Atari Vegas 3 Boards questions ?

[ctozzi]

I'm thinking of building a Mame sort of with a medium resolution monitor and Atari Vegas Boards. My questions are does anyone have a cabinet like this that is able to switch rom eproms/ hard drives and play differnt games by simply doing this ? exapmles like blitz 99,2000, and gauntlet dark legacy, legends ? Do I simply need to buy the 2 parts of this board and voila i'm ready to go or is alot more in depth than this ?

[MonMotha]

Any game that runs on Vegas can generally be run on any Vegas system.  This includes Blitz 2000 (Vegas version, there was also a for more common version running on the older Seattle hardware), Showtime, Gauntlet Dark Legacy, and perhaps a couple other games.

You will need a suitable boot ROM (these are often universal), a security chip (game specific), and the hard drive (game specific, but you can sometimes find bare drives cheap).  Legit kits are very hard to find, but there are lots of bootlegs out there, of course.  You may find that some bootleg Vegas software kits have a security chip that'll run just about anything.

You will need all 3 boards in the set for it to be usable.  There is an IO board (the one with the JAMMA harness), the CPU board (the one in the middle), and a video board (which is a standard 3DFX card).

[ctozzi]

ok cool thanks for the info that's what i needed to know. any idea exactly were the security chip is located ? The reason i ask there is a local guy that has a few boards and i want to see if the security chip is in it.

[Paladin]

Hey, that's a picture of my showcase build!  I guess I can answer your chip question.  I've attached a picture of my board with the security chip outlined in a red rectangle, and the boot chip outlined in blue.  It also shows my compactflash hard drive replacement.

I was also wondering if there would be a way to make a couple small boards with a switch to swap between gauntlet legends and dark legacy since I have both sets of chips.  I was suprised that the dark legacy chips I got off the guy that sells them on ebay didn't have a factory label on the security chip, as I thought they couldn't be copied.

I did think I read somewhere that some games used faster RAM on the video card, but I don't know if that's true or not.

[MonMotha]

Go in to the test menu and bring up "system info".  If it identifies the game as "DEVELOPMENT PIC", then you have a bootleg, which would explain the lack of factory labels.  These are also likely to run just about anything.  Try just swapping the hard drives.  It could very well work, especially if they are both bootleg.

[u_rebelscum]

I don't have any of these boards, but as I understand it, there is a difference in input hook ups if you use 49-way joysticks, between the sports games and the gauntlet games.  The sports games have a an extra multiplexer input board and the gauntlet games don't.  This would mean changing between any of the sports is easy, between either of the gauntlets easy, from a sports game to a gauntlet game would be almost as easy, but rewiring the harnesses is needed. Going from one of the Gauntlets to to any of the sports games, however, requires that extra multiplexer board.

Again, just to make sure it's clear, this is only if 49-way sticks are in use.  Which means the other solution for gauntlets<->sports swapping is to switch to 8-way stick and dipswitch settings.

[MonMotha]

Both Vegas and Seattle use the "I-40" board when using 49-ways in a 4 player setup.  Gauntlet should use that, too, if it uses 49-ways.  Either that or it would have to use a similar, but possibly incompatible setup.  The board doesn't have enough inputs to handle 4 49-way sticks and 4 buttons per player (start + 3 butons) even if you start using inputs for things other than their intended purpose.

[Paladin]

There is no input board for Gauntlet with the 49 ways, the sticks wire directly to the board.  You can check the picture I attached to see where all the inputs go.  I know the sports games do use the extra board, but I don't know why.

[MonMotha]

Oh, are they hooked up to the "GUN" inputs?  I figured those were actually, you know, light guns

If those can be used as GPIO, then that gives them all the inputs they need.  Blitz would likely only use an I-40 for backwards compatibility with Seattle, then.

[ctozzi]

k so it looks to be fairly easy to do this then

[ctozzi]

I have a golden tee 2005 video card that is a 3dfx will that work ? I'm trying to save as much $$$ as possible to get this up and running, but i cannot justify spending hundreds on the complete boards, so i'm trying to get each working part for cheap. I have already found the complete jamma/control panel wiring harness, and a full dedicated gauntlet legends control panel, and i have a medium res monitor in a Blitz 99' cabinet.

[ctozzi]

Is this the right security chip ?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=120139720100&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=002

[Paladin]

That's a factory Gauntlet Legends chip, and will only work for Gauntlet Legends.  The one I got was Item number: 350071337413.   I was able to email them and just get the 2 chips, as I already have the CHD file to make my own hard drive.  If I remember right I paid $50.  The picture shows a factory security chip, but the one I got has what looks like an inkjet label that says Gauntlet DL U37 PIC.  The other chip has a color Dark Legacy label, but it also looks like it could have been printed on an inkjet printer. 

Because I have a monitor problem, I haven't even played through the Legends game yet.  I wasn't planning on swapping out the chips until I finished Legends, so I can't say if the security chip will work for other games.

[u_rebelscum]

Oh, are they hooked up to the "GUN" inputs?  I figured those were actually, you know, light guns

The buttons wire to the "Gun" inputs in the "gauntlet" 49-way mode.  The 49-way joysticks (8 pins ) go where the 8-way joystick & buttons would go if in 8-way mode.  FWIW, for player's 1&2, that's jamma's 8-way joystick and four (neogeo) buttons pins.

IIRC, for the sports games, all 49-way joystick data goes to player 4's four (8-way) joystick pins, multiplex'ed at 8x the normal input (twice since each axis uses 4 pins, for the two axes, multiplied by 4 for the players).  Talk about over engineered.

If those can be used as GPIO, then that gives them all the inputs they need.  Blitz would likely only use an I-40 for backwards compatibility with Seattle, then.

Compatibility would make sense I guess.  But as I said, all the midway sports games need the I-40 regardless if vegas (NBA Showtime, Sportstation, Blitz 2000 Gold Edition) or seattle (Blitz, B99, B2000), while both the 3D gauntlet games don't, again regardless if vegas (dark legacy) or seattle (legends).  As you can see, Gauntlet Legends is seattle based, and didn't use I-40.

I think it's a Midway vs Atari thing.  NBA Showtime included two games, one being Blitz 2000.  So B2000 is on both seattle and vegas boards (I'm not sure on the amount of recoding done between the two, though).  And even though DL was released as a "Midway" game, it was written by the same studio as Legends (California based, "Atari Games" renamed to "Midway Games West"), while the sports games were written by the main Midway studio (Chicago based).  So IMO, DL is really an Atari game, running on "Atari Vegas" boards.

[Paladin]

Good info, other than Legends and Dark Legacy are both Vegas based.  As mentioned above, Dark Legacy is just a rom/HD swap to the Vegas Legends boards.

[MonMotha]

If those can be used as GPIO, then that gives them all the inputs they need.  Blitz would likely only use an I-40 for backwards compatibility with Seattle, then.

Compatibility would make sense I guess.  But as I said, all the midway sports games need the I-40 regardless if vegas (NBA Showtime, Sportstation, Blitz 2000 Gold Edition) or seattle (Blitz, B99, B2000), while both the 3D gauntlet games don't, again regardless if vegas (dark legacy) or seattle (legends).  As you can see, Gauntlet Legends is seattle based, and didn't use I-40.

I think it's a Midway vs Atari thing.  NBA Showtime included two games, one being Blitz 2000.  So B2000 is on both seattle and vegas boards (I'm not sure on the amount of recoding done between the two, though).  And even though DL was released as a "Midway" game, it was written by the same studio as Legends (California based, "Atari Games" renamed to "Midway Games West"), while the sports games were written by the main Midway studio (Chicago based).  So IMO, DL is really an Atari game, running on "Atari Vegas" boards.

Seattle does not have those "GUN" inputs.  Seattle has JAMMA, P3/4 inputs, "Aux Latched Outputs" (which are used to control the I-40), Bill Input, and the Aux Inputs which are used for volume up/down like all other Midway games since the MK2 era.

I'm not sure I'd call it overengineered.  If somebody came to me with this problem (need more inputs), that's probably the exact solution I'd come up with, with perhaps some signalling differences.  Other popular option is to use a high speed serial bus, but Seattle again does not have a suitable interface (the serial port is only RS-232 at moderate bit rates).

[u_rebelscum]

Seattle does not have those "GUN" inputs.  Seattle has JAMMA, P3/4 inputs, "Aux Latched Outputs" (which are used to control the I-40), Bill Input, and the Aux Inputs which are used for volume up/down like all other Midway games since the MK2 era.

Ah,  gotcha.  (My bad, Legends is Atari Vegas, not seattle. d'oh)  Backward compatable makes way more sense.

You don't happen to know where I can get a copy of a seattle game operator manual?  I have a bunch of vegas game manuals, but nothing on seattle games.

I'm not sure I'd call it overengineered.  If somebody came to me with this problem (need more inputs), that's probably the exact solution I'd come up with, with perhaps some signalling differences.  Other popular option is to use a high speed serial bus, but Seattle again does not have a suitable interface (the serial port is only RS-232 at moderate bit rates).

You seem to know a lot more about this multiplexer thing method of input than I do.  Do you mind if I go OT and ask theory and practice of it?

Is it easier to multiplex to one set of pins of both X and Y axes and all four players, or say, two sets, one for X one for Y, multiplexed for the players, or maybe the other way, each player has its four pins multiplexed for X and Y?  (I guess IOW, why choose this way?)  Is it really an 8x multiplex like I've said, or is it more?  (Reason I ask is there is plugs for five players on the I-40, plus the output and the timing/power.)  How is the info demultiplexed? 

The reason I'm asking is I want the 49-way inputs emulated in mame for these games, but need to know more if I'm going to try to code it myself.  (How should multiplexing be emulated?  Can I just skip the mux/demux steps?)

[MonMotha]

Seattle does not have those "GUN" inputs.  Seattle has JAMMA, P3/4 inputs, "Aux Latched Outputs" (which are used to control the I-40), Bill Input, and the Aux Inputs which are used for volume up/down like all other Midway games since the MK2 era.

Ah,  gotcha.  (My bad, Legends is Atari Vegas, not seattle. d'oh)  Backward compatable makes way more sense.

You don't happen to know where I can get a copy of a seattle game operator manual?  I have a bunch of vegas game manuals, but nothing on seattle games.

I have a scanned copy of 2 player Blitz, but that doesn't detail the 49-way wiring.  I had to infer all of that from a wiring harness I got in order to make it work.

I'm not sure I'd call it overengineered.  If somebody came to me with this problem (need more inputs), that's probably the exact solution I'd come up with, with perhaps some signalling differences.  Other popular option is to use a high speed serial bus, but Seattle again does not have a suitable interface (the serial port is only RS-232 at moderate bit rates).

You seem to know a lot more about this multiplexer thing method of input than I do.  Do you mind if I go OT and ask theory and practice of it?

Is it easier to multiplex to one set of pins of both X and Y axes and all four players, or say, two sets, one for X one for Y, multiplexed for the players, or maybe the other way, each player has its four pins multiplexed for X and Y?  (I guess IOW, why choose this way?)  Is it really an 8x multiplex like I've said, or is it more?  (Reason I ask is there is plugs for five players on the I-40, plus the output and the timing/power.)  How is the info demultiplexed? 

The reason I'm asking is I want the 49-way inputs emulated in mame for these games, but need to know more if I'm going to try to code it myself.  (How should multiplexing be emulated?  Can I just skip the mux/demux steps?)

I haven't looked into exactly how the I-40 board works, but most of these (there's also one in DDR and PIU, for example) work by having a reset line which puts the CPLD on it into a known state and then having the game board clock its way through various muxing options.  On DDR, there is a fixed bit pattern that shows up as you work your way through the states which allows detection.  The I-40 is probably similar.

As far as "ease" of how to arrange things, as far as hardware is concerned, it's just bits.  The software then takes those bits back apart and handles them as it pleases.  For 49-way sticks, that's likely a small lookup table since the bit patterns don't have a lot of meaning without any massaging, so if you want to change the order of things around, it's just a matter of modifying your lookup table.  IIRC, there are 4 input bits from the I-40 (shows up on P3's 8-way joystick input), so I suspect it just does a "left-shift 4 and OR" thing to get the original 8-bit 49-way "code" recovered.  That would mean a 8:1 mux if that's what you're referring to since the number of output lines is 1/8th the number of input ones (2:1 for each player and 4 players).  If there are other states to allow detection of the I-40 (likely, since it can detect it), there may be additional states.  The PLD on the I-40 isn't too complicated, so it is likely a simple state machine like DDR.

As far as emulation, it would probably be best to emulate the I-40.  The de-muxing looks to be handled entirely in software, so if you don't emulate the hardware, you'd have to patch the game software, which kinda goes against the idea of "full emulation".  MAME emulates the IO board for DDR, if you want a reference point.