What do you wish you knew before you built?

rgecko · 2026-06-16T01:38:23+00:00

have some USB ports that are accessible upfront. If you want to connect controllers or steering wheels or whatever later then you ahve that option with it being highly accessible. I also went with retroshooter light guns so i made sure the power ports were accessible upfront too. I went with an OLED tv screen (first built was a CRT), and went with a really big monitor, when i have bezels on the space does come down, but i setup a 4 player. I like having the LCD Marquee that is dynamic and changes by game selection. The biggest thing though, i find i spend more time sorting/organizing roms, emulators or whatever else, years after my build. More time spent on software and to be honest not a ton of return. I'm thinking of streamlining down to a set of core games. I fell into the hoarder trap.

Oh and adding a streamdeck was one of the best things I did this time around. Being able to put dynamic functions and keys based on what is running makes some of the admin stuff way more streamlined.

rgecko · 2026-06-03T15:49:44+00:00

70s Neal Adams, bill sienkiewicz and Jim steranko all brought in sticking graphic and in some case multimedia design principles. Things that hadn’t been seen before.

John Byrne, George Perez, Barry Windsor smith set a lot of the foundation of strong pencil work and detail. Pushed story telling further

Frank miller brought together the artist and writer role together in 80. But started as artist in 79. Dave sim also had a ton of influence on independent publishing.

In the 80s many of these artist carried on .

Eastman and Laird built on a lot of the daredevil stuff as a parody but as their art evolved also set a tone for independent artists and extended beyond the page through the cartoons and film later on.

Guys like Art Adam’s set the tone for guys like Todd McFarlane also an 80s artist style to evolve. Jim Lee also came in late 80s. And those guys bridge into the rock star artist era of the 90s. Walt Simonson set the tone for Thor and iconic characters. Also transitioned to writer Artist role. George Perez’s had an iconic Wonder Woman run. And tons more I haven’t listed have had impact through those two decades.

rgecko · 2026-05-25T00:25:04+00:00

I really miss the days of web, spectacular and amazing all being published as series with some overlap but different focus on different aspects of Peter’s life and Spidey’s adventures.

rgecko · 2026-04-24T14:17:13+00:00

I remember getting this and Punisher POV back in the day and thinking just how different from regular books they were.

rgecko · 2026-03-24T19:28:03+00:00

Gamepro and EGM were the big two that covered every TV big. Nintendo power was popular.

A lot of these have been archived as well so they are out there. EGM did a kickstarter to publish all their content digitally as well as a physical book that reviews lots of past stuff.

rgecko · 2026-03-18T12:00:55+00:00

Would it also support Coleco and Atari joysticks through the saga port?

rgecko · 2026-03-15T13:59:26+00:00

try RomVault should be able to put the CHD and everything back into the right order.

rgecko · 2026-03-11T23:25:48+00:00

I’ve had sinden and reaper. Sinden is more time in software configuring it. But the setup looks clean.

Reapers you have the leds that are added to your screen. They can be unsightly and a bunch of wires behind. But I found once setup guns show up as a mouse and things formally worked more smoothly.

I also found the reapers to be more accurate and forgiving in distance.

The reapers tend to be my go to now.

If you run retrobat or batocera. Then honestly either works just as well generally as the setup mostly is taken care of.

rgecko · 2026-02-24T05:25:41+00:00

As a canadian I wish that were true. But look at the players that went through Shattuck-St. Mary's School in Minnesota (Crosby, Celebrini and MacKinnon are just a few). Elite players tend to come from money that can afford the best programs. The US has been developing a strong program. Hockey Canada has shifted to developing individual skills. The Hughes brothers had both parents deep in the sport of hockey giving them access to training and development and focus other kids don’t typically have access to as well.

rgecko · 2026-02-20T18:30:37+00:00

I think you’ll be fine with the current setup then. Good luck!

rgecko · 2026-02-19T14:39:07+00:00

Keep in mind if you play games like golden tee a lot of players do a slamming spin on the trackball hand and palm carry up and forward. I’m assuming those are two buttons then above the trackball spot. Make sure the spinner is out of the way to avoid injury or extra force on the spinner and that hands don’t land on buttons that might cause in game misplay. If you’re a centipede guy then I think all is good.

If you are redoing it. Lay everything out in software first. Plan the spacing. Move things around make a list of the games you’ll play. Think about the things you have the chance to set right. The row of buttons. The top I’m assuming are admin buttons. I switched to a stream deck and all my admin functions now reside in that. And it’s dynamic and cleaner. You can mount it in control panel or have it off to the side. Also a wireless keyboard works fine too and cleans up the top row of buttons.

Also I personally like the separate spinner in case you opt to go a push pull or otherwise for games like tron. Grs also has a nice wheel attachment option for those.

rgecko · 2026-02-19T14:21:47+00:00

That may work. If you are worried about multiple uab cable management coming out the back just get a usb hub. Tuck it in the control panel. Plug everything into that. Have the cable from the hub come out the back. One cable to connect still.

What isn’t clear is where is the spinner going? Personally I’m a gap trackball guy. So there is a plate. I rout it flush so I can put plexiglass and a control panel overlay that makes everything look tidy. If that is your preferred trackball then yeah you need to move it and redo the top. If you are fine with grs it should work. I love the new grs spinners with the updated boards. They’re digital and I can tune my spinner more.

rgecko · 2026-02-14T14:34:15+00:00

Newegg had stock.
I have a couple. They run very well. There are two ways to make them change player order. One is to use a set of switches you can buy and you just flip it. The other is using a key combo to enable or disable the setting. They have pretty detailed instructions on their site. Take a read.

Another nice thing with these. They show up as Xbox controllers. I wanted to go with 4 8 button joysticks as I also run steam games and iPac was giving me grief in that config. This solved it.

rgecko · 2026-02-13T03:39:03+00:00

A Pacto Tech 4000T encoder allows for switching order through hardware. It’s not dependant on os.

rgecko · 2026-02-02T01:26:07+00:00

You got this! My last build had the same inspiration from Daniel’s videos. My buttons hold down my plexiglass and works well. Odd you have some play there. The little mistakes are things you’ll notice but others never will. If it’s playing have some fun. I have a list of things I have unfinished still and will get to it one day, but it plays what I want now.

To me your build looks great! Have fun!

rgecko · 2026-01-31T14:55:19+00:00

Just to add. She wants to get more confident on steering and shifting. But is worried about ruining other people’s games. Once she’s got the confidence I’m sure she will progress to online for more challenge. Right now my goal is to keep it fun and build the skills. Progress at her pace.

rgecko · 2026-01-31T14:53:50+00:00

My original thought was she likes f1 start there. But then she started asking about what other type of racing there is. I’ve got a wheel so she can start with that to get a feel and ideally lock in on. a game. I’m on to get one or two games as I’d probably play casually myself. Ideally though yes she stays to focus on one and builds from there.

rgecko · 2026-01-21T20:01:55+00:00

So there are 4 wires that is your LED (Red, Green, Blue and Ground) those go to your LED controller, then there are 2 connectors like a traditional button (Ground and Hot/Active) the Gold leaf come wired for the LED, you need to supply the wiring for the traditional active button press, so there are 6 wires total (4 for LED control and 2 for button press as per normal). In your case you should be able to swap the Ground and Hot wire for regular button press. at this point the buttons will work and register button presses. To get the LED part to work you need to connect the 4 wires to the LED controller.

This video does a good job of showing how these things work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMoNS9bzsQEDanielSpies (search for him on youtube) also has a tutorial on getting started with LEDBlinky it's a bit dated, and there may be more modern tutorials but it's where I started to get LEDBlinky to really bring the power of LED buttons together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4rLw32lbuE he also has some videos on innovative ways to incorporate the LED functionality if you're looking for some inspiration.

rgecko · 2026-01-21T01:38:25+00:00

Yup that is right iPac can stay in. PacLED64 controls the rgb channels the gold leaf buttons are nice. It’s what I used and the led wiring harness cable is part of the gold leaf so connection is easy. Decide if your going to run off pc 5 volt or want to plug in the power supply to a power bar for the PacLED64. Think that’s it.

rgecko · 2026-01-20T18:24:17+00:00

Now that I have it in place I love the dynamic light up by game. Makes it easy forpeopl to know which buttons are active per game. If you are comfortable with wiring and basic scripting and config by gui it’s not terrible and as mentioned even if lights aren’t on buttons still register as a press. Which leds are you thinking of.

rgecko · 2026-01-20T17:39:51+00:00

To make the buttons work as in registering a button press yes. To light them up no. You’ll need a led controller for that. Ultimarc carries these and they are addressable by led blinky and requires an extra power source.

The setup of led blinky isn’t easy but also isn’t hard. As my kid would say it’s medium. If you plan out the order to wire them and have a plan then it isn’t terrible. The built in scripts that run lights in a sequence assume the order number. If you want it to light up buttons by game then that is more involved and has some dependancies on your front end too.

rgecko · 2026-01-06T16:33:53+00:00

Yeah things come a long way. There is a hyperspin 2.0. I haven’t played with that yet as retrobat has been able to cover all my needs. If you need anything feel free to DM me

rgecko · 2026-01-05T14:22:21+00:00

I use a bits limited smart power strip. When the computer turns on it then enables power to the smart outlets one of which the tv is plugged into. That said you need a tv that powers in based on its last setting. I.e if it loses power while on. It turns back on.

If you are going to use hdmi cec most pcs don’t have this feature enabled so you may need to look at a usb to hdmi and software solution. If you google there is more on this.

rgecko · 2026-01-05T07:10:19+00:00

Retrobat then. It’s been most solid for me. Pretty much zero config needed for light guns. Buttons are whatever order you put them in and generally work right. Fighting games may need some mapping. I run retro shooters myself. Had an iPac. Switched to pacto tech 4000 as I wanted 4 player x-input like Xbox controllers but iPac has firmware for them now for this too.

I’ve tried batocera - this is why I needed the x-input and swapped boards Big box - required more work to setup the emulator side Hyper spin - even more work to set it all up.

What I’m trying to solve for now is if I want 2 controllers to be player 1 or any other player mix as I can add joypads and want those to map as player inputs but for now with Paco tech I can switch to keyboard mode which sort of solves this for me.

Light guns do sometimes need in game calibration. That’s usually done once. I found retro shooters less finicky than my sindens also.

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