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Can Someone School me on Taito G-Net with CF cards?

twistedsymphony

twistedsymphony

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I saw some posts here recently talking about burning CF cards for use on Taito G-Net boards... this is relevant to my interests but I hadn't heard much about this before.

What do I need to do this?
Are there any specific board revisions I need to look for?
Is there a special bios or other modification to the board that needs to be done?
does this support all of the G-Net games or only some of them?
anything else I should know before I start dropping coin on this stuff?
 
All you need: http://www.arcademodbios.com

But seriously, you do need:
a modified BIOS

Mother board revision do not matter.

I was looking into doing this myself as I have the motherboard and a couple of games, but it's low on the project list.
 
honestly, there's no need to pay stratospheric amounts of money to AMB for this conversion.

The AMB tool (GNET Flasher) doesn't work in Windows10 anyway.. so it's better to use the free CHDMAN solution
 
being-ignored-meme.png
 
As @deibit linked above, you can download and burn yourself. Make sure to use the 2011 version.
 
Burn the 2011 image to an eprom, plug it into the empty socket on the PCB, fit a jumper on two pins power it up without a game plugged in - wait while it erases & flashes the on board bios, remove chip & jumper and you're done.

Shouldn't cost more than the price of an eprom & postage.
 
ah, sorry the link was failing to load for me when I tried it earlier, it looks like it has everything I need :thumbsup:
 
a couple of questions that aren't answered in deibit's link.

What's a good source for cheap, compatible CF cards? looks like the 4GB SanDisk cards on amazon are about $10 a pop and even used ones on eBay aren't much cheaper.

It looks like AMB teased converting Primal Rage II for this platform, which would be amazing... did that ever happen? I'm guessing it never happened.
 
I don't think primal rage 2 ever got converted. However, I've played the other converted games and they definitely add value to owning a gnet with the mod bios.

I use 128m cards, plenty big for any gnet game

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Cisco-128MB-Standard-CompactFlash-CF-MEM1800-128CF-/301379280444

If I remember right I used a mame chd tool to extract the files to raw. I just use dd on linux to image the card, like:

dd if=file.raw of=/dev/sdb

No need for special software at that point.
 
Yes most of the games are available - from a link on the same blog - I got them ages ago, there are some limitations like missing sounds/music on some due to hardware differences but they're playable...

The AMB CF-flasher gets identified as malware on my PC so I use CHDMAN from mame to write them instead..

eg if you're CF-card reader (any decent USB one will do) is drive 4 (open dos command and run diskpart - list disk) and you want to write "aerofsp.chd" to a CF use the command line below.

chdman extracthd -i d:\g-net_games\aerofsp.chd -o \\.\physicaldrive4 -f

If you get a message that you can't write to the CF card, use diskpart to delete all partitions on it and try again.

Most G-Net games will fit on a 64Mb CF - I bought a box of 10 * 128Mb Sandisk and 6 * 256Mb random ones cheap off ebay and once I'd wiped them with diskpart they all worked fine. Stick to branded ones to be safe. Even ones the Naomi CF-reader didn't like work fine with G-Net.

Then all you need is a PC-card to CF-card adapter to fit in the G-Net PCB.

If you do it wrong or the CF's aren't compatible it loops round the vertical bars/G-net logo screens instead of loading & booting into the game.


There are different versions of the G-Net PCB but so far I've not had any issues updating them (apart from a faulty one where the bios won't erase).

If you'r buying one - the model to go for has a piggyback board to the left of the card-reader with some large capacitors on - this is a memory backup board. it cannot be retrofitted as the connections are usually missing on the board for ones that don't come with one (there are a couple of jumpers that need to be changed to enable/disable it).
 
Last edited:
penrhos said:
Yes most of the games are available - from a link on the same blog - I got them ages ago, there are some limitations like missing sounds/music on some due to hardware differences but they're playable...
Click to expand...
Any specific games with these problems?
 
penrhos said:
If you'r buying one - the model to go for has a piggyback board to the left of the card-reader with some large capacitors on - this is a memory backup board.
Click to expand...
what do you lose if you don't have this memory backup board?
 
jugu said:
Are these converted games available:
arcademodbios.com/gnet-new.htm

Or only from AMB?
Click to expand...
it looks like the CF Loader tool is what makes those games work, they're all included in the link that @deibit posted.

Looking at what's available it looks like it supports the following games:
Aero Fighers Special /Sonic Wings Limited [Conversion]
Brave Blade [Conversion] - (no music due to missing YMF271 IC, sound FX only)
Chaos Heat (V2.09O)
Chaos Heat (V2.08J)
Flame Gunner [Conversion]
Flip Maze
Fighters Impact [FX-1B Conversion]
G Darius /G Darius Ver 2. [FX-1B Conversion]
Go By RC (V2.03O)
Kollon (V2.04JA)
Kollon (V2.04JC)
Mahjong OH
Night Raid
Otenami Haiken Final
Otenami Haiken
Otenki Kororin Weather Tales
Psyvariar : Medium Unit
Psyvariar : Revision
Ray Crisis
Ray Storm [FX-1B Conversion]
Shanghai Sangokuhai Tougi
Shanghai Shoryu Sairin
Shanghai Matekibuyu [Conversion]
Shikigami No Shiro (V2.03J)
Space Invaders Anniversary
Soutenryu
Super Puzzle Bobble (V2.04J)
Super Puzzle Bobble (V2.05O)
The Block Kuzushi [Conversion]
Usagi
XII-STAG
Zoku Otenami Haiken
Zooo

that looks to include all of the G-Net games except for "Turn It Around / Mawasunda", maybe it's not dumped?
it also looks like it includes all of the Taito FX-1B games as well as a few other conversions.

Looking through MAME here are the other games that use a Sony ZN based main board that (might? maybe?) be converted in the future:

Capcom ZN-1
-Battle Arena Toshinden 2
-Gallop Racer
-Judge Dredd: The Game
-NBA Jam Extreme (uses an additional soundboard)
-Star Gladiator Episode: 1 Final Crusade
-Street Fighter EX
-Street Fighter EX Plus

Capcom ZN-2
-Rival Schools: United by Fate/Justice Gakuen: Legion of Heroes
-Star Gladiator 2: Nightermare of Bilstein / Plasma Sword
-Street Fighter EX2
-Street Fighter EX2 Plus
-Strider 2/Strider Hiryu 2
-Tech Romancer
-Tetris The Grand Master

Taito FX-1A
-Magical Date
-Magical Date EX
-Psychic Force
-Psychic Force EX
-Super Football Champ

Other ZN based releases
-1 on 1 Government
-Beastorizer
-Bloody Roar
-Bloody Roar 2
-Bust a Move 2 - Dance Tengoku Mix
-Cool Boarders Arcade Jam
-Dead or Alive++
-Gallop Racer 2
-Gallop Racer 3
-Heaven's Gate
-Logic Pro Adventure
-Monster Farm Jump
-Primal Rage II
-Tecmo World Cup Millennium
-Tondemo Crisis


I'd love to see Primal Rage II converted to work. Years ago when I discovered that game existed I've soaked up every bit of information I could on it. Ever Since Galloping Ghost got their hands on a board I've been debating flying out there just to play it. Having a playable version of this game at home in any form would definitely be a high light of my collection.
 
I've got one of these boards on it's way to me right now.

I was super excited when I looked in the manual they they suggested that the Egret-29 is the appropriate cab for this hardware.

Do any of these games (other than Primal Rage II) require a kick harness, if so which ones and where does the kick harness connect?
 
twistedsymphony said:
I've got one of these boards on it's way to me right now.

I was super excited when I looked in the manual they they suggested that the Egret-29 is the appropriate cab for this hardware.

Do any of these games (other than Primal Rage II) require a kick harness, if so which ones and where does the kick harness connect?
Click to expand...
For the G-Net, the RC racing games require a special controller or else they won't boot. I've also never gotten the Block Kuzushi conversion to boot as that likely needs special spinner wiring...?
I'd probably say to find the RC De Go manual and see where they wire that on the board.
 
I've had no problems booting/playing the Block Kuzushi game with a normal joystick. I don't recall doing anything special. Are you sure you have the 2011 not 2009 modbios?
 
aoiddr said:
For the G-Net, the RC racing games require a special controller or else they won't boot.
Click to expand...
I'd suspect they use analog inputs and would likely connect to the "analog" connector marked on the PCB. I was talking more about games that use more than 3 buttons per player.
 
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