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Should I ask this here or elsewhere - Question about region changing an arcade PCB (Wrestlefest)
#398029 - 02/23/24 11:30 PM
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So I've decided that I want to buy a real arcade PCB. This is probably a folly on my part and I'm likely going to go down a long road of wasting money and time :-p But if I'm going to do that, I want to do it at least semi-right.
However, I'm not sure where or to whom I should ask this question, so I wanted to start here.
If I bought a Japanese WWF Wrestlefest PCB, and if I attained compatible eeproms, would it be possible to burn the US set to said roms and swap the chips on the PCB? I'm thinking that there may be some GAL protection or what not (and, come to think of it, I probably should read the MAME source), but I just wanted to ask if anyone knew if it was possible with this specific board or if there was a way to "try it" in MAME (i.e., can I make a hacked together set and see if it runs in MAME as a trial for if it would run on a real board).
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| JWallace |
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Steamrollered by cool things, and likes it that way
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Re: Should I ask this here or elsewhere - Question about region changing an arcade PCB (Wrestlefest)
[Re: Pr3tty F1y]
#398041 - 02/27/24 11:04 AM
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I've never done this, so bear that in mind, but in theory it's only IC19,18 and 33 that are different between the versions, which represent the interleaved bytes of 68k code and the FG0 layer data. For MAME testing, the logical thing is to assemble the ZIP file of ROMs as if it were a real set, complete with valid name, and then run MAME with it, and the 'debug' parameter - that should disable the ROM validity check.
Given how heavily Wrestlefest was bootlegged where I live, I can't imagine there's much significant protection, but again, as someone who's never tried it, I wouldn't know.
If you do buy a board, though, and can dump as well as program new ROMs, I would be tempted to dump the ICs I mention above and check them against MAME and romident simply in case it happens to be an alternate revision.
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AGEMAME HQ - was once a thing, now isn't really.
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Re: Should I ask this here or elsewhere - Question about region changing an arcade PCB (Wrestlefest)
[Re: JWallace]
#398046 - 02/28/24 02:54 AM
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> I've never done this, so bear that in mind, but in theory it's only IC19,18 and 33
> that are different between the versions, which represent the interleaved bytes of 68k
> code and the FG0 layer data. For MAME testing, the logical thing is to assemble the
> ZIP file of ROMs as if it were a real set, complete with valid name, and then run
> MAME with it, and the 'debug' parameter - that should disable the ROM validity check.
> Given how heavily Wrestlefest was bootlegged where I live, I can't imagine there's
> much significant protection, but again, as someone who's never tried it, I wouldn't
> know.
>
> If you do buy a board, though, and can dump as well as program new ROMs, I would be
> tempted to dump the ICs I mention above and check them against MAME and romident
> simply in case it happens to be an alternate revision.
Thanks for your thoughts! I saw the same thing in the source with the two 256kb program rom chips and the 128kb graphic overlay chips (where the Japanese text is likely stored). I'll give MAME a try with the debug menu!
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Re: Should I ask this here or elsewhere - Question about region changing an arcade PCB (Wrestlefest)
[Re: Pr3tty F1y]
#398433 - 05/04/24 12:51 AM
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I just wanted to follow-up on this now that I have a Xgecu T48 and I'm awaiting a horribly cheap UV EPROM erase box and some old/used chips from AliExpress.
But at least reading out the existing chips is looking good!
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Re: Should I ask this here or elsewhere - Question about region changing an arcade PCB (Wrestlefest)
[Re: Pr3tty F1y]
#398471 - 05/14/24 01:17 AM
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> I just wanted to follow-up on this now that I have a Xgecu T48 and I'm awaiting a
> horribly cheap UV EPROM erase box and some old/used chips from AliExpress.
>
> But at least reading out the existing chips is looking good!
I can confirm that a rom swap of IC's 33, 18, and 19 with the wwfwfestu set will convert a japanese WWF Wrestlefest to a US WWF Wrestlefest.
It's not a huge difference as the japanese text really isn't that intrusive, but - for anyone else who cares - the conversion works. You just need one 128kb TMS27C010A-15JL (IC33) and two 256kb M27C2001-15F1's (ICs 18 and 19).
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