Multi-game JAMMA boards - are there any good ones?

[EOJ]

I see a list on Excellentcom's page:

http://excellentcom.intimexptx.com/e/product/product_list.asp?brand_id=27

The Happy Fish board looks interesting as it's actually a PCB, not a PC. I'd like to get something like this to play MAME-esque stuff cheaply, but I've read
bad things about the quality of many of these (not surprisingly). Also, I'm not sure if any of these are legal either.

Anyone know anything about this stuff?

[markedkiller78]

it doesn't answer anything as yet, but here's a thread where people are talking about this: http://www.arcadeotaku.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3124&hilit=happy+fish&sid=1d9a8297461e0d999858998884a3f7d2

PC with soft 15k gives more flexibility, but one things for sure, none of these are legal other than the crystal soft "liscensed" board.

[thamasha69]

I am curious about these too.  I know in some cases, they only support either horizontal OR vertical games - some even rotate vert games for a hori monitor (letterbox mode).  Also, supposedly the gamebox type units allow you to put games on the compact flash card...Do these other boards/pc boxes supporting CF allow you to do that?  And will they display proper hori/vert?

[EOJ]

Thanks for the link, markedkiller. It seems these are pretty lousy, and thus not what I'm looking for. Maybe someday someone will make one that has accurate speed and doesn't blow up after a few weeks.

[DEL]

EOJ wrote; 

It seems these are pretty lousy, and thus not what I'm looking for. Maybe someday someone will make one that has accurate speed and doesn't blow up after a few weeks.

That's exactly what happened in our local arcade.  They got a multigame box with some decent titles on it and it blew up after two weeks.  The arcade owner refuses to buy new multigame pcb/boxes now .  If you can find a good one, let me know and I'll recommend it to our arcade owner.

& No that's not me in the avatar.  Just some Brer who walked in the arcade yesterday in full Ketsui gear.  Talk about Hardcore !

[GaijinPunch]

I've seen a few in Japanese arcades lately, which is kind of weird.  The one I played was playing old games in 480p though.

[PsychoDiver]

I own the Capcom CPS2 18 in 1. The board is nice since you don't have to worry about batteries dying in the board and the games play just as they should with no slowdown. I highly advise ordering one if you can find it. The board includes awesome games like Giga Wing, Marvel vs Capcom, and both Dungeons and Dragons beat'em ups. I have owned mine for a couple months and noticed no problems. This store used to stock them:
http://www.jammaboards.com/store/capcom-cps-ii-18-in-1-multigame-jamma-pcb/prod_292.html?ccSID285e73f64c04744fc5f33ff68f529742=63b262a435c3c523ae9f11e0c033e325

[HUU]

Anyone know anything about this stuff?

My friend had one of these ... I think this is typical chinese bootleg stuff ... ok you can play many games for a couple of bucks (compare to buying every single game board), but quality wise, it's not good. Graphics, speed accuracy are often bad...
IMO, this can be good for casual gaming, meaning playing for "fun" and not "score" or anything challenging...

I've seen a few in Japanese arcades lately, which is kind of weird.  The one I played was playing old games in 480p though.

Yeah I was also surprised to see one on super potatoes last floor.

[dcharlie]

against my better judgement i bought the 1069-in-1 from Jammaboards because i was too lazy to throw together an ArcadeVGA box myself as i did the last time i had arcade machines.

Started off well, but it all ended in disaster when the HDD became corrupt after a month or so :/

However, the guys at Jammaboards were excellent, i dropped them a mail, they responded promptly and sent a brand new drive at no cost, resolving the issue.

... however, once installed i suddenly found i had unresolvable interference in the signal (only on the Jamma connector, not via VGA) so i pretty much gave up on it as a bad job. :/

Got to say, the emu quality was pretty great especially with the CPU upgrade (expected i guess!) , but the unit itself is bulky and quite loud so perhaps much better suited to sitting in an arcade machine than sitting next to a supergun. I'd also definitely use Jammaboards - very happy with the service, despite having product issues.

[thestreetzking]

The last post was in feb. But since I just joined I wanted to chime in for future reference. I have owned both blue elfs. The 108in1 and 309in1. I still have the 309 currently. As far as the games go there obviously emulated. The 309 has all the games the 108 has but plays them better. Cps3 games run like complete shit and I have no idea why they are on there. Certain games like cps1 and a couple cps2 games are perfect to the point where I can not find any flaws. Ghosts and goblins and ghouls and ghosts are awesome and worth the price of the board compared to the cost of the actual pcbs.

It has a lot of shooters as well. Donpachi, dodonpachi, giga wing, pro gear, esp rade, mars matrix and a bunch more. I don't own these so I can't say how accurate but they play well the only problem is the board is for a horizontal set up so they screen size is small.

The board is mostly capcom and snk  games the snk games play good foe the most part. All metal slugs included but maybe 3 are unplayable. Theres like 20 king of fighters, the orignals and bootlegs. the 108 has a couple street fighters (alphas play great) where the 309 has a lot more including boots like rainbow edition. Sports games such as baseball stars play perfect, street slam as well. Many soccer games are awesome.
Puzzle games like puzzle bobble, magical drop.

Alright got more time:

Some things to note:

~Adding multiple credits on the menu will instantly add them to the game you selected.

~Test switch has a bunch of items, adjusting volume, you can hide certain games, change difficulties and such.

Heres some differences between the 108 and 309:

~In order to navigate the menu you have to add a credit to the machine. This starts a timer. with the 108in1 the timer is at 60 seconds. To reset the timer you can insert another credit. If the timer hits 0 it will start whichever game is highlighted. With the 309 it is a 90 second timer

~To exit a game with the 108 you would hold start for 5 seconds. This however sucked for marvel vs capcom in which picking a assist teamate required holding start for a few seconds and would sometimes quit the game. With the 309 you hold start and insert a credit while holding start to exit.



pros:
Some games play amazing/smooth
Nice menu system. previews available for most games, easy to nav.
Huge selection of games, sports, beat em up, shooter, adventure, puzzle

Cons:
No free play option
Cant remove individual games
Some unplayable.

All in all, if you have a horizontal jamma cab I would suggest checking it out, there going for about 150 and like I said before, some of the games that work great are worth more than that for a single pcb.

Also quick note, this is about the size of a neo geo cart. Doesnt make any noise and loads to the menu in literally 5 seconds