Barry- Barry
USB-DVG Installation Guide
Updated: Jan 29, 2021
This small guide will give you the basics to get you up and running from a blank SD card to a working Raspberry Pi 4 with Advance MAME and Chad's Arcade Vector Menu, specifically configured for working with USB-DVG. The installation instructions are given for Windows only.
Hardware
● USB-DVG board connected to your vector monitor.
● Raspberry Pi 4 *
● 5.1V 3A Micro USB Power Supply *
● MicroSD Card (32 GB recommended) *
● MicroSD Card Reader (optional - if your computer doesn't have a SD Card slot) *
● Micro HDMI to HDMI cable *
● USB cable to connect the Raspberry Pi 4 to USB-DVG
● A PC running Windows, used for transferring game ROMs *
● Computer Monitor with HDMI input *
● USB Keyboard and Mouse *
* Not included. The simplest way to get most of these components is through a kit such as the Canakit.
Installation
Download the SD image for your Raspberry Pi
Extract
Once you have downloaded your SD card image you need to extract it. Using Windows, unzip the file and the extracted file will be a .img file.
Install
To install the SD image on your MicroSD card. (You may need a MicroSD card reader to plug it into your computer). You can use a Etcher, Win32DiskImager or Raspberry Pi Imager
See the official Raspberry Pi "WRITING AN IMAGE TO THE SD CARD" instructions.
Note This image is built on top of Raspberry Pi OS (a Linux based OS) and as such the partition on the SD card is EXT4 (a Linux file system). This partition is not visible on Windows systems, so the card will show up as a smaller size than usual and you won't be able to see everything on the card, but it is all there. You will be able to access the file system over the network as described in the transferring ROMs section below.
Transferring ROMs
Due to the nature/complexity of Copyright/Intellectual Property Rights Law, which differs significantly from Country to Country, ROMs cannot be provided with the SD and must be provided by the user. You should only have ROMs of vector games that you own.
There is one simple method for transferring using Windows File Explorer.
● Connect your Raspberry PI with the Ethernet cable directly to any LAN port of your wifi router.
● If you just powered up your Raspberry wait at least one minute before doing the next step.
● On Windows open Windows Explorer and type
\\raspberrypi\advancemame\rom as the folder location. Copy all the vector game ROMs there.
Controller Configuration
You need to connect an HDMI monitor to your Raspberry Pi for configuring controllers. While in Advance MAME, hitting TAB will show a configuration dialog. Please refer to the Advance Projects documentation for details. You can add and configure joysticks, spinners, etc...
Vectrex Games
Advance MAME supports running Vectrex vector games. In an upcoming version, Chad' s Arcade Vector Menu will support selecting and running Vectrex games.
Booting Directly Into a Specific Game
You can modify one file on the Raspberry Pi to boot directly into a game. For example, for booting into Star Wars:
● On Windows open Windows Explorer and type \\raspberrypi\advancemame as the folder location. Edit the vmmenu.cfg file (with Notepad or any other text editor) ● Go to the [autostart] section of the file and edit as shown below:
[autostart]
game = starwars
start = yes
USB-DVG Configuration Screen
USB-DVG is configured at the factory to work with horizontal monitors. If you have a vertical monitor or need to change colors or anything else, pushing the SELECT button on the USB-DVG board will show the configuration screen:
CRT TYPE
Select the CRT type that most closely matches the CRT connected to USB-DVG. The slew rate, the jump rate and B&W display settings are set automatically.
SLEW RATE
Manually specify the CRT slew rate in microseconds per inch.
JUMP RATE
Specify the jump rate (i.e. slew rate when the beam is off) in microseconds per inch. Can be much faster than the slew rate.
BEAM DELAY
Set to increase/decrease vector endpoints intensity.
B&W DISPLAY
Set to YES if you have a monochrome display.
B&W FORMULA
Which formula to use to convert from color to B&W:
● MAX MAX(R,G,B)
● AVERAGE (R+G+B)/3
● LUMA 0.6R+0.3G+0.1B
COLORIZE
Set to WHITE, RED, GREEN, BLUE, SET[1-7] for selecting a specific color palette for colorizing monochrome games (on a color display). Set to CYCLE to cycle through palettes for a cool visual effect.
ORIENTATION
Inform MAME of the monitor orientation for correct aspect ratios for games.
SWAP XY
Swap x and y axes.
FLIP X
Flip x-axis.
FLIP Y
Flip y-axis.
PINCUSHION
Software pincushion correction.
X-LIN[1-2]
Linearity correction for the x-axis. Use left-right to cycle to the next/previous test pattern, up-down to change values.
Y-LIN[1-2]
Linearity correction for the y-axis. Use left-right to cycle to the next/previous test pattern, up-down to change values.
GAMMA
[RED-GREEN-BLUE]
Gamma correction. The square around the screen shows the hues for the selected color. Normally for NTSC displays the gamma correction is 2.2 which is the default.
INTENSITY
Change the color intensity (brightness).
BURN-IN
USB timeout (in seconds) before USB-DVG returns to the home screen.
HOME SCREEN
Set to OFF to disable the USB-DVG home screen.
CREDITS
The creators of USB-DVG.
After you have changed the setting, pressing BACK will save them in non-volatile memory. The settings will then become permanent.
USB-DVG Factory Reset
In the case you change something that makes you lose the display, you can press
LEFT-RIGHT-UP-DOWN-SELECT at the same time to trigger a factory reset (version 1.11C9+). Settings will be reset to default values, and all your previous changes will be lost.
Updating VMMenu
You can update VMMenu with the latest version without writing a SD Card with a whole new Raspberry Pi image.
● Connect your Pi to your network.
● Quit Advance MAME and VMMenu (press ESC repeatedly).
● Download the latest file vmmenu from the public folder.
● Copy vmmenu to \\raspberrypi\advancemame
Updating Advance MAME and Advance MESS
Like VMMenu you can update Advance MAME and Advance MESS with the latest version without writing a SD card with a whole new Raspberry Pi image.
● Connect your Pi to your network.
● Quit Advance MAME and VMMenu (press ESC repeatedly).
● Download the latest files advmame and advmess from the public folder.
● Copy advmame and advmess to \\raspberrypi\root\usr\local\bin
Updating USB-DVG Firmware
USB-DVG firmware updates are supplied in the form of .hex files. Use Teensy Loader to update the files on the USB-DVG .
● Connect the USB cable from your PC to the USB-DVG board.
● Start Teensy Loader (teensy.exe).
● Select the firmware file.
● Press the button on the processor module (where the USB cable is connected to on the USB-DVG board).
Advance MAME and VMMenu for Windows
The file usb_dvg_windows_version.zip is available in the public folder:
● Download and unzip the file.
● Connect USB-DVG to the PC. In the device manager, Under Ports (COM & LPT), take note of the port number of "USB Serial Device"
● Edit advmame.rc to change the port number. Search for vector_aux_renderer_port.
Syntax for port numbers over 9 is \\.\COMx where x is the port number.
● Edit vmmenu.cfg to change the port number . Look for the [dvg] section.
● Copy ROM files under ROM folder
● Copy sample files under SAMPLE folder
● Start VMMENU if all goes well you should see something displayed on the vector CRT.
● Select game.
● Have fun!
Configuring Dead Zones on Analog Joysticks (Raspberry Pi only)
If you are experiencing difficulties with your analog joystick default dead zones, there is a utility in the public folder that you can upload and execute on your Raspberry Pi to correct this:
● Download the file jdzone from the public folder.
● Copy jdzone to \\raspberrypi\advancemame
● On Windows open Windows Explorer and type \\raspberrypi\root\home\pi as the folder location. Edit the .profile file (with Notepad or any other text editor, or even at the local console using nano)
● Go to the end of the file and insert one line (in bold) before the last two lines as shown below:
sudo /usr/local/share/advance/jdzone --dz=0
cd /usr/local/share/advance
/usr/local/share/advance/vmmenu
This line will configure all axes of every joystick found with a dead-zone of 0 every time the Pi reboots.
The PDF version of this document and the needed files are found here: