Metal Slug 3 Hardware

Nickrb said:

I have a NG CD, an Omega CMVS, and another CMVS which I bought from JNX that is stuck in transit.

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Awesome.

HeavyMachineGun said:

Yes, the order I described the cart sets in is probably how they were released. I also have a MVS Metal Slug 3 with PROGBK1, it has a high serial. It most likely was made after SNK Corp's closure.

Any of the Metal Slug 3 sets are suitable for converting. If you have one with PROGBLA, just get KOF 99 or 2000. If you have PROGBK1, get a KOF 2001. To stay authentic, the former should have JP artwork and the latter should be English.

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Just thought I'd correct this for future reference. There are at least two versions of CHAFIO. KOF 99 and Metal Slug 3 share version 1, which doesn't encrypt M1 ROM. KOF 2000 and later (including 2001) use a newer CHAFIO board with an encrypted M1 ROM. For whatever reason, KOF 2000 and any early CHAFIO game are not compatible for that reason. The end result would be no music.

HeavyMachineGun said:

Just thought I'd correct this for future reference. There are at least two versions of CHAFIO. KOF 99 and Metal Slug 3 share version 1, which doesn't encrypt M1 ROM. KOF 2000 and later (including 2001) use a newer CHAFIO board with an encrypted M1 ROM. For whatever reason, KOF 2000 and any early CHAFIO game are not compatible for that reason. The end result would be no music.

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There's only 1 version FIO but there are 2 versions of the CMC chip. There is CMC42 and CMC50. Both work with only a handful of games.

Here's a list:

http://wiki.neogeodev.org/index.php?title=NEO-CMC

Xian Xi said:

There's only 1 version FIO but there are 2 versions of the CMC chip. There is CMC42 and CMC50. Both work with only a handful of games.

Here's a list:

http://wiki.neogeodev.org/index.php?title=NEO-CMC

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Yes that's technically correct, but I can't imagine anyone would swap the NEO-CMC chip between boards.

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone in this thread for the info, particularly Xian Xi and metallizer.
I bought a cart off ebay (I know, I know, I probably overpaid), and got suspicious when I saw the sub-board. I thought I had been swindled for a moment there, but as it turns out, it's all legit.

I am just now getting into the MVS and I'm trying my best to avoid bootlegs.

Mr. Mort said:

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone in this thread for the info, particularly Xian Xi and metallizer.
I bought a cart off ebay (I know, I know, I probably overpaid), and got suspicious when I saw the sub-board. I thought I had been swindled for a moment there, but as it turns out, it's all legit.

I am just now getting into the MVS and I'm trying my best to avoid bootlegs.

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One of the most important things to learn with MVS bootlegs is telling apart SNK boards and fake boards. All of SNK's boards share the same silkscreening and general board layout/quality. Go to www.mvs-scans.com and look at the official carts, notice they look the same usually. Then look at the bootlegs, how they vary widely in quality and appearance.

With Metal Slug 3 in particular, most bootlegs are historical ones from around 2000, where bootleggers would make their own boards with either decrypted ROMs, or possibly with some hack workaround for the encryption.

HeavyMachineGun said:

One of the most important things to learn with MVS bootlegs is telling apart SNK boards and fake boards. All of SNK's boards share the same silkscreening and general board layout/quality. Go to www.mvs-scans.com and look at the official carts, notice they look the same usually. Then look at the bootlegs, how they vary widely in quality and appearance.

With Metal Slug 3 in particular, most bootlegs are historical ones from around 2000, where bootleggers would make their own boards with either decrypted ROMs, or possibly with some hack workaround for the encryption.

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Thanks for the heads-up.

Just bumping this thread with a little more info about these mini PCB's (copy paster from another thread).

Ack has confirmed a NGP dumper can correctly dump the NeoGeo Pocket type PCB's used on a few NeoGeo games from 1999/2000.

Games known to use this daughter PCB so far are; KOF2000, Garou and Metal Slug 3.

The mini PCB must be removed from the PROG board before dumping and both sides must be read (flip if over in NGP reader). The resulting two dump are then simply interleaved (8bit). This process has been done on both KOF2000 and Garou. Both dumps once interleaved match dumps in already in MAME (when the matching encrypted P1 and P2 are simply joined P1+P2). There is no new encryption or different syle of encryption used.