DOWNLOAD FOR MICROSOFT WINDOWS BASED FRONT ENDS
The following Windows based Arcade Front Ends have been tested:
- HyperSpin
- Big Box & Launch Box
- CoinOPS Retro Arcade & Latest CoinOps(choose CoinOps from Arcade front end setup wizard)
- CoinOPS Next 2, CoinOPS 2 Gems, CoinOPS NEXT, CoinOPS Arcadia (choose CoinOps Legacy from Arcade front end setup wizard)
- Core Type R
- Game Ex and Game Ex Arcade Edition
- MaLa
- Attract Mode
- RetroBat (Experimental)
- Pegasus for Windows (Experimental)
At the end of the Pixelcade software install, the Arcade front end setup wizard will run and you’ll choose your Arcade front end. You can run this wizard multiple times to integrate Pixelcade with multiple front ends.
Pixelcade LED Version 5.9 – For Pixelcade LED Marquees
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Pixelcade LED Version 6.0 Beta – Pixelcade V2 Hardware Users (Purple Board) only use this
Known Issues for Pixelcade LED Version 5.9
- Pixelcade Companion does not yet support writing a default marquee. Use the “Write Default Marquee” Pixelcade program files icon instead.
Pixelcade LED 4.6.x Legacy (Use this if you have Pixelcade LED + Pixelcade LCD)
Pixelcade LED 4.6.x Legacy Setup Guide
How to Set Up High Score Scrolling
Pixelcade artwork is updated from time to time. You can check the online Pixelcade artwork repo to see what has been updated. Run the Pixelcade LED Artwork Updater to get the latest artwork from the Pixelcade artwork repo.
Optionally, you can also follow this guide that enables Pixelcade LED to function as a DMD while playing Visual Pinball and Pinball FX3 and FX2 (Steam versions only).
Pixelcade LCD 5.x – For Pixelcade LCD Only Installations
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IMPORTANT: For Windows 11 users, turn off Windows Defender as it likely will block the Pixelcade LCD software installation. And then you may need to also add a Defender exclusion for the Pixelcade folder.
Firmware and Artwork Updates for Pixelcade LCD
LEDBlinky Free Version vs. Paid Version
| Marquee updates while front end scrolling for emulators & games | Scrolling text during game launch, startup, and shutdown | Screen Saver | Splash Screen Removed | High Score Scrolling on select MAME games | |
| Free | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Paid | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The Pixelcade installer will also install the free version of LEDBlinky if not already installed.
Windows 7 users on Pixelcade LED will also need to install the driver for the Pixelcade board from Windows device manager. The driver is located in the \driver sub-directory and is for Windows 7 only. The board driver is automatically installed with Windows 10.
Manual Install Guide (only use if automated installer not working)
Optional Command Line Parameters
The Pixelcade installer will add Pixelcade (pixelweb.exe) to your Windows start-up folder to run automatically when Windows starts. If you want to further customize Pixelcade, you can add the following command line parameters to the startup command.
Usage of pixelweb:
-b string
optional bind address (default “0.0.0.0”)
-check-artwork
check Pixelcade artwork for updates. Exits with code 0 if no update available, 1 if update is available, 2 if directory does not exist, 3 if unknown error.
-colorlogging
show the selected console and rom in color in the Pixelcade Listener window
-d string
path to pixelcade device. Set to auto to scan for device. On Windows use COM# (default “auto”)
-debug
debug log level
-delay int
time (in seconds) to delay device init
-demo
Enable demo mode (linux only)
-devicescan
scan for device if not found or not specified with -d
-font string
default font for text (default “Arial Narrow 7”)
-fontcolor string
default font color for text (default “red”)
-fontcolorrandom
random default font color. Overrides -fontcolor (default true)
-fontsize int
default font size for text (default 28)
-fuzzy
enable fuzzy matching for images (default true)
-fuzzydistance int
higher number means more distance and less confidence for match (default 20)
-fuzzymatches int
max number of fuzzy matches before disregarding (default 40)
-image string
optional image to display on startup (default “mame/pixelcade.png”)
-install-artpack string
install art pack with license code
-install-artwork
install Pixelcade artwork to pixelcade root. Exits with code 2 if artwork already installed.
-logfile string
optional log file
-nointro
skips playing the startup text and logo. Screen will be black on startup.
-nomdns
Skip mDNS registration
-p string
path to pixelcade root (default “C:\\Pixelcade”)
-port int
optional port to listen on (default 8080)
-progress-stdout
print progress output as stdout only
-silent
silent mode / do not display any log output
-startup
startup mode
-swapbluegreen
swap blue and green. Only needed for certain panels.
-system-image string
optional system image to display on startup. Overrides -image
-text string
optional text to display on startup (default “Welcome to Pixelcade”)
-trace
trace log level
-update-artwork
install Pixelcade artwork to pixelcade root
-version
display the version number