Posted on June 21, 2021
How To Install and Setup GroovyArcade on an Arcade Cabinet CRT
I’ll try and write down some more detailed notes here how to install GroovyArcade. The main issues I had was getting my ISO to boot properly, I had to do this through my BIOS. I also had issues installing onto a NVMe drive, and in the end settled for a normal SSD drive. It’s still lovely and quick though! You can get more advanced help from the GroovyArcade forum, and also their Discord server.
I wish I had a better way of videoing the arcade monitor as the text and banding makes it look really crappy, when in reality it isn’t anything like that!
1) First of all you will need to download the latest GroovyArcade release from their GitHub page:
https://github.com/substring/os/releases
2) You will then need to burn this ISO to a USB stick. I used a program called RUFUS, which can be downloaded here:
https://rufus.ie/
3) Once you’ve burned the ISO, then you need to stick it into your GroovyArcade machine and boot from it. As mentioned above, you may need to mess around in your BIOS to do this, or you might get lucky and it will just boot from it straightaway.
4) It will then start to configure the system by detecting your monitor. I had my system connected up to my Sega New Astro City via a JPAC, so it was VGA out of my ASUS Radeon HD5450, connected to a JPAC, which was rigged up to the cabinet via JAMMA. Once I selected “15kHz” from the GA setup menu, I removed the HDMI cable from the GPU, so it was solely connected to the arcade cab. It detected it as VGA, and I chose the Generic Arcade 15kHz monitor.
5) Once the monitor is configured, then you can install GroovyArcade to the hard drive of your choice. I used a SSD, and it is nice and fast.
6) Once it is installed, remove the USB stick and reboot. If everything has worked, then it should boot into GroovyArcade, but it will look crap as it will be using the default Attract Mode theme and some freeware ROMs. We need to change all this!
7) Exit out of Attract Mode (presss ESC), and go to “System Setup” and change the password for SFTP/SSH to something of your choosing. I just used ‘root’. You also need to find the IP address of the machine too. You can exit to shell, and type ‘ip addr’, or you could look at your router settings and see what machines are connected and you should see a ‘GroovyArcade’ machine and get it’s IP from there. THIS IS OBVIOUSLY ONLY GOING TO HAPPEN IF THE MACHINE IS CONNECTED TO YOUR NETWORK!
8) Once you’ve done this, you can SFTP to the GA machine from another PC and copy across all your ROMs. SFTP details are: Type: SFTP Host: THE IP ADDRESS Username: root Password: PASSWORD I use FileZilla to SFTP – https://filezilla-project.org/ Once connected, then you can navigate to: /home/arcade/shared/roms/mame/ Here you can delete the stock ROMs and upload your own set. I’d recommend just uploading the ones you want to play and not several 1000 clones and Mahjong games!
9) I’d recommend using a better Attract Mode theme, one that looks better, but also one that works well on a low res, 4:3 CRT screen. I’m currently using SDArcade 4.0 – http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=2795.0 Download this theme, and upload it to: /home/arcade/shared/frontends/attract/layouts
10) Once you’ve uploaded your ROMs and the Attract Mode theme, then go to the GroovyArcade machine and hit TAB to get you to the Attract Mode options. Navigate to “Emulators”, then “Mame”, then “Generate ROM List” to trawl through your ROMs and catalogue what is there.
11) The next step is to “Scrape Artwork” which will go and grab all the screenshots, marquees, and video snapshots for your ROMs.
12) Finally, go to “Displays”, “Mame”, “Layout” and choose your custom Attract Mode theme.
13) Exit out of the options, and hopefully you should have all your ROMs, in your new custom Attract Mode theme, all with snazzy marquee graphics. Enjoy!
14) I realise this tutorial is very short, and obviously your setup will probably wildly differ from mine, but if you have any questions, please comment below and I will try my best to answer them!
Equipment Used:
– Sega New Astro City
– JPAC (to connect up the PC and the JAMMA harness)
– PC
– ASUS Radeon HD5450 (connected to JPAC via VGA)
– GroovyArcade 2021.03
– Attract Mode
– SDArcade 4.0 layout for Attract Mode
Posted on May 23, 2021
Shinobi – MiSTer FPGA – 1CC – Full Playthrough – Sega System 16 Core (BETA)
Here is my 1CC full playthrough of the brand new Sega System 16 core by Jotego on the MiSTer FPGA. This release is still in beta so there are some known bugs, i.e. if you beat the bonus stage, then the game hangs up, but it feels and plays just like the real arcade board to me (I have the Sega 16B PCB in my Sega New Astro City). I cannot wait for the MiSTer FPGA core for all the Sega System 16 games to be released, as I’d love to play them on my MiSTer, especially my two favourites: Shinobi and Golden Axe.
Apart from the bonus stage glitch, I think the games seems to play very close to the arcade PCB. I seemed to get slowdown in the ninja magic more frequently than in the arcade, but that may just be coincidence (as it does happen on the PCB as well).
You can support the amazing work that Jotego is doing (like I do) on his Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/topapate
Shinobi (忍) is a side-scrolling action game produced by Sega originally released for the arcades in 1987. In Shinobi, the player controls a modern-day ninja named Joe Musashi who has to stop a terrorist organization named Zeed who are kidnapping the students of his clan.
Equipment Used:
– MiSTer FPGA
– Sony PVM-20M2MDE
– 8BitDo Arcade STick
Posted on May 17, 2021
C64 loading screen and music – Robocop – Commodore 64
Loading screen and music for Robocop on the c64. One of the awesome Ocean Loaders, with music by Jonathan Dunn.
I noticed that they have a typo on the loading screen where it says “avaliable” – I wonder if that ever got fixed in any re-releases?
Posted on May 17, 2021
ZX Spectrum Loading – Daley Thompson Decathlon
This is a video of a ZX Spectrum +2 (128k) loading Daley Thompson’s Decathlon. There’s something super nostalgic about these sounds (and the coloured bars in the border) for anyone of a certain vintage who owned one of the fantastic ZX Spectrum computers in the 1980s. The sound is equally lovely and horrific to listen to, as the high pitched wails and screeches are not pleasant, but the nostalgia that it brings helps sooth them – much like a dial up modem sound takes you right back to the 1990s!
As soon as I hear this, I can close my eyes and I’m right back in my bedroom in around 1987 waiting for the game to load. In those days it seemed to take forever to load, and was often plagued with the dreaded “R-Tape Loading Error”, but it was only 2-3 minutes (I guess depending on the game it was loading).
I think my favourite part is the subtle change in noise it makes when the loading screen gets drawn line by line. I think we forget just how great it was in those days to see simple things like a new game load up on your Speccy for the first time and see the loading screen appear, as this was often the best graphical part of the game! Ahhh, those rose tinted glasses that I seem to wear most of the time these days!
Posted on January 8, 2021
Tecmo World Cup 90 – Arcade Longplay – Completed 1CC
This is my one credit clear of Tecmo World Cup 90 the original Tecmo arcade hardware, and played on my Sega New Astro City candy cab. I rely HEAVILY on the cheat/cheap goal scoring technique, where you line it up with the keeper’s post and he often just let’s it roll in, but it’s still a 1CC!
Equipment Used:
– Tecmo World Cup 90 PCB
– Sega New Astro City
Posted on January 7, 2021
Shinobi – Arcade Longplay – Completed 1CC – Sega
This is my one credit clear of Shinobi on the original Sega System 16 arcade hardware, and played on my Sega New Astro City candy cab.This is certainly not a no death playthrough, and I make several mistakes, but it’s still a one credit clear! Uses the default dip switch settings – 3 Lives, Normal Difficulty, Slow Bullets.
My favourite arcade game of all time. I remember playing it down my local leisure centre in the late 1980s, but never getting much further than mission 2. I’ve made it an ambition of mine in the last couple of years to 1CC it, and always hit a brick wall around missions 4 and 5, where the difficulty really ramps up, but since getting my Astro, I’ve been able to really practice hard, and eventually managed to do it. Although, it took me a lot longer to get a 1CC on camera, as I don’t cope very well with the pressure!
Equipment Used:
– Original Shinobi Sega System 16 PCB
– Sega New Astro City
Posted on April 4, 2020
Super Chase HQ – Game Boy
This is Super Chase HQ on the Game Boy – played on a Super NT with a Super Game Boy 2. This was released in 1994 for the Game Boy in North America only.
It’s a fun little game, if a little easy. I’ve played it three times on easy mode, and always beaten the game. Normal mode isn’t much harder to be honest. I’ve not tried hard mode.
When I was looking for information on this game, I saw that there was a time submitted for it on SpeedRun.com, so I thought I’d have a go at beating it, and I managed to do just that, so hopefully it will get approved, and I will have my first ever speedrun! I’m sure it can be well beaten if anyone wanted to play the game for an hour or two, as this was literally my 3rd go I think!
Equipment Used:
– Super NT
– Super Game Boy 2
– 8Bitdo SN30 Gamepad
– EverDrive-GB X7
Posted on April 4, 2020
Super Off Road – Game Boy
Super Off Road on the Game Boy was released in 1992 by Tradewest. It is a conversion of the Leland arcade game from 1989 called Ivan “Ironman” Stewart’s Super Off Road. The game was ported to pretty much every popular system at the time including: Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, Game Gear, Lynx, Master System, Genesis, NES, SNES, ZX Spectrum, and of course, the Nintendo Game Boy.
I think this Game Boy version was just called “Super Off Road” due to licensing issues with Ivan Stewart – whoever he is.
I really like this game, and I’ve played it loads on the Amiga and the SNES. This port isn’t amazing, it is pretty slow and jerky, but it’s still a lot of fun. It’s also really easy – I’ve only played it twice, and both times I won most of the races, especially when you have your truck fully maxed out with upgrades. I’m not sure if there is a way to actually complete the game, as I played it until I’d got to the 20th race (not in this stream), and it seemed to just keep on going. If someone knows if it just keeps looping, or if there is an actual ending, please comment and let me know!
Equipment Used:
- Super NT
- Super Game Boy 2
- 8Bitdo SN30 Gamepad
- EverDrive-GB X7
Posted on November 23, 2019
Forest of Doom – Fighting Fantasy book by Ian Livingstone
I had this Forest of Doom book along with several other Ian Livingstone Fighting Fantasy books back in the 80s. I remember being fascinated by the book covers that they used to have with the fantasy theme, and usually very striking style.
I never used to play the book as you were intended to (with pencil, paper, and dice), instead I used to just read through, and if I got in a fight, then I would just win! Easy! Although, I can’t ever remember completing one of these books, so that just goes to show how hard they are. Needless to say, I still don’t beat the book during this game play through. Maybe one day I will conquer the Forest of Doom…
The Forest of Doom is a single-player adventure gamebook written by Ian Livingstone, and illustrated by Malcolm Barter. Originally published by Puffin Books in 1983, the title is the third gamebook in the Fighting Fantasy series, and the first of several to feature the character Yaztromo. It was later republished by Wizard Books in 2002.
Equipment Used:
- Elgato HD60
- Windows 10 PC
- iPad 2
Posted on October 21, 2019
Robocop (1988) – ZX Spectrum – Let’s Play and Review
Robocop is the video game of the fantastic 1987 film of the same name. Data East made a great arcade machine with a run and gun style in 1988, and then this was ported to the home computers by Ocean Software who made the brilliant decision to obtain the rights to the game when the film was only at the script stage, and therefore made a ton of cash when the film became a monster hit.
The ZX Spectrum version topped the charts for over 18 months, entering in April 1989, and still being in the top 5 in February 1991. The music is very good in the release, and the title music was used by white goods company Ariston in a series of famous TV adverts.
I loved this game, and I still do today.
Equipment Used:
- ZX Spectrum 128k
- Competition Pro Retro Joystick
- DivMMC Future
- OSSC