Articles – Emphatic's Video Game Collection

TAITO arcade stool refurbish

07/13/201207/13/2012 by emphatic9 Comments

I got myself a pair of pretty sad looking TAITO arcade stools a couple of months ago but hadn't had time to get them looking good until now (currently on vacation). I took a photo of one when I got them, thinking the fabric was orange, but now in the process I actually noticed that these where red when they left the factory. :/ Japanese ass-sweat™ can do that I guess. Here's the picture: I then opened it in Photoshop and played around with the colour until I made my mind up to have a purple fabric to match my EGRET II's: At the start of this week, I began the work on removing as much rust as possible from the legs, but having removed the worst, I still have a bit to go, so to keep myself motivated to continue, I took a break from polishing and began re-upholstering the cushions today. (Before the steel-wool, sweaty workout on the left side, pretty awesome stuff) Left...

Seimitsu LS-30 aka SNK Rotary joystick – my modifications

01/16/2012 by emphatic7 Comments

I've had a pair of these now rare Seimitsu LS-30 joysticks for a while, but haven't bought any games to use them with yet. I didn't like the state they were in when I got them and have been putting off fixing them up for the last few years since I bought them. But I recently acquired a pair of used top bits (the plastic top bit with the old Seimitsu logo) and decided to see if I can make the joystick itself any better. The biggest flaw of the LS-30 in my opinion is that the throw is too long and it feels kinda "mushy". This might be because I got my pair used, but I remember this feeling from back when I was playing Heavy Barrel in the arcades in the 80's, so maybe the compromise to get the rotary function working came with the price of the 8-way function of the stick taking the back seat. First off, I...

360 Game Cabinet Video Settings

04/25/201111/06/2019 by emphatic32 Comments

Getting the closest as possible arcade experience is for many the reason to put a home console inside an arcade cabinet with a CRT monitor. It can take lots of tweaking to get right, and when you change from one game to another, it might need additional tweaking. I've worked hard with my collection of 360 games to leave the monitor controls out of the picture by finding one great setting for the monitor then tweaking each game individually by using their VIDEO SETTINGS. Most of these games have pretty great settings where little is left to desire, with zoom on both the X and Y axis, smoothing on/off, even faux scan lines that can give high res monitors the low res look, but sadly, there are some exceptions and even more disturbingly, these are all coming from CAVE and their own arcade ports, such as DeathSmiles 2X, Guwange and the Muchi Muchi Pork / Pink Sweets bundle. The first of...

How to fine-tune the picture in your EGRET II

04/05/2011 by emphatic24 Comments

Stuff you need to know RGB CUT OFF: I like to say that this is the "canvas" upon which the game board then will draw the graphics (using the RGB GAIN/DRIVE channels) by pushing RED, GREEN and BLUE in the amount and mixture needed to get all the colours used by the game's palette. CUT OFF = The background colour. These pots are on the main chassis under the front of the screen. RGB GAIN/DRIVE: Using these channels the game board can produce any colour it needs by mixing the amount of each together. Anything from one single red dot, fill the whole screen with white or nothing at all = black (if the RGB CUT OFF is correctly tuned). GAIN/DRIVE = The foreground colour. These pots are on the remote board inside the door with the coin mechanism. Conclusion: The CUT OFF is like a lamp screen and the GAIN is the colour of the light bulb. One *could* say that the formula...

Mounting a (pretty) SUZO 500 in an EGRET II

04/02/201105/02/2011 by emphatic7 Comments

Updated 2010-05-02 (added a picture of the screw, extender and washer I use) Most EGRET II owners (or any Japanese cabinet owners) swear by their SANWA or Seimitsu sticks (I used to do that as well), but then I read someone @ the shmups forums write how awesome the SUZO 500 is for shmups, because of the extremely short throw and the lightning fast engage, so naturally I had to try them. The trouble is though, these sticks don't come with a threaded metal shaft that you can fit any ball top you want to with ease, like you might have grown accustomed to with your choice of quality Japanese sticks. Instead you get a pretty sad looking moulded shaft cover/ball top combo with a dust cover thrown into the mix as well. The SUZO 500 can be found in many popular part shops under a couple of different names: Ultimarc (Euro-stik) | Groovy Game Gear (Omni-Stik Basic) | Arcadeshop.de (Multi-way Joystick) As you can...

Easy EGRET II speaker upgrade

03/29/201108/06/2011 by emphatic1 Comment

EASY EGRET II SPEAKER UPGRADE How to put a 2.1 speaker system into an EGRET II with or without intrusive measures. Very easy to do as long as you know how to do it and what you'll need. Speaker choice After a whole-heartily recommendation (i.e. "these are cheap, mate") I went with the Logitech s220 as they are at an extremely good value. Pros: The smaller speaker will fit in the originals place by a slight wedge-in manoeuvre The bass is "just right" and is small, so it fits very well behind the coin box The little wired remote has volume control and a speaker muting phones outlet Very competitive price Cons: Doesn't have bass adjustment on the remote Doesn't fill the hole made for speakers in the cabinet completely, but that's easily solved with some pieces of cardboard Parts needed (to keep JAMMA compatibility) If you plan on keep running your JAMMA PCBs in your cabinet and not only stereo, line-output systems such as CPS2, NAOMI, a PC or...

My Guwange HORI stick

03/29/201103/30/2011 by emphatic7 Comments

TURNING TEKKEN 6 INTO GUWANGE INTRODUCTION I found a very cheap HORI Tekken 6 | Game + Artwork book + Arcade stick bundle, but never clicked with the stick or the artwork, so I started working on a fitting artwork, looking at hardware modding possibilities etc. The first thing I did was trying to make the sloppy HORI joystick feel more like the quality parts I'm used to. The easiest way I found someone had come up with was switching out most of the sucky parts for quality parts with just some light hardware modding. By switching out HORI guide to a SANWA JLF octagonal gate (you drill 4 holes in the latter) I felt that the stick handled much better. I then switched out the default microswitches for the stick with the kind used in Seimitsu LS-32, and also used a SANWA JLF spring that I pulled out to twice the original height....

How To: Install a non-PCB joystick in a 5-pin harness

03/29/201103/30/2011 by emphatic1 Comment

Connecting a 5-pin JST-H solution "for dummies" When is this needed? Many Japanese cabinets (or well built console Arcade sticks) use a JST 5-pin connector that will install a SANWA JLF or a Seimitsu LS-32-01 quick and easy (see the picture above) in their control panels. So? Well, sometimes you want to mix it up, and bring in something without that handy 5-pin JST-H connector available. There are some very nice sticks out there, like the SUZO 500 (it's ugly, but very hard to beat for shooting games) that with a custom shaft can blend in like a good weave in your cabinet. I will use my custom built stick for this guide, but any stick using 4 microswitches can be hooked up this way. How do you recommend I do this? I've always been doing harnesses for my non-PCB equipped sticks, but I figured out a way to use a worn out JLF...

Ultracade Universal Video Converter

03/29/201103/30/2011 by emphaticNo Comments

What it does The Ultracade Universal Video Converter, or UVC for short, can convert a high res video signal into an arcade monitor compatible RGBS signal. In 15kHz or in 24kHz. There are other ways of hooking up a high res source to an arcade cabinet like this, but no other can output to 24kHz (AFAIK). From the manual: " This is a very simple board that has only one function, to allow the display of PC based games on older arcade style monitors. The board needs to be an external device that requires no modification to the software running on the PC. It will handle one of three input resolutions (1024x768, 800x600 or 640x480) with a vertical refresh rate of 60Hz and output to one of two user selectable output modes (640x240@15.72KHz)...

XBox 360 Cabinet Themes

03/28/201103/30/2011 by emphatic4 Comments

"Cabifying" your 360 dashboard What's that you say? I noticed that you could browse pictures in the dashboard of the XBox 360 and decided to see if this could be utilized to create a "theme" of sorts. I then made an EGRET II theme that worked really well in my cabinet. As I shared this on some arcade forums I frequent, the ball got rolling and now I've made a few more of these. Some have multiple versions with colour variations. How do I install them then? You download these images to a USB device that's compatible with your XBox 360, or if you have a Home network, you put them in a folder that you can browse to from your 360's Picture Library. When you have the image selected, press the Y button to use it as a background. Once you've done this once, a new theme will be created that you can select from your User account. Sammy Atomiswave Sitdown | Click image...