CPS A-Board Differences

[ChuChu Flamingo]

I've done what I think is an interesting test: I've ran two SF2' (same region, same version) side by side, one with its OG 12MHz motherboard, the second one with a 10Mhz motherboard.

Game speed is exactly the same during attract (including demo fights), there are only small desynchronisations during "loading" (for instance between the disclaimer and the intro then between the intro and the demo fight) with an advantage to the 12Mhz board (logical, access times are shorter).
However in game, game is 20% faster on the 12Mhz board!
No this raises the question: how is that possible that fight speed is identical during attract but different in game?
It's worth having a look at the code in details.

Makes sense to me if you're talking about hyper fighting. Correct me if im wrong, but the attract mode is massively slower and doesn't skip frames.

It makes perfect sense though why a 10 MHz vs 12 Mhz A-board makes a speed difference in game of 20%.

almost all emulators run hyper fighting by default faster than they should be (faster than Super Turbo Speed 2/GMC speed 3). I think the explanation is that capcom essentially tied the game speed to vsync, which is why increased power makes it run faster but I may be wrong.

But yeah if you are talking about CE/Dash then that is strange indeed. Doesn't Hyper Fighting run at a different speed than japan Turbo as well?

 

[fluxcore]

CE, Dash, HF were intended to run on 12MHz, pretty sure this is acknowledged by now. Remember HF was also available as a 'rom upgrade' to CE (there's no standalone manual as far as I can find, just an upgrade pamphlet). I don't believe CE was ever offered as a rom upgrade to WW.

Of course this didn't stop arcade operators mixing & matching boards all over the place, as we know.

Interesting that CE supposedly came out before Dash - I knew there were differences but thought Dash came out earlier and that was the version that got changed. Meh, CE is my least favourite SF2 anyway

(I assumed earlier Apoc was testing with HF rather than CE boards, will be interesting to see what he clarifies with)

AFAIK HF and SF2T should run at the same speed. Doesn't really matter for a multiboard anyway, since they'd both run on the same hardware.

 

[Jdurg]

Guys, Champion Edition IS Dash. The differences are in the regional naming conventions. (Japan calls it "Dash" since they denote the apostrophe in the title screen as DASH. Also because the A-Board for Champion edition games is the CPS DASH revision denoting 12 MHz on-board crystal). The USA region just ignored that apostrophe on the title screen and called it Champion Edition. Go and load up both regions games and you'll see the title screen, except for copyright information, is exactly the same between regions.

Champion Edition was never offered as an upgrade kit. I believe the custom chips on the C-Boards are different, and you can't simply swap ROMs to convert WW to CE. You need a completely different board.

Now if we are going to compare Champion Edition US versus Champion Edition Japan, we need to see a Champion Edition US PCB booting up from the start so we can see that it is a PCB and we can see the revision number. We will then need the Japan Champion Edition PCB booting up in the same way so we can see that revision number as well.

You can't compare a version 920308 Japan revision of the game to a 920315 US revision of the game. That is comparing apples to oranges since the code is different between the versions and Capcom never released "upgrade notes" with the ROM Revisions. So your comparison MUST be done with the same revision date of the game. To me, it sounds like you are applying names to special revision dates of the game ROMs which will only add to the confusion out there.

 

[Apocalypse]

Well when I said SF' I meant it wasn't the OG WW. I've ran the tests with CE and HF with the same results.
But as stated here there might be some dipswitches moved on the 12MHz A board causing overspeed.
I'll have a look.

 

[jassin000]

I knew there were differences but thought Dash came out earlier and that was the version that got changed. Meh, CE is my least favourite SF2 anyway

BLASPHEMY!

Yes HF was a ROM upgrade for CE, so why was it released like that when all other releases were dedicated B-boards?
Well because Capcom was done with SF2 at that point, they had already started work on what would become Super Street Fighter 2.
However many illegal ROM hack kits were floating around, Rainbow was I believe the most popular but too many to even count/name.
Capcom wanted to put a stop to the illegal hacks, but SSF2 wasn't going to be ready... HF was quickly put together and released as a stop gap for the illegal kits.

That is the TRUTH!

So why is this important for HF? Well because it's not a "real" Street Fighter game.
It was made to address a problem of illegal ROM hacks, it wasn't made because Capcom thought the game needed something more.
Capcom was finished with it... It's more of an official ROM hack, then a independent game.
I don't count it (as part of the series) I won't count it (I won't even play that unbalanced/broken trash, I've converted every HF board I've ever owned) and you shouldn't either.

#hfisntreallysf2

Spoiler

Was a HF, trashed that shit for Captain Commando (you can still see part of the original hologram sticker from HF on #23).

Was HF, trashed that shit for Knights of the Round.

Was HF, trashed that shit for GnG.

 

[PascalP]

True story @jassin000!

This is a nice read if you have a minute or 2...
https://www.polygon.com/a/street-fighter-2-oral-history

 

[donluca]

@Jdurg apologies if I created any kind of ambiguity, I'd like to reinforce your statement because Dash *IS* Champion Edition, albeit released some time after and with several tweaks and balance changes.
Same is true with the World revision of World Warrior (not 100% sure on this one) where they corrected some bugs the original release had (the infamous "handcuffs" for example).
If MAME is good enough for you I can make a video showing you the differences shown in the video I posted if you want any kind of confirmation.

I can also 100% confirm that HF was sold as a ROM upgrade kit and I don't think I've ever seen a "stock" HF board straight from Capcom.
Problem is that I've seen (and discussed in other forums) people with SF2CE boards supposedly straight from Capcom (IIRC, it was people buying full kits from arcade operators who bought from Capcom) which still had the 10Mhz 68k on it (and 10Mhz crystal). At the time we were discussing this, several people thought that it was Capcom clearing some old boards they had left in storage.
And then, of course, there was a mess with the arcade operators mixing boards, so who knows what used what.

Pretty messy topic tbh.

If I had to make a statement about this, logic would have that SF2 was on 10Mhz, SF2CE on 12Mhz and SF2HF, being a simple ROM upgrade, had to be 12Mhz as well.

Still, it should be investigated if World Warrior runs 20% faster with a 12Mhz board.

EDIT: one more thing. I'm almost sure that SF2 and SF2CE should play at the same speed, which means that a World Warrior on 10Mhz and a SF2CE on 12Mhz should be equal, speed wise. This also needs to be addressed.
Also, just to make sure, when I say "equal" I mean not 20% faster. Of course there might be some slight speed changes, but nothing as drastic as 20%.

 

[Jdurg]

No worries donluca. No ambiguity intended. I'm just a real fanatical person about evidence. Probably an OCD type thing. That's why I think we are actually agreeing on the same thing, but just wording in differently.

 

[Joko3]

When I had a HF board on my 10mhz board the speed seemed off, but not 20%. It actually still seemed faster than CE.

 

[PascalP]

I can also 100% confirm that HF was sold as a ROM upgrade kit and I don't think I've ever seen a "stock" HF board straight from Capcom.
Problem is that I've seen (and discussed in other forums) people with SF2CE boards supposedly straight from Capcom (IIRC, it was people buying full kits from arcade operators who bought from Capcom) which still had the 10Mhz 68k on it (and 10Mhz crystal). At the time we were discussing this, several people thought that it was Capcom clearing some old boards they had left in storage.
And then, of course, there was a mess with the arcade operators mixing boards, so who knows what used what.

I do have an original SF2HF board, but I agree 99% of all SF2HF boards are rom upgrades provided by Capcom.
I'll post a pic of the board later in the weekend.

Obvious difference is the sticker on the C board, my SF2' (or SF2CE whatever you call it ) has this sticker;
Street Fighter II'

Where the SF2HF board has a sticker like this;
SF II' (and then some Kanji's which translate to hyper/turbo or something)

 

[PascalP]

Here I found a similar SF2HF board to mine, check the C board;

 

[Nimmers]

Nope, they are different. Dash came after CE and they took the chance to balance some stuff around. 100% sure.

EDIT: proof

They are all a bit different. There's three versions of the USA sf2ce, 920313, 920513 and 920803 then Japan 920322, 920513 and 920803.

All pretty minor differences. I got pretty familiar with USA 920803.

It's not worth getting hung up on the differences, just pick one and enjoy it! Its a great game, everyone should play it.

 

[donluca]

Jeez, really? I didn't know that. I only knew about the very first World Warrior which had that couple of infamous bugs and the Dash version.

SF2 has been my favorite game of all time, now I have to get back and check every single version for differences, lol.

 

[Nimmers]

Here's one of the patched bugs:

 

[Jdurg]

Jeez, really? I didn't know that. I only knew about the very first World Warrior which had that couple of infamous bugs and the Dash version.

SF2 has been my favorite game of all time, now I have to get back and check every single version for differences, lol.

Hehe. Yeah, there are a TON of revisions. Looking through the CPS1 source code in MAME you can see all the ones that folks aware of, but there could still be more out there.

What's most frustrating is that Capcom never officially released any patch notes about what was different in each revision of the game, and back then Capcom never saved any of that information either. So a lot of what was changed from revision-to-revision could be lost to time. Any formal documentation of the differences between revisions is always welcomed.

I think it would be nice to have a repository of all this information. Just for personal knowledge, but also in case anybody wants to really understand the coding in the game, more. May even help gain a better understanding of how the hardware works too.

 

[jassin000]

USA sf2ce, 920313, 920513 and 920803 then Japan 920322, 920513 and 920803.

I consider both the USA/JAP version 920803 to be the definitive version of CE, as it was the last version released.
However I'm sure the community will disagree... Prime example being SF3-3rd.

With 3rd Strike I consider 990608 to be the definitive because it too was a final "bug fixed" version.
Fighting game enthusiasts and tournament players hate it, they prefer 990512.

I've never understood this at all... Hugo was too strong in 512, he needed gimping and those unblockables are just some cheap bullshit.
Also you what's totally mega bullshit, someone crashing/freezing the game by using Ken's neutral grab on Makoto.

 

[fluxcore]

USA sf2ce, 920313, 920513 and 920803 then Japan 920322, 920513 and 920803.

I consider both the USA/JAP version 920803 to be the definitive version of CE, as it was the last version released.However I'm sure the community will disagree... Prime example being SF3-3rd.

With 3rd Strike I consider 990608 to be the definitive because it too was a final "bug fixed" version.
Fighting game enthusiasts and tournament players hate it, they prefer 990512.

I've never understood this at all... Hugo was too strong in 512, he needed gimping and those unblockables are just some cheap bullshit.
Also you what's totally mega bullshit, someone crashing/freezing the game by using Ken's neutral grab on Makoto.

It's mainly because the mid tier got nerfed by the 'fixes' but the top tier were untouched. Made an already skewed competitive game even more skewed, which wasn't well received.

 

[Joko3]

Here I found a similar SF2HF board to mine, check the C board;

The katakana next to the SFII’ is “ta-bo” (pronounced like taah-bow), so Turbo lol.

 

[Nimmers]

USA sf2ce, 920313, 920513 and 920803 then Japan 920322, 920513 and 920803.

I consider both the USA/JAP version 920803 to be the definitive version of CE, as it was the last version released.However I'm sure the community will disagree... Prime example being SF3-3rd.

Even those two are a bit different if you play Sagat or Boxer.

 

[donluca]

Yup, the Japanese one is the newer and with most fixes and balance changes.