Deathsmiles 2 Issues

[SuperPang]

Fun and games with Deathfails II

So I gave in and hooked it up


I've played around with it for a couple of hours. Not the easiest thing to fit in a Blast City.

should be relatively bug free.

Ha! I wish

The third time I booted it up this happened:


so I used the old switch it off and on PC trick.

Everything seemed fine until it froze just before the Field D boss, which was probably for the best as I can't beat the guy because I'm laughing too hard. "Meeeeeeehhh". There's something very Python-esque about that guy.

The next time I paid him a visit it froze again but this time with



which hopefully implies all my issues are I/O board related. I'm going to try a different I/O later and failing that, perhaps it's more stable in a JVS cab. I know Type X can occasionally have issues with the SEGA I/O also. Stupid PC shit.

Anyway, it didn't freeze the third time.

When the game was working, it was a lot of fun. EOJ is right that the port doesn't do it justice. The polygons are dated and ugly, don't get me wrong, but it looks much sharper and more vibrant on a 31KHz monitor. The characters and their familiars are nicely detailed, as are the rings, and the high res artwork is nice. In a way it does actually look prettier than Deathsmiles on a 29" screen but the 3D modelling is largely 1996 quality and the framerate even dips when the backgrounds rotate or zoom.

What also becomes immediately obvious is the amount of bullet slowdown they removed for the port. The patterns make way more sense here.

Oh and its so nice to hear quality stereo sound. The soundtrack is the one great thing about DS2. Sound effects are oddly quiet though, which is a shame.

So yeah, a really good game hidden under some crap 3D and encased in a PC developed by noobs. You should see the boot up screens, I thought the mouse pointer on Type X was bad.

[brentsg]

This could be a lot of things, but also could be as simple as a bad stick of RAM.  Power supply issues will also cause similar errors.

Regarding the software, I haven't ever used a PC based "PCB".  In the event that some files become corrupt, is there a way to restore the game and OS from DVD?

[cstarflare]

dump and post the hard drive and I'm sure someone will help get it working  :3

[rtw]

dump and post the hard drive and I'm sure someone will help get it working  :3

I believe it's a Compact FLASH card, which should be easy to read...

[emphatic]

Did you try updating Direct X? 

Great to hear that you enjoy it when it's not being all PC on you.

[antares]

Everything seemed fine until it froze just before the Field D boss, which was probably for the best as I can't beat the guy because I'm laughing too hard. "Meeeeeeehhh". There's something very Python-esque about that guy.

[SuperPang]

Fooled around with this for about another two hours today and am getting the same two errors exactly. The first time I booted it up I got the blue screen but after that I must have played Field D five or more times without incident. I power it up later on and hit two Field D errors in a row.  There's no mention of this Field D bug in Ver 4.0 anywhere on the Japanese sites is there EOJ? I fear I may be sending it back at this rate.

Oh and I also discovered you can alter the music/effects balance in the test menu. It's not very clear, I just thought it was volume adjustment. It's at 100 by default but sounds better at around 160.

[EOJ]

Never heard of that bug, sorry. I played this countless times in Japan, and never once had ver 4.0 freeze anywhere. Never saw it freeze on anyone else either.

[SuperPang]

That's useful to know, thanks.

[rtw]

That's useful to know, thanks.

Open the case, snap beautiful pictures, backup the CF card, reseat memory and the JVS card.

If you can boot from a CDROM/USB stick run http://www.memtest.org/ for 24 hours.

Which JVS I/O card are you using ?

[antares]

backup the CF card,

I would assume it has some kind of copy protection, no?

[rtw]

backup the CF card,

I would assume it has some kind of copy protection, no?

There is probably some protection but not likely on the media level, just use Winhex and do a device copy of all the sectors on the card.

When you have the image you can copy it over to another card and try booting with it.

[THE]

The protection is most likely on the custom PCB.
http://star.ap.teacup.com/applet/kibanist/731_2/image

[rtw]

The protection is most likely on the custom PCB.
http://star.ap.teacup.com/applet/kibanist/731_2/image

The custom PCB looks like the JVS interface, but you are right they might have added a
special command. On the TypeX the JVS interface is just connected to a serial port.

[SuperPang]

I'm going to try it in the Vewlix and perhaps open it up and reseat stuff but that's where I'll draw the line because a) I'm not savvy in this sort of stuff and b) I don't want to blow my chances of a refund/replacement by tampering with it.

[rtw]

I'm going to try it in the Vewlix and perhaps open it up and reseat stuff but that's where I'll draw the line because a) I'm not savvy in this sort of stuff and b) I don't want to blow my chances of a refund/replacement by tampering with it.

Fair enough, but please take some wonderful piccies

[SuperPang]

Actually, from those photos there doesn't seem to be a lot to reseat.

I'll split this thread into the PCB section when my technical issues are resolved btw

[Dude]

ZERO protection! ZERO!

[SuperPang]

Same issue in the Vewlix.

My supplier asked their supplier who asked an operator 

I asked Taito about this problem and their answer was just to check the voltage.
I also asked my clients using this Death Smiles II in his game center and he said,
"This game often causes the freezing problem. I also asked Taito and they said that the problem
does not belong to PCB but voltage, please adjust it to the right voltage. Once you get the right
voltage, this problem will never happen but I have to say Taito produced a cheap system board
with problems, that is why this system board is only for Death Smiles II and they stopped to produce it after
Death Smiles II."
So, please adjust the voltage carefully. As long as Taito says that the problem is not caused by PCB,
all we have to do is the voltage and many game centers using this pcb that way

The first thing that confused me was the mention of Taito, presumably these guys work in their arcades as I didn't know they had anything to do with the hardware.

Secondly, the "PCB" runs off 100V mains so the default "check your voltages" doesn't apply, or is there likely to be an adjustment on the PC PSU?

[kernow]

Nah, that psu will be fine unless it's failing, no adjustment needed. I've never adjusted an ATX psu in my life.

[Dude]

Best bet reset the ram and video card. Pickup some new ram. That error even in pc forum comes from when the application is trying to wright to a lower memory area reserved for the os.

I would also backup the Card. For your own use of course.

That error has ZERO to do with power. I am still standing buy corrupt file system.

[SuperPang]

Thanks, the power issue didn't make sense to me either. I'm going to run the hardware on a separate 300W transformer later just to rule out any wattage issues then I'll email them again. Replacing RAM etc is a last resort, I think they should be taking it back if something is faulty.

[Dude]

Indeed where is it from?

[brentsg]

A power issue is certainly possible.  Aside from my own personal machines, I manage Sun server complexes for Oracle DB setups and other custom telecom applications for many companies in the US.  The volume of boxes is high enough that there are hardware failures very frequently.  The most common failure is the power supply, and the most common early warning signs are various memory write errors.

It's not close either.  I'd say power supply failures are probably 85% or better, hard drive failures are 14%, and everything else would fit into the 1%.

Of course there are several possibilities, but power is pretty easy to check out, at least a quick multimeter verification of the voltages.  Maybe you can even enter BIOS and see if it has monitoring on board.  Heck I think my last PS had pots on back for all 12, 5, and 3.3V.

The last time I saw that exact memory error I was doing a clean OS install from DVD and it turned out to be a bad cable to the optical drive.  Only time I've had that happen.

[brentsg]

Hey man, what ever happened with this?  Did you go the coffee table route with it?

[SuperPang]

It's finally on it's way to "Asys Japan Inc" for repair and I have another en-route.

This thing weighs over 10kg

[brentsg]

Not content to get burned just once?