Confirmed: "Free Play" bug present on DDP-DOJ PCB

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:08 pm

Here's the breakdown of the bug I experience with my regular Dodonpachi-DOJ PCB (it has the original Cave kick-ass metal case with the factory installed cooling fan in place):

1.) Booting up from a cold start, and the sound playing during demo mode is fine + cooling fan is working normally...

2.) Play a regular gaming DDP-DOJ PCB session and let it run through the various demo modes at least three times before pressing the "Start" button. By pressing Start during the 3rd time a demo is playing, weird shit happens -- the CPU will get hung up on playing the last sound effect and then it will be total silence from that point on + the cooling fan runs with a weird sound when this particular bug is activated.

3.) Any further attempts to play a regular gaming sesion with this bug still in place and no BGM tunes or sound effect will play + cooling fan still makes weird sound.

4.) It seems the only way for this particular DDP-DOJ PCB bug to go away is to enter "Test" mode and select the "Exit" command. Only then will the DDP-DOJ PCB revert back to normal operation + cooling fan reverts back to normal spinning speed as usual...WTF!?

Did Cave give a EPROM chip fix for buggy DDP-DOJ PCBs (like they did with Ketsui PCBs)?

And have you experienced this particular DDP-DOJ PCB bug yourself?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:19 pm

i have to admit, i've never had this. usually i turn my board on, play a run, and often leave it for a while if i want a cigarette or whatever, and come back and play. sometimes it's on for hours in between me inserting any credits, and i get no problems. is it specifically the 3rd time it's demoing? (ie what happens if you leave it til the fourth cycle?)

i also have demo sound turned off, if that makes any difference

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:24 pm

For jpj,

I haven't tried letting the CPU complete a fourth demo run cycle yet after playing a single normal DDP-DOJ PCB session...will try it shortly and report back to see if it activates the bug again.

Pretty odd stuff if you were to ask me, especially for a "normal" DDP-DOJ PCB... ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 12:49 am

I think what the problem is if my DDP-DOJ PCB is set on "Free Mode" and certain settings are activated on the Operator's Menu Screen, the above listed bug I've described comes into play (with Free Play mode turned on, Game Difficultly set on Normal, Coin Chute set to Two Players - single chute)...

On two seperate occasions, I've been able to make this bug happen twice back-to-back...makes me think that Cave still decided to release DDP-DOJ PCB as it was to the general public without a bug fix. Still odd though...and does Cave know about this particular DDP-DOJ bug to begin with? (You'd think that they would already know about this...but not to say or do anything to remedy that problem is just plain poor customer service to begin with.)

Okay, I tried letting the CPU run a fourth demo cycle and by pressing the Start button, it works fine as usual...

Or it could be just my DDP-DOJ PCB is a fluke to begin with...with it functioning normally sometimes and other times not. Really strange stuff indeed..... ^_~

I am aware of the buggy Ketsui PCB as well (since it uses the same type of PGM board layout to begin with as with the DDP-DOJ PCB)...

I do recall of another fellow shmupper who mentioned something about having a DDP PCB that was buggy as well in a past Shmups.org thread. As it stands, arcade PCBs in general are shipped with bugs anyways, and it is only through future revisions or EPROM fixes can they be solved/fixed or not at all if the developer chooses to do so. Means spending more $$$ or yen to rectify the problem...so be it.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

shoe-sama · Post by **shoe-sama** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 1:48 am

lol at least it doesn't crap out during a run

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 4:04 pm

It would be a very expensive doorstop if it didn't work properly...my DDP-DOJ PCB has it's charms and quirks. ^_~

drboom · Post by **drboom** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 4:42 pm

You may want to try and contact these guys and see if they can help you with it. They have a Ketsui ROM chip available and may be familiar with your problem.
http://www.southtown-homebrew.com/

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 4:59 pm

never had any problems with my regular DOJ PCB.

not my BL either.

sometimes the ship has inverted colours when i start a game untill the player gets control of it (and then it magically changes to the right colour), but nothing that would disturb gameplay tho.

ed: southtown only sell the revised ketsui ROM that rtw dumped (its also available from his site WOA), afaik they didnt do anything about the tech bits.

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 3:47 am

It's good news to hear from fellow shmuppers who have the regular DDP-DOJ PCB that is "bug free" -- that's the way it should be when powered up from the get-go.

Perhaps, mine's a fluke or just a tempermental & bitchy one at best (or a fast & hard sledge-hammer whack to it would put it out of it's misery -- yeah, that oughta do the trick)...

Reminds me of a such tempermental ST-V mobo I had once. Sometimes it'd work & other times, it wouldn't. Most of the time it wouldn't anyways. Hell, I had a better chance of winning the lottery than getting it to work 100% on the very rare occasion. Oh well, shit happens..... ^_~

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:35 am

sven666 wrote:ed: southtown only sell the revised ketsui ROM that rtw dumped (its also available from his site WOA), afaik they didnt do anything about the tech bits.

Absolutely correct, they just sell the ROM that I dumped

rtw

Post by **Dave_K.** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 4:50 pm

Hi PCEFX, I was able to replicate your "free play" DDPDOJ bugs. From my testing, it doesn't matter which demonstration/attract mode is running. If the ship in the demonstration mode is firing its laser when you hit start, then that sound effect is stuck in the background (at about %50 of the normal volume) and never goes away during the normal game. I was only able to have all sound completely cut out on me once, and that was when I hit the start button during the first demonstration mode, after about 5 seconds into it, while the A ship was firing its normal shots against the first few tanks. I was not able to replicate that again a second time...so could be random.

Good catch.

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 4:59 pm

For Dave K.,

Thanks for your valid confirmation about the regular DDP-DOJ "free-play" bug. It does seem to be random at times...just my observation.

I'm just grateful that Cave did release a working DDP-DOJ PCB with bugs and all...surely, could Cave issue an EPROM fix for this "little" issue like they did with Ketsui PCB? Not that it does affect gameplay -- perhaps Cave feels that particular bug really doesn't warrant a fix since it is "small potatoes" issue to begin with...

Simply enter Operator's Menu and exit it promptly, it should resume back to normal operation if the DDP-DOJ "free-play" bug is activated -- this little "soft-boot" solution works for me...

Note: I've changed the original topic heading to reflect the on-going thread of "free play" bug found subject matter...

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Post by **Dave_K.** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 6:16 pm

I'm guessing this is too minor a bug to warrant a fixed rom since I'm not aware of any arcade in Japan that runs games in "Free Play" mode.

Ketsui's fix rom is a little more serious, as rtw pointed out. If your battery dies, and you try booting it up, the game will crash in the attract mode without even pressing start. You can simulate this condition my pressing the evil red switch on the PCB to simulate a loss of NVRAM. On DDPDOJ, this has no ill effect. Of course never do this with DDPDOJ BL or you render the board inoperable!

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 6:24 pm

Off-topic, but I came across a glitch in my Ibara PCB last night too.

Free play is not on, I had just beaten the first guardian. I had Rockets left and right, and I think a 5-way in the back.

I was mashing Shot during the transition to stage 2 and I was near the left side of the screen. Then suddenly my left option disappeared, and reappeared at the right side of the screen and started to slowly float back towards my ship. When it made contact, I got a shot Power Up, but did not recover the option.

That was totally weird so I wasn't paying attention to the game and got poked by a single bullet from the first flying enemies of stage 2.

Has this been documented before?

Post by **Dave_K.** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 6:37 pm

iatneH wrote:Off-topic, but I came across a glitch in my Ibara PCB last night too.

Doesn't sound like a "free play" bug per say, but I do know there a lot of bugs with Ibara Black Label. I'm sure there are just as many with standard Ibara if they were not fixed in BL. Here was the thread:
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=12746

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 11:03 pm

For Dave K.,

Thanks for the 411 on the Ketsui PCB bug...

A DDP-DOJ BL PCB is out of my league price-wise but the regular version is just fine for my shmup needs at the moment..... ^_~

Cave does know about this "free play" bug on DDP-DOJ PCB but has not issued a fix for it for now...makes sense financially and business-wise in the long run. Why spend more yen than is necessary when it could eating into the business side of profits if the arcade PCB bug(s) are minor to begin with in the first place? I see now the answer..... ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

ResOGlas · Post by **ResOGlas** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 4:31 am

I've experienced glitches on all PGM based Cave games. Dai-ou-jou, Espgaluda, Ketsui...

I usually set it on freeplay and very hard, the glitches occur when you press the start button sometimes. I'm not sure if this glitch has to do specifically with "Free play", but more so with using custom settings. I've never witnessed any issues with defaults. (However, I don't personally ever play on defaults

)

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 6:02 am

Dave_K. wrote: but I do know there a lot of bugs with Ibara Black Label.

Those bugs are all fixed when you turn the "save scores" option on. I've owned 2 Ibara BL PCBs, turned the score-save feature on at the start, and have had zero bugs on both boards.