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3rd Strike graphical and sound issues on Net City cab

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Jamesmakesgames

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Hey y'all, first time poster and new retro candy cab hobbyist here. I recently acquired a used Net City cab and some arcade boards, purchased separately. I've had pretty good luck with my CPS2 Super Turbo board and my MVS but my coveted Darksoft 3rd Strike board has some graphical and sound issues that are tough to look past.

Bright colors on characters and other elements appear blown out, and depending on what's happening on screen there are bands of color bleed that follow moving elements like characters or UI sprites.

Audio is somewhat unstable, sometimes getting quieter or seeming to drop one of the stereo channels.

I've tested the board on a friend's viewlix and it doesn't experience any of these issues so I'm thinking it must be something in my net city setup. I'm converting JVS to JAMMA using a wire loom/harness, no PCBs or anything like that, works great for ST and MVS games.

I checked my PSU and the 12v line seems weak being unable to get any higher than 11.48 no matter how high I try adjusting the 5v (with game disconnected of course).

Any ideas? I have a new power supply on the way but not 100% sure that will fix it. Thanks in advance!

Last note: ST works mostly perfect, but sound is kinda scuffed on some stages and once in a while the screen flickers black for a frame or two as though a power interruption occurred. MVS looks mostly good but I get some ripple on the CRT at times.

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BuddyC said:
One of these fixed the same issue for me. Including CPS3 multi.
https://irkenlabs.com/product/jammafier/
Click to expand...
Gotcha. I looked into these when I was first figuring out how to convert the JVS to JAMMA. They seem pretty hard to acquire, also I was hoping to avoid introducing any lag via going through the PCB but maybe it's negligible on these.

I wonder if your issue was the same and if so is it related to monitor sync? Perhaps something that could be fixed via a setting. I also wonder why my CPS2 and MVS look fine on the same setup.
 
As far as I recall, the jammafier does not introduce any lag.
I have had a couple of New Net City’s and all of them showed the same issue as your 3rd strike, while others (like MVS) looked fine. On older revisions of the jammafier, it was a external add on called tri-sync helper that fixed the issue. On newer revisions it is built directly on the jammafier.
More info under:
https://irkenlabs.com/jammafier/tri-sync-helper/
 
Got it! Thanks so much for the detailed response. That does sound like the same issue. Did you have any problems with audio or the somewhat rare interrupted frames I described on CPS2? I'm assuming those could be PSU related but I haven't opened it up or anything beyond volt testing yet.

It seems to be pretty hard to buy these Jammafiers at the moment. I actually was planning to go with that from the get go but ended up having to go with a custom harness instead since I didn't trust the Alibaba and Chinese eBay converters. At least not to be lag free.

I wonder if there's another way for me to convert the signal impedance, maybe after the VGA output on the harness 🤔. I'll also settle for somehow being able to acquire a Jammafier but I've tried without success so far.
 
You could try the Retro Scaler, the CPS3 is on the tested list.

A WTB post for the Jammafier may yield a seller. Zim also posts on the forums so you could try sending him a PM to see if he has a restock update. Might be hairy right now with ongoing world events though.

Good luck!
 
Oooh the retro scaler seems to be in stock, could be a viable solution. Noob question, would this be able to get power without any additional add on to the net city + JAMMA/JVS loom setup? I'm currently bypassing the Naomi I/O on the cab and just running the loom up the arm to the joystick panel. Guessing this could get power from the USB on the Naomi I/O?
 
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I'm not sure there is a usable USB port on the I/O but you could probably add a small power strip or some other breakout inside the cab to plug in a USB power source without too much hassle.
 
Jamesmakesgames said:
That does sound like the same issue. Did you have any problems with audio or the somewhat rare interrupted frames I described on CPS2? I'm assuming those could be PSU related but I haven't opened it up or anything beyond volt testing yet.
Click to expand...
I can’t remember I had any issues with audio.
 
@Jamesmakesgames, where did you pick up your custom harness from? How is video connected to the monitor? What monitor do you have? Do you have buttons or dials for the monitor controls under the control panel?

kazuo said:
You could try the Retro Scaler, the CPS3 is on the tested list.
Click to expand...

The stock monitor in the Net City does 15khz natively, so I'm not sure I see the value of a Retro Scaler for this purpose.
 
I got this custom harness off eBay. https://www.ebay.com/itm/174871198968

VGA comes off of that and goes into the Naomi I/O.

EDIT: Just heard back from the seller, it's the original monitor. Never replaced

There are buttons to adjust the monitor under the control panel, which I've tinkered with to no end. All that's available to me is v/h position and size, brightness, contrast and degauss.
 
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BuddyC said:
Then you should have a Nanao MS-2931 chassis.
Info on how to get to the extended menu in the link below.

https://wiki.arcadeotaku.com/w/Nanao_MS-2931
Click to expand...
Thanks! I'll check that out. I'm no expert on CRT tuning/adjustment, I mostly have experience tuning the shape/bounds of the image but I can probably figure it out. Is there anything in particular you'd look at first in there though? H-sync maybe?
 
Jamesmakesgames said:
VGA comes off of that and goes into the Naomi I/O.
Click to expand...

Wait, what Naomi IO?

There's a 15-pin AMP UP connector on the side of the monitor chassis. Ideally you would want to connect the video from your jamma board to that.

EDIT: and the audio terminates to RCA connectors? Is there any sort of attenuation? This is a weird harness.
 
I've had such color problems with cps3 on older chassis on my nnc pb9929 and riverservice jamma harness, on newer chassis pb1843 the problem wasn't happening. Jammafier ruled out all the problems. Seem that cps3 have some color incompatibilites with some hardware when connected directly
 
Apologies for my most likely incorrect terminology. I meant JVS I/O but actually theres just a VGA connector that I'm running the harness VGA into which I assume runs up to the monitor chassis. It seems to be a direct connection, no PCB in between.

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Correct, the audio terminates to RCAs. Not sure about attenuation or how I would test/identify that
 
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