My DIY 80s Dynamo HS-1 arcade cabinet with Groovymame and NTSC CRT TV (Updated)

[benyamin39]

I am in my forties and I recall fondly my good high school days in a French small town in Burgundy, sneaking out from high school to gather in one of the numerous smoky cafes scattered in the city to spend my few francs on video games ranging from the mid-80s to early 90’s such as Double Dragon, Golden Axe, Ghost and Goblins, Rygar and later on Willow.
Being nostalgic about this time, I took on this project this year to build an arcade cabinet to reproduce this feeling and share as well the joy with my children (they are fond of Super Street Fighter II).

Below is the description of the cabinet and all the web references I used to build it. Thanks to all of them for sharing the information; their names are indicated below in each link. Also, it took me quite some time and a few trials and errors to build this project from scratch. If the info below can give some hints to someone willing to build a similar cabinet, this post will have achieved its purpose. If someone needs more details about some aspects of its construction, I can post more detailed pictures and explanations.

I wanted this cabinet to be as close as possible to the real one (although I reckon this cabinet can be improved, especially for the artwork).

The components are as follow :

• ¾ in MDF board following Dynamo HS1 generic arcade cabinet. I followed the blueprint from classicarcadecabinets.com. The cabinet manual can be found on drzero.org.
• 16-gauge Custom built steel control panel and marquee holders.
• 8 button layout (to allow for street fighter II as well as Neo geo 4-button games). I downloaded the button layout from www.slagcoin.com
• Coin door with light and coin insert
• Double dragon artwork (quality picture downloaded from mameworld.info and simply printed in Costco along with the marque)
• ¼ in plexiglass (can be found in plastic supplier, cut to size)
• Custom built marquee (printed in Costco with a lot of LED lights on the back. Result is ok but it is certainly better to buy a proper marquee online)
• Custom built bezel, following this thread on the forum of arcadecontrols.com
• 50$ 9 years old Dual Core Small form factor Lenovo desktop running Windows 10
• 20$ Radeon HD7000 series video card with DVI-I output (basically VGA capable) purchased on ebay and running on the marvelous emucrt driver. I followed this very useful thread.
• 1998 19” Samsung CRT TV modded for direct  RGB input (19” was the original CRT size for this cabinet. I followed the 8bit guy youtube video and selected the proper resistors from https://shmups.system11.org/ )
• Groovymame with attrac-mode front end

I picked the dynamo hs1 cabinet as it looks pretty much like the ones that were used back then in my town. Concerning the display, I first tried a 4/3 LCD screen; it gave  pretty good results already (using HLSL to emulate scanlines curved screen). Yet ultimately I wanted to go with a modded CRT TV solution which gives great results. This solution is  challenging though for someone who does not know much about electronics. As a side note, higher resolution / screen frequency games such as Narc run very well on a CRT TV as well (using interlaced mode)

Finally I spent many hours looking at Linux based solution (I am a linux guy), retroarch, raspberry, but I found windows + emucrt + Radeon + CRT TV to be the best path to near pixel perfect result.



Remaining work
Coin reject button :
I plan to print the coin reject button insert using my laser printer on plastic sheets. For a better result, those parts can be purchased on suzzohapp website.

Power on switch and switch relay :
I will add:
A switch connected to the ON/OFF switch of the computer to boot the system without having to reach the back of the cabinet
a USB power switch relay to enable the switch on the TV once Mame is launched so to imitate a real arcade cabinet boot.

Issues (if someone can help, much appreciated
Launching Mame and then a game is no problem. Launching the same game from Attract is a lot slower (an some time freeze Mame)

I have some slight vertical overscan problems : I would like to shift the screen down by a few lines but I can’t do it from the service menu of my TV. I tried to play the radeon card settings without success so far. Not a big deal though.









My DIY 80s Dynamo HS-1 arcade cabinet with Groovymame and NTSC CRT TV (Part 2)
In this update I want to share the solution I found to:

• configure  video resolutions for NTSC CRT TV
• Configure USB relay to power on TV / Sound and marquee light after Attract-mode has launched
• Enable sleep mode so to boot the system more rapidly
• Install and configure bsnes emulator for near perfect SNES emulation
• Setup consistent Joystick mapping
• hide windows 10

I went through a lot of testing and debugging to get to a cabinet that is now fully functional,  play all arcade / Genesis / SNES / NES games in native resolution, and start/shutdown (rather sleep/resume) in about 15 seconds.


1. Configuration of video resolutions for NTSC CRT TV
There are 2 ways to configure emucrt video resolution for Groovymame. Either using user resolution (enter a modeline for every game / console resolution needed. This can be tedious) or superresolution (a lot easier, only a couple of superresolution modelines need to be entered).

I initially used super resolution. It turns out that for the games I was looking for, the superresolution created a substantial amount of overscan horizontally and some overscan vertically.

Note that on CRT TV, there is some leeway to adjust the picture vertical shift and height from the TV service menu. This was sufficient for me to run double dragon and alike games with a picture centered vertically. The issue was on for the horizontal overscan. Typically on most consumer TVs, horizontally the picture can only be shifted; the size cannot be modified. That was a problem. There may be ways to modify the porch settings in the modeline but this is a quite advanced method and I did not need to go that road.

The superresolution was not satisfactory for some of the games, so I went to add user resolutions. This worked well and Groovy mame would use the user resolution first and then default to superresolution otherwise.
Here-below are the modelines currently registered in the cabinet. I did not have to add many user resolutions to play the games I like.

>>modelist list               
"240x192_60 15.71KHz 59.96Hz" 4.65 240 248 272 296 192 220 223 262 -hsync -vsync
"240x200_60 15.71KHz 59.96Hz" 4.65 240 248 272 296 200 224 227 262 -hsync -vsync
"248x192_60 15.69KHz 59.89Hz" 4.77 248 256 280 304 192 220 223 262 -hsync -vsync
"256x192_60 15.71KHz 59.94Hz" 4.90 256 264 288 312 192 220 223 262 -hsync -vsync
"256x224_60 15.67KHz 59.82Hz" 4.89 256 264 288 312 224 236 239 262 -hsync -vsync
"256x239_60 15.71KHz 59.94Hz" 4.90 256 264 288 312 239 243 246 262 -hsync -vsync
"256x240_60 15.67KHz 59.82Hz" 4.89 256 264 288 312 240 244 247 262 -hsync -vsync
"320x224_60 15.70KHz 59.92Hz" 6.28 320 336 368 400 224 236 239 262 -hsync -vsync
"320x240_60 15.70KHz 59.92Hz" 6.28 320 336 368 400 240 244 247 262 -hsync -vsync
"336x224_60 15.70KHz 59.91Hz" 6.53 336 352 384 416 224 236 239 262 -hsync -vsync
"384x240_60 15.69KHz 59.88Hz" 7.28 384 400 432 464 240 244 247 262 -hsync -vsync
"512x225_60 15.71KHz 59.94Hz" 9.80 512 528 576 624 225 236 239 262 -hsync -vsync
"512x240_60 15.71KHz 59.94Hz" 9.80 512 528 576 624 240 244 247 262 -hsync -vsync
"512x448_60 15.74KHz 59.95Hz" 9.82 512 528 576 624 448 471 477 525 interlace -hsync -vsync
"512x478_60 15.74KHz 59.95Hz" 9.82 512 528 576 624 478 486 492 525 interlace -hsync -vsync
"512x480_60 15.74KHz 59.95Hz" 9.82 512 528 576 624 480 487 493 525 interlace -hsync -vsync
"640x200_60 15.71KHz 59.96Hz" 12.19 640 664 720 776 200 224 227 262 -hsync -vsync
"640x480_30 15.73KHz 59.94Hz" 12.21 640 664 720 776 480 487 493 525 interlace -hsync -vsync
"640x480_60 15.73KHz 59.94Hz" 12.21 640 664 720 776 480 487 493 525 interlace -hsync -vsync
"768x480_60 15.73KHz 59.91Hz" 14.72 768 792 864 936 480 487 493 525 interlace -hsync -vsync
"2560x224_60 15.70KHz 59.94Hz" 48.37 2560 2632 2856 3080 224 236 239 262 -hsync -vsync
"2560x240_60 15.70KHz 59.94Hz" 48.37 2560 2632 2856 3080 240 244 247 262 -hsync -vsync

I added 512x225 resolution to allow MAME to run SNES games in native resolution (although later on I switched to bsnes which is a more accurate emulator and run in 256x224.)

The easiest way to add resolutions is via the command line of vmmaker:
Modelist import
Modelist list
Mode add 512@225@60
Mode add 512x240@60
...
Modelist install


2. Configuration of USB Relay resolutions to power on TV / Sound and marquee light after Attract-mode has launched

I purchased the following simple USB Relay from bangood for about 5$ a piece.


1 Channel 5V HID Driverless USB Relay USB Control Switch Computer Control Switch PC Intelligent Control Relay Module


There is no documentation provided but the seller made available a sample microsoft visual studio project file for download that I could modify and recompile to create 2 standalone executable files USBRelayon.exe and USBRelayoff.exe.

Those programs are called during startup / sleep and resume (see the section below) of windows.


3. Enabling sleep mode for faster boot
Getting the arcade cabinet to boot fast proved to be one of the hardest part of the project. Windows 10, the graphic cards, attract-mode and the USB Relay have all restrictions and issues when it comes to sleep / resume the system.

• Tidying the power button to sleep mode does not work because windows does not switch off the USB relay (and therefore TV and marquee light stay on all the time). There is also no simple way to customize the windows 10 sleep function (scheduling a task on windows sleep event 42 does not work). So this path was a dead end.
• Puting the computer in hibernation would power off all USB devices, yet this solution does not work either as the graphic card is buggy when the system resumes (This seems to be a problem for many graphic cards).
• The winning combo was to Leave the power button tied to shutdown function of windows 1 and tie a custom sleep script to Attract-mode exit command.

Initial boot
Windows 10 allows you to run a script during startup.
     1. Open a cmd terminal on windows 10 and type gpedit.msc (gpedit.msc is in the win32 folder of Windows)
     2. Go to the user configuration / Windows Setting/ Scripts (logon/logoff) and add the following script line:
          c:\usbrelayopen\USBrelay.exe
     3. Close gpedit.msc. Then go to the c:\Users\[your login]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup and copy the copy the attract-mode shortcut there. Windows will launch this program at every startup after logon.

Shutdown (using the power button)
I used gpedit.msc again. Go to Computer configuration / Windows Setting/ Scripts (startup/shutdown) and add the following script line:
c:\\usbrelayoff\USBRelayoff.exe
This is not really necessary as the relay will go off anyway on computer shutdown.

Sleep mode (using the exit command from attract-mode)
1. Download the Microsoft tool psshutdown
2. Create the following sleep script to be put on c:\
   c:\\sleepscript.bat
   @echo off
   c:\usbrelayclose\USBRelayoff.exe
   c:\psshutdown -d -t 0
3. Add the following exit command on Attract-mode (note that start "" will launch the command in a separate window terminal, allowing attract mode to quit before the computer goes to sleep)
   start "" c:\\sleepscript.bat

Resume / wake up
Another windows tool is used for resume / wake up : Windows Scheduled task.
1. Download devcon.exe which is a windows tool that we will use to force usb connections to resume during computer wake. This was needed for me because often I would have one joystick not working after computer resumes.
2. Start built-in windows tool Windows Scheduled task, and create a scheduled task that will be executed during wake up (event ID 1) with the following commands
   c:\devcon.exe *USB_ROOT*
   c:\usbrelayon\USBrelay.exe
   d:\Groovymame\attract-v2.6.1-win64\attract.exe
   Click on this last line you entered and fill the parameter Start in (optional) : d:\Groovymame\attract-v2.6.1-win64 (this is mandatory. if you omit to specify this parameter, attract-mode will start with a blank new configuration)


4. Install bsnes emulator for Super Nintendo
Mame is a very good emulator for Arcade games as well as for Sega Genesis console, Atari 2600 and Colecovision. It also runs well on NES and SNES games, although it is apparently  not as good as dedicated emulators. Visit this link to have a better understand of which system MAME emulates well and which one it does not. http://nonmame.retrogames.com/

So I looked for a better alternative to MAME for the Super Nintendo system and it seems there is a consensus for BSNES to be the best emulator in the place.

I will not go into details on how to install bsnes and configure attract-mode as it is fairly standard. The tricky point I found though was to switch resolution to 256x224 before launching bsnes to ensure games are run in SNES native resolution. To do so I used a toll nameq qres.

1. Downloaded bsnes 0.115 and start bsnes
2. Enable exclusive mode in D3D
3. Disable stretch and blur options
4. Downloaded qres
5. Create a bsnes240p.bat file in the root folder of bsnes directory
    @echo off
    cd d:\bsnes_v115-windows
    qres x=256 y=224
    bsnes.exe --fullscreen %1
    qres x=640 y=480
    exit
6. configure attract-mode and call for bsnes240p.bat in the emulator command line.


5. Joystick layout
The cabinet is fully controllable from the joystick, including for saving and loading games. The joystick mapping is as follow:




6. Hiding Windows 10
The last step is to hide windows 10. With the use of usb relay most of the Windows graphics are already hidden. What remains are the shutdown message and the mouse cursor. To hide them, the easiest method is to use the tool Instant Sheller. I found this tool when testing a Win7 + groovymame distro available on UKVac forum (GroovyTime, have a look).
Instant Sheller is very easy to use and very robust. A few click and I was done


I hope this information will be helpful for anyone who wants to build such type of arcade cabinet. Here-below is a video of the end product.

Video of arcade cabinet boot / sleep / resume sequence

[morton]

Nice build!

I like that it doesn't look outta place or hacked together. It would be cool to see an overlay or something on the control panel to tie it all in, but I could live with it as is... So no need to change now.

I figure when I finally put my PC together the video will be my biggest hurdle, so look forward to seeing what you figure out.

[benyamin39]

Nice build!

I like that it doesn't look outta place or hacked together. It would be cool to see an overlay or something on the control panel to tie it all in, but I could live with it as is... So no need to change now.

I figure when I finally put my PC together the video will be my biggest hurdle, so look forward to seeing what you figure out.

Thx! I fixed the video issues. I tried different combinations on VMMaker : 15kHz generic CRT vs NTSC TV and standard resolution vs superresolution. I thought that superesolution was the way to go, but indeed it created the picture shift. On con trary, Standard resolution worked like a charm for me. In my case and probably for the games I play, NTSC + standard resolution is the good combination and I seldom have to adjust the picture on the TV.
Then I tested SNES games. the resolution being 512x225, Groovymame would systematically play games in 480i mode. To solve the issue I simply added a modeline from VMMaker command line.
Overall this stuff is really great, damn close to the original.

Another improvement I did was to add a USB Relay so that the TV, lighting and sound switch on right before Attract mode is launch, hiding entirely the windows boot sequence.  I programmed also attract mode exit button to bring the computer to sleep mode and turn off the relay. on wake up the computer would trigger the relay back and switch on back TV sound and light and launch attract mode again, giving the impression of a fast boot. The feature works ok, except that sometimes the computer refuses to wake up. This wake up problem being very erratic, it is a hard issue to solve.

I am now testing Groovyarcade to see if a Linux solution would bring me the ultimate customization solution.

[lomoverde]

Hi,looks fantastic.
Im curious as to whats going on inside.Did you decase the tv? How is it mounted?
 I have a couple of similar projects on the go and am undecided about the tv as yet.

[benyamin39]

Hi,looks fantastic.
Im curious as to whats going on inside.Did you decase the tv? How is it mounted?
 I have a couple of similar projects on the go and am undecided about the tv as yet.

Thx. I did not decase the TV. I did not feel I had to. The TV fits entirely inside the cabinet. The TV is simply sitting on a panel board, leveled and blocked at the black. Because of its weight it does not move and can stand my kids heavy street fighter practice. Also the plastic rim does not prevent from adding the bezel. Finally the casing brings protection to electric shocks.

What I did was to add BNC connectors on the back of the TV (like the 8 bitguy did) so to easily disconnect the TV when needed.

This being said, decasing the TV could be possible to install the tube in a backplate like it was on the original cabinet.

[lomoverde]

 Are you in France? could you not get hold of a scart tv?
 I am nervous about decasing my TVs,but i have 2 x 14" TVs i am planning to use,and they are maybe not heavy enough to secure themselves.
 Regarding the geometry,have you altered the porch values in ArcadeOSD to shift the picture position?

[benyamin39]

Are you in France? could you not get hold of a scart tv?
 I am nervous about decasing my TVs,but i have 2 x 14" TVs i am planning to use,and they are maybe not heavy enough to secure themselves.
 Regarding the geometry,have you altered the porch values in ArcadeOSD to shift the picture position?

I live in Canada, so I had to take the RGB mod road. quite some fun though doing it. I am planning to do it again with another 19" TV I just got a few days ago. I would feel also nervous about decasing the TV (HV, ...). You should be able to secure the TV Casing one way or the other once the TV is set in place in the cabinet.
Which cabinet type had a 14" TV? arcade cabinet from lates 70s early 80s?

I did not have to modify the porch values in arcadeOSD to shift the picture position. By Simply using standard resolution instead of superesolution I fixed the problem and games like double dragons or golden axe are running very well. This being said, before I tested the standard resolution, I tried to play with porch values for a while, but it did not bring me anywhere. One of the reason is that I did not fully understand how it works, despite some long reading on it. Very often I ended up with getting slightly distorted images that did not shifted much.

[morton]

Another Canadian, nice!

Yeah the 14" I think is a cocktail or cabaret size monitor. At least that would be what I'd use it for if I had one.

How hard do you find the RGB mods? I am tempted to give it a go myself but worry I will spend all this time and have a less than ideal image.

[lomoverde]

Which cabinet type had a 14" TV? arcade cabinet from lates 70s early 80s?

As Morton suggested im planning a couple of vertical cabaret builds.Similar to Javeryh´s excellent build.
 
I find the 14" is slightly smaller than id like,but they are so cheap and plentiful here

 I´m sure your happy with your setup,but if you havent already,check out the read only Win7 groovy mame build thats on the UKVac forums.Being read only you just flip the power on/off and theres no risk of corruption,removing the need for smart power strips etc...

Regarding the software,ArcadeOSD etc,yes its very confusing for a beginner like me i know.Ive finally found i can manipulate the porches fairly well to shift pic up down and sideways.

Love the metal control panel also something i´d love to have a try at.

[benyamin39]

Another Canadian, nice!

Yeah the 14" I think is a cocktail or cabaret size monitor. At least that would be what I'd use it for if I had one.

How hard do you find the RGB mods? I am tempted to give it a go myself but worry I will spend all this time and have a less than ideal image.

Mounting the crt in a cocktail cabinet is tricky. You may get away with keeping the plastic casing but it will take more time to adjust and it would be less neat that decasing the TV for sure.

RGB modding took me some time because I had to learn about it from scratch. I am also not an expert in electronic (I only have a multimeter and basic solder iron). I read a lot (on shmups website). There was also the risk for electrical shock so I would wait one day with the TV unplugged before decasing it and shortening the plug so to make 100% sure I was safe.
I started with a Sanyo TV, but the TV broke down in the middle of my testing. Then luckily I found a Samsung TV very similar to the one from 8bitguy, This helped me a lot. I believe if you get a TV from the 90s or early 2000 they are all built pretty much the same.

Overall rgb modding is very interesting to do and very rewarding as the picture is just like the original, crisp and curved and all that (I prefer over LCD, even including GLSL shaders and other enhancements MAME can provide). It was worth the effort.

Good luck in your project and please share with us your progress!

[Arroyo]

Nice to see a traditional looking cab with a CRT.  Looks great, nice work!

[benyamin39]

As Morton suggested im planning a couple of vertical cabaret builds.Similar to Javeryh´s excellent build.
 
I find the 14" is slightly smaller than id like,but they are so cheap and plentiful here

 I´m sure your happy with your setup,but if you havent already,check out the read only Win7 groovy mame build thats on the UKVac forums.Being read only you just flip the power on/off and theres no risk of corruption,removing the need for smart power strips etc...

Regarding the software,ArcadeOSD etc,yes its very confusing for a beginner like me i know.Ive finally found i can manipulate the porches fairly well to shift pic up down and sideways.

Love the metal control panel also something i´d love to have a try at.

I did not know about UKVac forums. I visited the forum but I could not find the subject related to read only Win7 groovy mame. Can you indicate me the thread number? Thx!

[dmckean]

Great job!

[lomoverde]

I did not know about UKVac forums. I visited the forum but I could not find the subject related to read only Win7 groovy mame. Can you indicate me the thread number? Thx!

In the mame sub-forum of UKvac topic number 367196.
The user is chunksin.
Alternatively you can just google "chunskin images"