What is the deal with neo geo serial numbers?

I want to get a neo geo, but I heard some talk that the serial numbers make a big difference, what number range are the neo geo systems best at? I also want to be able to use the phantom converter, but i also heard the converter won't work with certain neo geo's, can someone answer my question?

The BEAST3 said:

I want to get a neo geo, but I heard some talk that the serial numbers make a big difference, what number range are the neo geo systems best at? I also want to be able to use the phantom converter, but i also heard the converter won't work with certain neo geo's, can someone answer my question?

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As you are in the US,the best machine for you would be to get as high a serial number as you can get.The later they are,the better the composite signal is.Any machine with a number over 330k would be ideal for you.Of course you could go mad and get one that has been fiddled with and had a s-vhs socket fitted to it
Dunno about the p-1 issues,I only had mine when I was using a 161k serial number AES and it worked fine with that.I thought it was more down to the games themselves having some kind of anti-bootlegging protection that stopped them working via the p-1(I think that RotD and MSX are 2 such games)and not any incompatibility issuse with certain serial #'s.

Re: Re: What is the deal with neo geo serial numbers?

soopafamicom said:

As you are in the US,the best machine for you would be to get as high a serial number as you can get.The later they are,the better the composite signal is.Any machine with a number over 330k would be ideal for you.Of course you could go mad and get one that has been fiddled with and had a s-vhs socket fitted to it
Dunno about the p-1 issues,I only had mine when I was using a 161k serial number AES and it worked fine with that.I thought it was more down to the games themselves having some kind of anti-bootlegging protection that stopped them working via the p-1(I think that RotD and MSX are 2 such games)and not any incompatibility issuse with certain serial #'s.

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He's right. If you plan on using composite video, go with a higher serial number (anything over 100,000 should do), and if you are going for S-video, go for a lower serial number (anything under 50,000).

As to the phantom-1 question, any phantom-1 will work fine on any system.