I Just Wanna Play KI Again! Can I?

Like probably a lot of you other gaming junkies I used to spend quite a bit of time in the arcades in my youth. Now there where many great games that IMHO only really "worked" in the arcade: SF2, SF2T, MK, BubbleBobble, Golden Axe and of course Pinball Games (TNG particularly stands out) etc.

Yes there where console ports but none of them where as good as the coin-op versions and I'm not interested in playing console versions (or emulated console versions) I want (as much as possible) the real deal.

Out of all these games (for me anyway) there was one stand-out amazing game which I never got bored of and still really want to play: It is of course, "Killer Instinct" (please note I'm not interested in KI 2 at all) from Rareware.

I've been trying to find a way to either:

a) Get hold of a cabinet that's either original and fully functional or built from new to run the KI game.
b) Get hold of an emulator which can be played like the original i.e. 2 Joysticks, 6 buttons for each.
c) Some other solution ?

Is there any way to do this and for a reasonobly sensible price (I'm not prepared to shell out £1000's just to play one game)? I've tried messing about with Mame and got nowhere, not even close. I'd also love to get hold of some of the old pinball tables but they seem very expensive.

Darkheart

You saying MAME doesn't emulate KI?

For a proper arcade experience with MAME, you're going to need a proper arcade style joystick (I have a HotRod dual stick) and a decent arcade monitor. Maybe go the whole hog and buy/make a MAME cab?

Another option is to get one of those 'Super Gun' JAMMA console things which basically just let you plug the actual arcade PCB in and play. I don't know if KI is a JAMMA game, though.

(Trivia: I used to work with the guy who coded KI at Rareware. I think he basically did all the coding on his own.)

Check out arcadecontrols.com. They have lots of info about building and configuring MAME cabinets (and other emulators).

As for pinball machines, I have one, and to get one in good working condition expect to pay at least $600. For something like TNG, or any other popular one like Black Knight 2000 or Addams Family, you'd probably pay $2500 to $4000.

I bought a fixer that was not a popular one (called Motordome), paid $300 for it and put another $75 or so in parts into it to make it 100% working.

My mate just sold his KI machine a couple of months ago for around £400. He had the thing for years, but the new Mrs. forced him to get rid.

I refuse to believe the KI hardware hasn't been successfully emulated. This is a good dual stick to use with your emulator.

http://www.xgaming.com/two-player.shtml?__utma=1.862463675.1188477398.1188477398.1188477398.1&__utmb=1&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1188477398.1.1.utmccn%3D(organic)%7Cutmcsr%3Dgoogle%7Cutmctr%3Darcade%2Bjoystick%7Cutmcmd%3Dorganic&__utmv=-&__utmk=21350460

It may be my lack of understanding of the emulation, how it works or how to get it to run properly. What I'm after is basically as close to the original machine as possible. Is there a "Building your arcarde machine for Dummies somewhere?", I don't wawnt to have to spend several years with a soldering iron either.

How do you get hold of KI ROMS/BOARDS (or whatever they are) and how do you get them to work with the emulator and is the emulator 100% of the game?

There was a sanitised, reduced colour, reduced qaulity, awkward to play port done on the N64 console, I'm not remotely interested in playing that or an emulator (like U64) emulating the N64 version.

Darkheart

You download the roms from the Net. To be legal, you have to own the KI physical board to have rights to use the ROM code you downloaded, but you don't connect them to your PC.

Mame should play arcade perfect, aside from any monitor refresh rate issues.

Start out with a PC and a joystick board like the one I mentioned. No wiring necessary. Once you have it running, then worry about building an arcade cabinet to house it.

Actually I've gotten Killer Instinct 1 and 2 to run on emulator before. If I remember correctly, you need to get a specific emulator for it. Runs it pretty well too, a bit too fast though.

'Is there a "Building your arcarde machine for Dummies somewhere?"'
Yes. Go to arcadecontrols.com and dig around. The guy who runs that site wrote the book you need. It's called "Project Arcade" and covers the entire process of building an arcade cabinet from scratch to run MAME and such.

Thanks to all for the help, I'm now well on my way to getting a playable solution together. That X-Arcade dual joystick setup can't get here fast enuough.

Darkheart

It's all quite easy. I made up my own joystick and buttons recently from scratch. There is a picture of it here. http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=59359.80

About 3/4 of the way down the page,... same user name as here.

Anyways, that is my test box, and cost me about $100 total to build. I did all the construction and wiring in 2 days. I've since added a 3" trackball, and will be building a full size cabinet over the next year or so. I'm still waiting for a CPU around 2 ghz to build the whole cabinet around.

I can open it up and show the wiring if anyone is interested, but I can't post any pics until I get back to work on Tues.