Need help with an Xmen 4 player cabinet

[redfivexw]

I have an original Xmen 4 player cab, the sound was bad so I ordered a replacement board on ebay.  The new board works, but it says to "press start".  I have no start buttons, I am wondering if this could be a 2 player version of the game?  Can I swap the roms from my original board to the new one?  Should I?  My original board says version UBB, the replacement says version AEA. 

[PL1]

Press Button 1 (Attack) -- that should work as start.   

UBB and AEA are both 4-player versions, not sure what the exact differences are, probably geographic region.


Scott

EDIT: UBB confirmed as the U.S. version and AEA appears to be an Asian or Australian version.   

[redfivexw]

I tried the attack button and no dice.  Also, the third and fourth joysticks and coin doors are not active.  I put this board in a regular jamma cabinet with 2 joysticks, and it works perfect.  You put in a quarter, and you can use the joystick to select any player and press start.  In my 4p xmen cab, it does not work at all. i have attached the i/o check screen from my original board, it has the check feature for all 4 coin slots.  On the AEA board, it only shows 2.  I am thinking this board was possibly converted to a 2p. 

[Malenko]

I believe you need to go into the test menu and change the settings to 4 player, there arent any hardware dipswitches on the board.

[redfivexw]

That was my first instinct as well, but there is no option to change it listed, so that is out.  I personally think there is probably a different rom on the board for 2p vs 4p, i will do some more research.

[PL1]

Just tried the AEA version in MAME:
 * It is 4-player
 * It only uses two coin slots and pools credits instead of assigning them by coin slot
 * It does use a separate start button instead of the attack button


Scott

[redfivexw]

There is no way to activate the third and fourth joystick, so i dont see how it can be made as a 4 player.  I will retest tomorrow. 

[PL1]

Compared the two MAME ROMs.

The UBB version (parent ROM) has 3 files that are marked "UBB":
 * 065-ubb04.10d
 * 065-ubb05.10f
 * xmen_ubb.nv

The AEA version (child ROM) only has 3 files:
 * 065-aea04.10d
 * 065-aea05.10f
 * xmen_aea.nv

If you look on pg 10 of the manual (pg 11 of the PDF here) and trace straight down from the word "JAMMA", you see two ICs labeled "065*04" and "065*05" with fine print beneath the ICs reading "10D" and "10F", respectively.

Looking at the pictures you posted earlier, these two ICs are socketed, so you might be able to swap them from one board to the other.

I'm not sure about the .nv file.   

I assume it's a non-volatile RAM, but not sure which IC is related.


Scott

[redfivexw]

thanks for the advice.  I swapped the roms as described above and when i rebooted i got an error.  I rebooted holding down the test button on the board and the screen said "resetting eeproms", and when it booted back up, perfect 4P board!  awesome!!

[PL1]

It worked??!!??   

Glad to hear that it's up and running.   


Scott

[Malenko]

glad to hear its working!  Can I have your crummy 2 player board with bad sound?