CAVE CV1000 Bootlegs

[NASguy]

I wouldn't touch one of these boots until there is a multiboard with everything that ran on them, then and only then would it be worth an investment, sort of like the hacked CPS3 boards. But I always found SDOJ nausiating to play, at least the X360 version, I can't imagine spending so much on it either way.

[aerobert]

Surly a multi is possible by now?someone gotta be working on it secretly in Area 51

Of course, and likely for some time. But they make a ton more money milking the market like this with individual sales.
They're bootlegs in that sense they're copies, but at the same time really not. It's not comparable with the bootlegs of the 80s and 90s where inferior hardware and hacks made the software work.

Is still believe this is a gerber file leak through and through.

[geotrig]

while i agree with nearly everything you say there aerobert , there is some comparison to some of the 80's "boots" when they were near 1:1 copies/ boots due to being no real custom chips or that..... now i cant think of any this fine brain foggy morning to give an expample ! i'm thinking the likes of Bombjack or that ilk

[Neo'nate]

Surly a multi is possible by now?someone gotta be working on it secretly in Area 51

Of course, and likely for some time. But they make a ton more money milking the market like this with individual sales.
They're bootlegs in that sense they're copies, but at the same time really not. It's not comparable with the bootlegs of the 80s and 90s where inferior hardware and hacks made the software work.

Is still believe this is a gerber file leak through and through.

I agree with Aerobert—first and foremost, it's a financial matter. At the same time, not every operator likes running multi boards. As collectors and hobbyists, we all approach this scene from different angles. Personally, I aim to replicate the authentic arcade experience in my setup, which is why I've mostly avoided multi boards. I've always preferred running the original hardware and learning about the technology behind it.

I understand that financial barriers exist—this is why I’ve never bought a legit SDOJ, and given current market prices, I probably never will. While these bootlegs aren't exactly cheap, they are more accessible for those who want that level of authenticity (yes, I see the irony here) in their setup. I've played the Xbox 360 version of SDOJ, and while it’s great, it’s just not 100% accurate.

[geotrig]

see this thing is ramping up on ap by the looks of it !

[arcnl]

see this thing is ramping up on ap by the looks of it !

?

[aerobert]

Seems like a group of people on AP decided to take the work done for CV1000 multi out into the light, in order to stop the china profiting of the bootlegs. They justify it by making everything available and open source.

[kopo]

Seems like a group of people on AP decided to take the work done for CV1000 multi out into the light, in order to stop the china profiting of the bootlegs. They justify it by making everything available and open source.

Can you elaborate? Is this being discussed in private?

[aerobert]

You can read it all here. Thread's been locked for now because of drama.

But yea, essentially what I already wrote. A bunch of guys has developed a solution to put all Cave games on a daughter board and connect it to a CV1000D board (even B games) and switch between them. They were going to release it as open source so that it could be incorporated into the chinese clone/bootleg design talked about in this thread or just mash into a new multiboard design. Essentially providing chinese bootleggers to start doing their thing with this work as base. They've already been approached in private.

https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads ... ing.32301/

[SuperPang]

Great news. I'd buy one. Not wading through 11 pages of cloak and dagger and self-fellatio to find out the details though. SUATMM.

[cools]

Drama and censorship about bootlegs? Nothing new under the sun viewtopic.php?p=430377#p430377

[Jan]

Cool, 2 please

[markedkiller78]

I very much want this to happen

[ChrisBEANS]

1:1 bootlegs, plus a multi… exciting times!!

[rewrite]

You can read it all here. Thread's been locked for now because of drama.

But yea, essentially what I already wrote. A bunch of guys has developed a solution to put all Cave games on a daughter board and connect it to a CV1000D board (even B games) and switch between them. They were going to release it as open source so that it could be incorporated into the chinese clone/bootleg design talked about in this thread or just mash into a new multiboard design. Essentially providing chinese bootleggers to start doing their thing with this work as base. They've already been approached in private.

https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads ... ing.32301/

I'm not on here as often as I should be it seems.

A few corrections:

The decision and interest in developing some sort of cheap multi was initially just for ourselves and probably some friends to be able to swap games easily. I and the other member happened to be working separately on the same thing, came to realize it, and started putting our heads together.

It became an "Oh, let's do this now/faster" for me after seeing some very awful experiences that the sellers of the existing multi put buyers through when their product showed up not working. It felt gross to see buyers being gaslit and treated poorly. So the idea became to prioritize this and take the wind out of their sales (heh). I also personally find the whole secret handshake don't tell anyone sales approach unsettling and I don't believe it benefits anyone aside from the seller. Backdoor deals are for people who have something to hide.

The truth is that China will do what China wants, and we're simply being honest in that it will probably go that way. AP went huge on the "let's make sure China does it" because they're seemingly terrified of SMD soldering and do not believe anyone in the world does it without massive risk to anything they solder. Clearly that's not the case or no one would ever repair any electronics in the modern world. Everything is SMD, and almost all of it is far tinier pitch than this. I do think it's smarter (and cheaper) to install it on one of the boot boards than a real board, but it will work just the same on a real D board if you so chose.

Lydz/Link/W(whatevernumbers) was contacted directly, not by either of us working on it, but by someone who read the thread, got excited, and then PM'ed me "Oh man, I talked to the Chinese guy about it so he could start making them when you're done". Which has taken it from "Eh, the bootleg guy will probably find this eventually" to "Yeah, well, guess it's unavoidable now". I'm not particularly excited about this. But it's what has happened.

On the other hand, I don't see it making any sense for them to produce a multi because it cuts into their sales. Why sell an all in one multi board when you can keep cranking out PCBs that only have one title on them and sell multiple to each person?

The thread closed for one guy (who it turns out is one of the two who are brokering deals for the $3000-4500 existing multi) melting down in real time. Re-opened because thankfully (and seemingly begrudgingly a bit) the admins realized that the only drama was a singular member realizing his cash flow was about to end.

Any which way, I hope I've provided some clarity here, and feel free to follow the project. Rev 1 is in the mail, and rev 2's design is well under way. It will be on github free for anyone to send out and have boards made. The install will (unavoidably unless you had the original gerbers or schematics and the intention of restructuring the cv1000 PCB) require a bit of 0.50mm pitch SMD work, and while I realize that not everyone is capable of doing that install, it just can't be avoided. It is less of a hassle than a lot of modern HDMI flex cable mods for older consoles though, and so anyone who is capable of that work is capable of this, including your local console modder (or cell phone repair place for that matter).

I do want to say thanks for you all here to be decent and sensible instead of devolving into madness like AP likes to do when there are too many opinions in the room. I was hesitant to poke my head in here after how things went on AP, but I'm glad I did.

[aerobert]

Thanks for clarifying! Sorry if my interpretation was incorrect!

[rewrite]

Thanks for clarifying! Sorry if my interpretation was incorrect!

No problem at all! That thread got rough fast and it was hard to keep clear about anything!

The one thing I didn't clarify is that it was brought up to speed to stop some very rude very American sellers from profiting. Not China, ha. Honestly had they not treated their customers so poorly, it neither would have become as nice as it will be by the time it's done, or would I have bothered to make a thread about.

Being awful to the people that paid them their hard earned money is what drove most of this. They could have just been nice to their customer base and I'd have shrugged and gone "Ah, cool, another "secret" multi" and on about my week. Just irks the hell out of me to see people treated poorly over video games of all things.

[sven666]

..there is already a cave multiboard out there? Whats on it?

[rewrite]

..there is already a cave multiboard out there? Whats on it?

Whatever games you flash to it. 7 at a time. Manual's been floating around online for about a week? Maybe two? Since a few people knew I was tinkering I'd gotten a ton of messages all at once pointing me to it. I'd seen it a good while ago, along with two other homebrew one-off solutions, and what also looks to be another semi-production model?

There are more than you'd think out there. Because there's nothing complex about it. It's 4 flash roms, with bare minimum protection, which has been publicly bypassed in the interest of being able to repair broken PCBs. All you need to do is move 4 flash roms off of the main board and onto a daughterboard of some sort, toss in a selector to pick between flash roms and there you have it. The trickiest part is figuring out how to make an easier installation since most people don't like to do or can't do SMD work.

The particular one with the manual that got "leaked" (quotes because I think it's silly) is the one I've been referring to, and has its very own custom cv1000b mainboard with unique connectors where the flashroms are not, which shows that they too either reverse engineered the entire thing, or had the gerbers to start. It also means that if they made any mistakes at all RE'ing, it could have issues (however major/minor). Installing on a real PCB (and as far as we can tell, these Chinese boots) ensures a 1:1 experience since you're only changing the games on the roms essentially.

[monouchi]

Good that it comes out into the open.