Hi there Batocera friends,
in this post i want to share with you what i’ve been able to achive with batocera in combination with my arcade cabinet. The idea behind my cabinet is that everything is userfriendly and i don’t have to make any configs while playing.
System Specs:
Image - Batocera 5.25 ×64
CPU - Intel Core i5 4460 @ 3.2 GHz
GPU - Nvidia Gtx 780
RAM - 16 Gb DDR3 @ 1600 MHz
HDD - 500GB
Monitor - NEC Multisync (21 Inch, 4:3 Aspect Ratio, max. Resolution 1600 × 1200)
Beamer - Acer Full HD Beamer (16:9 Aspect Ratio, max. Resolution 1920 × 1080)
Audio - Logitech 2.1 PC Speaker
DVI-Audio Splitter (Splitter wich alows me to send audio+video to the arcade cabinet and also to the beamer and the audio-system for the beamer)
Controller:
- 4 x XBOX-One Controller (wired via USB)
- 4 x CSL Gamepad (wired via USB)
- 2 x WiiMote connected with Guitar (via Bluetooth)
- 1 x Guitar Hero USB-Microphone
- Keyboard and Mouse wireless only for support
Arcadecabinet is build completeley on my own. This is the Top-Half wich is seperated from the bottom part for transport. Added 4 Cupholders for drinks(mostly german beer) while playing.
Here are some pictures.
I choose Batocera as system because of the good dolphin-support and the pcsx2. Also the Support in the forum and discord is great. I love the work you guys are doing here!
- Nvidia drivers enabled
- Bios Packs can be found easily by googling Batocera Bios Pack
Systems i am using - Emulators:
Mame, Megadrive, PS1, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, ScummVM, Dreamcast
- All of these above pretty much work out of the Box and don’t need any further explanation.
Nintendo Gamecube
- Works also out of the Box. I just made changes to the graphics via the .ini-file. Some games need different settings in internal resolution. Star Wars Rouge Leader and Squadron as example need their very own settings.
The Rest of the Games runs in 3x internal resoltion (3 x of the original Gamecube-Resolution). All at 30 or 60 fps depending on the games fps-lock.
Nintendo Wii
Games work out of the Box. Graphic settings same as Gamecube.
The tricky part here are the controller configs. I made controller profiles in dolphin for each controller style(Sideway, Wiimote + Nunchuck, Classic Controller) and let the games select these profiles via the .ini-file. I know there are preconfigured options from Batocera but they didn’t work on my system…
The other advantage from working with .ini-files in dolphin is that you can configure wich player slot gets wich controller. In my case this is good for Bomberman Blast with 8 players. First 4 Players get the XBOX-One Controller and the other 4 the CSL-Pads.
Guitar Hero
I also need the .ini-file for Guitar Hero and RockBand on Wii. These games have a very own workflow with controller selection. I can combine real Wiimotes(via Bluetooth) for the guitars and emulated Wiimotes(on wired Controllers) for the player with microphone. It was a pretty mess to get this working but now i have 17 games running without error.
Every time a game gets started the Wii-Motes need to be connected new by pressing the pair-button on them. I made a label with a explanation for this on the cabinet.
Playstation 2
- Games work out of the Box with only graphical issues. Some games need different graphic settings but at the moment there is no way to make individual game settings. I found one setting that is working for all games after some time.
- Remaining issue: The up and down on the right stick is inverted. This can be changed in settings but not permanent. This is no problem for most of my games because on shooters you can change this ingame. Only games like Katamari Damacy are not playable with this.
DosBox
- Games always need some special configurations and can be mapped completely for controller gameplay. Thats my last point to work on right now.
Theme Settings:
I’ve been able to make my own design for my own collections. I made collections for 2 player-games, 4-8 player-games, guitar hero, high-score games and rom-hacks. I also made a new collection for the Wii-Games to seperate them from the Guitar-Hero Games wich are also on Wii.
I changed my background and music wich is pretty easy.
Usability:
One of my prioritys is usability. For this i changed all Button Designs on ES to fit them to my XBOX-One Controllers.
I also made labels for all basic controls and shortscuts(exit, save and load games) and placed them on the cabinet. So everyone could start and use the machine and shut it down again without asking me.
For Mame i added a explanation to press the right button to put in coins.
8 Players:
For 8 Player Bomberman there is an longer USB-Cable so 4 people play at the cabinet and the other 4 on the couch with beamer.
Future Plans:
- Maybe i add some Arcade Joysticks to the cabinet just to be fair to the mame games. But thats just an idea.
- I hope sometime the Buzz-Controllers will work in linux for usage with the Buzz-Games on PS2. Maybe i’ll try to get this running/compiling on my own. I just don’t have the idea right now. But time will see.
- Rest of the plan for me is to stay on the stable builds of batocera and update everytime new systems come in, maybe when RPCS 3 is ready :)
Everything i mentoined here works, i am only still doing DosBox Button mapping.
Thats it for the moment, maybe i’ll edit this some time to go more in-depht into some settings. All-in-All i just want to say that if you take the time you can do so much right now with batocera. Batocera is going the way to be the ultimate system for emulation!
Grettings, Phil
