Got a weird CPS2 board off of ebay...

andy251203 · Dec 14, 2007

About 2 weeks ago, I bought a Marvel vs Capcom A board from a guy on ebay. Seller totally sucked, took forever to even get him to reply to my emails.

Anyway, the board got here today, but I think it might be bootleg or something. It came in a green case, so I thought it was Japanese, but the connector on the underside was all funky and inverted like a gray board, but one of the male connectors is taller than the other three. Is that correct for an Asia board?

Also, I took the pcb out of the case and there are a bunch of ghetto looking EPROMs on the board with pencil/marker writing on them.

Here are some pics:

The electrical tape over the EPROMs was done myself. They came with nothing covering them.

I can't test this board, since I don't have an Asian motherboard but I was wondering if this could be bootleg or something. Either that, or someone took an Asian PCB and put it in a Japan case for some odd reason. It has a fake label on top, so that could be the case. I don't think it could be Phoenixed since there's still a battery with full voltage present.

Any clues?

Xian Xi · Dec 14, 2007

Asia, boot or phoenixed with green case.

Cavalry · Dec 14, 2007

Did you get it from "run4border". if so, it's prolly the hispanic version.

andy251203 · Dec 14, 2007

No, I got it from "uniflipping", which probably turned out to be a mistake.

I didn't think CPS2 boards could be bootlegged/phoenixed with the battery still attached...

SteveTren · Dec 18, 2007

Yes its a boot. I have purchased a few of those direct from China. There are people there that can program CPS-2 to any CPS-2 game you want. Battery has no effect. The work fine but not eactly legal.

werejag · Dec 18, 2007

id love more info on that

SteveTren · Dec 18, 2007

Ok here is the story. I bought a CPS2 Super Street Fighter 15th AE board from this guy on ebay about a year ago. Cost about $160, pretty damn cheap for a game like that. Came direct from China in a green obivously old b-board case with a cheezy injeted label. So I opened it to check it out. Appeared to have bootleg eproms just like the ones above. Tested the game and it worked perfectly... HUH wierd. So I decided to email the guy and figure out how he was doing this. His english was pretty bad but understandable. I decided to order another one from him.. Came a few days later and worked fine too. So I asked him how he was doing this and he was very nice about explaining that I could send him any cps2 b-board dead or alive didn't matter and he could put any CPS2 game I wanted on it. WOW ! now he had my attention. So, I bought a couple more from him for cheap. He even offered to send me just the nessecary eproms of any game to change to anyother cps2 game I wanted. I haven't talked to this guy for months and his ebay account was gone last I checked. I got the impression from him that this was pretty common practice in main land China.

Scott · Dec 18, 2007

Doesn't really look like a boot to me, despite the eproms, but I very well could be wrong. I had 2 boot CPS-2 games from gwat a long time ago, and they had a little flash chip in place of the graphics/sound roms. One of the games was Progear btw, probably one of the most booted CPS-2 games out there.

andy251203 · Dec 18, 2007

So if the battery doesn't matter or not, then these roms have already been decrypted, kinda like Phoenix, just without the Phoenix extras?

What I find interesting is that the other roms appear to be legit, all of the large 32 meg graphics roms.

Xian Xi · Dec 18, 2007

Phoenix extras?

SteveTren · Dec 18, 2007

When you boot it, it will most likely say Pheonix like all of mine did.

Xian Xi · Dec 18, 2007

I never considered that an extra.

andy251203 · Dec 19, 2007

Phoenix extras like the boot screen and the jukebox player that Raz added, as opposed to roms that behave like the originals.

billd420 · Dec 19, 2007

The mask roms are all legit MVC roms. For those who don't know, the mask roms are the ones without the black electrical tape on them. It was most likely a salvaged game. My guess is the B board the those MVC roms origianally came in was trashed. The mask roms were transplanted into an Asian "host" B board, and the Z80 and Program roms were reprogrammed with pheonix data. Its not a boot, thats for sure. Capcom was known to do in-house conversions with all of their hardware.

-Bill

andy251203 · Dec 19, 2007

I don't think capcom would do such a shitty job, though. They probably would salvage parts, but this is most likely a Chinese job. The marker on the EPROMS, the shitty label, and an asian board in a green case just doesn't spell professionalism to me.

I will let everyone know how this plays when my asian a-board arrives.

billd420 · Dec 19, 2007

andy251203 said:
I don't think capcom would do such a shitty job, though. They probably would salvage parts, but this is most likely a Chinese job. The marker on the EPROMS, the shitty label, and an asian board in a green case just doesn't spell professionalism to me.

I will let everyone know how this plays when my asian a-board arrives.

Oh no, I wasn't suggesting that capcom did that hack job, I was just pointing out they have done that in the past.

SteveTren · Dec 19, 2007

Trust me.. these guys in China can program any CPS2 game you want from any dead or alive board. It may or may not be a bootleg tough to say.

Mr_H · Dec 19, 2007

I'll have to keep an eye out when buying CPS2 boards on the bay from now on.

andy251203 · Dec 20, 2007

Well, just received my Asian A board today, and it seems that the Marvel vs Capcom was reprogrammed to the euro version. Kinda strange, since I think the real euro boards are blue like USA ones.

billd420 · Dec 21, 2007

andy251203 said:
Well, just received my Asian A board today, and it seems that the Marvel vs Capcom was reprogrammed to the euro version. Kinda strange, since I think the real euro boards are blue like USA ones.

When the you boot up the game, hold down the test menu (like press and hold test before you power on the cabinet). Does it come up to a region switch menu?

I'm curious if the seller decrypted the roms on his own, or stole Raz's pheonix code. I've seen decrypted code floating around that can be played on legit CPS2 boards, so its not outlandish that someone is selling their work.

-Bill

andy251203 · Dec 21, 2007

I don't think it's raz's code, since there is no "Phoenix Edition" title screen when it first turns on. It must just be decrypted roms.

Xian Xi · Dec 21, 2007

If they know how do add the data I'm sure they know how to remove it as well.

Razoola · Dec 23, 2007

I have seen fixes based on phoenix but with the logo removed. From the screenshots I think its clear that this is a cart that has been changed from one game to another (the sticker on the shell is homebrew and not original).

One way to tell if its a phoenix is to do the memory check from test mode, normally the ROM check at the botton completes almost instantly with this game, if it takes more than 10 seconds its a phoenix version with the logo removed.

mainman · Dec 23, 2007

Razoola said:
(the sticker on the shell is homebrew and not original).

Thats some organized homebrew as I have seen that sticker on numerous orange mexician boards

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