Deathsmiles 2 [CAVE PCB, 2009]

Started by EOJ, January 06, 2009, 12:44:59 AM

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TonK

Quote from: EOJ on December 13, 2010, 09:45:47 PM
Quote from: TonK on December 13, 2010, 08:28:05 PM

I heard the port is terrible.


Not terrible, but not great. Without the patch, the slowdown is really accurate.

If you have an extra $1000+ laying around and are a fan of Deathsmiles, buy the PCB. If not, the port will do just fine, and the IIX mode is superb and looks far better than the PCB.

Quote
Plus, it's exciting to acquire new hardware in this hobby.

Absolutely.  :righton:


Will DS 2 downscale to a MS9?

I'm very interested in picking one up.

Where can I obtain a kit or PCB?


Strider77

I would give it a good look over before you buy. I loved the 1st one but hate the second, I confess for shallow reasons. I hate the sub-par 3D. I'm not anti 3D either when it looks like RSG, Ikaruga, Gradius 5 or even Border Down.

The 360 mode helps with the visuals but....     you'll find out I guess either way. Different strokes for different folks but I thought the visuals were a major step backwards for cave.

I'm curious what your impressions will be of it once you snag it. I love pretty much all their games in some way....   This one, I own because...   I guess because it got a port @ 70.00 bucks and I was curious.

I'm glad they tossed that hardware aside and went back to the SH3 hardware....    for now anyways. I'd like to see a successor to the SH3 that's not just a weak PC in a box.

TonK

Quote from: Strider77 on December 14, 2010, 01:06:00 AM
I would give it a good look over before you buy. I loved the 1st one but hate the second, I confess for shallow reasons. I hate the sub-par 3D. I'm not anti 3D either when it looks like RSG, Ikaruga, Gradius 5 or even Border Down.

The 360 mode helps with the visuals but....     you'll find out I guess either way. Different strokes for different folks but I thought the visuals were a major step backwards for cave.

I'm curious what your impressions will be of it once you snag it. I love pretty much all their games in some way....   This one, I own because...   I guess because it got a port @ 70.00 bucks and I was curious.

I'm glad they tossed that hardware aside and went back to the SH3 hardware....    for now anyways. I'd like to see a successor to the SH3 that's not just a weak PC in a box.

I know they can use a SH-4 based board... Pretty similar to the hardware used in the Dreamcast.

I'm with you, I'm not a fan of 3D - but I really love the way the first Deathsmiles plays, so I'm willing to give DS2 a chance if it's cheap ($1000) enough.

It's time for me to pick up a new game.

I doubt I'm gonna find a reasonably priced Akai Katana at the moment, but I'm sure boards will pop up as people tire of the game.

Just not a price I'm willing to pay right now.

I'm thinking about some other games, but nothing solid yet.

DS2 seems like a good fit.




SuperPang

I think it is 31KHz only. I see no dip switches or any mention of 15KHz in the instructions (a fold out leaflet), not that I read Japanese. Don't recall anyone seeing it in low res anywhere.

I'd like to confirm whether HDMI works but I'm a bit reluctant to plug it in my plasma to find out. Paranoid? Probably. I would imagine it's an inactive port on the off the shelf video hardware, Cave have no reason to include it. Don't all HDTVs have a VGA port anyway? Same difference.

emphatic

Quote from: SuperPang on December 14, 2010, 08:05:00 AM
I think it is 31KHz only. I see no dip switches or any mention of 15KHz in the instructions (a fold out leaflet), not that I read Japanese. Don't recall anyone seeing it in low res anywhere.

Time to invest in an Ultracade Universal Video Converter?  =D It can convert even to 15/24kHz without lag or breaking anything.

TonK

Looks like I'm out of the running on a DS2...

brentsg

Quote from: TonK on December 14, 2010, 09:23:35 AM
Looks like I'm out of the running on a DS2...

Go ahead and grab one man.  If it turns out that you can't use it with your cabs, it looks like it would make a nice collectible coffee table.

rtw

Quote from: brentsg on December 14, 2010, 01:37:34 PM
Go ahead and grab one man.  If it turns out that you can't use it with your cabs, it looks like it would make a nice collectible coffee table.

*lol* :D
The future of ST-V rests upon our work and your work

TonK

Quote from: brentsg on December 14, 2010, 01:37:34 PM
Quote from: TonK on December 14, 2010, 09:23:35 AM
Looks like I'm out of the running on a DS2...

Go ahead and grab one man.  If it turns out that you can't use it with your cabs, it looks like it would make a nice collectible coffee table.

Or I can use it to backup my iPad.

Tain

Quote from: EOJNot terrible, but not great. Without the patch, the slowdown is really accurate.

Is it worth it to delete the patch? How much did it change things?

EOJ

I still vastly prefer the patched version to the non-pached version. If you only want to play with Lei in Arcade mode, you don't care that it only saves your most recent score, you don't mind the various annoying bugs and inaccuracies (wire frame boxes around your character, snake enemies that are too small, color/brightness problems through some inputs (such as HDMI), OSD disappearing in some hectic areas of stages, etc), and you don't plan on playing any other mode (DSIIX mode is worthless without the patch due to a glaring end bonus glitch) then delete the patch.
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zak

#431
I've been fixing some of these for a couple of friends.

Should have a list of suitable replacement boards in a few weeks.

Bear in mind that there were 2 motherboards which CAVE used:

GA-MA78GPM-UD2H

and

ASUS M3A78-EM

It doesn't look like the operating systems are interchangeable.

CPU is often a 2.6ghz Athlon, but I've seen a couple of 2.7ghz in some (there does not appear to be a difference in speed/gameplay)

Also, the ribbon cable coming off the custom JVS I/O to the motherboard power headers is wired differently on each motherboard. the JST connector needs to be modified/replaced if you're swapping the entire motherboard.


SuperPang

Interesting. I didn't know about the Asus motherboard. I wonder if they were more reliable.

The obsolete motherboard and the custom I/O (which seems pretty solid) are the key components here. Everything else can be fixed. A friend of mine kindly repaired and pimped mine using an SSD, better PSU and a couple of fans on the case (mad that it didn't have an exhaust fan on the case as these overheat badly).

If the game is faulty because of bad CF (and many are), they're fixable.

zak

Quote from: SuperPang on June 03, 2020, 10:29:21 AM
A friend of mine kindly repaired and pimped mine

That's me J.Y!  :lol: (my usual username wasn't available)

The Asus runs a bit cooler, but so does the other Gigabyte motherboard I've been testing.

Yours should already be running cooler though ;)

If you use the OS from a Gigabyte board on the Asus board, then the USB drivers don't load - so the USB check screen loops/loads indefinitely.

I haven't been able to successfully dump the Asus Windows XP image. I might buy an old XP system with a card reader so that both partitions are visible.

You can still buy brand new ASUS M3A78-EM motherboards, but a bit useless until this OS gets dumped.

SuperPang

Quote from: fuzzbuddy on June 03, 2020, 11:01:49 AM
That's me J.Y!  :lol: (my usual username wasn't available)
Ohhhhh.

Nice work mystery man.

EOJ

Quote from: fuzzbuddy on June 03, 2020, 11:01:49 AM

That's me J.Y!  :lol: (my usual username wasn't available)


'zak' is available. I can change it for you if you'd like!

Thanks a lot for the info about the two different motherboards for DS2.
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peg

I believe the Asus board was only used on early revisions of the game (with a different CPU as well), and the only evidence I've seen is from very old forum posts showing a bootscreen (unfortunately it doesn't show which BIOS version).  Anyway, all the hardware listings I've seen online are for this version with the Asus motherboard, which is much different from all of the ones I've observed.  Has anyone actually opened up a DSII PC and seen that motherboard inside? 

I own 2 separate machines and have pictures of about a dozen others, and the only motherboard I have ever seen used is the Gigabyte one.  Anyway, for anyone who is interested, these are the EXACT parts that were used in the final released version of the Deathsmiles II PC.  I personally own 2 of these and they both had the exact same hardware (some of it needed to be replaced on one of them, like the motherboard).

Anyway, here are the specs:
Software Version: MASTER VER 4.00 (Final)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA78GPM-UD2H, Bios version: F2 (ma78gu2h.f2)
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 7750 Black Edition 2.7GHz (AD775ZWCJ2BGH)
Memory: Transcend 2GB DDR2 800 DIMM
Power Supply: HuntKey Evergreen EG-400PG
IDE to CF converter: MTG-4617
CompactFlash card: Transcend CompactFlash UDMA 300x 2GB
USB Flash drive: Transcend JetFlash T3 2GB
JVS Interface Card: CV2000XP Rev. 2.0 (Proprietary)




rtw

Nice work  :)

The inability to dump the CF card is a bit of a mystery. We know that the CF card has to support fixed mode if not Windows will not boot.

https://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/51/~/enabling-fixed-disk-mode-on-sandisk-compactflash-cards

But it should still be readable. The original dump contained in MAME contains the Windows partition as well as the game partition.

This adapter might work better if the standard CF adapter is not exposing all partitions.

The future of ST-V rests upon our work and your work

zak

Quote from: peg on June 03, 2020, 10:25:16 PM
I believe the Asus board was only used on early revisions of the game (with a different CPU as well), and the only evidence I've seen is from very old forum posts showing a bootscreen (unfortunately it doesn't show which BIOS version).

It shipped with BIOS 1302:

Version 1302 2009/01/12746.22 KBytes

M3A78-EM BIOS 1302
1.Improve the memory performance when use certain CPU.
2.Fix the problem that the memory can not work on ECC mode when resume from S3
3.Update LAN option rom.
4.Set the RTC time to 24-hour system.

Quote from: peg on June 03, 2020, 10:25:16 PM
Anyway, all the hardware listings I've seen online are for this version with the Asus motherboard, which is much different from all of the ones I've observed.  Has anyone actually opened up a DSII PC and seen that motherboard inside? 

Yes, I have. The motherboard is also listed in the manual/dip sheet. It clearly shows 2 different motherboards with connection instructions, which indicates that they made them at the same time. They probably ran out of 1 motherboard type during production, so they used both.

Here is an Asus motherboard:

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/v720053803

Quote from: peg on June 03, 2020, 10:25:16 PM
(with a different CPU as well)

I've opened 5 of these now. The CPU is a bit random. Both the Asus and Gigabyte had either a 7750 or a 5050e.

Hope this helps.

zak

Quote from: EOJ on June 03, 2020, 06:01:47 PM

'zak' is available. I can change it for you if you'd like!

Thanks a lot for the info about the two different motherboards for DS2.

Yes, please!  :-*

EOJ

My score archive
twitter: @cavexstg
youtube: @cave-stg
Xbox gamertag: eojx9999

zak


zak

Quote from: rtw on June 04, 2020, 02:50:00 AM
Nice work  :)

This adapter might work better if the standard CF adapter is not exposing all partitions.



Thanks T ;) I think I already tried a similar adapter. It's likely the Windows 7/10 OS has trouble reading these correctly.

I'll look into setting up an XP system in the future. Priority is to save the Asus OS off the CF card - which will give everyone more motherboard replacement options.

rtw

Wonder if Linux would be able to do this easier ?
The future of ST-V rests upon our work and your work

zak

Quote from: rtw on June 04, 2020, 04:57:25 AM
Wonder if Linux would be able to do this easier ?

Probably. Might just mail the CF card to you  :bigsmile:

peg

Have you ever seen one of the Asus motherboards running with version 4.00 of the software?  Or are they just used for older versions?

zak

Quote from: peg on June 04, 2020, 01:28:34 PM
Have you ever seen one of the Asus motherboards running with version 4.00 of the software?  Or are they just used for older versions?

The one I am working on now is using an Asus motherboard with version 4.00 Software. I checked the cvgame.exe

The oldest I have seen was a Gigabyte motherboard running 2.00 - unfortunately the CF card was buggered (still have the 2.00 dongle though).

I don't think there was an older/newer motherboard. Both the Asus and the Gigabyte are pictured in the kit manual.

peg

You are right, the manual shows 2 different versions, calling them A & B.

The A version is the one using the Asus motherboard, and the B version is the Gigabyte.  Both of mine are the B version.  It also looks like there are 2 different power supplies as well because the plug orientation is different in the 2 pictures.

I can't believe I never noticed the difference.  Anyway,  I'm going to take a look at my pictures and see what is there.

EOJ

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
My score archive
twitter: @cavexstg
youtube: @cave-stg
Xbox gamertag: eojx9999

peg

I don't know, but the ones with the Asus motherboard appear to be much rarer.  Of all the pics I have, only 1 of them has the Asus board (same one linked in the recent yahoo auction.

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

The majority of the ones I have pictures for have a C at the end of the serial, and they all use the gigabyte board. I only have 1 pic with a B serial and it also uses the gigabyte board (at least I think it does, the I/O ports on the back look the same as the ones with a C.

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