized the panel wear problem and issued a fix.

 

What type of computer is in these? I figure to fit in a flat pack it's either built into the display, or a small pi type. Anyhow, lot of empty space inside, this would make a great frame for a name cabinet for those with not a lot of room for full size machines.

Allwinner A13 SoC. Edited by mr_me
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ok, i'm going to throw my hat into the fire of 1up arcade, especially the dial controversy....

 

here's my challenge to people, either beat my highscore that i got on the asteroids machine

at Thinkgeek, with the clicky stiff Dial, using a modded dial (to spin smoother), or a

replacement Spinner on it, to simulate the arcade, and post a video of it, or screenshot

if you can't do that.

 

NOTE : the video is terrible, because when you shoot from the side, the screen angle makes everything look blue

however, you can see the last of the blue levels, the infinity on level 16, and parts of the round level 17 which is red.

 

1) i played at thinkgeek for half an hour, and got to level 20, and 152,000 points, which is the red levels

2) the stock stiff, and clicky dial was used

3) i was in a public mall, so i really couldn't set up a tripod or anything else to film...etc

================================================================================================

here are the screenshots

 

temphigh1.jpg

temphigh2.jpg

temphigh3.jpg

 

 

 

 

i think the game is perfectly playable, and the next time i will try to get to the

yellow or blue levels, and try to film it properly if i can.

 

YES, i know the clicky sound is annoying, and the dial is super stiff, and is NOTHING

like the smooth spinner of the arcade. The arcade up encoder is 4.2x faster, so we

can't do anything about that.

 

The game is PERFECTLY playable as is, because in Tempest, you NEVER need to spin fast

to play. You use slow controlled movements a segment to the left or right, especially

in the upper levels with the pulsars and fuses.

 

Anyways, good luck if anyone does it, i'd be interested in knowing what you control

you used.

 

later

-1

 

I definitely agree with this and found this an interesting timing for the challenge. Just last night I started a game from the highest available blue level without prior play (54,000) and made into the red level, Cross or Triangle (cant remember which at the moment). I've done the #6 washers + thin black tape mod for my spinner. As I put in my review, out of the box, it was playable but this small fix made things a whole lot better. When I play again, I'll grab some pics of I think of it. I am considering upgrading the spinner to a Spin Trak though; this individual appears to have achieved a means for getting a nice adjustment for it with this cab:

 

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I could get past the spinner. I could get past the dodgy trackball. But the aliasing on those vector games, oh my. What's this thing rendering at? 640 x 480?

 

The PS4 Atari Collection looks MILES better, darn near close to a real vector display on my OLED TV. Maybe better, actually.

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