SPI Seibu motherboard questions

[parism]

I am interested in getting an RF2 motherboard+cart but would like to clarify the issue of the SXX2C and SXX2D video output. In another post, someone stated that the two boards have the same Yamaha sound chip but the later one SXX2D has inferior video output. Can someone clarify this a little more? Are the colors washed out etc.?

Also, can I use an RF2 cart on the older SXXC board? I saw some posts that suggest that it should be possible...

Thanks again, any help will be appreciated....

paris

[Ed Oscuro]

I'll take this opportunity to try my boards out on the "new" PVM 20L5 to see if it's any different than I got from the XRGB-2 and the CRT.

Keep in mind, though, that these are just my impressions from a grand total of 1 SXX2D board. That's definitely not a statistically significant sample. That being said I don't have any reason to expect the board is way off spec, and I do have a number of SXX2C boards.

The only uncertainty I have about the sound chip is whether there is a single-board (i.e., there's no cartridge) version which has the good sound system. If there is, it is rare. Certainly this is the case with a rare late revision (1996, I think) of Raiden DX (maybe II as well), but I haven't confirmed such a thing for the Raiden Fighters games. But there definitely is a single-board version of at least one Raiden Fighters game which also has a cheaper sound system (and poor music).

[Crafty+Mech]

I have a good single board version of RF2 JET, and the sound is identical to the cart version. The single board version of RF2 JET with the crappy sound is known as RFJ "2000", and uses different sound components.

Did RF/RF2 get the "2000" release as well, I haven't come across any single board versions of those games but I'm definitely curious.

[parism]

Thanks guys,

I confirm that the Raiden DX was released on inferior hardware, not based on the Raiden II board (the one with the battery), and had looping sound. Avoid...

I have had a single board RF2 (2000 China) and the sound was not very good, but cannot confirm now because the board died and I sold it since.

In any case, my SXX2C board with RF died last night out of the blue. I was playing, the game reset so I gave it a power cycle. It came on with sound only, another power cycle and that was it, no video or sound. All I get is blue flashing boxes or alternating lines on the screen. The +5V is right on, the +12V is a little high, all other boards work fine in my cab. I flexed the PCB, no change. The cart works fine.

I am looking for another SXX2C board, if anyone wants to sell theirs, let me know... I can trade for a good RF cart+dead SXX2C...

Thanks!

Paris,

Ardmore, PA

[system11]

The older larger type SPI motherboards definitely have a better picture than the smaller ones you often find Jet carts on - just seems stronger and better defined overall. I don't recall the actual model numbers. I'd bet on the sound being better on the old ones too.

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760

[parism]

Thanks, I am getting an RF2 with a smaller SPI board (SXX2D) so I can test the cart on that and my other larger SPI motherboard (SXX2C). I'll keep updating this thread with results...

p

[Ed Oscuro]

I've always avoided it, but at least on the large motherboards there should be a long delay when you swap motherboards, as the flash memory needs to be updated. Be careful with that process!

[parism]

Thanks, I know this updating process can be tricky and ruin the SPI board. I needed to check my two RF carts (that came from hosed SPI boards) and I had to do a swap from a Viper Phase 1. I was nervous about the timer stopping but it worked! I like VP1 but prefer RF...

p

[Ed Oscuro]

Well, this was interesting. I just did a quick analysis of five SPI board + cartridge combinations:

Raiden Fighters - Japanese region, SXX2C board. Picture seemed good with not a lot of audio buzz.
Raiden Fighters - US region, slight pixel smearing (by which I mean there appears to be a bit of a blur of pixels by the pixels in the next line over - "below" the previous pixels i.e. the next vertical line if this game is running on a monitor in standard landscape orientation)
Raiden Fighters 2 - SXX2C Japanese, I recall this motherboard was giving me problems when I first got it, now it appears to be dead
Raiden Fighters Jet - SXX2C Japanese, pixel smearing and some audio noise
Raiden Fighters Jet - SXX2D US Fabtek, pixel smearing and some audio noise, picture oriented with top at the left, rather than the standard with picture top at the right (possibly the jumper switch handles this? Didn't see a test menu entry for this)

I was surprised to find that there were video issues across both board types. I didn't find a clear win for the original style boards here.
It's also interesting to note that I get a bit of distortion (image bows out) along the top of my PVM with images from the supergun - but the Raiden Fighters boards (and my Raiden II) are among the most stable in this respect.

[parism]

That is great, thank you for doing this experiment. It looks like there is no clear winner for the video or the audio for a specific version of the cart or main board.

On my RF2 Fabtek, US mobo, I see a column of 6 pixels that are black on the bottom left hand corner. In come scenes in the intro movie, there is a similar column of black pixels on the bottom right corner too. I am not sure if this is the distortion you mean...

PAris

[Ed Oscuro]

A picture would explain things immediately - the distortion is some peculiar fault in either my supergun or the PVM (probably in the supergun) because all board exhibit this to some degree. There's a slight bend in the picture along the top few lines, followed by a bend back - and it continues down the image. But I'll discuss that in the Supergun Q&A thread.

I also would like to spend a bit more time fiddling with my separate RGB pots because having them misaligned gives the appearance of convergence problems in some boards - however I think that I honestly have already discounted this from experimenting.

Basically what I am looking at is an extra dimmer line of pixels above a white line on Japanese text in the Raiden Fighters Jet intro, and something similar in the small board version.

This does make me wonder if new polymer capacitors might be a good idea for some old boards now, as they can supply more consistently filtered voltages to components. It could be something else too.

[parism]

Here's a pic of what I get, it is an LCD, notice the two areas at the bottom.



paris

[system11]

You can ignore that, it's a hardware bug.