Raiden 1 won't save high scores when powered off.

[James391]

Just picked up my first complete game, which had to be Raiden as I loved playing that title many years ago. I've learned a lot from just lurking and have worked out most of the small issues that the game had. The only remaining one is that the game does not store the high scores when the power is switched off, something that is kind of a big deal for me. I searched high and low for a battery, but it does not seem to have one. I've seen it mentioned that the game just may not save the scores at all; which is possible. What I am wondering is if this is correct, and if so, if there is a way to work around this. I am admittedly a newbie to owning and working on classic games...but not to electronics in general. Should there not be a pin somewhere on the board that I can keep a few volts running to that would keep them in the memory? I couldn't find a board schematic, but perhaps one of you could point me in the right direction or help me figure it out.

Thanks for your time.

[Haze]

Just picked up my first complete game, which had to be Raiden as I loved playing that title many years ago. I've learned a lot from just lurking and have worked out most of the small issues that the game had. The only remaining one is that the game does not store the high scores when the power is switched off, something that is kind of a big deal for me. I searched high and low for a battery, but it does not seem to have one. I've seen it mentioned that the game just may not save the scores at all; which is possible. What I am wondering is if this is correct, and if so, if there is a way to work around this. I am admittedly a newbie to owning and working on classic games...but not to electronics in general. Should there not be a pin somewhere on the board that I can keep a few volts running to that would keep them in the memory? I couldn't find a board schematic, but perhaps one of you could point me in the right direction or help me figure it out.

Thanks for your time.

It does not save scores.

Moreover, the game code will wipe RAM on each boot, so even if you keep the RAM alive, it will not save scores.

[Endprodukt]

Best workaround with the real pcb: high score board on the wall

[Well Fed Games]

FWIW, my Raiden II and Raiden DX are the same way. Reminds me I need to make a custom scoreboard when I finish my cab. Congrats on the Raiden! Post pics!

[James391]

Really? I got a Raiden 2 board and cab as a lcd conversion/rebuild project, and today I dropped the 2 board in the running cab to give it a whirl. Ran great, but I was disappointed to find that even with a fresh battery it would not save the scores. I though for sure that it would since it has the battery and all.

Sounds like you have what I'm after. Once I finish up the 2 I am going to have to track down the DX. Love the series.

[Haze]

Really? I got a Raiden 2 board and cab as a lcd conversion/rebuild project, and today I dropped the 2 board in the running cab to give it a whirl. Ran great, but I was disappointed to find that even with a fresh battery it would not save the scores. I though for sure that it would since it has the battery and all.

Sounds like you have what I'm after. Once I finish up the 2 I am going to have to track down the DX. Love the series.

Not really sure what the battery is for on R2/DX.

For Zero Team (a very similar board) the battery is used to keep the sprite decryption keys alive, if it dies you end up with scrambled sprites and have to either
a) run an (official? leaked?) suicide repair kit (supported in MAME)
b) replace the program roms with a set where the encryption key is uploaded every time
c) replace the graphic roms with non-encrypted versions.

Raiden 2 however always uploads the encryption keys, so the battery seems pointless.  Maybe there are earlier undumped revisions which don't and are prone to the same graphic suicide issues, but I've never seen one, nor seen reports of it happening.

[opt2not]

Really? I got a Raiden 2 board and cab as a lcd conversion/rebuild project, and today I dropped the 2 board in the running cab to give it a whirl. Ran great, but I was disappointed to find that even with a fresh battery it would not save the scores. I though for sure that it would since it has the battery and all.

Sounds like you have what I'm after. Once I finish up the 2 I am going to have to track down the DX. Love the series.

Not really sure what the battery is for on R2/DX.

For Zero Team (a very similar board) the battery is used to keep the sprite decryption keys alive, if it dies you end up with scrambled sprites and have to either
a) run an (official? leaked?) suicide repair kit (supported in MAME)
b) replace the program roms with a set where the encryption key is uploaded every time
c) replace the graphic roms with non-encrypted versions.

Raiden 2 however always uploads the encryption keys, so the battery seems pointless.  Maybe there are earlier undumped revisions which don't and are prone to the same graphic suicide issues, but I've never seen one, nor seen reports of it happening.

I've read that Seibu was thinking about adding encryption to it's R2/RDX PCBs and using the battery to power it up (like how CPS2 motherboard works with the "suicide" battery) but never did fully implement it.

[James391]

Welp, guess I'm SOL on the high scores. I will just have to build a custom scoreboard for my gameroom-in-progress.

Thanks for all of the replies.

[Haze]

Really? I got a Raiden 2 board and cab as a lcd conversion/rebuild project, and today I dropped the 2 board in the running cab to give it a whirl. Ran great, but I was disappointed to find that even with a fresh battery it would not save the scores. I though for sure that it would since it has the battery and all.

Sounds like you have what I'm after. Once I finish up the 2 I am going to have to track down the DX. Love the series.

Not really sure what the battery is for on R2/DX.

For Zero Team (a very similar board) the battery is used to keep the sprite decryption keys alive, if it dies you end up with scrambled sprites and have to either
a) run an (official? leaked?) suicide repair kit (supported in MAME)
b) replace the program roms with a set where the encryption key is uploaded every time
c) replace the graphic roms with non-encrypted versions.

Raiden 2 however always uploads the encryption keys, so the battery seems pointless.  Maybe there are earlier undumped revisions which don't and are prone to the same graphic suicide issues, but I've never seen one, nor seen reports of it happening.

I've read that Seibu was thinking about adding encryption to it's R2/RDX PCBs and using the battery to power it up (like how CPS2 motherboard works with the "suicide" battery) but never did fully implement it.

Which is basically what Zero Team does, except it's graphic encryption not program encryption.

I have a feeling it's probably just a leftover from plans to do that, but based on the number of people having issues with Zero Team they changed their minds / quickly removed it.  Wasn't needed anyway, to this day neither game has ever been emulated or bootlegged so that's 20 years and counting...