I've been silently working on making an open sourced JAMMA board for a little while now.
My intention is to make something open sourced that can plug directly into JAMMA hardware, but also has USB and VGA and other connections for those unfortunate enough not to have a nice arcade setup (what on this forum? nah...).
While I was looking originally at MIPS originally, I intend to use an ARM based CPU now. I already have prototyped the hardware using a dev board, and it works well enough for me to be happy. As it will be open source *legit*, the board won't have rom's shipped with it, but I'll stick compiled versions of popular emulators + a front end on there, plus setup a github repo so others can assist / improve.
(Unless I can find a way to licence roms, in which case it will have some).
My question is this - any interest?
Essentially it will be like the Chinese XX in 1 boards, *but* with better emulation, a lot more open, plus better emulation, oh, and better emulation :lol
Basically made by an enthusiast for enthusiasts..
Open Hardware (to the extent where thats possible)
Target will be roughly mid year for board shipping if everything goes according to plan.
So...
What features are must haves for people?
My current hardware feature set target is:
VGA
HDMI
Video out (CVBS)
USB
JAMMA
RGB OUT (via JAMMA)
SD Card (up to 32g)
NAND flash 4G for OS + Emulators + front end.
Software -
Decent emulation (not everything will be possible but most 80/90's should be fine.
I'll definitely try to get emulation better than the slapdash chinese clone it works, ship it style we're so used to)!
It really is about time something like this saw release. I'd far rather see a board containing a lot less games but running the ones it has 100%, the current ones have obviously just been chucked together with no real idea of how they should play.
I think there is a far higher chance of someone cracking the code on the latest batch of multi boards and spending time improving the quality of emulation though.
It would be awesome if people started to make games for it. But sure, if the price is right and the emulation is lag free, 100% speed at pixel perfect res' I'll buy one.
FrancoB wrote:
VGA
HDMI
Video out (CVBS)
USB
JAMMA
RGB OUT (via JAMMA)
SD Card (up to 32g)
NAND flash 4G for OS + Emulators + front end.
VGA and HDMI come as part of the chipset so why not, useful for testing. Composite is completely pointless and a waste of parts. USB useful for testing. JAMMA of course... I don't see any reason to use a NAND chip on it though. Run everything from SD. Cheaper, more reliable.
I'd love a board like this.
muddymusic wrote:I think there is a far higher chance of someone cracking the code on the latest batch of multi boards and spending time improving the quality of emulation though.
Hard to see where they'd get their motivation from though
cools wrote:
VGA and HDMI come as part of the chipset so why not, useful for testing. Composite is completely pointless and a waste of parts. USB useful for testing. JAMMA of course... I don't see any reason to use a NAND chip on it though. Run everything from SD. Cheaper, more reliable.
I'd love a board like this.
If you live in the US composite it's not pointless, they don't have scart inputs on their CRT TVs.
baddy wrote:If you live in the US composite it's not pointless, they don't have scart inputs on their CRT TVs.
I can understand HDMI and VGA from a development point of view, as anyone developing for the system is likely to have a monitor or TV with an input for this, but I really can't understand composite except for the few that wish to develop on a CRT that doesn't have an RGB input - seems like an unnecessary cost for very minority use.
If you've got a TV in a JAMMA cabinet that takes composite only then surely you've already got a converter. Same if you're using a supergun.
It could possibly also used for 4P support too. It might not have much use to us guys but it might be useful for cabs with 3/4P panels.
cools wrote:
muddymusic wrote:I think there is a far higher chance of someone cracking the code on the latest batch of multi boards and spending time improving the quality of emulation though.
Hard to see where they'd get their motivation from though
IIRC, it was this guy who was working on cracking some of the other multi-boards to improve the emulation. I guess he thought it was better to scratch build one.
It could possibly also used for 4P support too. It might not have much use to us guys but it might be useful for cabs with 3/4P panels.
Yeah, cps2 kick supports 4 players for the likes of d&d iirc, so could use the same pinout (with a software switch between kick or 4p mode or whatever).
I can't be arsed to sign up for that forum, but you should point the dev in this direction franco. I'm sure he'd get a lot of input and encouragement here.
It could possibly also used for 4P support too. It might not have much use to us guys but it might be useful for cabs with 3/4P panels.
Yeah, cps2 kick supports 4 players for the likes of d&d iirc, so could use the same pinout (with a software switch between kick or 4p mode or whatever).
I can't be arsed to sign up for that forum, but you should point the dev in this direction franco. I'm sure he'd get a lot of input and encouragement here.
system11 wrote:It won't be pixel perfect, it'll just be yet another bootleg multigame unit.
True, but I'd quite like a small selfcontained multigame board with a decent looking front end and no screen tearing or stretching in whatever's on it.
All of the licensed and unlicensed ones I've tried have had issues that could be resolved if they were open to modification.
system11 wrote:Great, because the world needed more multigame bootlegs.
You are welcome to pay silly monnies for 20+yo games just because they weren't popular back then...
I welcome emulation and it's high time a pixel perfect solution with analog RGB output arrives on the market.
It won't be pixel perfect, it'll just be yet another bootleg multigame unit.
I've achieved pixel perfect in the past using a PC and modified ATI Drivers, the graphic card outputs the exact resolution at the right frequency/refresh rate. It looks astonishing and I saw no difference compared to the original HW.
