Donkey Kong Forum
General Donkey Kong Discussion => General Donkey Kong Discussion => Topic started by: jdgilliam1 on October 23, 2013, 10:27:04 am
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What's Twin Galaxies rules on DKG4 and ROM chips?
Do the ROM chips all have to be original?
Are you allowed to use a board that's been worked on?
I'm just trying to find out information on this.
Thanks
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What's Twin Galaxies rules on DKG4 and ROM chips?
Do the ROM chips all have to be original?
Are you allowed to use a board that's been worked on?
I'm just trying to find out information on this.
Thanks
It depends on the kind of work done. Does the work have a gummy substance?
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Gummy substances are not allowed. You can't use a "pretender board" so to speak. Any board that has been worked on could have a problem.
The pcb needs to be the two board set TKG-4. In the past, the rom chips had to be original with the factory stickers on them. What board has not been fixed in the past? As long as the TKG-4 is emulating US Set 1, they see the whole game, the board, the title screen, etc, you should be fine with a submission.
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It is unrealistic to think these 30 year old boards wont have repairs, that includes replacement ROM chips. That alone would not get a score disqualified.
-Ken
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Gummy substances are not allowed. You can't use a "pretender board" so to speak. Any board that has been worked on could have a problem.
The pcb needs to be the two board set TKG-4. In the past, the rom chips had to be original with the factory stickers on them. What board has not been fixed in the past? As long as the TKG-4 is emulating US Set 1, they see the whole game, the board, the title screen, etc, you should be fine with a submission.
The whole TG "machine verification on these DK machines is a total joke!
The visual inspection process of a machine and PCB is just there to appease the ignorant public that wouldn't know their butt from a coin slot.
A visual inspection is absolutely worthless. What people don't understand its the code on the eproms that determine the game.
One cannot distinguish altered boards simply just by "looking" at the PCB when its the game code programmed on the eproms responsible for supplying info to the pcb to run.
With what I've seen in the last few years, with all the hacks, it would be easy for someone with the knowledge to alter nuances in game play to make it more favorable both in difficulty and random scoring without out even an expert noticing anything too unusual. These altered nuances could simply be interpreted as "LUCK" in game play by even the most experienced player.
People can always test altered roms in MAME, and then copy them back to the original 2532 eproms when finished. The original eprom sticker, even if there or not, is an absolutely worthless way of telling if anything is altered as no one can simply look at an eprom and "visually see" if its running its original factory code.
Sadly most people think an altered PCB means something visually obvious like a "Flux Capacitor" protruding out from the PCB where it shouldn't be.
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Gummy substances are not allowed. You can't use a "pretender board" so to speak. Any board that has been worked on could have a problem.
The pcb needs to be the two board set TKG-4. In the past, the rom chips had to be original with the factory stickers on them. What board has not been fixed in the past? As long as the TKG-4 is emulating US Set 1, they see the whole game, the board, the title screen, etc, you should be fine with a submission.
TG used to allow the TKG2 (converted Radar Scope PCB) and TKG3 PCB's as long as they were using the updated US factory roms.
Why limit the game only to the TKG4 PCB?
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Tim, yes, the most complete and sure proof is an examination of the code in the roms.
Why limit the game only to the TKG4 pcb? Well, I personally do not for the purpose of the HSL, but I am sure that creating uniformity has its merits, even if it is only perceived to be valuable.
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I love it, Tim actually made not one but two posts that I agree with 100%! ;D
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I love it, Tim actually made not one but two posts that I agree with 100%! ;D
I'm getting better :)
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Gummy substances are not allowed. You can't use a "pretender board" so to speak. Any board that has been worked on could have a problem.
The pcb needs to be the two board set TKG-4. In the past, the rom chips had to be original with the factory stickers on them. What board has not been fixed in the past? As long as the TKG-4 is emulating US Set 1, they see the whole game, the board, the title screen, etc, you should be fine with a submission.
The whole TG "machine verification on these DK machines is a total joke!
The visual inspection process of a machine and PCB is just there to appease the ignorant public that wouldn't know their butt from a coin slot.
A visual inspection is absolutely worthless. What people don't understand its the code on the eproms that determine the game.
One cannot distinguish altered boards simply just by "looking" at the PCB when its the game code programmed on the eproms responsible for supplying info to the pcb to run.
With what I've seen in the last few years, with all the hacks, it would be easy for someone with the knowledge to alter nuances in game play to make it more favorable both in difficulty and random scoring without out even an expert noticing anything too unusual. These altered nuances could simply be interpreted as "LUCK" in game play by even the most experienced player.
People can always test altered roms in MAME, and then copy them back to the original 2532 eproms when finished. The original eprom sticker, even if there or not, is an absolutely worthless way of telling if anything is altered as no one can simply look at an eprom and "visually see" if its running its original factory code.
Sadly most people think an altered PCB means something visually obvious like a "Flux Capacitor" protruding out from the PCB where it shouldn't be.
This makes complete sense. What has TG (past and present) been trying to prove with these ridiculous rules? Every game should be on a level playing field, in my opinion. If hacked code can be transferred to the 'original roms', what good is it to verify that they are 'original'? And I won't even go there in regards to power supplies. I'm a MAME player at this time, so none of this is a worry to me, but one day, it will be my concern. And really, Billy didn't follow the rules by submitting games by direct feed. But that's for another thread, I guess.
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This is from the Twin Galaxies recording rules:
"Show the ROM chips on both boards. Each board has six (6) ROM chips. The ROM chips on the video board are located at : 7C, 7D, 7E, 7F, 3N, 3P. The ROM chips on the cpu board are located at : 5A, 5B, 5C, 5E, 3F, 3H. These ROM chips must be original Donkey Kong arcade game chips, which originally included label stickers on them indicating the TKG4 model, and the location of the chips’ installation socket. Please record on camera any and all information written on either the ROM chips themselves, or the label stickers on the ROM chips."
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This is from the Twin Galaxies recording rules:
"Show the ROM chips on both boards. Each board has six (6) ROM chips. The ROM chips on the video board are located at : 7C, 7D, 7E, 7F, 3N, 3P. The ROM chips on the cpu board are located at : 5A, 5B, 5C, 5E, 3F, 3H. These ROM chips must be original Donkey Kong arcade game chips, which originally included label stickers on them indicating the TKG4 model, and the location of the chips’ installation socket. Please record on camera any and all information written on either the ROM chips themselves, or the label stickers on the ROM chips."
This is from the Twin Galaxies recording rules:
"Show the ROM chips on both boards. Each board has six (6) ROM chips. The ROM chips on the video board are located at : 7C, 7D, 7E, 7F, 3N, 3P. The ROM chips on the cpu board are located at : 5A, 5B, 5C, 5E, 3F, 3H. These ROM chips must be original Donkey Kong arcade game chips, which originally included label stickers on them indicating the TKG4 model, and the location of the chips’ installation socket. Please record on camera any and all information written on either the ROM chips themselves, or the label stickers on the ROM chips."
[/quote
In reality this is meaningless. It is easy to erase these chips and then reprogram them with an altered code. Then replace the newly programmed "old" chips" back in the cpu.
Also if one happens to use another 2532 rom chip from another game, erase it, then re-program it with the original DK game code then install it on the cpu board to replace an original bad one, there is no foul there if using the original game code. The sticker means nothing.
With Donkey Kong I'm not sure if even running the checksum value will reveal an unvalid code or not.
Also the original DK arcade game eproms will have a manufacturers date code on then (example 8123) This indicates the rom chip itself was manufactured the twenty third week of the year 1981. Some chips will vary on date codes. The 2716 roms for the sound may even have gold plating on them and date a year or two earlier than when the machine was made.
It would be interesting to look at "ALL" the rom chips inside "EVERY" DK at the Kong Off and see if they are using the original chips by examining the date code the chip was made.\
Although I doubt many games used 2532 romchips beyond the early 80's anyway, but does this mean that if one of the roms was dated 8527 (twenty seventh week of 1985) the machine would be disqualified as obviously its not an original eprom nintendo used when making DK?
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Tim, it's very difficult to find your response when you put it in someone else's quote. Start typing your response AFTER this ----> [/quote]
Carry on. :)
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Tim, it's very difficult to find your response when you put it in someone else's quote. Start typing your response AFTER this ---->
Carry on. :)[/quote]
Don't tell Tim how he should lives his life! ;)
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Tim, it's very difficult to find your response when you put it in someone else's quote. Start typing your response AFTER this ---->
Carry on. :)
Don't tell Tim how he should lives his life! ;)
[/quote]
Sorry about that, I thought I did.
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So, I'll add a little bit to this.
First off, Tim is partially right. You can read and write to these open window roms and noone could tell without reading them with a reader. However, the checksum would tell if they had been altered.
Second, showing the roms and the boards in general is not meant to catch cheaters as much as it is to ensure the legit gamer is using the proper equipment. This can happen even when the gamer 'thinks' he is using the right stuff. Weibes Double DK would be one example, Robbies recent Joystick issue would be another.
The power supply rule was put in place because some people have seen issue with machines that had switching power supplies and mistakenly tied those issues to the power supply. That being said, simply saying 'the power supply does not matter at all' is to simplistic. For example Williams games lose bookkeeping and game play settings routinely when switching power supplies are used instead of the original linear ones. Some MCR games have weird sound issues when you use a switching power supply instead of the originals. As it relates to Donkey Kong, there is no evidence that a properly setup switching power supply has any influence on the game what so ever.
-Ken
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i installed a new switching PS recently and did experience glitchy graphics on the elevator screens, had flickering ghost elevator platforms and some flashing white pixels down the left side of the screen. gradually improved then disappeared as i cranked the voltage up. been running around 5.4v for a month or so with no issues...
8)