Deathsmiles 2 [CAVE PCB, 2009]

[zak]

Do Vers A and B correlate with DS2s that were sold and those that were rented? Remember, CAVE had two options for this hardware: up-front sale, and rent/profit share:

http://cave-stg.com/forum/index.php?topic=472.msg9555#msg9555

You would see this on the rented system

[zak]

Do you have pics of any of the ones you've opened or know the serials?

Hey D, I'll look into this for you.

[zak]

If you look at the serial numbers on them, they all end with a letter.  I have seen A,B,C letters at the end of the serial number.  My theory is that this letter corresponds to the type of motherboard that was used.
A = Asus motherboard,
B,C = Gigabyte motherboard

So far this is correct. The Asus ones do have "A" on the serial! All the Gigabyte boards have had "C" on the serial.

The I/O board can be used on both motherboards without a problem (I've tested this).

However, the USB drivers on the Asus and Gigabyte boards are different.

If you load the Gigabyte OS image on a Asus system (for example), Windows XP is loaded and the game looks for the USB dongle, but it does not recognise it.

You will need the Asus XP OS image for it to load. I know I'm repeating myself, just want to make this super clear for the next poor git who goes through hours/days of frustration.

Side note, in case anyone is interested. The case serial always matches the I/O serial

[peg]

Thanks.

Can you confim that the usb dongle is tied to the I/O board?  I know that my USB dongle only works with one of my boards, and it appears to be tied to the I/O board/serial number (as I swapped them over to the other Cave PC and then it started working).  I eventually just hacked the ROM to bypass the dongle check on the other one so I didn't need to bother with it anymore (very simple to do actually, only need to change a few bytes in the OS image).

[zak]

Thanks.

Can you confim that the usb dongle is tied to the I/O board?  I know that my USB dongle only works with one of my boards, and it appears to be tied to the I/O board/serial number (as I swapped them over to the other Cave PC and then it started working).

Sure, but this may take some time. I don't have 2 original dongles at the moment.

I eventually just hacked the ROM to bypass the dongle check on the other one so I didn't need to bother with it anymore (very simple to do actually, only need to change a few bytes in the OS image).

Do you mind sharing this information, please? It would be very useful. I have the version 2.00 dongle, perhaps we can hack it to play this version?

[peg]

The hack I'm referring to removes the need to even use the dongle, so you'd have to have a working CF card with OS image still.  I'm also not sure if the hack would work for earlier versions than 4.00.

Anyway, I found the info somewhere online, let me see if I can track it down again.

Edit:
Here is the modification, there are actually 2 of them, you can do.

This mod/hack removes the need for the USB dongle (this is the mod I did for one of my Cave PCs).  You will need a hex editor to do it (I use HxD), then you open and modify cvgame.exe (which is on the CF card).   I made a backup of everything before doing any of this.

Anyway, The first column is the address to modify, the second is the current value at that address, and the 3rd is the value to change it to source (https://www.neofighters.info/forum/showthread.php?14783-Deathsmiles-2-Arcade-PC&highlight=deathsmiles)

53A20: 74 EB
5C74B: 72 EB
BC3D0: 0F E9
BC3D1: 84 CF
BC3D2: CE 00
BC3D5: 00 90
BC6C4: 74 EB

This is another mod you can do (https://www.neofighters.info/forum/showthread.php?14871-A-more-perfect-loader-for-Deathsmiles-II/page2), I believe this removes the needs for the I/O security board entirely, although I'm not sure how you get the controls to work without the I/O board.  I have not tried this one, but found it online.

53A20: 74 EB
5C38A: 0F 90
5C38B: 85 90
5C38C: 80 90
5C38D: 01 90
5C38E: 00 90
5C38F: 00 90
5C425: 75 EB
5C47C: 75 90
5C47D: 74 90
5C483: 75 90
5C484: 6D 90
5C504: 75 EB
5C74B: 72 EB
AA236: 0F E9
AA237: 84 89
AA238: 88 00
AA23B: 00 90
BC2E7: 0F E9
BC2E8: 84 98
BC2E9: 97 00
BC2EC: 00 90
BC3D0: 0F E9
BC3D1: 84 CF
BC3D2: CE 00
BC3D5: 00 90
BC6C4: 74 EB

[zak]

Thanks mate.

Did you notice that the DATA partition on the OS/CF card uses the same data as the USB dongle?

This is why I think we can copy the 2.00 data from the dongle to the OS DATA partition.

If anyone wants to try hacking the 2.00 cvgame.exe, please let me know. Not having much joy with HEX editors - I think the values might be different to the 4.00 version.

[peg]

I would like to get the dongle 2.00 data if possible.  Do you have a .img file for it?  I believe the entire size should be 2gb.

[peg]

I got version 2.00 working now, thanks to Zak for posting the data!



Just played through it and...it just ends after level 4?  Is there some sort of criteria you need to satisfy to get to the final stage?  I was credit feeding so maybe that's it although I credit fed all the way through all 5 levels in version 4.00 earlier.

Also, this version only has 2 playable characters instead of 4.  There's probably other differences but I'm no expert at the game so I can't say what.

I needed to hack the .exe to get it to work, and it turns out the offsets are different from version 4.00.  I was able to find the correct values to alter based on searching through the binary and matching the hex strings with those of version 4.00, although it was non-trivial to find them.

Anyway, here are the addresses to alter in version 2.00 to skip the key check:
40630: 74 EB
48B47: 72 EB
A43AD: 0F E9
A43AE: 84 CF
A43AF: CE 00
A43B2: 00 90
A46A4: 74 EB


Note: you still need the dongle attached for it to run, it just doesn't matter if the key on it matches your i/o board or not.

[EOJ]

There are only 4 stages in Ver 2.00. And only 2 characters.

[peg]

Lol, so they released an unfinished game I guess?  Was this ever suppose to be released to the public?

[EOJ]

It was playable in the arcades. They released a new Ver every month or so. Vers 1.00 - 3.00 are basically location test-type versions (CAVE have said they released an unfinished game and tried to finish it ASAP but it took them four versions to do that). I arrived in Japan in early August 2009 and Ver 4.00 had just been released so I didn't get a chance to play the earlier versions (which began in May 2009).

[peg]

I'm kind of surprised this still even exists given the short amout of time it was out.  I guess version 1.00 and 3.00 are lost to time.

Zak is a hero for finding this.

[EOJ]

I know Japanese collectors who have all four versions.  Ver 3.00 is apparently favored by some.

[peg]

They won't release them?  I never understood that, especially since it's not like some rare/expensive pcb and you are risking damaging it like with SDOJ or the rare CV1000 games.  It's literally just a usb stick.

[EOJ]

I don't know. Maybe if someone asked them? It's not exactly a popular game, but Japanese aren't known for putting ROMs up for download.

[rtw]

Nice work peg! 

[zak]

I got version 2.00 working now, thanks to Zak for posting the data!



Just played through it and...it just ends after level 4?  Is there some sort of criteria you need to satisfy to get to the final stage?  I was credit feeding so maybe that's it although I credit fed all the way through all 5 levels in version 4.00 earlier.

Also, this version only has 2 playable characters instead of 4.  There's probably other differences but I'm no expert at the game so I can't say what.

I needed to hack the .exe to get it to work, and it turns out the offsets are different from version 4.00.  I was able to find the correct values to alter based on searching through the binary and matching the hex strings with those of version 4.00, although it was non-trivial to find them.

Anyway, here are the addresses to alter in version 2.00 to skip the key check:
40630: 74 EB
48B47: 72 EB
A43AD: 0F E9
A43AE: 84 CF
A43AF: CE 00
A43B2: 00 90
A46A4: 74 EB


Note: you still need the dongle attached for it to run, it just doesn't matter if the key on it matches your i/o board or not.

[zak]

Nice work man! 

Did you have to copy the cracked 2.00 dongle data to the OS DATA partition, or is it USB plug and play even on a version 4.00 OS DATA partition?

[zak]

I don't know. Maybe if someone asked them? It's not exactly a popular game, but Japanese aren't known for putting ROMs up for download.

Can you ask them for us, please? Would be amazing to get version 1.00 and 3.00 preserved and playable 

They just need to copy/paste the contents of the USB stick (they don't even need to create an image).

[EOJ]

Well, I should have said "I know OF Japanese collectors". I don't know them personally. I can poke around a bit and probably find one of them, but as soon as I say I want to make the ROM data available to others I'll probably get the silent treatment. 

[zak]

Well, I should have said "I know OF Japanese collectors". I don't know them personally. I can poke around a bit and probably find one of them, but as soon as I say I want to make the ROM data available to others I'll probably get the silent treatment. 

Thanks dude maybe we should hide that part.

I get a feeling we might have to buy every future DS2 on yahoo (working or broken) to get that version 3.00 :p

I don't think we'll ever see version 1.00 unless a Japanese collector gives it to us 

[EOJ]

I wonder if that's why some of those on YAJ have gone for much higher than others? Perhaps bidders are privately asking the sellers what Ver is on their DS2, but the sellers are not providing this info in the listings.

I think Ver 3.00 should be easier to find than 2.00 because there should be more of them out there. I am quite surprised you found a 2.00!! Here's a video of Ver 1.00:

https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm7136723

According to the below site, Ver 1.00 had only two characters (Windia and Supe), but Vers 2.00 and 3.00 had three characters (Casper was added). In Ver 4.0 they added Lei:

https://wiki.denfaminicogamer.jp/highscore/2009_013_%E3%83%87%E3%82%B9%E3%82%B9%E3%83%9E%E3%82%A4%E3%83%AB%E3%82%BAII_Ver.1.00

So if your version only has two characters, it should be Ver 1.00, unless there is some unlock code for Casper in Ver 2.00 or something (they don't mention that in the webpage above).

[SuperPang]

Excellent work peg and zak.

How on earth is version 2.0 still around let alone 1.0! Would be interested to try 3.0 some time. I do remember EOJ saying years ago that some players preferred it. I've only really played the game with Lei tbh.

As I've said before, I can't believe this game didn't finish off Cave. We were so lucky to get two more CV1000 releases after this. 

[peg]

I don't know. Maybe if someone asked them? It's not exactly a popular game, but Japanese aren't known for putting ROMs up for download.

Can you ask them for us, please? Would be amazing to get version 1.00 and 3.00 preserved and playable 

They just need to copy/paste the contents of the USB stick (they don't even need to create an image).

It appears you can have any version of the dongle plugged in.  I had a version 4.00 dongle plugged in and to my surprise it still runs 2.00 just fine.  Probably because it's bypasing the security check?  I'm not sure, but it definitely works without a 2.00 dongle.

Also EOJ, it says Version 2.00 when it starts up, I can get a screen shot of that if you want to see it.

[zak]

So if your version only has two characters, it should be Ver 1.00, unless there is some unlock code for Casper in Ver 2.00 or something (they don't mention that in the webpage above).

Casper was unlockable on June 2009 in version 2.00



You need to insert a credit, and while holding the C button on the 1P side enter the following (also on the 1P side):

A,A, Down, Down, Right, B, Left, B, Up, Up, A, B, B, A