Hey, i just woke up and was thinking about it, considering i just downloaded the Arcade game house of the dead 3 to PC.. this is a direct conversion from the Arcade machines, and it makes me wonder:
what kinda Specs do arcade machines, such as the one housing House of the dead 3 have?

i wonder this, since even on my Gaming rig, sometimes i hit some laggy parts on the demo, maybe its a bad conversion, but still.. makes me wonder what kinda powerhouse an arcade machine has, specifically since they have to play on giant 32-40" monitors...

anyone know?

This is a complete shot in the dark but they could have a console (PS3 or Xbox 360 most likely) strapped into it with custom inputs. That would be the cheapest way for them to make them.

hmm, that does make sense, considering making a specialized "computer" just for arcades could get kinda pricey... it seems like the most logical bet, and the only info i can find on these arcade machines is "that they contain an on/off switch on the backside", so it could be a console, since they work in the same way, except the menus are removed so that inserting a coin works as the start button...

good call!

I'm not saying you could rip off the exterior and find a perfectly normal console in the center. It would most likely be a version of a console that is designed to be coin fed and play only one game--basically a steel or aluminum case with a small hard drive (with an image of the game to play and capacity to store high scores) and a few circuit boards. Then again, it could be some custom jobbie built by IBM (or a similar company) that makes arcade units buy the hundreds. It's hard to say for certain but I doubt they have much in common with what we would consider a PC.

No, they are usually custom built machines, i remember Nintendo releasing an arcade board jointly with Namco and someone else called Triforce.

Argh, a quick yahoo search - along with Sega: all the info for Sega arcade systems:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sega_arcade_system_boards

Though, they do seem to be mostly based on console architecture or PC based.

i know a lot of people make their own and just use PCs and emulators/ROMs

As far as I know they're very similar to Pcs but are mainly just built as an Arcade, the reason is I once saw an Arcade game with the big chair wheel and pedals that had a BSOD and it If I remember it said something about kernel memory or something about Windows XP.

I've seen many people that built or buy the Arcade cabinet, stick a PC inside it and connect it to an old tv. Then buy quality hoysticks and edit some windows files with new intros and games menus and you basically have an Arcade Emulator or a quality Arcade machine, the only thing is that I think not all games are emulatable (Is that the correct word?) I still haven't seen many fighting games like the glorious Marvel vs Capcom 2 in a downloadable working condition, only the console versions and they play very slowly.

Here's an excellent guide on how to build your own Arcade machine, it's a little outdated since some companies don't exist anymore but it's a very good guide.

http://www.tmsoft.com/article-arcade.htm

And you can buy the cabinets and joysticks here:
http://www.mameroom.com/home.asp?affid=19

I'd kill for Marvel vs Capcom 2



MAJOR SUCCESS:
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/10/13/esrb-rates-marvel-vs-capcom-...-xbox-360/