Pixelcade Software Setup Guide

Manual Pixelcade Software Setup Guide for Windows

This guide is for manual steps and troubleshooting and has been replaced by this automated guide

YouTube Version of this Guide

Download and install the Pixelcade LED Marquee software for Windows (free). Note this installation will also install the free version of LEDBlinky which is required for integration with arcade front ends.

  • Power on your PIXEL board with the included 5V power supply.  IMPORTANT: Only use the included 5V power supply. Do not use a 12V power supply or you will damage the board.
  • Plug the board into your PC’s USB port using the included USB A-A cable.
  • Ensure the toggle switch on the board is pointing towards “USB”, it will not work if it’s pointing towards “BT”.
  • Your board will show up under Windows device manager in the Ports section as either PIXEL-LED (Windows 7) or USB Serial Device (Windows 10).
  • If you’re on Windows 7, you’ll need to install the PIXEL LED board driver manually, it’s located under \driver
  • Take a note of the COM port that has been assigned.

Windows 7 

Windows 10 – PIXEL board will be auto-detected on Windows 10 / no separate driver installation required

If installing the board driver manually (only required on Windows 7)

  • From the Windows start menu, launch “Pixelcade Settings”

  • Change the port to match your PIXEL board from the previous step.

  • Now launch the Pixelcade Listener (pixelweb.exe). This program always be running while the LED marquee is in use and the installer will add pixelweb.exe to your startup-folder.

  • The listener will launch minimized. Open the window and ensure you see “PIXEL Status: Connected” which means the board is successfully communicating with your PC. If it’s not connecting, then check again that you’ve entered the correct COM port in the above step.

Let’s now test and ensure Pixelcade is communicating with your PC correctly. Choose “Browse Artwork” to browse a subset of the Pixelcade artwork.

Select any image and it should display on the Pixelcade LED marquee.

Now that basic Pixelcade communications are working, let’s now enable integration with your arcade front end using a third party software called LEDBlinky. We’ll be using the free version of LEDBlinky and you can decide later if you want to go for the LEDBlinky additional features and paid version.

First enable LEDBlinky from your respective Arcade Front End:  HyperSpin, GameEx, LaunchBox, Big Box, Mala, Maximus Arcade, or CoinOPS (PC).

CoinOPS

LEDBlinky is not required for CoinOPS so proceed directly here to setup Pixelcade for CoinOPS.

HyperSpin

For HyperSpin, launch HyperHQ and enable LEDBlinky from the “Tools” tab and click the folder icon to browse to the path where LEDBlinky is installed.  

GameEx

For GameEx and GameEx Arcade Edition, launch the GameEx Setup Wizard and enable the LEDBlinky plug-in. 

Then go to http://ledblinky.net and install the latest version of LEDBlinky in the \Plugins directory. 

Launch Box / Big Box

From Launch Box, choose “Tools”, “Options”

Enable LEDBlinky and browse to your LEDBlinky installation path and ensure both check boxes below it are checked. 

 

1. Now Launch “Configure LEDBlinky”

From the “FE” tab, select the Arcade Front End you are using

2. Enter “Main Menu, Main_Menu, Favorites” in the FE System Lists Names field

3. Check “Demo Game Controls” from your Front End Options tab and if using HyperSpin, be sure and check the box “HyperLaunch or RocketLauncher Used to Run MAME or Other Emulator(s)”

4. MAME tab settings

If you don’t already the file mame.xml in your mame folder, then generate it from this command line: 

<path>\mame.exe -listxml > mame.xml

Note without mame.xml, some mame games would not be found, mostly clones. For example, pacman is clone of puckman.

5. If you are only using LEDBlinky with Pixelcade and not using an LED strip controller like the Ultimarc PacDrive or GameGear LED-Wiz, then check “No LEDs Mode”

6. From the Integrations tab, enable Pixelcade and specify where Pixelcade is installed. You may need to adjust the “Text Scrolling Speed” as scrolling text speed will vary depending on the speed of your computer. A lower number is slower scrolling and the higher number is faster scrolling. So try 5 and then adjust up or down depending on your preference.

7. From the Integrations Tab and FE Scroll, enter this settings

8. From the Integrations Tab and FE List Change, enter this settings

9. From the Integrations tab and FE Active, ensure these settings

10. From the Integrations tab and FE Quit, enter some text that will scroll when exiting the Arcade Front End

11. From the Integrations tab and Screen Saver, select an animation to play when the Arcade front end screen saver kicks in

12. From the Integrations tab and Game Active, enter the Game Text that should scroll when the a game is launched and then the Game Image Marquee will be displayed after that. 

You can use the following special keywords (each keyword must be surrounded by tilde character).

~game~ 

~system~ 

~date~ 

~time~ 

For example:

You are playing ~game~

 

Launch your Arcade front end and the Pixelcade LED marquee should now be updating as you scroll through games and consoles from your front end.