Arcade Otaku - アーケード オタク

Hi. So, I've bought my first Jamma cab' recently, and obviously a Jamma game followed suit shortly afterwards. I bought a CPS2 board, which I know nothing about. Infact, I'm a Jamma virgin, other than playing them in the arcades years ago and recognising that it is a clean board with a nice sticker I have heard about all this suicide battery business, so I have a few questions...

Is the board scrap when the battery goes, or would it just need a replacement battery?
Is it prefered to replace the battery, or get the board phoenixed?
The battery history is unknown, so should I get it replaced/phoenixed before I play on it?
Where could I get these services done, and how much would it cost?

Thanks for looking

Dave

1) It can be phoenixed
2) Battery
3) Irrelevant, do it ASAP though
4) Any board repair guy will do it, as can virtually anyone else with a soldering iron

cools wrote:1) It can be phoenixed
2) Battery
3) Irrelevant, do it ASAP though
4) Any board repair guy will do it, as can virtually anyone else with a soldering iron

Cools is right. Get to it asap.

Nice one guys. How does the whole battery suicide thing work anyway? Does the game board have some kind of counter and it blows when a specific amount of play time is reached? Or is it literally, when the battery goes flat it triggers some kind of spike in the board? Finally, how long do these batteries last for on average?

Cheers.

The CPU has a bit of RAM built in to it which stores decryption keys that it needs to run the game code. The RAM can keep its contents as long as long as a battery is applied, but it obviously consumes a tiny amount of power to do this. Over 10+ years the batteries eventually run flat or drop below the level the RAM needs and the keys are lost.

It's hard to say how long a given battery/system will last because it depends on many things including how long it's been powered up (was it turned off each night, or stored for 6 months out of every year) and what temperature it's been stored at. I had some Sega FD1094s which were still going strong probably 15-17 years later but that's not super common.

ninjawyatt wrote:Nice one guys. How does the whole battery suicide thing work anyway? Does the game board have some kind of counter and it blows when a specific amount of play time is reached? Or is it literally, when the battery goes flat it triggers some kind of spike in the board? Finally, how long do these batteries last for on average?

Cheers.

It's about the voltage..
I'd change it about every 5 years or so to be on the safe side..
I've pulled a battery with the year 1994 on it out this yea(or was it last year?) and it was still at exactly 3,6v.
It was a Maxwell if I'm not mistaken. Imagine that it was still working after 19 years.

Right then, I shall get the battery changed guys. Just one last question - If a phoenixed board doesn't require any battery maintenance, then why is the new battery option preferred over the phoenix board?

Capcom's original encrypted roms were lovingly placed bit by bit like rose petals, whereas Phoenix Roms are splatted by turd blast.

Lol

Sorry

Phoenix Roms were and are a godsend as they revive dead boards.

But if you have a living board, it's better to keep it that way because (in order of reasonable logic)...

• A replacement battery is a far cheaper and/or easier job.
• There are little signs of non-originalness in the Phoenix roms. Be it the splash screen, small bugs, added features, or even undiscovered problems. Better or worse, it's not 100% authentic.
• It's just a nice warm feeling to have the true original data still ticking inside the chips.

i like to phoenix my boards , saves me **** about with them and having to worry about changing batteries also they play identical to the original (ive not noticed any different)... but purist like to keep the games the same as factory , i get that too but im not that bothered about it

To be honest my stance with CPS2 has always been.

1. Buy CPS2 game
2. Intend to change the battery someday
3. Never change the battery

People say change every 5 years as a precaution - and a sensible one - especially if you're testing the odds with dozens of CPS2 games. The average life is probably well over 10 or 15 years (depending on factors as trmatthe says). Worst case scenario is 'oops, better get it phoenixed then'. But being arsed to change the battery before that happened would be my preference. Just.

P.S. My above two posts contain purely selfish reasoning (as well as lazy). For the record, there is also the historian angle - keeping as much hardware as original as reasonably possible. The difference in this case may be slight, but the general cause becomes more relevant in every passing year.

Well, I'm going to get the battery changed, because it appears that I can get it phoenixed anytime, but I only have the life of the battery, to be able to replace the battery. Just out of curiosity though - Which would usually sell for more? Say for example, you have two boards, exactly the same game, exactly the same condition, but one has been phoenixed, the other has had a recent battery replacement. Or would they be worth about the same?

ninjawyatt wrote:Well, I'm going to get the battery changed, because it appears that I can get it phoenixed anytime, but I only have the life of the battery, to be able to replace the battery. Just out of curiosity though - Which would usually sell for more? Say for example, you have two boards, exactly the same game, exactly the same condition, but one has been phoenixed, the other has had a recent battery replacement. Or would they be worth about the same?

the original should be worth more but it really depends on the game , i doubt theres much in it unless its a progear or something else desirable

ninjawyatt wrote:Well, I'm going to get the battery changed, because it appears that I can get it phoenixed anytime, but I only have the life of the battery, to be able to replace the battery. Just out of curiosity though - Which would usually sell for more? Say for example, you have two boards, exactly the same game, exactly the same condition, but one has been phoenixed, the other has had a recent battery replacement. Or would they be worth about the same?

Depends on the buyer - some people just don't like the hassle/risk of battery changing/worry about the battery failing so they would rather pay more for a Phoenix'd board. Some though will pay more for a board that is 100% original (aside from a newly installed battery).

I've installed many CPS2 (and some CPS3) batteries over the years and have also Phoenix'd many CPS2 boards for people. Roughly based on that I'd say that the distribution of new battery/Phoenix'd boards is about 50/50.

VectorGlow wrote:

ninjawyatt wrote:Well, I'm going to get the battery changed, because it appears that I can get it phoenixed anytime, but I only have the life of the battery, to be able to replace the battery. Just out of curiosity though - Which would usually sell for more? Say for example, you have two boards, exactly the same game, exactly the same condition, but one has been phoenixed, the other has had a recent battery replacement. Or would they be worth about the same?

Depends on the buyer - some people just don't like the hassle/risk of battery changing/worry about the battery failing so they would rather pay more for a Phoenix'd board. Some though will pay more for a board that is 100% original (aside from a newly installed battery).

I've installed many CPS2 (and some CPS3) batteries over the years and have also Phoenix'd many CPS2 boards for people. Roughly based on that I'd say that the distribution of new battery/Phoenix'd boards is about 50/50.

Hi vector , sorry bit of topic but can you change one phoenixed jp game to another and still keep the original phoenixed game roms so in effect have 2 separate games you can run off the same B board with a rom swap ?

I don't see why not, assuming of course that there are Phoenix'd sets for both versions that you have in mind.

Well yeah, it'd be a conversion wouldn't it?

pubjoe wrote:Well yeah, it'd be a conversion wouldn't it?

Ive never had a conversion before , ive only ever had the original roms phoenixed so im a little confused about how it works , seems its not as easy to keep both rom sets as you need new pal rom etc etc

If you were just converting from one version of the game to another version as I originally assumed that you meant (for example, a Japanese version of a game to the World version) then it would probably just be a case of replacing the program ROMs (including Phoenixed versions) with the other set of program ROMs. However, if you're thinking of changing the game completely then you need to be aware of the board revision, jumpers, PALs and of course ALL of the ROMs (program graphics and sound) so making it far more involved.