Convert Red Hawk/Stagger I from yoko to tate

[_rm_]

I know this will be a very long shot because most people don't even know this game, but it is something that allways intrigued me, so here goes:

This is a korean shmup from Afega. The game is known by Red Hawk or Stagger I depending on the market, this is very common, what it isn't that common is that the games plays in tate in most regions (Stagger I in Japan and Red Hawk in Korea or USA, for example) but there is a yoko version for Europe.

Looking at the available pictures online, the PCB looks exactly the same in all regions, so i decided to pick a european verision to try it out.

Since i don't know what each eprom does, i tried to burn eproms 4; 6 and 7 with stagger I code since they are the biggest and i assumed contained graphical information. Sure enough, the game boots in Tate with perfect sound but with some graphical glitches. I then added eproms 2 and 3 and the game stopped booting. Now only a few blocks appear and sound is all messy.

I've also tried Red Hawk eproms from USA version with same results. This mame version doesn't eeven have eprom 5 (no idea what it is).

Long story short:
Can anyone more knowledgeable look at MAME info (i guess) and see if something can be done?


Many thanks in advance if someone can spare a few minutes with this.Kind regards

 

[nem]

That's interesting. Pretty drastic change for the European market.

I just tried it in Mame. Background scrolling doesn't work if you replace Red Hawk (Spain) roms with Stagger 1. Otherwise it seems to run fine. However, Mame isn't perfect emulation of the hardware. What works in Mame doesn't necessarily work on hardware (and vice versa).

This mame version doesn't eeven have eprom 5 (no idea what it is).

No, because that's taken from the parent rom which I believe is Stagger 1.

Anyway, in Mame the game runs on the NMK16 driver. The below link should drop you where it shows how Mame loads the rom:

https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/mame/drivers/nmk16.cpp#L7678

2 & 3 are the program roms.

1 & 5 are for audio. These are the same for all versions.

4 is background graphics. 6 & 7 are for sprites.

If it doesn't work by replacing 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7, then just swapping rom data isn't enough.

 

[Hammy]

Maybe a BPROM / Gal thing.... things such as screen resolution etc are done in hardware...

 

[_rm_]

If it doesn't work by replacing 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7, then just swapping rom data isn't enough.

Not sure if i tried with all 5 eproms swaped at the same time, but will try again later and report back.

Maybe a BPROM / Gal thing.... things such as screen resolution etc are done in hardware...

As i said, at least the games changes to Tate when you change eproms 6 and 7

 

[_rm_]

Just checked again and with all 5 eproms swaped (2,3,4,6 and 7)the game doesn't boot. Only thing that "kind of happens" is that you can hear the credit sound if you put a coin.

I've used the US version of Red Hawk for the test.

Anything else i could try?