Hi everyone!

For the past year to year and a half, I have been developing a project called ArcadeStudio. It has become a very large solo project, but it is finally approaching the stage where I need to test it outside my own development environment and arcade setup.

I was thinking it might be time to try to release it but I would need to get it properly tested first.

What is ArcadeStudio?

ArcadeStudio is intended to bring many of the tools and configuration tasks involved in building a modern arcade cabinet into one coherent system powered by data that help you get the right information/configuration at the right time in most scenarios.

The project consists of two main parts:

ArcadeStudio is the visual authoring and configuration application.

ArcadeServer runs on the arcade cabinet, applies the published configuration, monitors the runtime, and controls the connected systems.

The basic idea is that you configure and verify the cabinet in ArcadeStudio and then publish a validated configuration bundle to ArcadeServer. The server detects what is running and applies the correct controller, lighting, overlay, marquee, and automation configuration.

Rather than replacing RetroArch, MAME, Dolphin, or existing frontends, ArcadeStudio is designed to coordinate the systems around them.

What can ArcadeStudio do?

The project now includes, among other things:

• Hardware discovery and cabinet hardware inventory.
• Visual cabinet layouts and logical control mapping.
• Controller profiles for gamepads, arcade controls, spinners, trackballs, lightguns, wheels, pedals, and other devices.
• Controller routing and emulator-specific configuration.
• Automatic detection and identification of running games and emulators.
• Per-game and per-system profiles.
• Launch profiles and reusable launch variables.
• LED layouts, mappings, effects, and runtime control.
• Support for network lighting and integrations such as WLED and OpenRGB.
• Marquee configuration and automatic media selection.
• An overlay editor and runtime overlays for DirectX 11, DirectX 12, OpenGL, and Vulkan.
• Asset and metadata management for screenshots, videos, marquees, and other media.
• An automation system for creating rules such as: “When this game starts, activate this controller profile, LED scene, overlay, and marquee.”
• Downloadable data packs for hardware definitions, rules, layouts, launch configurations, and future extensions.
• A unified publishing system with validation, diagnostics, and rollback if a configuration causes problems.

As you can see, I went a bit overboard but I wanted to make sure I could play around without having to micro manage everything on my arcade cabinet.

I would love some feedback if I am the only one that felt the need for something like this? I have done a lot of work to ensure that users can create data packs and share so that led configurations, controllers, graphic packs etc. can be shared.

Anyway, let me know what you think.

I bought a cabinet off of facebook marketplace, it is custom made. It came with a Sony Trinitron hooked up to a Sega Dreamcast and an adaptor for the Dreamcast that connects it to the buttons and joysticks. I’m unsure if its an xarcade tankstick or not, the layout I’ve seen online is very similar, but it seems like the guy took this one apart and put the buttons and joysticks on a piece of wood.

Anyways, I had it working one night, all buttons except down on the joystick. I tried replacing the switch and wiring but it changed nothing, as of now I can’t get any buttons to work.

I hooked it up to my computer and using notepad I found the buttons are mostly unbinded to anything. Like, player 1 button 3 moves the text cursor to the right and thats it.

I was trying to reprogram the buttons using my computer and a ps/2 keyboard, however, I don’t have a program button. From what I have seen online I need to move my switch to the left and press the program button so the red led turns off. The switch is wired, but not the program button.

I have located a random button on the top of the cabinet, maybe this is the programming button? I have no idea how or where to connect it to get it to function properly, as the wires are currently dangling and disconnected. Any advice on that or maybe what control stick and buttons I have will be extremely helpful as I am alone on this project.

Would reprogramming the buttons even affect the dreamcast? Or is it only effective for using the buttons on a computer? I have many questions, I will be very appreciative to any bits of information no matter how small.

I have tools at my disposal and I am more than willing to get what is needed to make this project work. (It took five people to get this thing up a flight of stairs so I am not giving up!)

TLDR: I bought an arcade cabinet with no knowledge on the subject. Wiring issues, any advice will be very appreciated.

(Using my girlfriends account for this post, she told me the cat tax was mandatory)

Hey there, I've been trying to research where I can get a good diagram for something around this size.

I can cut everything, I just need to know where to find the dimensions? I've found a few, but they are either not the right size or not exactly what I'm looking for.

Any recommendations for resources? If not would it just be easier to buy the cab itself?

This is basically what I'm trying to make. (Sorry if this has been answered already I tried looking but wasn't really sure what to search for.)

https://recroommasters.com/product/upright-2-player-arcade-machine/

For the player

• Menus are locked down to New Game, a few Options, and End Game while a game is running. No save/load, no multiplayer setup, no video or sound settings, and Quit is hidden.
• Cabinet buttons drive the menus, so no keyboard is needed: stick moves, fire selects, use backs out. (You will need to bind a menu button)
• Up to four players on one machine. Two get stacked halves, three or four get a 2x2 grid, and a join screen after skill select lets each panel press fire to opt in.
• Single Level mode plays one chosen map and returns straight to the menu, with its own high score table and record demos.
• Single Player Survival scores a run on how far you got in the episode, with time as the tiebreaker. Two categories, speed and max, with times to hundredths of a second.
• A run leaderboard ranked by progress first and time second, so a run that ends in a death still lands somewhere. Making the board prompts for three initials, prefilled with the last player's.
• Record demos are saved and replayed in the attract cycle with a caption showing level span, skill and time, under a blinking PRESS FIRE TO START.
• Every third record demo in the attract cycle plays from a chase camera, a third person view.
• Pacifist and Tyson categories are tracked automatically alongside speed and max, with their own score pages, and blink at the intermission while a run still qualifies.
• HUD additions: a level clock, a TT total run time line in Single Player, plus kills/items/secrets and a four way ammo breakdown.
• Idle timeout returns the cabinet to the attract screen (60 seconds by default, with a 15 second warning), configurable via idletimeout and idlewarntime.
• A game selector lists whichever IWADs and level packs are actually installed.

For the operator

• Player sessions never write config. Only a -devmode session saves settings, so every launch starts from the operator's baseline.
• One settings page per player (Player1 config through Player4 config) covering colour, crosshair and control scheme, listing only the panels the cabinet has.
• Guided control setup that asks for each control in turn and binds whatever you press, one per panel.
• A cheats menu (god mode, all weapons/keys, noclip, exit level, position readout), operator only by default. Using one voids the run's score, except the position readout.
• Configurable initials timeout under Arcade Options, 60 seconds by default.
• Attract Volume as a percentage of normal volume, defaulting to 50, which jumps back to full the moment anyone presses something.
• Quit is off the player menu by default but can be put back, and -devmode always keeps it.
• A switch to turn the chase cam attract demos on or off.
• An audit page like a real arcade board: games played, player counts, levels finished, deaths, uptime actually played, popular maps, and why runs stopped being scored.
• A boot game setting so the cabinet always starts in your chosen IWAD.
• Deathmatch ends itself with a five minute default time limit and dropped weapons.
• Config safety: a backup on every save, and failed lines reported at startup instead of silently ignored.
• A fixed competitive ruleset pinned to a vanilla baseline. Runs outside it still play but show UNRANKED and record nothing.
• Portable install, with the whole configuration living next to the binary so the cabinet is one directory to copy or back up.

Hi everyone!
I’m planning my first DIY arcade cabinet and I’d love to get some advice from people who have more experience with this than I do.
My goal is to build something inspired by the Polycade format: relatively slim, wall-mounted, clean-looking, and not a huge traditional arcade cabinet.
The main difference is that I want to build it myself rather than buy a complete Polycade.
Hardware
I already have an older desktop PC that I’d like to reuse:
RTX 2070 Super
Intel i5 3rd gen
16 GB DDR3
850W Seasonic PSU
The CPU is obviously quite old, but I’m hoping the RTX 2070 Super will be enough for what I want to play. And I will upgrade it with a newer ryzen 5 as soon as I can afford it.
I’d like the cabinet to handle both retro games/MAME and more modern fighting games such as Street Fighter 6 and potentially other newer fighting games.
For controls, I’m planning:
Sanwa joysticks/buttons for the two players
Cheaper buttons for the secondary controls (Start, Select, Coin, Menu, etc.)
2-player layout
Probably an encoder/USB solution rather than anything too complicated
The TV is my biggest question
I found a used Sony Bravia KDL-48W705C for €90.
It’s a 48” 1080p 60 Hz TV, and apparently it has a reasonably low input lag in Game Mode.
My concern is that 48” might be too large for a Polycade-style cabinet, especially since I want the cabinet to remain relatively slim and wall-mounted.
On the other hand, €90 seems pretty cheap for a decent Sony display, and the large screen could be really nice for 2-player fighting games.
Would you use this TV for this project, or would you specifically look for something smaller (32–43”)?
Are there any particular things I should check before buying a used TV for an arcade cabinet? For example, input lag, refresh rate, HDMI behavior, ability to disable image processing, VESA mounting, panel thickness, etc.
I’m also wondering whether 1080p/60 Hz is perfectly fine for an arcade cabinet, or whether I should be looking for something with 120 Hz.
I’m not trying to build the ultimate arcade machine — I mainly want something fun, clean and relatively affordable, while still being capable of running modern fighting games.
Any advice on the screen choice, cabinet dimensions, controls or hardware would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

Steam | Announcement-Trailer | Kickstarter | M.A.S.K. prototype-Trailer

Perhaps some of you have played the pretty unique Lucky & Wild arcade back in the day. I proposed something quite like it for the 80's M.A.S.K. cartoon to Hasbro a while ago. Seems I failed to convince them to turn it into reality.

Since I can't make M.A.S.K. without a license, I'm now trying to turn this into a more over the top co-op arcade experience that fuses the precision of on-rails shooters with the rush of retro racing. Or imagine Outrun meets House of the Dead.

If that seems interesting please check it out, and have a nice day.

Have had this cabinet for over 10 years with an MVS, so never looked into it more than having it running.

But today my curiosity got the better of me and I reexamined the obvious rails around the screen.
Voila. It rotates very easely. Just a safty pin to unlock.

Now... where was the degaus button again...

Cab is a Royal Video Special., from around '91ish.

Hello, all i recently acquired this chassis.

Does anyone one have any documentation or schematics for it?

Any help would be appreciated thankyou.

Summer project. Sent smoother than expected.

I'm putting together a front-end of arcade games for my desktop PC, things I can control with a gamepad. Obviously emulators and retro remakes from Steam are a given, but what about the "extras" you'd find at an arcade? Things like skeeball / alley rollers, foosball, chex bubble hockey, crane games, ticket games, etc. Any suggestions for good ones out there that are worth looking into? (To be clear I'm looking for actual available games on Steam or Itch that are along these lines.)

So i have shared the progress on my pedestal arcade a few times here. Hopefully within the next couple weeks I will get MDF and finish the build. That being said, I am a man who can not be without a project. The new plan when this is done is that I would like to build full size whack a mole. Traditional machines are air driven but I am thinking if using push pull solenoids with an arduino running it. Has anyone here tried this or thought about doing it? I have done some looking and it doesn't look overly difficult, also not super easy but I think its doable.

So I just damaged the monitor I was going to use for my arcade project,while trying to remove the bezel. Sucks..but it is what it is. Going to get on fb market and ebay to try and but a "cheap" replacement. Any tips on how to remove the bezel so I dont keep wasting money? Is it even needed? I don't want to see the bezel when playing, so I can only imagine I have no choice but to try and remove it again.

Hi! I’m planning to build a bartop with a few games I like, and I don’t intend for it to be one of those setups with ten thousand games, just a handful of games I really enjoy, like KOF, SF, maybe an MK or two, Metal Slug, Altered Beast, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, Golden Axe, etc.

The thing is, I don’t know much about this stuff, so I’d like some recommendations for a Raspberry Pi 3 frontend or operation system that displays the games as a list rather than organizing them by console/system.

I’d also like to know which versions of Street Fighter II are the most worth playing, since back in the day I only had access to the first one. 😅

Hey guys, I recently picked up this Neo Geo MVS machine. I've got this one wire hanging loose and I'm not sure where it should go. It appears to be connected to a ground on the other end with another wire grounded to the coin box. I am having trouble with the coin box lights and thinking this could be related. Can anyone give me some guidance?

Hi, I own this Pac-Man cocktail cabinet, and not that long ago I just attempted to swap out the Pac-Man ROMs on the PCB with Ms Pac-Man, and the daughterboard that goes with it, and put it back in, but now all I get is this solid green screen

The first time I put it back in, I may have plugged the harness in backwards thus frying it, and then I left it alone until I got another Pac-Man board to test, and then being the stupid idiot I am I made the same exact mistake again; I plugged it in backwards

So now, both of my Pac-Man PCBs do this

Did I royally mess them both up by sending AC voltage into the video and IO circuits frying them? Is it hard to fix?

Does anyone know of a build that includes Cherry Master and other classic gambling machines?

I searched Arcade Punks but couldn't find anything.

Thanks!

I got this arcade cocktail table from my dad recently–we had it when I was a kid, I moved away, and they recently moved themselves, so I took it as I was closer and they didn't want to pay to have it safely shipped to their new house.

I know that the volume levels can be adjusted, as it was done when I wanted to play it as a kid, and I know that it's somewhere on the inside, but I haven't been able to figure it out yet. We don't have a manual or a model number, but I know it's an iCade 60-in-1 table, and my dad told me that there's a turnable knob inside the machine to adjust volumes, and not anything that toggles on-and-off or is adjusted by the dip switches or any safe mode (which I'm inclined to believe as he doesn't know much about tech like this, and since we never had a manual).

So far I've only found one knob on the inside that can actually turn (the thin black knob in the fifth photo), and it only adjusts the sharpness of the image on the screen. Anyone have any recommendations otherwise? It's tough to see inside the machine since the bulb is right in the middle, but hopefully the photos I've attached help a bit.

I'm also not an expert on arcade machines or hardware like this in general, so feel free to dumb down the terminology if something would be immediately evident to a novice 😅

Thank you in advance!

Edit: The only buttons/switches/etc on the outside of the machine are the power switch, the coin returns, and game buttons (start, fire, jump, move). There are also no menu settings on the screen, just options to go from game to game.

I'm looking for a new project and I'm thinking about making an arcade cabinet. Thing is I love pinball, too. Having an all in one would be ideal, but I don't know if its possible. Did some brainstorming and came up with this rough design. Is it just a stupid exercise or does it seem like something worth going deeper into?

Thanks a heap from a total newbie.

Looking at purchasing this and possibly gutting it. It looks like the monitor can rotate but do you guys think it actually can? I'm guessing I'll need brackets. They want 1500 but Chino Chan just hit me up on Facebook offering a new cab, real sanwa controls, with LG 1080p monitor for 1500 plus freight. He said he can also customize it for me so I'm thinking he's the way to go.

That said, this is only two hours away from me but it appears to be one of those overpriced knockoff from Vewlixshop.com.

Edit: ordering one through Chino Chan.

A peak into my cade game room ;⁠-⁠). What I really want to know though is if any of you guys or girls are running touch screen jukebox set ups in your arcades? I need to find a new screen for my TouchGroove set up. Something a bit more modern with smaller bezels. Potentially casino game monitors from China? I dig the ones with LEDs around them, but I'd be good with a normal touchscreen just with smaller bezels.

I'm trying to identify the exact joystick shown in this Kung-Fu Master cabinet.

It has a black ball top, short black shaft and the distinctive raised/stepped section where the shaft enters the control panel.

I've seen references suggesting these may have been early Suzo or Coin Controls Competition-style sticks, but I'm not certain.

Does anyone know the exact manufacturer/model, and whether there was an 8-way version of the same stick?

I'm particularly interested in the 8-way version because I remember playing Street Fighter on a converted cabinet with sticks that looked and felt like these.

If anyone has one loose, I'd really appreciate photos of the top and underside too.

Hi there, i literally just posted about vertical scroll on my monitor, ive figured that out but now it has a red colour to the screen? Is that something i have done to it?

https://highscor.es/ - The new Featured Global battle is up! Please submit your scores on the website.

Battle: #70

Game: R-Type Leo

Platform(s): Arcade

Challenge Type: High Score

Game Details: Full game, 1 credit

When: 2 weeks (Aug 24, 2026 - Sep 6, 2026)

The R-Type game with no Force Unit! Humanity and the Bydo Empire have found peace and stability after much conflict. With this newfound peace, humanity continues to set up Project Paradise, which is the creation of a new planet, called Eden, for human use. Major, the bio-computer responsible for the operation of Eden, takes control over the defense systems and attacks humanity. You pilot the R-9 Leo is to destroy Major and its defenses!

Hope to see some reddit folks competing, good luck!