Starting to lust for a naomi setup, but hidden $$$ costs?

[dark]

I have a fantasy about getting a naomi setup. I see the motherboards cheap on ebay from time to time, and there are many naomi games I like. I also love the dreamcast, so the idea of playing the handful of naomi action/fighting/shmup games that did not make it to the DC sounds really cool too.

I've never owned arcade hardware though, and I've done research on the naomi, and basically it seems like it isn't all that easy to get a cheap or simple setup... even though the motherboard can be found cheaply, for the following reasons.


1) The games, particularly the shmups and the mid-late 2000s era of games that I am most interested in come in different formats (cart or GDrom), and many of the more interesting later games are extremely expensive and rare JPN only releases, and are even just hard to find for sale at all. (Stuff like Karous, Illvelo, Radirgy Noir, Melty Blood, Senko no Ronde, etc)

2) Buying the extra hardware (gdrom drive / dimm / or compact flash) seems to entail several hundred dollars.

3) The different formats, and the different regions games are released in necessitate having particular bios revisions or regions. Ie: various JPN games only booting with a jpn region bios - and the GDrom/dimm/compact flash/netbooting only working with particular bioses (which I don't even know the specifics of, but I assume the naomi motherboards I can find from US sellers for under $100 on ebay won't be stock ready to play many of the rare Japanese games I would like, nor support the gdrom or other hardware needed to play non-cart games, nor play various JPN cart games).

4) I'm a complete arcade noob and don't really understand how you rig up controls for a naomi or what an IO board really is. They seem kinda expensive though.


So, do I have a pretty good understanding of the situation? Basically - you can get a naomi motherboard at an affordable price, but expect to invest an extra ~$200 for the hardware necessary to play games, and another couple $100 per non-dreamcast Japanese game?

[alamone]

I wouldn't really recommend a Naomi for a newb, about the only thing easier about it is that it outputs 31KHz VGA which you can plug into pretty much any monitor.
I would get used to a standard JAMMA setup first before trying to understand JVS.

But if you're hell bent, you can probably find pretty much everything you want at Tops / Sophia. http://www.tops-game.jp/list/sega.htm
The only missing thing might be the latest Japanese BIOS (should run everything you want, including net DIMM),
which you could get any rom burning service to do for you. If I recall, it's a 42 pin EPROM so cheaper programmers won't be able to handle it.

A minimal setup would be a JAMMA supergun, a Capcom I/O, and a Naomi with a cart-based game.
The JAMMA supergun would power everything, and a cable from the Capcom I/O powers the Naomi.

For Net-DIMM or GD-ROM, you will need a dedicated JVS powersupply to provide enough power direct to the Naomi / GD-drive.
The JVS powersupply has some very short cables coming out that you can directly hookup to the naomi, but
it's better if you have the proper power cables that let you extend it out.

Also once you have all the pieces together, it takes a lot of room, so make enough space.