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CPS1 & CPS2 Supergun Project

edd_jedi

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I'm not entirely sure if this warrants a project thread, but it's been two years in the making and I've spent many hours on it so far, so I thought why not document it.

The ultimate aim - a simple, plug and play Capcom CPS1 and CPS2 setup with as little mess as possible. Must work with my CRT TV, must use proper arcade sticks (or "fight sticks" as some call them) and the games need to be reasonably easy to switch over. I don't have room for an arcade machine, as a bit of history I had one in my bedroom in the 90s, but now I have a family and 3 young kids, I can't justify having one in the house (yet, maybe one day!)

While this is blasphemy on here, I'll begin with where it all started - a small Retropie setup in 2022. I stumbled across the Sega Astro City Mini on Amazon, and then was blown away by the accompanying sticks. I bought one of each colour (green and pink) and after a little messing around with emulators on my computer, decided to try Retropie. My first crude setup was the Pi and stick hooked up to an old 4:3 monitor on the end of my desk. This was enough to give me the bug!

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I already had a decent 25" Sony CRT with all my consoles setup on it, so the next thing I wanted was to hook the Retropie up to that. I found the RGB-Pi cable and a nice case, and ended up with this smart little setup connected to my CRT.

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This was great for casual gaming, but while the emulation was pretty good for most games I found the input lag pretty noticeable in Street Fighter games, and while some of the runahead options fixed that, they also had unwanted side effects. So I decided I had to have the real thing - a Supergun and CPS1 & 2 boards.
 
In December 2022 I sourced the two arcade boards I needed. I had no clue about Darksoft multi-kits at this time so was intending to just buy one game for each system to start with, and maybe collect more later.

The CPS2 A&B set came from eBay, it was what I now realise to be a converted Hyper SF2 board, but I didn't know that at the time so probably paid over the odds for it. I had no luck finding a SF2CE CPS1 board on eBay for a reasonable price, so took a gamble on an Ali Express one. As these are basically pot luck I did OK, receiving a genuine 'dash' A board, SF2T C board, but a repro B board (again I know all this with hindsight, had no idea at the time.) I didn't realise how unreliable CPS1 boards were, so have had a few problems with this, but for the price I paid including a 50% partial refund from the seller, I kept it.

Finally I needed a Supergun - I didn't want to splash out on a "premium" one to start with, so bought this cheap SLG-260, which did the job for the time being. Hooked up to an old PC ATX power supply, this was the end result:

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It worked, but it wasn't pretty, or tidy. Also the SLG-260 only has DB15 inputs, so for the time being I was limited to an AES stick with only 4 buttons, but it was a start. Now I had proven the concept to myself, I wanted something much simpler/tidier, and a way to connect the Sega Astro City sticks I had come to love (not connected to the Supergun in the picture above.)
 
At this point we had another baby and I completely forgot about all this for a couple of years, as I lost my "office" for it to become the baby's bedroom.
What sparked my interest again recently was stumbling across a Darksoft CPS2 multi on eBay while searching for CPS2 boards, I didn't know these were a thing! It was the older "non Champion Edition" version but that was fine by me with it costing a lot less. In my research I came across the official threads on this forum which you may have seen me posting in recently. The long and short of it is that I convered the "fake" Hyper SF2 B board into a Darksoft multi, here's a few progress photos.

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It worked! At this point I was getting annoyed with how clumsy the setup was, as the Supergun didn't sit flat out of the CPS2 A board, and also didn't give enough clearance to attach the LCD screen. So I went off to look for a better Supergun. My requirements were:
  • USB and DB15 (or some other analogue) input
  • SCART output
  • Some kind of daughter board that meant the PCBs didn't have to be connected directly to the Supergun, as that kills any kind of tidy setup
  • Button remapping so I could (I thought) use the Astro City sticks
The CBOX 4.0 seemed to tick all the boxes, so I ordered that and was much happier with the new, tidier setup.

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However, there was a problem - the Astro City sticks didn't work over USB! I knew that some consoles (eg the PS4 and Switch) weren't compatible with it, but as it worked with my PC I assumed it would. Nope. Gutted!

So as you can see above I tried two other methods - a cheap USB to DB15 connector from Ali Express, and a Brook Wingman XE2 converter, but again I couldn't get either of them to talk with the Astro City sticks. I took the plunge and decided to rewire it instead.
 
I was aware of the Brook Fighting Board mod, but the cost of that and the loom was more than the sticks (which were already expensive) so I decided to do something some may call controversial and hardwire it for DB15 instead. I wanted to do this in a non-destructive way so I could put it back later if I wanted to.

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For less than £10 (so half the price of just the Brook wiring loom) I found these on Ali Express, a pre-tinned Neo Geo DB15 replacement cable, and a 2 player, 6 button joystick loom, so I had another spare if I messed up the first one.

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There are many Astro City Mini stick "teardown" videos on Youtube, but I couldn't find anyone else who had done this conversion, hence why I documented the process.

Internally, the Astro City stick is really nice - genuine Sanwa stick and buttons, and a tidy wiring loom. I removed all of this and the original USB board.

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I cut off a short lenth of the joystick cable, and attached it to the Neo Geo cable. I was intending to use crimps or a terminal block to make troubleshooting easier, but the Neo Geo cable wires were so thin I couldn't get crimps to stay on, so opted instead for soldering and heat shrink.

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The Neo Geo replacement cable did not come with a wiring diagram, I couldn't find one online, and the wires don't match OEM Neo Geo wire colours either. So I had to use trial and error to figure out which wire was which, with an annoying red herring along the way discussed in that post.

Eventually I got all the wires hooked up, including the extra two needed for medium and hard kick (Neo Geo obviously only has four buttons) but I checked that the cable came with enough wires. And here's the finished result!

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It works great, and because it's an analogue connection I don't have to worry about any input lag being introduced by USB conversion, so this is the better solution anyway, just the most difficult.
 
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Here's where I've got to so far:

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That's all for now! Next jobs:
  • Build CPS1 and CPS2 kick harnesses (just using dupont wires currently)
  • Wire the second green Astro City stick
  • Replace the old "Hyper SF2" sticker on the CPS2 case
  • Get my CPS1 board working properly
  • CPS1 multi!
Thanks for reading :)
 
This is a very nice setup, and a great progression from that Raspberry Pi! I've never tried the CBOX 4.0 supergun.

I'm really interested (and scared) of that bit where you had a baby and took a hiatus. I have a baby coming in 2 months and I just HOPE my life isn't so changed I take a hiatus from stuff. :D
 
I'm really interested (and scared) of that bit where you had a baby and took a hiatus. I have a baby coming in 2 months and I just HOPE my life isn't so changed I take a hiatus from stuff. :D
It's a cliche but you cannot prepare for parenthood, it's way harder than you ever comprehend it can be! Admittedly three are a lot more challenging than one :D on the plus side the first year should give you plenty of time for projects as they're asleep half the time! Good luck, hope it goes well.

Amazing job and good write-up mate. How do you credit up, or do you just use freeplay?
The Select button works for credits, on CPS1 and 2 games anyway. There are service and test buttons on the daughter board, but no credit. That's something worth pointing out - the CBOX 4.0 only lets you remap the stick and buttons 1-6, you cannot change or assign start or select. But it picks up Neo Geo buttons as you would expect.
 
You chose the wrong adapters. I have a cbox and myflash converters work on it and the start and credit buttons work. When it comes to arcade sticks, Nacon Daija works. Unfortunately, Brook's USB adapter does not work
 
I hadn’t heard of those adapters, I did see these:

https://ko-fi.com/s/b6c3d01043

But at $80 + shipping each, similar price to the Brook Fighting board. Plus while the expensive adapters claim to be ultra low lag, nothing will ever beat a direct connection.
 
2 more jobs off the list today, firstly I replaced the Hyper SF2 sticker with a Darksoft one. I was hoping the old sticker would be underneath so I could see what this board was originally, but no such luck. Any way to tell from the serial number?

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I also made a short CPS2 kick harness for the Supergun. I did this by using a 7 way dupont connector for the Supergun end, leaving the middle pin empty, and the correct DF1B-34DS-2.5RC connector for the CPS2 end. No ground wires necessary for the Supergun so only 6 wires, nice and tidy. This was my first attempt at crimping and they seem to be holding on!

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