Candy Cab Advice

kingtreelo

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So i am interested in possibly getting a candy cab, but they seem to come in all different shapes and sizes so i would be interested if anyone could point me to what they think i should be looking for and how much they cost vs availability

I'm not looking for a dedicated cab, hoping to get it running either a MAME PC or MiSTer(i have both of these already, heavily leaning towards MAME due to screen rotation)

I have always wanted a vertical cab due to most of my favourite games being vertical, but i feel that the candy cabs have a much bigger monitor than most jamma machines so i will get away with using mame for both orientations of games due to the larger sized monitor.

Now, my second issue(non-issue), i dont have any mates, all my kids are grown up, and i will probably only ever play single player games, but im not averse to getting a second CP so i can swap them in and out if needed.

So what i have looked at so far...

SEGA Blast City
SEGA New Astro City
SNK U4

Are there any others that i am missing that i may need to keep an eye out for or am i doing something basically stupid like (possibly) ignoring that fact that MAME will stretch the games regardless of orientation on a CRT even when using a launcher?

Open to advice as i dont know a massive amount about these cabs, or any really.
 

Fantazia2

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If your going the mame route I would suggest adding a Chopped Naomi or New Net City to the list, they normally come with a VGA monitor so you can run it at 640x480 resolution, and you can also get JVS adapters so you can plug the existing controls/IO directly into the PC.

The screens are also rotatable, not the easiest due to the weight of the 29" monitor but doable.

Also on a Mame setup you should be able to get vertical games running on a horizontal monitor without the stretching to full screen width, you get a smaller picture but should still be the equivalent of a 22" CRT monitor size picture.
 

kingtreelo

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If your going the mame route I would suggest adding a Chopped Naomi or New Net City to the list, they normally come with a VGA monitor so you can run it at 640x480 resolution, and you can also get JVS adapters so you can plug the existing controls/IO directly into the PC.

The screens are also rotatable, not the easiest due to the weight of the 29" monitor but doable.

Also on a Mame setup you should be able to get vertical games running on a horizontal monitor without the stretching to full screen width, you get a smaller picture but should still be the equivalent of a 22" CRT monitor size picture.
cheers mate
 

chubsta

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I be always found the screens too big on my candies, just never felt right sitting so close to a huge screen and playing Pac-Man etc, much prefer to play on a 19” screen. I had Astro, Naomi and atomiswave, all with the sand big screens.
 

Brettster

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If I ever sell my cabs my New Astro City's would be the last ones to go. Great screens and lots of spares around (at least for now) the screens are big at 29" but that also makes the control panel big enough for 2 player street fighter, the Monitors can be manually rotated with help.
I've run all sorts in mine, from real PCB's to Pi's and so long as you output at 15k you'll be hard pushed to find a nicer image.

If you do decide to go down the tri sync monitor route, remember they are not designed to swap resolutions each time you change your game, they were switched on in the morning to play one game all day long and then switched off again. You'll soon end up with hefty repair bill if you use it for MAME !
 

Bods

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I be always found the screens too big on my candies, just never felt right sitting so close to a huge screen and playing Pac-Man etc, much prefer to play on a 19” screen. I had Astro, Naomi and atomiswave, all with the sand big screens.

Years back I thought it would be great with a 26" jamma cab to play Double Dragon but I didn't like it, just seemed far too big that close, for a 3/4 player cab with bigger control panel and screen bit further back yeah.

probably not so bad with 31khz games but think I would go 26" biggest on Candy type myself
 

tronads

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Nothing much to add from me, other than you should be targeting a groovymame build in your cab rather than mame to make things as authentic as possible (without going to an fpga option).
I personally didn't think rotating the monitor frequently on a 29" was really a viable option, so I bought a second Blast City so I can have one Horizontal and one Vertical. Both have Groovymame builds in and the AttractMode front end filters the games accordingly so the menu only shows games appropriate to the monitor orientation in each of the cabs.
Also if you have a standard door width to get through, the Blast City control panels come off very quickly and easily so they are easy to get in your house.
I have been thinking about selling my candies of late and getting another pinball as that's more what I am playing these days. That being said, I had some people round last week and the cabs did get some use....so maybe I will just keep them for now.
 

tronads

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Thats very overpriced for an Egret3, especially as it sounds like it needs a cap kit on the monitor ("The CRT does require to warm up before use"). Plus, the Egret 2 is the one to go for.
 
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