tthurman

I'll preface this by saying that when it comes to having to do a lot of tweaking with old games on modern hardware, I'm not the most patient. I've had no luck with pod racer, and as Draco mentioned one of the problems is 16 bit, I believe the 16 bit installer, but I'll be sure to try his link. One of the original programers has fixed Battlezone to run on current hardware, due to DirectX and CD-ROM access the videos didn't even play right in XP, but this was running from the CD install, not Ken Miller's patched version. The Battlezone expansion pack Red Odyssey was coded by another group, I actually think it was a mod, anyway it's real hit and miss.

Good catch! Personally I skipped 2000 though, and stuck with 98SE until XP launched. I remember 2000 was a real dog for games, but it was before NT went mainstream too. I thought about building a retro 98SE box for some of my old favorites, Battlezone, Pod Racer, etc., but man talk about archaic, I'd forgot how fickle it was. GL-Quake, couldn't tell you how many hours of my life were spent playing that one, but what a game changer that was for gaming!

What's the sweet spot screen size for a pinball play field? Viewing angles have to play into this, don't they? What is a good bang for the buck display for pinball?

Well, I'm probably a month, maybe two from starting the front end work, and this is exactly why I'm not in a hurry. I'd rather cut my teeth on the new version than do it twice.

I just checked, he is, I'm jealous! That was one of, if not the best, post I've read here so far.....

I thought I read somewhere there were going to be some teasers of sorts leading up to the launch. I can't seem to find this though, so it's entirely possible that it only existed in my head. That's what happens when I start thinking!

My systems aren't that current, hardware wise. Both use: Silverstone LC17B HTPC Case Intel DP43BF XIGATEK LOKI SD963 8 GB Corsair DDR3 (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 X 2) Windows 8.1 update X64 Lite-On IHAS424-98 Rosewill RNX-N180UBE Wireless Adapter Logitech mini controller HTPC (primarily used for streaming, DVD playback and audio) E8500 2X Western Digital RE3 250 GB (RAID 1) Seasonic MII 520 XFX HD-6770 X-Fi Titanium HD (analog out for audio playback) M-ulator Q9550 2X Toshiba PH3200U-1I72 2TB (RAID 1) Antec HCG-620M Gigabyte 9800 GS (Soon to be upgraded to 750Ti) X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional

TRS-80 coco here, I remember keying in games in basic language for seemingly days, they digging through it for more days trying to find the typo's! I had some cool Wico super joysticks too, much better than those crap RS, no centering POS! We subscribed to a magazine called Rainbow, and what a grand day it was when you could order the magazine, with the accompanying cassette

Man, that looks great!

Great post BTW!

.....and the XP lava lamp! I believe this was the first promo they ran, or was it the other way around? Either way, the lamp still gets comments when it's on in my office, which is mostly on rainy days.

I was an early adopter of XP, and still had many of my F@H rigs running it until last week. MS ran a big campaign to promote it. I still recall so many being relectant to move off of 2000, or 98SE in some cases. Anyone remember these? The "Go Pro" baseball theme came in a big box, complete with some "Big League Chew". I guess I finally pitched the box that the ball and Eddy Trustman arrived in, many years after their arrival. Who thiks up this stuff?

Sweet! I'm jealous

Funny! I've used that same logic to put one down in the pool shed. Granted I haven't done it yet, but it is pretty logical thinking, isn't it? I haven't been able to bring myself to subjecting the new JBL's to the extremes yet, regardless of being all weather rated.

Your post hits a little close to home. I've been debating this, debating that, but have yet to jump into to building. I like to take my time, in hopes I don't get into it, and screw something up. Birch plywood has been in the garage for three years now, and my CP was purchased over five years ago. My build will be pretty unconventional, and so planning has gone from "wow that would be cool", to "that's to much work, keep it simple and clean". If I get overly complex, I'll never finish. Seeing a killer build like yours gives me incentive! Great work!

Cool, very cool! Great idea on the side art too. I got my control panel from Jack, over at Arcades R Fun, and it has a very similar lighting pattern on it. I've been talking my pedestal build up ever since buying it, enough to really grate on everyone's nerves. I keep hearing "you'll probably get bored of it, and never play it". So the question is, at about the year and a half mark, are you still playing? I think I know the answer to that! Great work man!

A little late to this post, but that's some nice work! Funny how everyone that gets into this hobby seems to make the FE community rounds, and many of them seem to end up back here.

Interesting, I have a MSI 4890, that still plays most games well. Granted it's not the one you mention, but if wasn't stuck in DX 10, I'd probably still be gaming on it. I had it in the HTPC for a little while, but it's hard to justify that power hungry card for video playback. My arcade build is a pedestal style, plugging into a Samsung flat panel TV, I was leaning toward the nivida mostly for Supermodel support, as it seems driver updates for RAGE wrenched AMD cards working with any remotely new drivers.

Oh yeah, I have to agree with DazzleHP! I'd recommend getting a much less intrusive AV suite. I've lost countless hours to McAffee, and am convinced it is developed to keep PC makers in business, as it it the largest resource hog I've ever seen. my .02 only!

So do you take the red pill, and embrace the sometimes painful hobby of emulation, or take the blue pill, and enjoy the blissful illusion of retro gaming on Steam and a Wii? Wow you almost got me reconsidering! Do Steam and Wii really have a large library of retro games? I bet you get real dizzy playing Tempest on a Wii! I think that if you are comfortable with computers, not browsing the net comfortable, but directory structure, and configuration comfortable, and are patient enough to endure some trial and error, you'll do just fine. nullPointer is right, this hobby isn't for everyone, but if your into it, it will eventually bring out the creative side of you, and that's where all your time will go. Setting up a MAME rig is pretty straight forward, and can be up and going in pretty short order. Cabinet building, graphics, and tweaking your system into the coolest thing on the block, that can quickly become a super big time eater. I'm constantly amazed at the sheer number of talented individuals that dedicate their time to this hobby, and some of their work is simply amazing!

There seem to be a mixed bag of user types here, HTPC, arcade, a little of both, so I'm curious as to what is the GPU maker that gets the nod. I'm presently working on two builds, a HTPC mainly for music and movies in our main viewing area, and a second one for a multipurpose arcade build for the rec room. I was set on using a HD5770 for my arcade build, until I started really doing some research on things I aimed to achieve with my setup. In addition to MAME, I would like to run Supermodel as well as some Pinball emulators, both which seems to work better on nVidia based GPU's. So I figured the 5770 would make a fine HTPC card for audio/video playback for my HTPC, well until it started artifacting. Anyway, I'm now leaning towards a 750 TI for the arcade build, and hoping XFX comes through on the double lifetime warranty on my 5770. I plan to use HDMI output for sound and video, and I've always got the impression that AMD cards had the advantage here from a surround sound standpoint.

This has always struck me as odd. Why are there so many versions of the same games anyway? Are some of the clones better, from a playability stand point, than the originals? If so, what good are the originals, just because they are genuine original game roms? The whole MAME/CHD thing seems excessively wasteful from a disk space point of view, so many items seem repetitive, or completely unused. For now I've kept them though, and in split sets just to avoid potential issues down the road, should I decide to consolidate only to what I play. I certainly don't want into the headache of deleting something wrenches numerous other games. I can't imagine the amount of storage serious collectors have invested in this hobby. It would be nice though if you could group them somehow.

Congrats!

What kind of rig you running T. Goodchild? I can see the advantage of running things on such a mature OS for sure. I'm hopeful that what I Intend to run will work without major headaches on 8, but your right, things just run on XP. Much of what I am reading about ending XP support is pretty scarey stuff, hackers waiting in the wings for support to end, and using patches for Vista, 7 and 8 to reverse engineer them to find that exploits that will, in all likelihood have numerous wide ranging effects to soon to be exploited XP machines. I haven't ruled out maintaining a XP box for PC games that honestly just ran with less hassle than on other OS's, and just block all internet traffic. I wonder what method will become the one of choice to circumvent exploits once support ends?

Thanks for the heads up on ClassicShell, was not familiar with it, and instead planned to head straight for Start8.