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vholfx

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Hi all,

I recently got a CPS3 board with SF3 III strike. I got it because the price was nice but I have a few questions regarding the seller statements.

  1. The cartridge has been modified so it doesn't have a battery anymore (it won't suicide the seller says). What does that entail? Is it similar to CPS2 phoenix process where the roms are no longer originals?
  2. It didn't come with the original CD, but a backup instead. Does that play along with the cartridge mod? or does the cps3 run backups by default?
  3. See my picture attached, there is a wire going to one of the chips, I asked the seller about it and he said "Sometimes it comes like that from the factory, really!", so, could that be true? if not, what would be the purpose of that "mod" if there is any. A repair possibly?
Thanks!
 

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Re: Point 2 - it runs backups by defaults, yes. Re: Point 3 - Yes, that's a factory mod, my board has it too. It's not terribly uncommon for boards to have mods from the factory, if they fabbed up a shitload of boards and then discovered a problem, a jumper wire is way cheaper than remaking them all.

Point 1, I'm not 100% sure on so I'll leave for smarter people.
 
There is no way to Phoenix a cps3 cart so most likely it is a SuperBIOS cart. Since original CDs can't be used with SuperBIOS that would explain the backed up CD.
 
Hi all,

I recently got a CPS3 board with SF3 III strike. I got it because the price was nice but I have a few questions regarding the seller statements.

  1. The cartridge has been modified so it doesn't have a battery anymore (it won't suicide the seller says). What does that entail? Is it similar to CPS2 phoenix process where the roms are no longer originals?
  2. It didn't come with the original CD, but a backup instead. Does that play along with the cartridge mod? or does the cps3 run backups by default?
  3. See my picture attached, there is a wire going to one of the chips, I asked the seller about it and he said "Sometimes it comes like that from the factory, really!", so, could that be true? if not, what would be the purpose of that "mod" if there is any. A repair possibly?
Thanks!
When you boot is there any mention of Darksoft? Boot up holding down P1 start and see if there any menu there? If so it is a Darksoft SuperBIOS cartridge.
1. Darksoft SuperBIOS does not need a battery. 2i original bios fails in a way where if there is no battery installed it will still run the game. Or at least that is what I have read on the internets.
2. There are original CDs of course, but yes you can always use a burned CD. the motherboard doesn't do any cd checks or have any kind of protection, it just reads the data in. You can also use scsi2sd to send the bits.
3. as stated, yes this is normal.
There is no way to Phoenix a cps3 cart so most likely it is a SuperBIOS cart. Since original CDs can't be used with SuperBIOS that would explain the backed up CD.
It's not the exact same as phoenix, but you can make any cartridge into a 2i cart bios. regular or nocd. And then the battery is no longer required. You would then need to encrypt 3rd strike or whatever game you like with the 2i key.

I would love a more technical explanation of how/why the 2i bios without a battery fails in a way that it's the same as a null key that 2i used. I believe this is different than having the key saved in the cpu, because otherwise you could just install another battery and it would be work again... but I don't think that's the case? I don't have any dead 2i carts to experiment with though.
 
Thank you all for the great replies.

No menu comes up if I hold down start. I think a few of the DIMM sticks (or maybe all) are Darksoft's, would that cause the Darksoft logo to show too?
 
Thank you all for the great replies.

No menu comes up if I hold down start. I think a few of the DIMM sticks (or maybe all) are Darksoft's, would that cause the Darksoft logo to show too?
no that wouldn't matter. the motherboard doesn't care who made the memory. I am guessing that you have a 2i cartridge without a battery installed into a 3s case. The backup cd you used to load the game has 3s reencrypted using the 2i game key?

Otherwise I can't think of another way it would be battery free and still operational (without darksoft superbios).
 
Thank you all for the great replies.

No menu comes up if I hold down start. I think a few of the DIMM sticks (or maybe all) are Darksoft's, would that cause the Darksoft logo to show too?
no that wouldn't matter. the motherboard doesn't care who made the memory. I am guessing that you have a 2i cartridge without a battery installed into a 3s case. The backup cd you used to load the game has 3s reencrypted using the 2i game key?
Otherwise I can't think of another way it would be battery free and still operational (without darksoft superbios).
Thanks! that makes sense. I'll try t make the vender spill a bit more details, but that sounds about right.
 
Make sure you have version 990512 (version A) and not 990608 (version B, unblockables removed)
 
Thank you all for the great replies.

No menu comes up if I hold down start. I think a few of the DIMM sticks (or maybe all) are Darksoft's, would that cause the Darksoft logo to show too?
no that wouldn't matter. the motherboard doesn't care who made the memory. I am guessing that you have a 2i cartridge without a battery installed into a 3s case. The backup cd you used to load the game has 3s reencrypted using the 2i game key?
Otherwise I can't think of another way it would be battery free and still operational (without darksoft superbios).
There are variants of the SuperBIOS that exist that boot straight into 3S for tournament use - entirely possible it’s been configured with that
 
Thank you all for the great replies.

No menu comes up if I hold down start. I think a few of the DIMM sticks (or maybe all) are Darksoft's, would that cause the Darksoft logo to show too?
no that wouldn't matter. the motherboard doesn't care who made the memory. I am guessing that you have a 2i cartridge without a battery installed into a 3s case. The backup cd you used to load the game has 3s reencrypted using the 2i game key?Otherwise I can't think of another way it would be battery free and still operational (without darksoft superbios).
There are variants of the SuperBIOS that exist that boot straight into 3S for tournament use - entirely possible it’s been configured with that
That's why I asked him to hold down p1 start while booting to see if it goes to a menu. i believe that all darksoft superbios versions will still respond to holding down p1 start?
 
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