How to make Wangan Midnight/R actually work.

[defor]

[align=center]The original WGN and WMR games shipped with a Driving chassis, equipped with a SINGLE 64MB RAM card.
ONLY 246"Driving" and 246A PCBs have interchangeable cache RAM slots to make this work.
System 246B and 246C boards do not, and likely only have 32MB onboard (I'll have to check)
!!!An option to finding a 64MB card is to fill the extra slot on the PCB with a SECOND 32MB RAM card.!!!
Neither game needs the Namco IO board or Force Feedback motor however![/align]
I can confirm that the game will work, using generic JVS input on either style 246 PCB, as long as the 64MB are present on the Namco board.
If they are not, the game will cycle through the attract movie ONCE, and hang when the Start screen should be shown.
The same occurs if you enter service mode BEFORE the end of the attract movie, then leave it.

It is HIGHLY unlikely that the RAM requirement can be hacked around, so either a replacement 64MB card, or additional 32MB cards would need to be found by anyone wanting to play these games, sorry to say.

Spoiler: This is the 32MB card

Spoiler: This is the 64MB card

 

[Darksoft]

Nice!

Can you confirm if this works on 256 in 246+ mode?

If I were to do a repro of this, what would people prefer 32Mb or 64Mb?

If 32Mb, I'm sure they are very easy to do and memories seems to be widely available.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/LOT-OF-96-NEW-SAMSUNG-K4S281632B-TC1H-128M-SDRAM-8MX16-100MHZ-/301452155631

If we gather enough interested people who would preorder in total about 20, we could do a run...

 

[Mitsurugi-w]

I think the thing is the specific motherboards needed are harder to find. The Rev. C is the most common and not compatible.

 

[defor]

yeah...
in the USA Rev.B seems most common, but japan, C is more common...
although i've had some issues with C on Time Crisis 3 - i'll have to do some testing.

to be honest, i'd be willing to "chip" in to equip enough for all my other 246/246A systems, for the 32MB OR 64MB version..

That'd be a total of 3 for me.

alternately, what are your thoughts on seeing if there's any way to add the memory directly to the b/c board- can we use larger chips or somehow... stack them?

 

[Franco23444]

Nice!

Can you confirm if this works on 256 in 246+ mode?

If I were to do a repro of this, what would people prefer 32Mb or 64Mb?

If 32Mb, I'm sure they are very easy to do and memories seems to be widely available.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/LOT-OF-96-NEW-SAMSUNG-K4S281632B-TC1H-128M-SDRAM-8MX16-100MHZ-/301452155631

If we gather enough interested people who would preorder in total about 20, we could do a run...

I’m actually kinda curious to know if it’s possible to make reproduction RAM cards. I’m actually interested as I do have a Namco System 246 driving pcb and one of the extra 32MB RAM cards I bought has died, which means I can’t play Wangan Midnight. A 64 MB version would be nice to have!