How to replace a regular JAMMA board with ArpiCADE?

[rolle]

Hello,

We recently purchased this https://www.libertygames.co.uk/store/vi ... osmic-80s/ and noticed its JAMMA board doesn't have high score saving feature and it's a bit limited anyway. I'm thinking about replacing the board with ARpiCADE along with a RaspberryJAMMA adapter to have more customization and saving high scores feature.

I'm not sure which JAMMA board that cabinet has, but it's in a blue box, I think it's 60-in-1 JAMMA upright version, it looks like this or similar https://www.arcadeworlduk.com/products/ ... board.html

So my question as I'm quite newbie to JAMMA:

Is ArpiCADE + RaspberryJAMMA compatible if I buy it and just replace the JAMMA board with it without changing the wiring? Can it just be plugged in and ready to go?

Here's the video I took from the inside the other day: https://streamable.com/s6yhq
I can also provide pictures if needed.

[dee2eR]

Looks like you have a Pandoras Box or similar in there. I couldn't really make out the wiring in your video but if it's hooked up using the JAMMA harness and a VGA cable it should be compatible with RaspberryJAMMA. If there's extra connections for power or the video hooks up in a different way it may be a little more work but can probably still be done. Your current board is probably wired with 6 buttons on the JAMMA edge (a modified version of the JAMAM standard) which is supported by RaspberryJAMMA via dipswitch settings. If you take a picture of the board and wiring I can give you a more definitive answer on what may be required.

The ARpiCADE software is setup low res by default, you will need to swap to the high res setting for your LCD monitor. Assuming the wiring is fine that's all that should be required to set it up for your cab. If your current video connection is through a scaler or maybe HDMI or some other way it can still probably be done but more fiddling may be required (again I can probably confirm it with a look at the wiring).

If you order directly through me rather than a reseller I can also make the board high res only at a slight discount due to not needing all the parts for the low res video section. If you think you may use the system in a low res cab in the future you may be better off getting the full low res version as it can do either low or high res that way.

[rolle]

Thanks for the answer! I took couple of photos just now:

https://i.imgur.com/qYGU7Wm.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/1Ge703y.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/KjToI7Z.jpg

This uses VGA and flipped 800x600 already so monitor should be straightforward, right?

[dee2eR]

It looks like it should work fine. I know others have replaced Game Elf boards with a RaspberryJAMMA (although I don't believe I've seen a vertical monitor Game Elf before). A Pi system should be a good upgrade.

Setting ARpiCADE to high res mode isn't too hard, same with rotation. There's a couple of ways it can be done, either directly editing the RPi config.txt or from the service menu. To do it from the service menu one file has to be edited first as the high res options are disabled by default to stop people accidentally setting high res on low res monitors.

Depending on what games you play you may also want to consider rotating the monitor. I'm not sure how it's mounted or if the bezel is square and rotatable but it could be quite easy if the design of the cab allows it. Vertical monitor and 6 buttons per player is a pretty uncommon setup.

[rolle]

Cool, thanks! At least in this video 3:09 and forward it seems to have a similar setup with 2 players and 6 buttons each, Arpicade running: https://youtu.be/9ayq64-0FqQ?t=189

Will definitely consider bying this as our current JAMMA board doesn't have many multiplayer games (what's the point with full two player controls if there's only turn based multiplayer games?) or saving high score features...