Daytona USA – rated but not confirmed for XBLA or PSN

Posted Monday, 26th September 2011 under New old games
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I can’t take credit for this – Retro Gaming Australia reports that Daytona USA has a new listing in the OFLC’s database.

There’s no information regarding platform or much else – it’s been rated ‘G’ and Sega Australia filed the request.

It’ll be interesting to see what comes out of it – perfect Model 2 emulation internally running at 1080p with 8-player online multiplayer awesomeness? A combination of the Model 2 original plus the Model 3 successor, all running at 1080p w/online multiplayer? Perhaps a 720p (boo) HD version of the Dreamcast release of Daytona USA 2001? The advantage of the latter is that it looks nice (and would be nicer in 1080p, but previous Dreamcast ports have only been 720p), there’s network infrastructure in the source code IIRC and it has the original tracks plus plenty of extras accumulated from the various subsequent releases.

Assuming it’s a good thing, hopefully we’ll continue to see classic Sega arcade classics released via PSN/XBLA. I’d love a 1080p Sega Rally + Sega Rally 2 release, Sega Touring Car, Scud Racer… and all running at 1080p with online multiplay. And then there’s their fighting franchises – 1080p Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Fighter 3, Fighting Vipers, Last Bronx… even Sonic The Fighters

A Sega fan can dream, right?

Getting Virtua Fighter 3 running in my Astro City

Posted Wednesday, 30th March 2011 under Arcade cabinets
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This one’s very retrospective, as I did this back in… late 2009 I think, or early 2010. It’s a response to the issues I’ve blogged previously with getting VF2 and VF3 to run on my cabinet.

I grabbed an AT PSU with some hacked wiring to a DIY power distribution panel. It was crude, but very effective – with some jiggling around and by using the power supply/connections in conjunction with a Model 3 – JAMMA harness I had from a previous order, I was able to get VF3 running on my cab Made me a very happy little nerd, I can assure you!

Angled shot of everything:

Power supply:

Squeezing everything inside the cabinet:

Success!!

The whole lot (and then some) are in the Arcade stuff – cabinets gallery.

What would Virtua Fighter look like if it it went in the same direction as Street Fighter?

Posted Friday, 2nd April 2010 under Soapbox rants
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You know what? This is funny (and a joke – read up more from the source), but you know what? It looks awesome

Thanks Kotaku!

Now, Sega – where’s the announcement for the PS3 port of VF5:FS? With my nerd powers, I have the console ports of all the VF games (well, only VF4:E instead of vanilla VF4 on the PS2), as well as PCBs of VF2 and VF3, give me extra nerd love in the form of a port of this one, please!! Online play would also be nice since you added it to the XB360 port of VF5 standard

Either that or give some attention to possibly making a new Fighters Megamix game

Update on power supply problems with Virtua Fighter 3 (Model 3) PCB

Posted Tuesday, 5th January 2010 under Arcade cabinets
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Finally have an update on the power supply problems I’ve been having with my Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtua Fighter 3 respective Model 2A and Model 3 boards.

After tracking down an eBay sale of a Model 3-fitted and ready PSU, I buckled, bought it, and it finally arrived yesterday. I gave it a preliminary run to see if I could get the thing to power up, and it looks like we may just be in business

The setup’s nothing too refined, but is startlingly effective – it’s basically a standard ATX power supply running on 240v with the 12v, +5v, +3.3v and GND going to a couple of distributors on a block of wood, and the distributors rope around to the various connectors on the board. The input and video run back to a JAMMA biscuit, and the sound (not connected) has been wired to a 4-pin molex connector, but currently doesn’t have an amp fitted.

Moving forward, from here I’ll need to take the Wei Ya audio amp off the existing Model 3 >> JAMMA adapter I have and fit that into the loop and connect it up to the JAMMA biscuit to get sound going through. Will have to look at doing something similar for my Model 2 board as well, might see if there’s a way I can quickly hook up the PSU to my Model 2A filterboard to at least test the thing and see if I can get the sucker powering up.

The funny thing with all this is that Wifey said ages ago that I should have gone out and grabbed a big beefy power supply for the system before messing around with everything else I’ve done. Looks like she was right all along

Once I’ve had a chance to properly connect the whole shebang together and get it up and running, I’ll post up some pics to share. Might also prove useful to other people interested in doing similar mods on their systems.

Virtua Fighter 2 (Model 2) and Virtua Fighter 3 (Model 3) booting and power supply (PSU) problems

Posted Wednesday, 9th December 2009 under Arcade cabinets
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I’ve posted this in a few forums, so thought I’d track it on my blog as well. The following’s a slightly edited version of my post

A few months back I snapped up VF2 and VF3 from someone interstate, and have been having some troubles with them, and I’m not sure if it’s me, the boards, or maybe a combination of both!

Now, before I go on I’ll clarify my setup – Astro City cab with a 15k/24k chassis (Pentranic, previous owner slapped in a generic 15k chassis that blew up, so I replaced with a Pentranic), bog-standard Peter Chou 15A PSU, 3.3v Wei-Ya PSU, cab is JAMMA-ready. To connect the Model 2 and Model 3 boards into my JAMMA setup, I’m using one of these (Model 2) and one of these (Model 3).

In order to boost the 5v and GND lines on the main PSU, I’ve also increased the amount of wires coming between the PSU and the JAMMA connector as I wasn’t getting solid +5v due to some flimsy wiring. After beefing up both lines, I’m getting much better performance across all my PCBs (CPS-I, Neo Geo, CPS-II, System 11 and a few others).

I’ll start with VF2 – I’ll put the chassis into 24k mode, roll the PSU back, connect VF2 and get the voltage to 5v (maybe 0.05v over). On the PCB, the red LED 11 is lighted up, and I’m getting like a garbled green test pattern thing on the screen. I’ve pulled the PCBs apart and put them back together again, checked to make everything’s in there nice and tight and checked for physical problems on the boards, everything checked out, no change. To test things a bit further, I removed the top ROM PCB, leaving the bottom two boards (since it’s a Model 2A system, it’s a platter of three boards) and rebooted – same problem, LED 11 is lit up, I think I saw a couple of red LEDs on the bottom board near the filter board light up, and the garbled screen. Turned off, put the ROM board back on, the LEDs on the bottom board are fine, but the red LED 11 in the middle board is still lit up. Garbled test pattern remains.

With VF3, it’s a bit more tricky, and I have a feeling it’s my PSU that’s to blame here, as well as some of my wiring before I beefed up the 5v and GND lines. With VF3 when I first tried booting it a month or two back, the 3.3v PSU worked a treat, but the old Peter Chou would crash out immediately – the red light to indicate it was on would light up, then immediately drop out and there’d be no power on the JAMMA adapter when I tested it with my multimeter. I figured my PSU might have been on the way out, so got a new standard arcade PSU (a 16A Min Dong), connected it up and had success… or at least I thought I did. I measured at the JAMMA adapter and it wasn’t getting to even +2v on the +5v line; I cranked it, barely got to +2v and the JAMMA adapter was getting really hot. Next thing I knew, it smelt like the PSU was overheating and the little light indicating it was on turned off. The new PSU went and died on me Disappointed, I reconnected the old Peter Chou PSU. I noticed a couple of red LED lights come on when I power up the Model 3 off the Peter Chou (even though ti conks out) and the 3.3v Wei-Ya (which I’m going to take as meaning the Wei Ya is working fine, since it doesn’t conk out), if that helps. Another thing I noticed is that how much success I have before the Peter Chou PSU gives up depends on the amount of +5v/GND connections – I can have the 5v and GND connections on, say, JST CN13, and it won’t kill the PSU, but if I hook up JST CN14 as well, the PSU dies. Does this help?

I was talking a few other people with more experience than I have with arcade cabs, and they mentioned that the fact the JAMMA adapter was heating up indicated there wasn’t enough copper between the PSU and the JAMMA adapter on the +5v and possibly the GND connection as well, and suggested beefing up the wiring to fix that part. I’ve done that and am getting better results when playing the rest of my games, and when I tried loading VF2 or VF3 with the beefed up wiring, VF2 still gave that garbled green test pattern screen thingie (red LED 11 still on), and VF3 still died off. They also mentioned the red LEDs might be indicating a fault with the board or power supply.

I’m a bit stumped with what I can do to fix up these issues – I’m a huge VF fan, and these two games were part of the reason I wanted to get my own arcade cab. I know there are some very clued up Model 2 and Model 3 people on these forums, but couldn’t find anything that coped with these problems. I’m not sure if it’s a PCB, PSU or even jumper settings issue that’s affecting my PCBs. Some other people I’ve spoken to who run Model 2 boards have done it consistently off standard arcade PSUs for years, but they emphasise that you need to ensure your +5v and GND connections need to be extremely strong in order to do so.