WMA Gaming PC Controls

Wall mounted arcade cabinet running a game in a game room
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Your arcade, first time on

Everything you need for the first hour. Power on, wake the controllers, learn the buttons, and start playing.

Your arcade arrives set up and ready. There is nothing to install and nothing to configure, so the only thing between you and a game is knowing which button does what. That is what this page is for. Give it five minutes now and you should not need it again.

Before you start

  • The cabinet plugged in. It is surge protected and can stay on for days or weeks.
  • Both wireless controllers sitting in the dock so they are charged.
  • Your WiFi password nearby, or an Ethernet cable if you can run one.
1

Power it on

Lift the control pad and press the power button on the front of the mini PC. The cabinet boots straight into the game menu, the wheel of systems you scroll through to pick something to play.

To shut it down later, press Start, then choose Quit, then Shutdown System. You do not have to shut it down every time. Leaving it on is fine.

2

Wake the wireless controllers

The 8BitDo controllers go to sleep quickly to save battery. Press Start on one and give it a few seconds. A solid light means it is awake and connected.

Whenever you lift a controller out of its dock it connects on its own and becomes Player 1. With the controllers docked, the left side of the arcade panel is Player 1 instead.

3

Know which controller you are meant to be holding

The cabinet has two sets of controls and they are not interchangeable. Classic arcade games, everything under the MAME heading on the wheel, were built for a stick and buttons and use the arcade panel. Every other system, from NES through PlayStation and Switch, uses the wireless controllers.

If a game feels unplayable, this is almost always why. Put the controller down and use the panel, or the other way around.

4

The arcade panel

Arcade panel button guide showing Search, Select, Back, Coin, Start and Hot Key

On the panel, Select picks a system or a game and Back returns to the previous screen. Push the stick up and down to move through the wheel. Coin and Start are the two you reach for once a classic arcade game is actually running.

5

The wireless controller

8BitDo controller button guide showing Power / Hot Key, Back, Search, Select / Launch Game, Start and Coin

On the controller, A picks a system or launches a game and B backs out. The Hot Key is the round button in the middle, and it is the one that gets you out of a game.

6

Getting out of a game

This is the single most useful thing on the page. Games have no quit option of their own, so you exit them from the outside.

Press Hot Key + Start on the Player 1 controller. Not player 2, and not a controller that has gone back to sleep. That drops you to the wheel.

If a game will not exit after ten or twenty seconds of trying, press the power button on the front of the PC to switch it off, then press it again to turn it back on. This will not damage anything. It is the normal way out of a stuck game.
7

Put it on your network

You do not need the internet to play, but you do need it for online multiplayer, and it is how I reach the cabinet if you ever want something fixed.

Press Start, open Network Settings, and either switch WiFi on and pick your network, or plug in an Ethernet cable and it connects on its own. A cable is meaningfully better if online play interests you at all.

8

Quick reference

Exit a gameHot Key + Start, on the Player 1 controller
Save your place in a gameHot Key + X
Jump back to where you savedHot Key + Y
Add a game to FavoritesHold Y on the game in the list
Remove a favoriteHold Y on it again
Search for a game by nameSearch, on either the panel or the controller
Shut the cabinet downStart, then Quit, then Shutdown System

Favorites are worth doing on day one. There are more games on this machine than anyone scrolls through twice, and a favorites list turns it back into something you can sit down at.

9

Two things that look like faults and are not

Newer systems stutter the first time through an area. PS3, Wii U and Switch emulators build their graphics as they go, which is called shader caching. It settles down the more you play. It is how those emulators work rather than a limit of your hardware, and it happens on the fastest machines built.

The first load of a PS3 game is slow. Every load after that is much faster. Give the first one a minute.

Please do not update Batocera itself when the system offers to. The build on your cabinet is tuned so every system works together, and a general update can knock parts of it out. The updates that matter reach you through Outbreak instead.

That's the whole thing.

Power on, wake a controller, pick a system, press Select or A. Hot Key plus Start gets you out. Everything else here is detail you can come back for.

Where to go next

This page covers the first hour. These cover everything after it.

Full system guideSettings, adding your own games, display and audio, and the long troubleshooting list. Play onlineHost a game, or join one somebody else is already running, against real people. What's on your cabinetThe full list of systems and games your arcade shipped with. Back up your savesWorth doing once you have hours in something. Controllers in the wrong orderIf player 1 and player 2 end up swapped, this puts them back. It will not bootIf the cabinet comes up to something other than the game menu.

If something is wrong, tell me

Do not spend an evening on it. Fill in the report form with the game, what you expected, and what actually happened, and I will look at the cabinet myself. Leave it powered on and connected to the internet, and in most cases the fix lands without you doing anything else.

It does not stop at your machine either. What gets sorted on one cabinet goes into the next update for every one of them.

Report a game issue