Do bootlegs go industrial ?

S

Suehirocho

New Challenger
Joined
May 22, 2004
Posts
62
Hi folks,

sometimes even with all the precautions you take you end up with a boot , which is always a big disappointment :blow_top: to be polite.

To the fact : I just got scr**ed with two MVS boots very recently (won't give names at this stage since things are being discussed and hopefully solved :mad_2: ) although sold as originals.

Since I'm pissed off by all those bootlegs flying around, I'd like to share some remarks / questions and maybe something usefull will come out of it for members in search of such information.

  • 1/ I already had a bad feeling about the carts from the outside. I think that no MVS game has 100% regular contacts, with fully-populated traces / contacts I mean, with the exception of early 1990/1991 releases (NAM ad the like)

    when you look at a genuine SNK board (from approx 1992 on), some contacts are wider, and there are many irregular gaps between contacts.

    Of course, bootlegs made by "converting" genuine SNK boards cannot by noticed by their connector layout, but those using custom-made boards usually (I speak from experience, unfortunatelly) look like this one from Zonko's Bootleg Fighters
    http://www.jamma.nl/gallery/bootlegs/wakuboard1

    My conclusion : without even opening a cart, if you see a regular connector pattern (no gaps, no wider contacts) for a 1992+ game, chances are that's booty time inside.

  • 2/ I opened the two carts , which had the symptoms described above and both happened to be clear boots on custom-made boards.
    No SNK or markings anywhere, a mix of flash (intel) and EEPROMS on a quite unusual trace design.

    The thing is that every solder job had been done by machines, so the argument to be carefull of solder quality is maybe not so much of a good hint. We're facing well-equipped crooks it seems. I must admit they look very professional indeed :oh_no:

  • 3/ At this stage, I decided to check their Progr checksums using the great Unibios (mucho kudos to Raz ! :buttrock: ) not that I had any doubt of them being boots but simply out of curiousity.
    My findings :
    - with "conversion" boots (genuine SNK boards + boot chips) like I saw before, the checksum usually fails but ...
    - both of these "industrial boots" passed the checksum :eek:

    Now I thought in the past that the CRC check could detect corruption and boots, but this showed me I was wrong.
    Question esp. to Raz : is there any theoritical / logical way of really checking carts authenticity from a software point of view (that would be a fantastic feature in the unibios ) ? Sorry if my question sounds dumb as I'm a complete stranger to programming a bios.

  • 4/ Last but not least I was really shocked :eek: to notice that these "custom industrial bootleg boards" had 1 genuine SNK chips soldered on them (a 273 or another one cant remember just now) !
    What more is, it is SMD mounted so can you imagine someone desoldering those from a granny board and resoldering them ??? That sounds crazy. Maybe the bootlegeds got their hands on a batch of unmounted chips instead. I looks so well-organized that it gives my goose bumps :( :mad:


Sorry for the long post, but I would be glad to read your remarks, comments, experience and stuff on this ! :cool:
 
norton9478

norton9478

So Many Posts
No Time
For Games.
20 Year Member
Joined
Oct 30, 2003
Posts
34,074
I thought the checksum was just to check the authenticity of the data, not of the chip it self.
 
chris1

chris1

POCKETBIKE NUT,
Joined
Oct 18, 2002
Posts
10,830
norton9478 said:
I thought the checksum was just to check the authenticity of the data, not of the chip it self.
Click to expand...


Info I would like to know myself..

I put a well made boot in my Candy cab(first time) today that has a UNI BIOS chip and I did a CRC check and it gave me some numbers- the passed the checksum /no detected corruption.

I've never really understood the CRC check,I would just do it to see what it turns up in each cart. :glee:
I was surprised when I saw the boot just passed the checksum.
I thought with boots it would read corrupt chip.

I used cheats to play the boot and it worked fine.....
I'm set in US Arcade mode..I changed the Bios setting to US Console and the game is still working..
I though boots didn't work with UNI BIOS chips..

Just what and what can't I do with a Boot cart and a UNI BIOS chip.?

Some games I have that are boots I've got stuck with,might as well play them but I've always been reluctant to play any of them in the Candy cab with it's UNI BIOS chip.
 
S

Suehirocho

New Challenger
Joined
May 22, 2004
Posts
62
Here are the pics

Hi Chris, to (try to) answer your / our questions, seems the Unibios check feature will perform a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) on the Program data only.

I believe that depending on how the bootleggers proceeded, the check will say okay (if they preserved the original data in the same form) or not okay (if they messed with the data, like I presume different number of chips ? altering program data and so on ...)

So I doubt boots are more (or less) sensitive to unibios than to the original bios. They should be running either fine on both, or badly on both... I guess.
Maybe Raz could give us its opinion on this if he reads us. :cool:

I refuse to keep & play bootlegs. The ones I had in the past (originating C***le Collectibles, sent back + chargeback :angry: ) worked OK for the few minutes I had them running, but the power consumption was higher than average (I can see the current drain on my PS) and they tend to become hot. Plus, they are simply not the real deal, so outta here :very_ang:

Back to the original topic, I'm currently stuck with 2 "factory bootlegs" as mentionned above.

As an update, here are the pics of both boards for those of you interested :

if someone wants to host the pics for further reference, please feel free to do so as I can't host them forever.


Note the use of original SNK customs chips (NEO-ZMC, NEO-PCM, NEO-273) in conjunction with Intel Flash chips, all surface mounted. There are also 2 EPROMS.
The design is kind of neat and all solder is factory-made. :eek:

Hopefully it will be back to its seller tomorrow. :emb:
 
chris1

chris1

POCKETBIKE NUT,
Joined
Oct 18, 2002
Posts
10,830
Suehirocho said:
Hi Chris, to (try to) answer your / our questions, seems the Unibios check feature will perform a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) on the Program data only.

I believe that depending on how the bootleggers proceeded, the check will say okay (if they preserved the original data in the same form) or not okay (if they messed with the data, like I presume different number of chips ? altering program data and so on ...)

So I doubt boots are more (or less) sensitive to unibios than to the original bios. They should be running either fine on both, or badly on both... I guess.
Maybe Raz could give us its opinion on this if he reads us. :cool:

I refuse to keep & play bootlegs. The ones I had in the past (originating C***le Collectibles, sent back + chargeback :angry: ) worked OK for the few minutes I had them running, but the power consumption was higher than average (I can see the current drain on my PS) and they tend to become hot. Plus, they are simply not the real deal, so outta here :very_ang:

Back to the original topic, I'm currently stuck with 2 "factory bootlegs" as mentionned above.

As an update, here are the pics of both boards for those of you interested :

if someone wants to host the pics for further reference, please feel free to do so as I can't host them forever.


Note the use of original SNK customs chips (NEO-ZMC, NEO-PCM, NEO-273) in conjunction with Intel Flash chips, all surface mounted. There are also 2 EPROMS.
The design is kind of neat and all solder is factory-made. :eek:

Hopefully it will be back to its seller tomorrow. :emb:
Click to expand...

What game is that..?(I want to name the pics)

I'm trying to upload and host the pics to photobucket but they won't upload..
I'll try again later..
 
Razoola

Razoola

Divine Hand of the UniBIOS,
Staff member
20 Year Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2002
Posts
4,662
There is no way from telling if a game is a boot from the crc given in the universe bios. This is because many boots simply have identical data as the real thing. There are a few exceptions though.

Kof99,Kof2000,Garou and MetalSlug3 will all show the ROM banks as Custom if they are genuine carts. If you get CRC's for the ROM banks you can be sure they are boots 100% garanteed.

Raz
 
chris1

chris1

POCKETBIKE NUT,
Joined
Oct 18, 2002
Posts
10,830
Suehirocho said:
Hi Chris, thx for the hosting :buttrock:

this one was NeoBM

How do you like it ? scrary huh :blow_top:
Click to expand...


Actually..IMO..that's a pretty clean boot....

How does it work..?..



I finally got your pics up.....Neo Bomberman

vvvvv.jpg

Suehirocho.jpg
 
S

Suehirocho

New Challenger
Joined
May 22, 2004
Posts
62
Thanks for the pics Chris

Yup, pretty damn clean, I woud even dare to say it has a nice design but ... it's still a boot :angry: :shame: :envy: :crying:

From the 30 minutes or so I gave it a try, everything was fine, gfx and sound all ok. Only the power consumption was a bit high at around 1.5 A which is usually the case for high megs counts like the latest Kofs, not 138 Megs carts.

At this point, no news about my refund :spock:

This is a game I had been looking for for ages so big disappointment as the quest is not over yet... maybe I should try the WTB forum :help:
 
chris1

chris1

POCKETBIKE NUT,
Joined
Oct 18, 2002
Posts
10,830
Suehirocho said:
Thanks for the pics Chris

Yup, pretty damn clean, I woud even dare to say it has a nice design but ... it's still a boot :angry: :shame: :envy: :crying:

From the 30 minutes or so I gave it a try, everything was fine, gfx and sound all ok. Only the power consumption was a bit high at around 1.5 A which is usually the case for high megs counts like the latest Kofs, not 138 Megs carts.

At this point, no news about my refund :spock:

This is a game I had been looking for for ages so big disappointment as the quest is not over yet... maybe I should try the WTB forum :help:
Click to expand...

Your welcome..

I wonder how much you paid for it...


Can you tell me how I can determine.. power consumption.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top