Raiden II and DX encryption finally broken!

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

Hey everyone, Raiden II and DX are finally playable in MAME!
More info to come later today!

[Primative Charm]

Rriiigghhtt...

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

Rriiigghhtt...

You got me, April Fools!

[Udderdude]

ZZZZZzzzzzz ...

[KAI]

Ban please.





April Fool ;P

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

Ban please.





April Fool ;P

Haha, I can see the words April Fool in tiny font.

[BPzeBanshee]

I was wondering how come no one had pulled an April Fools joke yet. Then you showed up.

[Ed Oscuro]

it being april 2nd now, I let my guard down for a few seconds

[BPzeBanshee]

We did get a new Raiden Fighters JET board found and dumped though, was announced on MAMEWorld a while ago. Just today I spotted in the GIT repo that a clone had been added but I'm sure if it's the same one - the one posted on MAMEWorld was a 2000 board but NOT with the inferior sound apparently. This clone has a few additions like a music test in the test menu, so it could be handy for improving the SPI sound emulation in an easier way than before.

[IseeThings]

besides the ENCRYPTION on Raiden 2 / DX was 100% cracked last year, I wrote about it in my 2012 writeup.
http://mamedev.emulab.it/haze/2012-a-year-in-mame/

before that (for the past couple of years) it was at around 90%

the game remains unplayable due to PROTECTION provided by the 'COP' (Co-Processor) basically a data manipulation and transfer accelerator unit

if you're going to do April fools, at least do them right :-p

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

besides the ENCRYPTION on Raiden 2 / DX was 100% cracked last year, I wrote about it in my 2012 writeup.
http://mamedev.emulab.it/haze/2012-a-year-in-mame/

before that (for the past couple of years) it was at around 90%

the game remains unplayable due to PROTECTION provided by the 'COP' (Co-Processor) basically a data manipulation and transfer accelerator unit

if you're going to do April fools, at least do them right :-p

My bad, I honestly meant to put protection.

[Ed Oscuro]

We did get a new Raiden Fighters JET board found and dumped though, was announced on MAMEWorld a while ago. Just today I spotted in the GIT repo that a clone had been added but I'm sure if it's the same one - the one posted on MAMEWorld was a 2000 board but NOT with the inferior sound apparently. This clone has a few additions like a music test in the test menu, so it could be handy for improving the SPI sound emulation in an easier way than before.

Was this a recent eBay purchase? I think I might know the board then...looked pretty interesting. Something to watch out for in the future, too, because I don't like the rev 2.1 motherboard that came with my Jet.

[Klatrymadon]

April really is the cruellest month...

[BPzeBanshee]

We did get a new Raiden Fighters JET board found and dumped though, was announced on MAMEWorld a while ago. Just today I spotted in the GIT repo that a clone had been added but I'm sure if it's the same one - the one posted on MAMEWorld was a 2000 board but NOT with the inferior sound apparently. This clone has a few additions like a music test in the test menu, so it could be handy for improving the SPI sound emulation in an easier way than before.

Was this a recent eBay purchase? I think I might know the board then...looked pretty interesting. Something to watch out for in the future, too, because I don't like the rev 2.1 motherboard that came with my Jet.

Might've been, can't say I really know all the details - I saw the MAMEWorld post and the GIT Redump commit and put two and two together. It'll be interesting to give it a spin when the next MAME release is out although I've always been a bit suspicious about what gameplay elements have changed between board revisions.

[Ed Oscuro]

I am probably thinking of this auction but I can't recall if I ever found out if it had the original Yamaha sound chip or the OKI replacement found in low-quality versions. Hmm.

[BPzeBanshee]

Hmm. I'm looking in the updated seibuspi.c and it's not marked as being 2000, nor is it in the SYS386 category (it's in SXX2G instead which according to documentation still has the YMF chip) and has a 1998-1999 copyright. Most likely that auction one is one of these considering the picture also shows a 1998-1999 copyright.

[Teraforce88]

It's no longer an April Fool's Joke: http://mamedev.emulab.it/haze/2014/09/17/ume-0-154ex3/

[BPzeBanshee]

Yes Teraforce88, as can be seen on the very first page of this forum we were already aware, thanks anyway though!

BTW, welcome to the forums.

[Strikers1945guy]

Now I could be wrong but can't i purchase ports of these games for relatively dirt cheap? Why so much fuss about being able to pirate these cheap and readily available games?

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

Now I could be wrong but can't i purchase ports of these games for relatively dirt cheap? Why so much fuss about being able to pirate these cheap and readily available games?

Because the ports are noticeably inferior to the arcade versions. They have lower sound quality, graphics quality, less impressive explosions and debris effects, and they don't run at the same frame rate as the original.

[Patashu]

Now I could be wrong but can't i purchase ports of these games for relatively dirt cheap? Why so much fuss about being able to pirate these cheap and readily available games?

All the ports of Raiden II and Raiden DX are bad, amusingly, for the same reason that they were so bad in MAME for long (the encrypted/protected hardware of those games made it hard even for the people officially porting them to do it right!)

EDIT: Retracted

[Strikers1945guy]

Now I could be wrong but can't i purchase ports of these games for relatively dirt cheap? Why so much fuss about being able to pirate these cheap and readily available games?

All the ports of Raiden II and Raiden DX are bad, amusingly, for the same reason that they were so bad in MAME for long (the encrypted/protected hardware of those games made it hard even for the people officially porting them to do it right!)

That's fair enough, but then that means you guys waited 11 bloody years for this instead of dropping a whopping $75 or whatever for a raiden II pcb? I guess this comment is more for the guy above you who responded to me first as he seems to be the resident Raiden fanboy (which is cool Im not hating).

Either way cool stuff.

[trap15]

Now I could be wrong but can't i purchase ports of these games for relatively dirt cheap? Why so much fuss about being able to pirate these cheap and readily available games?

All the ports of Raiden II and Raiden DX are bad, amusingly, for the same reason that they were so bad in MAME for long (the encrypted/protected hardware of those games made it hard even for the people officially porting them to do it right!)

??? [citation needed]

That's total bunk. All the ports are quite close to arcade perfect.

[BPzeBanshee]

That's fair enough, but then that means you guys waited 11 bloody years for this instead of dropping a whopping $75 or whatever for a raiden II pcb?

Last Raiden II post I could find in Trading Forum (this year) went for $175, and Raiden DX on eBay is currently $400, iirc not including shipping. Bit more whopping than $75. Also, your same argument was used by the Cave fanboys to ask pirates to buy $1000 boards when CV1000 first became a thing in MAME and they were laughed at pretty hard back then, so you can't expect anyone to take you seriously now.

That's total bunk. All the ports are quite close to arcade perfect.

They're certainly not "bad" ports, Raiden DX is near-perfect except for missing intro sequence AFAIK, but you can't really claim arcade-perfect for Raiden II though (since it was ported first I'm not really that surprised). These issues make the ports far from perfect like some folks have come to expect from later Cave 360 titles, but I see no proof that any of these issues are things that the Seibu COP protection would've made difficult to achieve.

Common between ports of R2:
- "replicated" (not arcade-accurate but still nice) music streamed off CD
- no takeoff sequence
- non-standard difficulty settings
- english version rips out TATE option
- HUD text is borked, iirc this is present even when TATEing Raiden Project

PC version:
- fucked up aspect ratio
- fucked up text
- fucked up shadows
- imperfect graphics in general
- has speed issues if you mess around with the window size at all outside its own handlers....on an i3 nearly 20 years newer!

PSX version:
- graphics slightly less borked in yoko (hardware limitation, same with DoDonPachi etc)
- some explosions appear UNDERNEATH background tiles

On the plus side while introducing some the PSX version did actually fix a few graphical issues present in the original game, mainly the tank appearing underneath the shadows like it was exiting the Twilight Zone on the stage 1 bridge.

[Icarus]

All the ports of Raiden II and Raiden DX are bad, amusingly

What on earth are you blabbering on about? Have you even played the RDX port? -_-;; It's absolutely spot on, no issues with it at all.
Raiden Project, on the other hand, is a mess.

[Patashu]

Apologies for my confusion. I was thinking of something different

[Teraforce88]

Yes Teraforce88, as can be seen on the very first page of this forum we were already aware, thanks anyway though!

BTW, welcome to the forums.

Sorry about that. Way to may a first post.... oy. Thanks for the welcome though!

[Strikers1945guy]

That's fair enough, but then that means you guys waited 11 bloody years for this instead of dropping a whopping $75 or whatever for a raiden II pcb?

Last Raiden II post I could find in Trading Forum (this year) went for $175, and Raiden DX on eBay is currently $400, iirc not including shipping. Bit more whopping than $75. Also, your same argument was used by the Cave fanboys to ask pirates to buy $1000 boards when CV1000 first became a thing in MAME and they were laughed at pretty hard back then, so you can't expect anyone to take you seriously now.

Oh okay, sorry I never realized they were that expensive, especially DX wow $400?! Anyways the point was more for that raiden obsessed guy. Still, to be so obsessed with a game for 11 years and not be able to come up with $150 or so to buy it seems a little weird. It's like he was obsessed with the struggle of it -not- being emulated properly or owning it. I would think after years and years of absolutely dieing to play something you either pony up $150 or just move on lol.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

That's fair enough, but then that means you guys waited 11 bloody years for this instead of dropping a whopping $75 or whatever for a raiden II pcb?

Last Raiden II post I could find in Trading Forum (this year) went for $175, and Raiden DX on eBay is currently $400, iirc not including shipping. Bit more whopping than $75.

Sorry but the $75 was pretty spot on for a long time for Raiden II. I bought one myself for that price a couple of years ago and sold it because it wouldn't work right in my supergun. It must be just this year that the price shot up.

[antron]

And Raiden DX could be had for about $150 for a long time, although this may have very recently changed.

The Raiden DX PS1 port is said to run 10% fast due to the differences between the PCB and NTSC refresh rates.

added: a Raiden DX (original) sold in Aug for $130