User Manual

1Getting started

ARCadeOS is the operating system of the ARCade cabinet by DIY Engineering. It turns the cabinet into a single, controller-first machine: every arcade board, pinball table, console and PC game you own in one place, with artwork, attract video and music — and never a Windows desktop in sight.

You do not need a keyboard or a mouse. Everything in this manual can be done from the joystick and buttons on the cabinet. Your cabinet arrives set up and ready to play, so if you just want to start a game, read section 2 and go. The rest of the manual is here when you want to add games, change how the cabinet looks and sounds, or look after it.

The main screen

This is where you will spend most of your time. Everything is laid out around the game you have currently highlighted.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. 1 Date and time. An ARCade Share icon and a mute icon appear on the right when relevant
2. 2 Category tabs: systems, genres and collections
3. 3 Hero card: the highlighted game, with its preview video playing in a cabinet frame
4. 4 Play, Details and Favourite (plus Play Online on supported games)
5. 5 A–Z jump bar
6. 6 The game grid
7. 7 Press Start card: the game that will launch
8. 8 Help and Settings

The setup wizard

The first time a cabinet starts, a ten-step setup wizard runs. Move between steps with Next and Back (or B to step back). Most steps are optional; press Next to skip anything you want to do later.

1. Welcome to ARCadeOS. A short legal note: ARCadeOS is a game launcher, and you should only add content you own.
2. Connect to the internet. Pick your Wi-Fi network from the list and type its password with the on-screen keyboard. Hidden network… lets you type a network name that is not broadcast; Other networks… opens the Windows Wi-Fi panel for unusual cases such as a hotel or workplace sign-in page. If the cabinet is cabled to your router you can skip this step.
3. What makes ARCadeOS great. A one-screen tour of what the cabinet can do.
4. Choose your experience. Pick the Appearance (follow Windows, light or dark) and whether you want the Full multimedia experience: navigation sounds, jukebox music, launch videos and a background video. Turn it off for a quiet, plain interface; everything can be fine-tuned later.
5. Your Steam library. Sign in to Steam once and your installed Steam games appear in ARCadeOS automatically.
6. Game artwork. Optionally paste a free SteamGridDB key, and choose whether to use the LaunchBox artwork database (a one-time download of about 100 MB) for wider artwork coverage.
7. Christen your cabinet. Your cabinet is given a name with a slot-machine spin. Press Roll again until you find one you like. The name is permanent: it is how your cabinet introduces itself to other ARCade cabinets.
8. ARCade Share. Choose whether to switch on ARCade Share now. You can change this at any time.
9. Add your games. Shows the cabinet’s import folder and confirms the artwork database is ready. See section 5.
10. Thank you. Press Finish and the library opens.

You can run the wizard again at any time from Settings → System → Advanced → Run setup wizard. Re-running it erases nothing, and your cabinet keeps its name.

Startup tips

A few seconds after ARCadeOS starts, a tip slides up at the bottom of the screen with a shortcut or feature you may not have found yet. There are twenty, shown in turn, so you see a different one each time. It disappears by itself after about ten seconds; press any button (or B) to dismiss it sooner. Turn tips off in Settings → Display.

2Your controls

Every screen in ARCadeOS is built for a joystick and buttons first. The same handful of controls works everywhere, including inside Settings.

Button reference

Your cabinet’s control panel presents itself to Windows as an Xbox controller (see section 9), so ARCadeOS names its buttons the Xbox way. These are the defaults:

Moving around screens

• In the grid, push up from the top row to reach the hero card, then the tabs. Push down from the bottom row to reach Help and Settings. Push left from the first column to reach the A–Z bar.
• In any card (Settings, the importer, an editor): up / down moves between items; left / right changes a slider or a drop-down list without opening it; A presses a button, ticks a box or opens a list; B closes the card. With a list open, B closes just the list.
• In a file or folder browser, A opens a folder or picks a file, left goes up a folder, and B cancels.
• Setting a button (any “Press…” box): press the button or key you want. If you change your mind, just wait — it cancels itself after ten seconds. B is not a cancel here, because B is a button you may want to assign.

Quitting & power

Hold the same two buttons on the main screen and ARCadeOS asks “Shut down the system now?” — choose Shut down or Cancel. Restart, sleep and shut down are also in Settings → System → Power. If ARCade Share is still downloading something, ARCadeOS warns you first and offers Keep downloading.

On-screen keyboard

Whenever you need to type — a Wi-Fi password, a nickname, an API key — highlight the text box and press A. An on-screen keyboard appears: move with the stick, press A on each key, Shift for capitals, &123 for symbols, ⌫ Back to delete, and Done when you are finished.

Help & Controls

The Help button at the bottom of the main screen opens a card with your cabinet’s current button map (including any changes you have made) and short how-tos for navigating, playing, music, importing, ARCade Share and customising the controls. Scroll it with the stick or LB/RB; close it with A or B.

3Browsing your library

Categories & genres

The row of tabs across the top splits your library up. Move between tabs with the shoulder buttons (LB and RB) from anywhere — much faster than walking up to the tab row. The tabs wrap around, so LB on the first tab jumps to the last.

By default there is a tab for each system you own games for (MAME, Visual Pinball, Future Pinball, the consoles, Steam and your other launchers), plus:

• All Games — everything, A to Z.
• Favorites, Recent and Most Played — see below.
• ARCade Share — only when ARCade Share is switched on.

Prefer to browse by the kind of game? Set Settings → Display → Tab mode to Genre. The system tabs are replaced by genre tabs: Classics (golden-age arcade games from 1984 and earlier, which also stay in their own genre), Fighters, Beat ’em Ups, Shmups, Shooters, Platformers, Action, Maze, Racing, Sports, Puzzle, Adventure, RPG, Simulation, Strategy, Pinball, Casino & Cards, Music, Quiz — and Other for anything ARCadeOS can’t place. Only genres you actually have games in are shown. If a game lands in the wrong genre, fix it in its Edit card.

Tabs can show a platform logo, a name, or both: Settings → Display → Platform tabs.

The hero card

The large card above the grid always follows the game you have highlighted. It shows the game’s logo, year, maker and number of players, and plays its preview video — silently, inside the same cabinet frame (bezel) the game will use when it runs. Its buttons are Play, Details and the heart (favourite), plus Play Online on games that support it. The small letter on each button is the controller button that does the same thing, and it follows any changes you make to your controls.

The A–Z jump bar

The narrow strip of letters down the left edge is the fastest way through a large library. Push left from the first column of the grid to hop onto it, move up and down to a letter, then press right or A to drop back into the grid at that letter. # covers titles that start with a number or symbol. The bar only lists letters you actually have games for, so there are no dead stops.

Favourites & history

Press X on any game to favourite it — a heart appears on its tile and it shows up immediately in the Favorites tab. Press X again to remove it.

Recent and Most Played build themselves as you play; you never have to curate them.

To choose which tab ARCadeOS opens on, use Settings → Display → Opens on — pick a tab, or (Last used) to carry on where you left off.

Attract mode

Leave the cabinet alone for a while (five minutes by default) and it goes into attract mode, just like an arcade machine on location. It plays the preview videos of your games full-screen, framed by the cabinet bezel and topped with each game’s marquee, in a shuffled order. If none of your games have preview videos it shows a slideshow of their artwork instead.

Press any button to come back. That first press only wakes the cabinet — it never launches anything by accident. Attract mode never starts while a card or menu is open. Change the delay, or turn it off, in Settings → Ambience & attract → Attract mode.

4Playing games

Launching & quitting

1. Highlight a game in the grid.
2. Press A to move to Play, then A again.
3. A short launch video plays while ARCadeOS starts the right emulator with the right settings for that game, and — on cabinets with a joystick restrictor — switches the joystick to 4-way or 8-way. Nothing to configure.
4. Insert coins with Back and start with Start, as on an arcade machine.
5. To come back, hold Start and Back together.

If a game cannot start because something is missing — an emulator, a core, a BIOS file — ARCadeOS tells you what is missing instead of failing silently, and offers Open Systems to fix it. See systems readiness.

The details screen

Press Y on any game for its full page: box art, logo, title, year, maker, number of players, genre, joystick type and description.

Editing a game

Edit art & details opens a card with everything ARCadeOS knows about the game, in folding sections. Changes are saved as you make them; press Done when you are finished.

Playing online

Console games run through RetroArch can be played online with a friend on another cabinet or PC. A Play Online button appears on the hero card and details screen of every game that supports it. Arcade (MAME) games and pinball tables cannot be played online.

• Host a session starts the game and waits for a friend. Add a password under Lock with a password if you want to keep it private. Your hosted game is listed in the public lobby unless you turn that off in Settings.
• Join by address connects to a friend who has given you their address (and password, if they set one).
• Browse public games… lists sessions that are open right now; pick one and press Join.

Both players need the same game file and the same emulator version. By default the connection goes through a free relay server, so there is no router configuration to do. Your nickname, relay region and lobby listing are in Settings → Network & sharing → Online multiplayer.

Music & sound

ARCadeOS can play jukebox music while you browse, a background video behind everything, a short video as each game launches, and quiet clicks as you move. The triggers skip music tracks; Back mutes everything at once. Every volume in the cabinet lives together in Settings → Sound, so you can balance them in one place, and music and background audio can fade out automatically while you play.

5Adding games

You supply the games; ARCadeOS does the presentation. It works out which system each file belongs to, finds artwork, descriptions and release details, and installs the emulator that system needs.

From a USB drive (the easy way)

1. Plug any USB drive into the cabinet. If the drive is blank, ARCadeOS asks Set up this USB drive? — choose Yes, set it up. It creates a folder called ARCadeOS Import Folder with a sub-folder for every system it supports.
2. Take the drive to your computer and copy your games into the matching sub-folders. If you have your own artwork or videos, put them in the Media sub-folders.
3. Plug the drive back into the cabinet. The importer opens by itself and scans it.

From a folder on the cabinet

Open Settings → Games & library → Open importer, choose Browse… to pick a folder (a drive you have already copied games onto, or a network share), and press Scan. The cabinet also has its own import folder; when the library is empty, a Scan for games button on the main screen scans it in one press.

Reviewing an import

After a scan, the importer lists what it found, grouped by system, each with a status badge. Use the platform filter, Select all and None to choose, then press Import N selected. When it finishes, Import Results shows which systems were set up and how complete each game’s artwork is (green, yellow or red). Re-scanning is always safe: games already in your library are skipped.

If you would rather skip the review step, or stop the importer opening on its own, see Folders & import behaviour.

Systems readiness

Settings → Games & library → Check systems readiness… lists every system in your library with its status: Ready, Needs core, Needs BIOS, Not installed or Manual setup, with advice for each. Anything ARCadeOS can fix has an Install button. Press Re-check after fixing something.

Artwork

Artwork comes from public databases (Libretro, LaunchBox, SteamGridDB, and VPS for pinball tables). Most of it is found without any setup. For the widest coverage you can add your own free API keys for RAWG and SteamGridDB in Settings → Games & library → Artwork sources; each has a Get a free key… button.

Update all artwork (in Settings → Games & library → Library tools) looks up box art for every game again. A progress line shows how far it has got, and a summary appears at the end. Nothing is lost: art it replaces is kept in an artwork-backup folder in each library, where nothing better is found the existing card is kept, and a game with no card at all gets a tile made from its title and system.

To fix a single game, use Edit art & details → Find on that game instead.

6ARCade Share

ARCade Share lets your cabinet swap games directly with other ARCade cabinets. There are no accounts to create, no servers to pay for, and no router configuration. It is off until you turn it on, and it only ever offers the games you pick.

Turning it on

Go to Settings → Network & sharing → ARCade Share → Open ARCade Share… and press Turn on ARCade Share. The first time, a short Before you turn this on notice explains what sharing means; press I understand to continue. The first start takes a minute or two while the cabinet sets up its private connection; after that it is automatic.

Sharing your games

Two ways, both opt-in:

• From a game’s details screen, choose Share. That single game is now offered.
• From the ARCade Share panel, open a category under Shared games and tick individual games, or use Share all / Unshare all for the whole category — useful for offering, say, all your pinball tables.

Nothing is shared until you tick it, and un-ticking withdraws it immediately.

Downloading from another cabinet

With ARCade Share on, an ARCade Share tab appears in the tab row. It has one section for each cabinet that is online and sharing (“name is sharing N games”), and a section for what you are sharing. While it looks for cabinets it shows Finding cabinets on the network….

Games you do not have yet appear in greyscale. Highlight one and press Download. The tile fills with colour as it arrives, showing the percentage as it goes, and a message confirms when it lands in your library — complete with its artwork. A game you already own shows in full colour with a Play button instead, so you are never offered a duplicate. When another cabinet comes online, a message tells you.

The Share panel

Open it from Settings, or with View status on the ARCade Share tab.

Privacy

ARCade Share runs over the Tor network. That means your cabinet is reachable by its private address only — not by your home IP address — and there is nothing to forward on your router.

• You share only the games you tick.
• Your cabinet is identified by the name it was christened with, nothing more.
• Turning ARCade Share off stops everything immediately.

7Settings, section by section

Settings is organised into nine sections, ordered by how often people use them. The specialist controls are folded away inside each section, so the list stays short.

Open Settings with Start from anywhere (or the Settings button). Move with the stick, open a section with A, change a value with left / right, and back out with B. Changes take effect immediately — there is no Save button.

Tip: click any screenshot in this manual to see it full size.

Display

Sound

Games & library

Controls

Seven folded panels. Your cabinet ships with these already set to match its control panel; you only need them if you add hardware or prefer a different layout.

Ambience & attract

Network & sharing

Updates

The version this cabinet is running, Check for updates, and the three automatic-update switches. See section 10.

System

About & support

Your ARCadeOS version and cabinet name; Run diagnostics; the opt-in Send health reports to DIY Engineering for support switch; buttons for the DIY Engineering Website, YouTube, Support page and this User manual; and the legal and data-source notices. See section 11.

8Cabinet hardware

Beyond the joystick and buttons, the ARCade has a servo-switched joystick restrictor, a spinner, a precision plunger, a nudge sensor and a six-key Stream Deck. Their settings live in Settings → Controls → Cabinet hardware and → Stream Deck. They are set up at the factory; this section explains what each does and what you can change.

Joystick restrictor (4-way / 8-way)

Many classic games were built for a 4-way joystick that physically cannot move diagonally — Pac-Man is much easier to steer that way. Most later games want the full 8-way stick. The ARCade’s joystick has a small servo that switches its gate between the two, and ARCadeOS sets it automatically every time a game launches.

• Which way each game uses is detected for MAME games when they are imported; everything else defaults to 8-way. To change one game, open Details → Edit art & details → Joystick. The details screen shows the current value (“Joystick: 4-way”).
• To switch by hand, press the 4/8 Way key on the Stream Deck (on the Tools page, and on the page shown during a game). It also remembers the new setting for the running game.
• To turn the feature off, untick Joystick restrictor in Settings → Controls → Cabinet hardware.

ARCadeOS tells the controller which gate it wants with a short, specific rumble command (it never vibrates anything). The folded Command values panel under the restrictor (called Servo positions in versions before 1.28.96) holds the four values for that message: 4-way left / right (200 / 50) and 8-way left / right (50 / 200). They are not servo positions, and they must match the XInput Rumble Command Signatures in the controller’s Rumble Restrictor add-on (section 9). Leave them alone unless you have changed them there.

Spinner & trackball

Nudge sensor

The ARCade’s nudge sensor is a small motion sensor with its own round display, fixed inside the cabinet and connected over USB. When you shove the cabinet during a pinball game, it tells the table which way and how hard — just like nudging a real machine.

In Calibrate & test: keep the cabinet still and press Calibrate so a resting cabinet reads as zero (it cancels the sensor’s mounting angle and any slope in your floor). Per-direction thresholds sets how hard a shove must be in each direction, the dead zone, smoothing and key hold time. Sensor screen controls what the sensor’s own display shows (and whether a bump on the cabinet wakes it from attract mode). Tilt warning tracks repeated hard shoves like a real machine’s tilt bob. Reset thresholds returns to the defaults; Update firmware updates the sensor itself.

Stream Deck

The six-key Stream Deck on the control panel is a shortcut panel for the cabinet. Its keys change page as you use them; the last key on each page is Back.

Its settings: Enable Stream Deck module; Brightness; Mounted upside-down (rotate 180°); Show game art while a game is running with Artwork mode (Stretch, Fill, Fit) and If art is missing (Game Title Card, Platform Card, ARCadeOS Card); Return to the controls page after launching; Return to the home page when idle with an Idle timeout; and a Splash logo.

9GP2040-CE controller setup

The joystick, buttons, spinner and plunger on your control panel are all wired to one controller board running GP2040-CE, open-source controller firmware, in an ARCade build made by DIY Engineering. This section explains how it is set up for the ARCade and how to change it safely.

What the board does

The board reads every switch, the spinner and the plunger, and presents them to Windows as a single Xbox 360 controller (GP2040-CE’s XInput mode). That one choice is why everything just works: Windows, ARCadeOS, MAME, RetroArch and the pinball programs all understand an Xbox controller with no drivers, it is read every millisecond, and it is the only mode that can receive the command that moves the joystick restrictor.

The ARCade build of GP2040-CE adds the following to the standard firmware:

• Rumble Restrictor add-on — drives the 4-way / 8-way servo when ARCadeOS asks.
• Spinner velocity modes for the rotary encoder, so the spinner behaves like an arcade dial.
• ARCade display layouts (Curvecade Left / Right) for the controller’s small screen, showing the spinner and plunger.
• LED animation settings, and the ability for one action to light several buttons.
• Reliability: settings stored in two copies, safer reboots mid-game, and Restart diagnostics on the configurator’s home page.
• Safer boot combos: start-up button combinations only count on a real power-on and must be held for 2 seconds, so holding Start + Back to quit a game can never send the board into a setup mode.

How the panel is mapped

GP2040-CE names its inputs B1–B4, L1/R1, L2/R2, S1/S2 and so on. The table shows what each becomes in Windows and how ARCadeOS and your games use it with the cabinet’s default maps.

Holding S2 + S1 (Start + Back) quits any game. Which physical GPIO pin each button is wired to is shown on the configurator’s Pin Mapping page; it is set at the factory and only needs changing if you rewire a button. If a button does the wrong thing in ARCadeOS only, change the ARCadeOS map rather than the firmware.

Opening the web configurator

All of the controller’s settings are changed in its web configurator, a small website the board serves over its own USB cable. While it is open the board is not a controller, so you will need a USB keyboard and mouse plugged into the cabinet (or move the controller’s USB cable to a laptop).

1. In ARCadeOS, choose Settings → System → Exit ARCadeOS to get to the Windows desktop.
2. Put the board into web-config mode, either way:
   • At power-on: hold Start (S2) and keep holding it for 2 seconds while the cabinet (or just the controller’s USB cable) is powered on.
   • While running: hold Start + X + Y (S2 + B3 + B4) for 4 seconds.
3. Windows sees a new network adapter. Open a web browser and go to http://192.168.7.1.
4. When you are finished, choose Reboot → Controller in the configurator’s top bar. The board becomes a controller again, then restart the cabinet (Restart from the Windows Start menu, or power it off and on) to return to ARCadeOS.

Recommended settings

These are the values the ARCade relies on. If something isn’t working, check them first, under Settings in the configurator’s top bar.

Hotkeys

GP2040-CE has built-in hotkeys — button combinations that change controller settings on the fly. Several start with S1 + S2, which is the same pair as the ARCade’s exit buttons: for example S1 + S2 + Left switches the joystick to act as an analog stick. So when quitting a game, let go of the joystick while you hold Start + Back.

If a hotkey ever triggers by accident (the stick starts behaving strangely in menus), restart the cabinet — or, to stop it happening, switch hotkeys off with the Enabled switch at the bottom of Hotkey Settings and press Save. With hotkeys off, the power-on combinations above still work.

Pin mapping, display and lighting

• Pin Mapping assigns each GPIO pin to a button. Only change it if you have rewired something.
• Display Configuration → Button Layout: Curvecade Left and Curvecade Right are the ARCade layouts for the controller’s small screen.
• LED Configuration controls the button lighting: colours, animation effect, brightness, the colour a button flashes when pressed, and Turn Off When Suspended. The cabinet’s ambient lighting is separate and isn’t set here.

Rumble Restrictor add-on

This is the firmware half of the joystick restrictor. ARCadeOS sends a short “rumble” command with two specific motor values; the add-on recognises the pattern and moves the servo to the matching gate. Find it under Configuration → Add-Ons → Rumble Restrictor.

Calibrating the servo

1. With a Servo Signal Pin set, press Calibrate Servo….
2. Press Move to 4-Way. Use the − / + buttons (10 µs steps) until the gate sits cleanly in its 4-way position, then Save as 4-Way.
3. Do the same with Move to 8-Way and Save as 8-Way.
4. Close the dialog (this cuts servo power), then press Save on the add-on page.

Testing it

1. Reboot the board to Controller and start ARCadeOS.
2. Launch a 4-way game such as Pac-Man — the gate should click over as the game starts. Quit, and launch an 8-way game; it should switch back.
3. Or press 4/8 Way on the Stream Deck’s Tools page to toggle it by hand.

Two moves in quick succession: the second is ignored if it arrives within about a second of the first. That is deliberate, to protect the servo — wait a moment and try again.

Spinner & plunger

The spinner uses the Rotary Encoders add-on (Configuration → Add-Ons). The ARCade build adds the Velocity control modes, which report how fast the spinner is turning and re-centre when it stops — the behaviour arcade dial games expect.

Tune the spinner in two places: Velocity Full Scale here sets the overall range, and MAME’s in-game menu (Analog Input Adjustments) sets per-game sensitivity.

The plunger reaches Windows as the controller’s left stick, vertical axis, with the rest position at the top and a full pull at the bottom. Visual Pinball reads it directly as an analog plunger; for Future Pinball, ARCadeOS turns a pull into the plunger key. If a pull works the wrong way round, the analog stick’s Invert option is in the Analog add-on (Configuration → Add-Ons).

Backup & restore

Before you change anything, save a copy of the controller’s setup: Configuration → Data Backup and Restoration.

• Backup To File: leave every box ticked and press Save. Keep the file somewhere safe, such as a USB stick.
• Restore From File: choose the sections to restore, press Load, pick your backup file, and then reboot to Controller.

Updating firmware

ARCadeOS updates the controller for you. Each ARCadeOS update carries the matching controller firmware. When a newer one arrives, a short notice says so after startup. Go to Settings → Controls → Controller firmware, which shows the version the board runs, and press Update controller. ARCadeOS restarts the board into update mode, copies the firmware and checks the new version. The controls stop working for about 15 seconds. Your controller settings are kept.

From 0.8.51 the version is also drawn, very small, in the bottom-right corner of the controller's screen. If ARCadeOS can't read the version, Settings says so and doesn't ask you to update; Update controller is still there, for when the controller's screen shows an older version. On firmware older than 0.8.50, ARCadeOS can't switch the board into update mode itself, so it asks you to hold Back + X + Y (S1 + B3 + B4) for 4 seconds, then does the rest.

To update by hand instead, use only the ARCade build (a file named like GP2040-CE_0.8.51_Pico_DIY.uf2, attached to each ARCadeOS release): the standard GP2040-CE download does not contain the Rumble Restrictor or the spinner velocity modes. Make a backup first.

1. Put the board into USB (BOOTSEL) mode, any of these ways:
   • in the web configurator, Reboot → USB (BOOTSEL);
   • at power-on, hold Back + Start + Up (S1 + S2 + Up) for 2 seconds;
   • while running, hold Back + X + Y (S1 + B3 + B4) for 4 seconds.
2. A drive called RPI-RP2 appears in Windows. Copy the .uf2 file onto it.
3. The board restarts by itself as a controller with the new firmware. Check the version on the configurator’s home page.

The nudge sensor is a separate device with its own firmware; update it from ARCadeOS with Calibrate & test… → Update firmware.

Controller troubleshooting

10Staying up to date

ARCadeOS updates itself. New features and fixes arrive over a secure, signed update feed, and there is nothing for you to download or install by hand.

Three switches control the whole thing, and all three are on by default:

• Check for updates when ARCadeOS starts
• Download updates in the background while idle — so the wait is already over by the time you are offered it
• Install downloaded updates when I exit

You can also check whenever you like with Check for updates. When an update is found you can Download it, Install now, or Install on exit. Installing shows a real progress bar, measured against the actual download rather than a guess, and the cabinet restarts into the new version. When an update is ready on its own, ARCadeOS offers Install & Restart or Later.

Release channel (folded) is set to Stable, which is what you want. Beta and Dev get new builds sooner but are less tested, and exist mainly for DIY Engineering’s own testing.

11Care & troubleshooting

Diagnostics & one-tap repair

Settings → About & support → Run diagnostics checks the whole cabinet: ARCade Share, updates, each emulator, pinball components, RetroArch cores, artwork keys and free disk space. Each line gets a tick, a warning or a problem, with a plain-English explanation.

Most problems can be fixed from the same card with Fix N issues — ARCadeOS reinstalls a missing emulator or core for you. Re-run checks again. If something needs a human, use Copy report or Save report: that produces a complete support packet you can paste into an email to us, and Contact support opens our support page.

Sending health reports

On the same screen you can opt in to Send health reports to DIY Engineering for support. It is off by default. When on, your cabinet periodically sends only: its name, ARCadeOS version, how many games it shares, the pass / warning / problem counts from the check above with a short description of each, free disk space, and whether ARCade Share is connected. No file paths, no keys, no game titles, nothing personal — and it goes only to DIY Engineering, never to other cabinets. It lets us spot a problem on your cabinet before you have to tell us about it.

Backups

Settings → System → Backup → Export… saves your settings, favourites, play history and per-game edits to a single .zip file. Worth doing before any big change, and worth keeping a copy on a USB stick. The controller board has its own backup — see section 9.

Common problems

12Support & contact

Your ARCade cabinet is handcrafted by DIY Engineering in Winter Garden, Florida, and backed by a twelve-month warranty. If something is not right, talk to us.

All of these links are also on your cabinet, in Settings → About & support.

13Quick reference

Worth printing on its own and keeping near the cabinet.