To answer your other questions: JAMMA is the wiring standard for how your game is wired. So you can plug and play any JAMMA comparable arcade board in that machine.

Game Gate I have no opinion of. There are a lot of those out there. They all do the same thing - they provide you with a pre configured MAME setup and make you pay for their work. MAME is the better way to play the games so I don’t object to it. I personally don’t find value in paying someone to do it for me but that just because I enjoyed figuring it out for myself. Everyone is different.

You will find the same games on your 60 in 1 will play better on a MAME game gate or similar system.

MAME isn’t difficult and there is a ton of info and videos out there on it if you want to get your feet wet.

If I can help in any way please send me a note. Always happy to help. If you like tinkering you’ll definitely want to go raspberry pi route.

I've got a dozen dedicated games - particularly my absolute favorite games that ALSO have unusual controls... but they take up a ton of space. I'm only willing to deal with the maintenance expense for a small select few titles.

One of the best things about emulation is the variety of different games. It's a TON of fun just quickly looking at the thousands of games made over the years. Finding a great game you've never seen before is a blast. With my Shield setup (linked above), it's really easy to 'explore'.

I have a neo geo single slot with a 161 in 1 cartridge in it. Also have Olympic gold medalist 4 player arcade.

I’m basically in the same boat. I have 19 games (6 of them pins). When it comes to the arcade ones I have some great games but I still decided to use a mame setup for variety. It works well. I have many extra pcbs to swap in and out but I just can’t own that much hardware space wise never mind money wise.

Maybe I'll find a Defender for sale near Philly this year...

If you're really into arcade games you really do yourself a disservice with emulation, and should get some real PCBs. That is merely my opinion though.

(I'm just having fun, I totally get the emulation appeal, I've done it.)

I think emulation can lose it's appeal by each one of these:
1. You're running a pi box with home game controllers not arcade controls like a real joystick, trackball, spinner (that's me right now)
2. It's not in a real cabinet but using your TV as the monitor (that's me right now)
3. Whatever menu interface frontend you chose isn't user friendly (I'm running retropie which is nice)
4. You have WAY too many dam games loaded. So many you get overwhelmed and give up (this is also me because I downloaded a pre-made image file).

I think if you did it right and maybe dedicated one cabinet to each:
1. driving games
2. fighting games
3. retro games with less than 3 buttons (donkey kong, pac-man)
4. trackball games (missle command, crystal castles, marble madness)
5. spinner games (tempest, arkanoid, tron)

you would be in good shape. I don't need to play on real hardware because the frame rate is truer. I don't need the real shaped cabinet it was in originally, I don't need to see the marquee for that game (though I have seen videos where the marquee was an LCD that changed with game selection):

That's a pretty slick setup!

I agree. How much to build one for me? LOL.

Last one I had I sold for $750 and the guy drove here from ATLANTA. I'd say you need 1K+ to buy a decent Joust these days. For comparison, I sold a nice Stargate last fall for $700 and I value that game below a Joust.

Here's a link to their website ...

http://www.paradoxarcades.com/systems/

Those systems with all the bells and whistles are very pricey!

For the arcade cabinet using the Shield TV, I've connected a spinner, trackball, and arcade controls using UHID from Ultimarc. It works very well. Anyone considering similar path, you'll want the custom UHID firmware update that adds support for Android home/back/volume buttons. 99% of retro games are well-served by this cabinet. In addition, I can play new Android games (Crossy Road, Pacman 256, Zen Pinball, etc.) and PC games streamed from my PC or NVIDIA's netflix-like gaming service (Nex Machina!)

For certain, very special games, I justified the dedicated upright (Mad Planets, Robotron, 2pWarlords, Strike Zone baseball, Sinistar, 4pTrog, etc.)

Agree. There are a lot of arcade games like this: Tron, Star Wars, most racing games, Robotron, Black Widow, Mad Planets, Super Off Road, Paperboy, Defender, Stargate, Warlords, Arkanoid, most trackball games, and other spinner games, most all vector games. Just about every game I've ever owned is difficult to emulate.

HOLY BALLS.

As much as I would love to have a few real arcades, emulation is awesome. I do agree with some other posters there are a few things you have to have.
1.) Proper joystick and buttons I used two Ultrastik 360 and it's awesome lets me play everything.
2.) Proper cabinet
3.) Original screen or if you go modern it has to rotate. I went with rotating 4/3.

I added a spinner but not a track ball, I do wish I had a track ball but I don't have the room as I only went with a 2 player cabinet.

Also one thing to remember some original games are basically unplayable today. Double Dragon is horrific without emulation.

Emulation is when you run the game on a different computer that is simulating the old hardware in software. The purist feel that its not close enough to the real thing. In some situations they have a point, the timing is slightly different and you can enable cheats and lots of other things. I suspect that vast majority of people would never be able to tell in a blind test.

The other side of the coin is you can make real improvement using emulation a game like Double Dragon runs a dreadful frame rate on real hardware. It stutters and freezes its basically unplayable. You don't realize how bad it was back in the day. On emulation it runs perfect buttery smooth.

Can you put it into 4-way mode? I hate playing a game like Pacman with an 8-way stick.

Its awesome you can change it on the fly, to any mode you like. You can use actual hardware locks on it to only allow the stick to move. I don't do that I just have it set up to change in software and it works perfect. You can play games like Sinistar with full 360 analog support then play pac man with super tight 4 directions. There is a little program so you set it up anyway you like. In my opinion its the best one size fits all solution. It was mandatory for me because I wanted Sinistar with a proper stick. They are considered to be expensive, I think they were $60 a pop when I got mine a few years back. I figured it was worth it but you can get old school sticks way cheaper.

I installed Ultimarc's Mag-Stik Plus on my Ms. Pac: 412-in-1 and it plays awesome. Certainly not automatic but has worked great for years. I'm a fan of Ms. Pac and 1942.

... which I just finished last December!

Game on!

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I’m a vid guy that started selling a few games last week to add a couple pins. A list of my games:
TMNT
Simpson’s
Sunset Riders
Carnevil
Time Crisis 2 (duel monitor cabinet)
Lethal Enforcers 1/2 (In 1 cab on a switcher)
Mortal Kombat 2
Killer Instinct 1/2 (in KI1 cab on a switcher)
Simpson’s Bowling/ world class bowling (in 1 cab on a switcher)
Crusin World
Roadburners
Mrs Pac-Man
Galaga
Blitz 99
NBA Jam
Wreastlefest
Dart Machine
Skeeball lane
Pool table

Last week picked up a Space Jam Pin ($700)
$3000 budget looking to add another pin this week.

And a quick pic showing part of the games

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You know how a bunch of people here complain about the afm and mm remakes because they are not original? It is pretty much the same thing with emulation in the arcade world. It has to be original, or it sucks.

Emulation may not be perfect, but you can have a lot of fun playing the emulated games.

If you have good controls, a lot of games will feel just like the originals.

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Just curious if you’ve played an original donkey Kong and then played your 60-1, you’ll be surprised at the difference, I think.

I started doing this exact thing... it’s taken years, I have a centipede that looks factory, plays Everything with a trackball and 3 buttons.

Tron with original controls that has every game utilizing those controls... (Arkanoid and tempest suck on it... originals are much better)

Dynamo cabinet with original crt monitor with 2 player controls and a hyperspin setup with mame, Naomi, snes, nes, turbografx 16 etc .

Super punchout using original boards and a mame setup to play punchout and arm wrestling

A vewlix clone with a jtag xbox360 for all modern fighting games

A slim vewlix clone for vertical shmups using a jtag xbox360.

Robotron with xbox360 and crt monitor, with original hori Naomi analog joysticks hacked into the Xbox 360 pads. Plays robotron, geometry wars 1,2,3. And a ton of other 2 stick games

A fix it Felix jr, with a hyperspin mame setup, it’s all custom, and amazing... I say this and I’m mostly a purist when it comes to classics especially when it comes to controls. the expense was too great when I started this hobby, now I wish I had all dedicated games, but I’m happy with what I have, and it all works great.

Going to have 2 driving cabs with mame and xboxes, already have the project cabinets

Also have many original games and hope to add more.

MAME is LAME

This is the bottom line, you can have lots of fun. Don't let anyone ruin your fun, just play and have a good time.

If you're serious about gameplay then it matters. I'm a Street Fighter player. Emulation isn't the same as real hardware. The frames matter. But if you're not a serious player you won't notice or care.

Don't mock people who do care, because the differences are real, and not about being a snob, just don't worry about it if that stuff doesn't matter to you.

60-in-1 are typically remakes (IE they reprogrammed it from scratch), so yes it's not an exact copy. Probably also how they legally get away with selling those boards without the companies coming after them (MAME is a grey area, and a company selling cabinets in california busted for it).

Mame is running the original roms that were extracted from the boards. So the graphics, sounds, and code are identical. But because they are running a simulation of the original CPU, there is usually a minor difference in speed (hence above saying how double dragon no longer slows down or has sprite flicker). Double dragon (and golden axe and altered beast for that matter) was pushing the limits of the CPU at the time. Most people don't care, or can even notice. If you're trying to set a world record for a classic game, they only allow it to be played on original hardware so it's a level playing ground.

Those 60 in1 boards are usually running MAME ROMS. The games always have the same problems as their MAME counterparts (sound, color issues etc.).

I haven’t played a 60-1, but have compared donkey Kong in mame against an original. I did not notice any difference. I was playing with a nintendo controller, and original dk jump button on the mame cabinet. I am not a great player, but I was at 278,500 at that time (I am sure way worse now as I have barely played in years). The timing felt identical to me. I would expect the 60-1 to have more emulation bugs. I think they use a fairly old version of mame, and there has been development on the dkong driver over the years. I remember quite a few years ago the sound emulation was rewritten to try to correctly emulate the hardware. After that was added, my athlon xp was no longer fast enough to run donkey Kong in mame, so I built a new computer based on the core2duo.

When you hear complaints about emulation, I think a lot of them are from people using older versions of mame, or bad controls. If there is a legitimate bug in the emulation of a popular game like donkey Kong, it is probably because the people who notice it don’t bother to report it to to the mame team (mametesters.org). There are also some players that just notice input lag way more than others.

I just played an original dk the other week. Comparing it to the 60\1 version, i couldn't tell much of a difference. Mario's "squeeky" running sound is maybe a little higher pitched in the original, but the gameplay was damn close.

Anyone have opinions on the units from arcades r fun?
Arcadesrfun.com

Donkey Kong was my favorite game growing up and I played it a lot. I have played the original at a few locations in the past year and now have a 60 in 1 in my home.

I can’t tell that there is much of a difference. Those saying the game play on the 60 in 1’s is completely different and off are exaggerating. There may be some subtle things here and there but they are hardly noticeable, even to someone like me that loved DK growing up.

No one has a MAME machine cares about perfect emulation. They (we) are that we can fit 100s or 1000s of games into a single cabinet. For me video emulation is well beyond pinball emulation, so when it comes to filling an arcade it's a no brainier to fill most spots with pinball and then add a MAME machine. PS: My wife is insanely good at Track & Field. I play quite a bit and she crushed most of my records on her first try.

Don’t do it.

I have 4 arcade games along with my 5 pins. My arcades are:

Punch Out
NBA Jam
Galaga
Arcade Legends 1

The Arcade Legends has over 200 games including all the Williams arcade classics. As some have said already, controls/buttons aren’t perfect for emulation for all games but it is pretty damn close on the Arcade Legends.

If you want some arcade games to compliment a pin collection, I think the Arcade Legends, etc with multiple games are the way to go. Who has room for 10-20 arcade machines?

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So I get an emoji and a don't do it response. Care to expand on don't do it just a bit?
Crappy product?
Crappy company?
Just a dislike of mames?

PACMAN has built and restored hundreds of original machines so he likes original.
I have had a dozen or so original machines and never had a combo unit of any kind so I will let the experts discuss.

I'm sure it's fine. Plenty of games work fine. Older ones especially, they're simpler and pretty much solved. If it feels fine to you don't look for issues, just play it and enjoy it. Probably the worst thing is has is a frame or two of input delay that you're not even noticing.

The broken stuff is generally fairly obvious. Screen tearing for instance. That's personally filed under 'unplayable' for me.

If you are aiming for a world record, you should dedicate the space for the real game. Otherwise, I think the majority of people will prefer the variety that a good, quality multi-game can provide. I have a dozen dedicated games I LOVE, but I'm the only who plays them. My friends and family would rather play Frogger or Pacman or Galaga.

I have no experience with the company you linked buy I do know that https://dreamauthentics.com/ make a quality product.

My suggestions are:

-focus your attention on quality control panel parts
-a trackball is nice, but very few games use it (if you use a PC for mouse as well)
-a spinner and flight stick clutter the control panel and very few games use them
-avoid 4p panels (too big, expensive, rarely used)
-go with 4:3 LCD if 19"
-if you are capable, avoid X in 1 boards and setup the computer/software yourself -- and in this case, look for used MAME cabinets on craigslist

Having owned a 60/1 for about a year now, I haven't found anything that could be called unplayable. All of the games play fine. The main issue I've noticed is the music on Gyruss is horribly distorted. The game is still perfectly playable if you can get past that.

Bashing the 60/1 is a popular pastime on gaming forums. Some of the negative comments are justified(ie the sound). Much of it is hearsay. All in all, it's a nice option for the casual gaming enthusiast that can't convert their basement into a full blown arcade.

I love my MAME cabinet but I wouldn't be satisfied with the X-in-1 boards I've seen. They must be using old/slow hardware since it's some of the worst emulation I've seen. The value is convenience and they work on a route.

For home, an Rpi solution would probably offer higher quality if a PC is too expensive.

Here's the other thing with Emulated games. So long as you aren't playing 3d games, you don't need a giant desktop tower sitting inside your cabinet (even though older desktops are dirt cheap or free). The raspberry pi3 is barely bigger than your palm, and runs on less than 12watts. Get yourself an efficient LED monitor that uses 25 watts and you have a rig that uses less power than a lightbulb (and won't heat up your gameroom).

On that note, there are pi clones like the ODROID that feature better CPU's and video to run early 3d games:

Here are 2 MAME projects I built. No Raspberry Pi back then... The BAT-CADE is about 13 years old, based on the 66 Bat mobile and has a spinner, trackball, 4 and 8 way joysticks. It shoots flames out of the back The CUBS-CADE was built about 4 years age and is a bar top with a rotating monitor for horizontal and vertical gaming. It has a 4 way and 8 way sticks with a track ball mouse, plus IVY. These were great project to build. Thousands of fun and exciting hours are being put on these MAME set ups. If you want to have endless games and fun give MAME a shot.

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That looks like a sweet Punch Out that is my grail cabinet.

In my option, yes. If you like a lot of maze games like pac man you need the four way. The eight way is just prone to missing the turns. They make switchable 4-8way sticks in one. You can look into those. Generally you just need one 4 way on a cabinet because if you play 2 player you alternate turns with the same stick. I think one 4 way stick is about $20-30

I am torn on this. I agree it's really nice for certain games but putting it in a comfortable location didn't work with my control panel (so I rarely use it). I haven't tried the switchable controls but if those are nice, that would be ideal.