ARpiCADE_5 beta2 - for RPi4 or RPi5

[dee2eR]

OK, that's obviously not what you want to happen. Not sure why it has offhand. Hopefully we can work it out. It is very likely to be the SD card or the HDMI to micro HDMI *(or maybe a loose connection or something) as the rest of the hardware is known good - assuming the RPi5 is fine... You are using the correct HDMI output of the Pi so it isn't that...

I'd start by either reburning the SD card, in case the original write didn't go properly for whatever reason - if you try reburning maybe see if it will boot right before adding roms just in case. OR you could try plugging the Pis HDMI signal into a modern monitor that is capable of reporting what the video signal is to double check it that way (some HDMI montiors will report 240p as 480i but this may be a way to test the output is actually low res). It may be worth trying them both too, one at a time.

If the SD card is burned fine the HDMI to HDMI micro adaptor may be doing some thing weird or be defective in some way. I can't see the whole adaptor chain in the photo, is the micro HDMI and the USB cable that both look like they have the same mesh coating related to each other? If your micro HDMI adaptor is active it could be doing something to the signal, I have only used passive micro HDMI adaptors (*electrically micro HDMI is the same as HDMI it's just a smaller connector).

Hardware wise your RaspberryJAMMA is a v3 PCB (most are, there weren't many v1s made and the v2 was superseeded by v3 quite quickly) and should already have a 2.5A fuse (which should be OK for RPi5 in this use case... it could be higher but you wouldn't want lower). All RaspberryJAMMAs should be able to work with any RPi (assuming the software supports it), as long as the fuse suits it.

How did you burn the SD card? I have had a couple of reports about people with non booting SD card images but no follow up to my questions trying to figure it out. It's possible some oddness happened in imaging, hard to say. I have successfully burnt RPi5 images with both Windows and Linux in my own testing.

Hard to believe I've been doing this for 10 years now. It's all come so far from the RPi1 model B (not plus, it wasn't a thing yet) I started with.

[Tapper]

dee2eR: thank you for the reply. I burned my card using balena etcher on Windows 10, as I have done for past Arpicade versions.

At the moment I'm too tired to do any more, but will definitely try the things you suggest this weekend and report back. Might be Sunday though, but I promise I will get to it. I will also try to test the adapter, but Jsaux usually makes good stuff. This is the one I have: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09LYPXPH6

If anyone has a suggestion for an adapter that is know to work well for the Pi5 please give me a link.

I will be so happy if I can get this to work.

[dee2eR]

That adaptor looks like it should be fine, as long as it's just passively adapting HDMI to micro HDMI it should work fine.

Does Balena Etcher give any options to 'optimize' the image for particular RPis or similar? If so you do not want to let it do so. While I'm not familar with Etcher it should be able to work as far as I know. I used the Rpi imager software on Windows with success, if you can't figure anything else out it may be worth trying. The vast majority of my imaging is on Linux with DD, it's possible that the various GUI imaging software work in slightly differing ways - although I wouldn't think so.

[Tapper]

That adaptor looks like it should be fine, as long as it's just passively adapting HDMI to micro HDMI it should work fine.

Does Balena Etcher give any options to 'optimize' the image for particular RPis or similar? If so you do not want to let it do so. While I'm not familar with Etcher it should be able to work as far as I know. I used the Rpi imager software on Windows with success, if you can't figure anything else out it may be worth trying. The vast majority of my imaging is on Linux with DD, it's possible that the various GUI imaging software work in slightly differing ways - although I wouldn't think so.

OK, I'm back at it. I just downloaded rpi imager and will burn beta2, then test it on the cab without adding any roms first.

Will update this post as I proceed...

-- just getting a black screen now. Tried reconnecting everything, but same thing. At least with the etcher burn I had garbage onscreen. Going to reburn with etcher and try booting that before adding roms.

-- booted with the fresh burn via balena etcher. Same thing as yesterday with the etcher burn - garbled garbage onscreen. But hey, better than just a black screen I guess.

-- UPDATE! I have some interesting progress. Will post photos soon, but I have now managed to get the Arpicade logo showing on the CRT!

-- OK, I have to do this quick, but I learned that using an A1 16GB mSD works better than the older 64GB mSD I had previously used with the Pi3b+. I burned it using rpi imager and picked no specific device. It boots with a crazy bunch of lines then eventually shows the Arpicade logo and after a bit it drops out to a text screen which I can't really read, but it looks like a list of error reports. Please see this video I made of it: https://youtu.be/E4-E6zeZhww

-- some photos for quick reference:

1-small.jpg (125.84 KiB) Viewed 234 times

3-small.jpg (53.58 KiB) Viewed 234 times

4-small.jpg (96.1 KiB) Viewed 234 times

[dee2eR]

Weird. The result *should* be identical no matter what imaging program is used, but plainly it isn't. Not sure what to recommend at the moment. Also not sure what would be different on the current software vs the older software you've burnt successfully previously (in terms of the image).

Also interesting different SD cards are giving you different results, I would have expected only a read/write speed difference. I have been using A1 class SanDisk Ultra cards for whatever that is worth.

I'll do a bit more research and see if I can come up with anything.

[Tapper]

Bought a 3 pack of Sandisk A1 128GB mSD cards.

Burned the beta2 image and added some roms into the mame251 folder. Started up with the Arpicade logo, then the weird colored lines things again, and finally just have a black screen.

I have no idea what else I could try on my end. If anyone else is using this in a JAMMA cab with standard CRT please post your results.

[dee2eR]

@Tapper I wish I knew how to help. If you haven't already, can you try it into a modern monitor or TV via HDMI and see if it A. reports the resolution at all, and B. makes the messages that eventually appear readable - maybe they have a clue in them as to what is going on.

I might try burning the image and adding games from my kids Windows box, I didn't add any roms in my previous test of using Windows 10 to image ARpiCADE_5.

Is anyone successfully using ARpiCADE_5? (Not counting myself...) EDIT: (checked page 1) @Macs @MonsterBathGames - you are the only other people in this thread that have reported being able to run games on ARpiCADE_5 - how did you burn your SD card? What imaging program on what OS? Did you have any issues getting up and running?

[Tapper]

@Tapper I wish I knew how to help. If you haven't already, can you try it into a modern monitor or TV via HDMI and see if it A. reports the resolution at all, and B. makes the messages that eventually appear readable - maybe they have a clue in them as to what is going on.

I might try burning the image and adding games from my kids Windows box, I didn't add any roms in my previous test of using Windows 10 to image ARpiCADE_5.

Is anyone successfully using ARpiCADE_5? (Not counting myself...) EDIT: (checked page 1) @Macs @MonsterBathGames - you are the only other people in this thread that have reported being able to run games on ARpiCADE_5 - how did you burn your SD card? What imaging program on what OS? Did you have any issues getting up and running?

DELETED

Solution found! See below.

[Tapper]

Solution found!

The culprit was an SD card extender cable I use in my cabinet. After some testing on a TV, I discovered the problem was IO errors when the cards were read thru that extender!

dee2eR - I'm so sorry for any stress caused by all my earlier reports. It just hadn't occurred to me that this sd extension cable could be the problem. Now I just need to figure out how to get the games rotated correctly and such. Very happy, but also frustrated that it was something so dumb.

Here are the IO errors, now readable on a TV instead of the CRT - that's when I thought about the extension cable:

hmm io errors.JPEG (84.26 KiB) Viewed 104 times

Here is Arpicade on pi5 successfully running beta2 on my cabinet:

successs at last.JPEG (175.45 KiB) Viewed 111 times

Here is the evil mSD card extender cable (that I used for years with the pi3b+ but is apparently too slow for the pi5):

the enemy.JPEG (152.47 KiB) Viewed 111 times

[Tapper]

Well, I'm back with some actual bugs now.

I'm using MAME 0.251 only so far:

1) Sound issue - some games have a thump sound playing randomly. Easiest way to explain is to show: https://youtu.be/9l3sUZjhvws

2) Vsync issue - seems present in many/all games. On my vertical CRT I can see it along the right edge about a half inch in. Here is a video to try and show it, but it's tricky because my phone is not synced with the monitor: https://youtube.com/shorts/S_fDkG-S3AI?feature=share