ST-V Astra Super Stars color issues

Vendest · Nov 26, 2016

Just acquired Astra Super Stars for ST-V and happily fired it up.
It seems to be missing backgrounds and most of the screen is white. Characters barely appears and sound is not so clear.
The game seems legit and others games have worked fine so far on that ST-V board.
I have adjusted the framemeister settings but no improvement.
Does that game require an additional (daughter) board?

RevQuixo · Nov 26, 2016

No daughter board required, although it may require a kick harness for extra buttons

Vendest · Nov 26, 2016

RevQuixo said:
No daughter board required, although it may require a kick harness for extra buttons

Thanks for your reply about the daughter board, the kick harness is working fine no issues on that

RevQuixo · Nov 26, 2016

Vendest said:
Thanks for your reply about the daughter board, the kick harness is working fine no issues on that

Just popped open my copy...it looks exactly like yours on the inside, so I'd says yours is legit.

JoeAwesome · Nov 26, 2016

From the screenshot, I can see the background. The brightness looks way off, though. No issues with other carts on the same motherboard?

NERDtendo · Nov 26, 2016

I just got Astra Super Stars yesterday and it too looks like your board pics. I think you're safe to say it's legit.

Vendest · Nov 26, 2016

Thanks for your replies,
The other game I have Columns 97' looks fine on screen.
Adjusted the brightness all the way down but no improvement.
Every time a special move in-game is performed the background reappears for a second although the characters sprites remain white.
I tried the game with both stock bios and modbios.

In the mean time I have contacted the seller in Japan for replacement or refund.

Vendest · Nov 28, 2016

The seller replied my email and asked me to do a rom check on test mode which is a fair request.
Roms test 100% good.
I have finally noticed that the game intro is skipped till main game title with 9 credits loaded. So I tried to boot up with Columns 97' and ended with same issue, no intro and 9 credits loaded.
Obviously the system board is involved. Tried with and without controller/kick harness.

Thanks

Vendest · Nov 29, 2016

Problem solved!

I replaced the partly corroded socket hosting the bios, remove/replace the CR2032 battery and run a factory test on the board. Now all games intro show up and credit counter starts at 0 value.
As for the Astra cart brightness issue, it was again linked to the sync level of the framemeister.

Side note: Framemeister does a great job with regular consoles but is not suitable for Arcade. (MVS, KI, ST-V...) Let's go BVM/PVM instead.

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