Possible to convert Seibu SPI games?

[twistedsymphony]

on the V2.0 board I always change both jumpers over because I can never remember which is which for game reflashing.

you are correct that on the V2.1 there is no jumper required. the mobo should auto-detect a new game and automatically start a flashing sequence.

When a game is reflashing you will be taken to a screen with the game logo and some music playing, there is a countdown in the bottom center that starts at 999 and counts down to 0 Once it's complete it will tell you to turn of the game and change the jumper back (even on the V2.1 system, which you simply need to reboot)

The cart needs to be the same region as the mobo or the game wont work. I'm not sure what the flashing screen does if you have the wrong region.

you can ROM swap the cart to whatever region you want pretty easily, and but the mobo requires the use of the "SPI REVIVE": https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/seibu-spi-region-changer-spi-revive.7703/

SPI REVIVE is also useful if your mobo was bricked from a bad flash.

 

[ic3b4ll]

@everten Sorry, I was typing from memory and perhaps wasn't as clear as I should have been. The flat tiny pins bit was my very crappy attempt at describing the pair of flash chips on the motherboard.
You are correct regarding the 2.0 version board, it's the same as mine. If you look closely you'll see there's a trace to the flash chips.
I *think* the 2.1 version motherboard updates automatically on game change.

 

[triforce7770]

Necro bump. Just picked up a pair of Senkyu (Battle balls) was wondering if its possible to change region on them? Would it be a simple rom swap/burn or is it gonna be more involved?

 

[ekorz]

Necro bump. Just picked up a pair of Senkyu (Battle balls) was wondering if its possible to change region on them? Would it be a simple rom swap/burn or is it gonna be more involved?

You can romswap the cart but then it would need to be paired with a motherboard from that region.

The (above linked) spi revive software doesn’t support battle balls directly though. Possibly you could swap the roms on a supported game, if you have one, and use that to change the mobo region. then use your converted battle balls on the converted motherboard. That’s what I’d try anyway.

 

[nem]

Also, what's the purpose of the rom swap? Do you just want an English language game? You could take the Battle Balls roms and hex edit them to Japanese region if you wanted.

 

[XtraSmiley]

Since you have a couple of battle "balls" maybe you can swap one to a different game?

 

[triforce7770]

The main pcb i have paired with it is a raiden fighters 2 (us) and the battle balls is a japanese board. its giving me a 0048 error on bootup. im assuming its because of region

 

[dos]

it is really really easy to change the region of the game:

http://www.world-of-arcades.net/seibu_spi/

Dump the ROM, edit one byte and re-write it

 

[triforce7770]

Awesome thanks!

 

[Casaborg]

Can someone summarize the steps for convert to viper phase 1.

Thank you

 

[twistedsymphony]

Can someone summarize the steps for convert to viper phase 1.

Thank you

I wrote out text instructions here:
https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/possible-to-convert-seibu-spi-games.8084/#post-233264

And there are pictures here:
https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/possible-to-convert-seibu-spi-games.8084/page-2#post-257357

 

[Pythagoras]

It is simple to make a patch that let the cart work with every motherboard, regardless of the region.

 

[twistedsymphony]

It is simple to make a patch that let the cart work with every motherboard, regardless of the region.

How about removing the need for the protection chip, opening the door for a multi?

 

[Pythagoras]

Do you know what the protection chip does?

 

[twistedsymphony]

Do you know what the protection chip does?

it's the SEI252 and I believe it does sprite decryption