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Capcom ZN Conversion/Multi Interest Thread

twistedsymphony

twistedsymphony

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OK we've got the CPS3 and CPS2 mutlis and a CPS1 (if you count the French one and/or the Xin1, or whatever else might come out) So what about the Capcom ZN Hardware?

The Capcom ZN games all seem to use the same (or at least very similar) ROM boards, the only thing I can see that seems to differentiate them other than the ROMs themselves is the protection. It's not likely that these games will ever work properly on the G-NET hardware since the G-Net is lacking Q-Sound audio. But it seems to me that if the protection was broken one could make a PCB that plugs into the ROM sockets. While there are two main boards (ZN-1 and ZN-2) though most of the games worth playing are on ZN2.

Mostly 3D fighters on this system but they're fun fighters and the addition of Strider 2 and Tetris TGM (both $300+ games) are a nice addition.

Fighting Games (ZN1):
Battle Arena Toshinden 2
Star Gladiator
Street Fighter EX
Street Fighter EX Plus

Fighting Games (ZN2):
Rival Schools/Shiritsu Justice Gakuen
Star Gladiator 2/Plasma Sword
Street Fighter EX2
Street Fighter EX2 Plus
Tech Romancer/Choukou Senki Kikaioh

Action/Platformer (ZN2):
Strider 2

Puzzle (ZN2):
Tetris: The Grand Master

Ohter (ZN1):
Gallop Racer


I'm curious what the the more technical minded here on the forum thing of the potential here, I know I'd definitely buy a multi for this hardware. Heck I'd be super happy just to buy some conversion ROMs to convert one of my spare Rival Schools or Tech Romancer PCBs to Strider 2 or Street Fighter EX2 Plus. :thumbup:
 
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I mean, I wouldn't say no if a multi came around. I'd be in.

Conversions are neat, but surface mount means a lot more work. So... Meh. Good for people who want TGM though.
 
rewrite said:
Conversions are neat, but surface mount means a lot more work. So... Meh. Good for people who want TGM though.
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I don't know what you're talking about with surface mount... as I said in the top post... the ROMS are all socketed on these games. heck even the protection chip and PALs are socketed.
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ZN1 does not play on ZN2. :(

I just way overpaid for a full working SFEX2+, a rom board which I already own, just to be able to play my rom boards. 2 dead ZN2 mobo's here, and these things seem to be getting rare as hen's teeth. I would personally love to see a multi, but I think finding suitable working motherboards, or enough people that own them, might be prohibitive. I could be wrong, maybe someone knows where the stockpile is, but I've seen others also looking for ZN2 mobo's so they can play their rom boards.
 
This is something i've wanted to do for a very long time but never dug into other than trying to get the G-net loading.
Time is low, and other tings happening for now so left it.
Just getting one of the hacked G-nets disassembled or going in mame should provide a method for them all.

ZN2 has more ram so no on the upgrades.
The process for patching the CAT702 i have not looked at but there are bootlegs done by other people with all kinds of methods from code patches to a bootleg FPGA cat 702.
The romboards also have different GALS. I have a few that can be sent for dumping, it's do-able but time once again puts it low on everyones list.
 
I can dump the GALs too, if needed. I have SFEX2, SFEX2+, Rival Schools.

I also have Gallop Racer 3 (Tecmo ZN-1), if that's needed but I don't think it is.
 
YesAffinity said:
ZN1 does not play on ZN2. :(
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Yeah, that was one of the first things I tried with my ZN1 ROM boards when I got a ZN2 :D

I'd definitely be interested in a ZN2 multi for:

Rival Schools/Shiritsu Justice Gakuen
Street Fighter EX2 Plus
Tech Romancer/Choukou Senki Kikaioh
Strider 2
Tetris: The Grand Master

-ud
 
Found a ZN2 boardset in my junk pile, powered it => red screen of death.
Does anyone know what's the source of this common problem? I've seen that many times before, board working one day and the next day dead and stuck on a plain red screen.
From my experience I know the problem is on the motherboard.
 
Don't worry. You were quicker!
 
I already have Ex 2 plus and Rival Schools, but will be nice play Star Gladiator and others too.
 
The protection is two or three-fold on the ZN boards - there’s a custom bios per manufacturer, jumpers set on the A board and a protection chip on both the A and B board. The two chips form some sort of serial communication between the two akin to how the controller bus works on Playstation but that’s about the extent I know.

Having said that I’ll gladly trade my star gladiator 2 for ex2+ >:]
 
And one thing I forgot to mention - the best approach probably would be to take the ZN bios and patch out the security checking routine which should make the chips useless. Problem is the chip is TSOP, there's no socket to update the bios like on G-NET and I know next to nothing about reverse engineering bios firmwares.
 
twistedsymphony said:
sammargh said:
Problem is the chip is TSOP, there's no socket to update the bios like on G-NET
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I wonder if you could use a G-NET sub-board to update the bios on a Capcom ZN-2 Main board?
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Looking at the ZN A board between the two they're the same with the proper protection chip/jumper set however I don't think the mod bios actually flashes anything on the A board. The bios on the A board is a mask rom which means in theory it shouldn't be capable of being re-flashed. When inspecting the B board however I see next to the bios update socket in u30 a LH28F160S5T which is a 16MBit flash chip. This likely is what stores the current bios and the fail-back bios for failed updates as the modbios is 8mbit.

Edit: Ah, here's where I remember the protection stuff - it's fully documented in MAME https://github.com/MisterTea/MAMEHub/blob/master/Sources/Emulator/src/mame/machine/cat702.c

Theoretically the communication is simple enough that you could reimplement this using something like rpi or arduino I believe
 
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there's deffinately two copies of the bios stored somewhere on the top board as I've had one revert from modbios 2011 back to the standard bios. And if you swap an mb2011 top board over with a standard one the mod follows the top board

And from trying to get a tetris top board working on other zn2 base boards the maskrom & protection chip seem to determine what type of top board will work.
 
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Street Fighter EX2 Plus
Strider 2
Tetris: The Grand Master

Solid gold games for sure, but only three must owns for me.
Still depending on the price I might in/down.
 
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