READ FIRST

This site will help guide you through the process of setting up Hyperspin for the first time. Inevitably you will have to make some decisions about how things are going to work and how they look. So there is a definite "personal taste" to all of this. Every single step is a choice. What systems do you include? What emulator do you use for those systems? What individual games from those systems? Do you want the wheel on the right or left? What about boxart? Yes, 2D or 3D? I am very opinionated in these pages. Don't take any to heart, they are just that: opinions.
This isn't to say that if you disagree with some of my outlooks that you can't use this guide. For the most part, you can simply follow along and make the appropriate changes for yourself. The one exception to this may be "build type".

There are basically two different "builds" for Hyperspin:

1) is in an actual arcade cabinet usually containing a CRT monitor and USB encoder (iPAC) for controls.

2) is more of a "home entertainment" set up. 50" TV and 2 (or more) xbox360 or ps3 gamepads.

Now these aren't exclusive. You can build a pedestal cabinet with a 50" TV if you wanted for instance. Or any combination of the above really. But for the most part guides you generally see will be geared to achieving one of those.

This guide will have a focus on build 2). The home entertainment style. So if you are building a cabinet, you may want to find another guide. A lot of the information will still be relevant but I won't be covering iPAC software, ledblinky or any of the cabinet only related stuff.

BASIC CHOICES

Something to consider (but won't really break the guide) is "What systems to include". Once you get the hang of this stuff, it's all too easy to just want every game for every system ever made. While this may have deserved some sort of "bragging rights" shenanigans at some point in history. It just isn't the case anymore. The emulation scene has exploded popularity wise in recent years. Every Tom, Dick and Harry has an HS set up with hundreds of systems in it. It just does not impress anyone anymore. In fact I would argue it will make browsing your collection a truly awful experience. Partly due to the fact that "graphic creators" rarely make nice content for these crappy games. Or if you use things like box art or carts in your themes, for things like proto or unlicensed games these things never existed! Even if someone creates some fake box for them, IMO nobody will (or ever really should) actually play that game. LOL. I want a rig that's actually fun to play, where every game has proper artwork. I trim this crap out so that I don't have to scroll past dozens or even hundreds in some cases of utter garbage to find something worth playing every single time I enter every wheel.

With all that in mind, I tend to curate my own databases down to just (US) releases and no demo, proto, unl games whatsoever. I know a lot of users will like the "1 english" game rule of HS databases to include europe releases and such but I guess I am more interested in having an actual representation of the systems and games that I played as a kid or would see for rent in your local Blockbuster. At this point I will trim the databases down further by simply disabling them in the database. All artwork and video will be there and we can quickly enable it again anytime (we'll go over that later). This will leave every wheel in a "best of" state.

So what systems am I going to do? Beyond mame, I am only concerned with North American released consoles up to the PS2 and handhelds up to PSP. Computers are another matter altogether. The only two I wish I could add are MS-Dos and Windows. Windows game could fill a 5TB by self... more! How new you wanna go? Some Dos is doable but since we are talking mostly mouse and keyboard games here, the media available for FE's is almost non existent. They will run with HS/RL though, and I do have a wireless mouse and keyboard right on the table in front of me with this style set up, so I will have to revisit this someday. It can be tricky to set up as well so it kind of warrants a guide. It is a huge set though and trimming it down to something suitable for me will take a very long time. This is the list of systems I have tentatively penciled in:

1978* - MAME
------- - Daphne ** no official core yet, one exists though but with issues
1981* - MS-DOS
1977 - Atari 2600 (VCS)
1979 - Mattel IntelliVision
1982 - Atari 5200
1982 - ColecoVision ** no graphic from Duimon yet, works good though
1982 - Commodore 64 ** no graphic from Duimon yet, RA not listed as emu in RL
1984 - Atari 7800
1985 - Nintendo Entertainment System
1986 - Sega Master System
1989 - Atari Lynx
1989 - Nintendo Game Boy
1989 - Sega Genesis
1989 - NEC Turbo Grafx 16
1991 - Philips CD-i ** Can NOT get to work at all
1991 - Sega Game Gear
1991 - SNK Neo Geo AES
1991 - Super Nintendo Entertainment System
1992 - Sega CD
1993 - Atari Jaguar
1993 - Panasonic 3DO ** no graphic from Duimon
1994 - Sega 32X
1995 - Sega Saturn
1995 - Sony PlayStation
1996 - Nintendo 64
1998 - Nintendo Game Boy Color
1999 - Neo Geo Pocket Color
1999 - Sega Dreamcast
2000 - Sony PlayStation 2
2001 - Nintendo GameBoy Advance
2001 - Nintendo GameCube
2004 - Nintendo DS
2004 - Sony PlayStation Portable

Dos and MAME have games released before the dates indicated... I just won't be using any of them LOL. I have always kind of wanted a Game & Watch collection as well. Never took a good look at them though, We'll see.

Many people will add systems like "Sega 32X". This is really just a CD add on for the Sega Genesis. I will try to integrate these games into their respective systems but I see no reason to want a separate wheel. As a mater of fact, I would like to add "Dragon's Lair" and "Space Ace" from Daphne to the MAME wheel! Here's 10k arcade games in the MAME wheel, but oh these 30 games "work different" internally so here's another wheel. No! These are arcade games they belong in the same wheel as the rest. For this reason, I also use graphics that refer to "Arcade Classics". Not "MAME". Average people who will play this setup have no idea what MAME or Daphne means. They know what arcade classics mean though.

Another "choice"(that is sort of made for me since it's all I own) is monitor. I will be using a standard 1080p widescreen TV. I would really love to try this on a 4k TV but it's just not in the budget right now. Most of the systems here are 4:3 ratio so I will be using bezels! You want to play fullscreen with black bars on the side? No problem, I can respect that. But if your one of those people who play all stretched out... well I just don't think we can be friends LOL. I can handle a lot of things graphically with a game, stretching is not one of them. It's like sac religious.

Of course there's a lot of other choices coming but that's the goal in a nutshell.

Please go to "HARDWARE"