AUSyTyIN
Beginner
First of all, I have to say a huge thank you to @gamefixer for getting me this far along. Without his amazing skills and advice, I'd still have two massive paperweights.
Bit of back story on these games; I've always wanted a pair of Initial D 1-3s, and had been on the look out for YEARS (seriously...15 years or so) for a set. It was always a case of "good price, too far away", "waaay too expensive", or just terrible timing financially. Well, several years ago the stars finally aligned when someone (I honestly can't remember who lol) sent me the contact info of a company who imported games from Japan and sold them at a reasonable price. I struggled to communicate with a salesman (?) due to language barrier as he only spoke broken English and with a very thick accent that I struggled to understand, and for whatever reason he had an aversion to email or text (probably so I had no proof of his promises). We reached an agreement to have him ship a pair of "fully functioning" ID3 cabinets complete with toppers.
Well, what showed up was not "fully functioning". I can't remember the actual details of what all wasn't working, but long-story-short I had zero working machines. After Mr Fixer swung by the first time, we were able to combine parts from both machines to get one machine working, but even that one wasn't perfect. In the end, I had a dead monitor, a dead GD-Rom, two dead card readers (a MAJOR reason I wanted these cabinets is because of the game progression and saving system), and I'm sure a bunch of other things that I'm forgetting. I reached out to the seller, and he said I should send out the broken components and he'd send working ones. I had zero faith in this claim that he'd ship out replacements, and was fearful of loosing the components I had, so I decided to pass on his offer.
Over the next few years, Mr Fixer got the 2nd monitor working via a cap kit on the Toshiba D29C051, which is apparently a bit of a rare monitor and different than what came in the US versions. We talked about the best way to proceed, and seeing how I needed a GD-Rom drive we decided the going netboot was the best path forward.
Fast forward to the current day. Mr Fixer did some voodoo and now they're both mostly working (see below for details) running netboot. I'm thrilled that I finally have a pair working, but I still have a few things that I want to do that I'm needing some help with, hence me posting here. This site has been a huge resource for the Fixer and I throughout this ordeal, but I'm struggling/failing at finding solutions for the following:
Bit of back story on these games; I've always wanted a pair of Initial D 1-3s, and had been on the look out for YEARS (seriously...15 years or so) for a set. It was always a case of "good price, too far away", "waaay too expensive", or just terrible timing financially. Well, several years ago the stars finally aligned when someone (I honestly can't remember who lol) sent me the contact info of a company who imported games from Japan and sold them at a reasonable price. I struggled to communicate with a salesman (?) due to language barrier as he only spoke broken English and with a very thick accent that I struggled to understand, and for whatever reason he had an aversion to email or text (probably so I had no proof of his promises). We reached an agreement to have him ship a pair of "fully functioning" ID3 cabinets complete with toppers.
Well, what showed up was not "fully functioning". I can't remember the actual details of what all wasn't working, but long-story-short I had zero working machines. After Mr Fixer swung by the first time, we were able to combine parts from both machines to get one machine working, but even that one wasn't perfect. In the end, I had a dead monitor, a dead GD-Rom, two dead card readers (a MAJOR reason I wanted these cabinets is because of the game progression and saving system), and I'm sure a bunch of other things that I'm forgetting. I reached out to the seller, and he said I should send out the broken components and he'd send working ones. I had zero faith in this claim that he'd ship out replacements, and was fearful of loosing the components I had, so I decided to pass on his offer.
Over the next few years, Mr Fixer got the 2nd monitor working via a cap kit on the Toshiba D29C051, which is apparently a bit of a rare monitor and different than what came in the US versions. We talked about the best way to proceed, and seeing how I needed a GD-Rom drive we decided the going netboot was the best path forward.
Fast forward to the current day. Mr Fixer did some voodoo and now they're both mostly working (see below for details) running netboot. I'm thrilled that I finally have a pair working, but I still have a few things that I want to do that I'm needing some help with, hence me posting here. This site has been a huge resource for the Fixer and I throughout this ordeal, but I'm struggling/failing at finding solutions for the following:
1. Saving game specific configurations. My pedals and steering need adjusting every time I boot up a new game, not to mention having settings set for free play, master vs slave, machine #, etc. Fixer said that in order to do this I'd have to change to .NV files on the Raspberry Pi but he gracefully bowed out of further tweaks on this.
2. Adjusting color on the monitors. I'm trying to buy an "extended menu" board vs building one, but coming up short. I found them on Cosmo-logi but no way to buy them. I've reached out to them now though.
3. Force Feedback. Works on one machine but not the other. Have voltage to the force feedback board and the fuse is good, but I haven't checked beyond that. Could swap parts from the working one to diagnose.
4. Game selection. Fixer threw every(?) game possible on there, so I'm wanting to figure out what games actually work with it without having to drill holes to install switches/etc to fix wiring issues. So far I've got the following working.
- 18 Wheeler. Game starts fine through character selection, but crashes when the level is loading. Seems the same for Standard or Delux
- Crazy Taxi. Seems to work fine, but if you shift into reverse (by pressing "view change") there is no way to get it back into drive.
- Initial D 1-3. Anyone know the difference between the different Revisions? Not Import vs Export, but some where they're labeled as Rev A and Rev B. I looked around and couldn't see anything online about it
- Club Kart European Session 2002. Seems to boot to reversed steering for some reason, but that's fixable in configurations
- Maximum Speed
- Jambo Safari. Really surprised this one works using the shifter for the lasso, but it does
- Wave Runner. Roll, Pitch, Emergency Switch, or View buttons aren't mapped to ID's buttons. Shows error message of "No Drive Board"
- Wild Riders. Unable to jump or duck, and the brake pedal seems to only operate the front brakes
- Others? Can Ferrari 355 work? I've seen people saying they can. Any others?
5. Card reader. The main reason that Initial D was a grail game for me. I have blank cards, and had planned on getting the readers fixed, but apparently you can do virtual cards now? I tried looking into it, but I'm totally lost. I know I need a cable, but no clue if I need to buy something else on the other end of that cable too, then what I need to do to get the game to see the "card", how to switch cards, etc.
Besides those things the only issues are a few cosmetic issues (missing horn button being the biggest, so not bad at all). Images attached for attention, also because I'm happy that for the first time all of my games are playable!
