What's new
By:

Midway V Unit Conversions? Cruis'n USA / World, Off Road Challenge

nem

nem

Immortal
Joined
May 29, 2016
Messages
7,574
Reaction score
8,213
Location
Finland
So I recently picked up a Cruis'n World cabinet. The board runs on Midway's V Unit hardware. The original Cruis'n USA and also Midway's Off Road Challenge run on the same hardware. All of the cabinet parts are the same and apart from ORC needing the shifter wired slightly different, all three games run without any hardware mods.

So with one cab you can super easily play all three games.

However, like other Midway hardware from the same era, all three games have their own security ICs. Does anyone know if there are modified roms to run the games with any security chip much like AnyU64 / Darksoft's WolfHacked roms for Midway Wolf boards?

And as a final note, yes yes, the quality of the three games is up for debate :P , but personally I find them fun.
 
Random thing, Challenge and World use the same force feedback board, I just swap the game PCBs out in my Cruis'n cab. I think USA uses a different PLD chip on the force feedback PCB.
 
I think you're right:

https://forums.arcade-museum.com/showpost.php?p=788842&postcount=4

Also, looking at PCB pics online, the Cruis'n USA board looks slightly different compared to Cruis'n World, so maybe getting the original game to run on CNW hardware isn't that simple.

I'm still hopeful someone will hack ORC to run on the CNW security IC (and visa versa), because these two boards are identical.
 
Following this thread with interest - I have a friend that we just upgraded his Cruisin' USA to 1.41 so he could link them.. but is considering switching them to cruisin ' world -- if we burn the eeproms - what all else will need to be done.. will only the 4 game roms need to be burned or all 18?
 
Where did everyone land on this? Can Cruisin USA be used to be turned into OffRoad Challenge?

USA and World can be made exotica with an extra harness, and with that harness removed usa and world are interchangeable..

can I swap the roms on from usa to ofc and the board function? I might be able to use the exotica harness to make the force feedback work.
 
Here's the guaranteed method I went with.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/OFF-ROAD-C...BOARD-ARCADE-COIN-OP-100-WORKING/162899672862

Though that audio board is the FFB which you need for the swap (PLD chips different). Well, guaranteed for a World to Challenge. I assume the USA cab harness is identical since the hardware is. USA uses a different size/design FFB board than World/Challenge so that has to be swapped, I don't know if the wiring is the same (from US to World/Challenge).
 
Last edited:
well again here is what is funny:

I bought a cruisin world machine, that had an exotica main board + control harness = cruisin exotica worked no problem.
Took the exotica board out.. put in a USA board (JUST MAIN CPU) - worked perfectly (removed harness)
Took the USA main board out - put in world.. works perfectly..

You would think that the PLC would be different for each board.. I removed NONE of the soundboards, nor steering control and all three worked fine..

I'm ALMOST willing to bet that if I swapped the roms the board would work as an OFF Road Challenge.. unless you are saying that is what you did and it did not work.
 
Hah, well, then never mind. :) I picked up an ORC pcb for 100 bucks so that was the easiest method for me. Hell, if everything worked with the same FFB then I might track down a USA pcb just to have to stick in the World cab. I just assumed different hardware design would mean incompatibility issues. Nope.
 
Last edited:
ya had I not done it myself I would be hesitent.. but I have been swapping main boards only due to a whim..

I traded the exotica for USA so I could get the pal chip off it to duplicate them, then was like - well I dont have a reason NOT to swap it back to world and one happen to come back on the market that week for $150 so I was like. SOLD.

but ONLY main PCBS where swapped.. so im going to bite the bullet and try to swap the roms around the boards and see what happens. Need to get a batch of 8mbit roms though :( cant find them dometically and it will be 2-3 weeks to get them out of china.
 
You can swap all three mainboards without issues: Cruis'n USA, Cruis 'n World and Off Road Challenge.

However, if you intend to just swap chips, you need the corresponding security IC as well. You can't just burn roms.

@TheDrunkenArcade, did force feedback work on Exotica as well? That's interesting. Wouldn't have thought that that's a straight swap as well.
 
ya -- the force feedback on exotica has a different pinout.. the manual for the upgrade kit explains what has to be swapped so it would be easy to make another harness.. but if you have the original kit harness you just hook it up per the manual
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top