help please... Arcade machine

F

Firebomb

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 21, 2002
Messages
1,692
I was wondering 1. where to post on here about arcade help. and 2. my problem is I have a mortal kombat 1 arcade machine, and having sound problems, the game and everything works find but the sound u can barely hear it and when messing with the volume nob sometimes it pops up then down it wont stay loud....

also another question i was wondering can u take other game roms and put it in same board IE get a mk2 rom and put it in and play it, not sure how arcades work this is my first one and I need to find a help- faq area lol..

thanks
 
I think, for the most part, an arcade machine plays the game thats installed in it. There are exceptions, but to summarize everything would take a whole lot of research and I don't think you're going to find that type of conversation around here, but someone might be able to offer of some nice links.

As far as your sound problem -- it could be more complex than this, but to me -- it sounds like you've got a bad potentiometer. If you look at the volumne nob, there should be a... something that it's attached to that turns when you turn the nob. Thats the potentiometer. If you're luck, you'll be able to remove the soldier from it and replace it with a few dollar part from Radio Shack.
 
the volume nob it like a light switch that turns its just a little nob that goes clockwise n cc has 2 wires coming from it
 
ok i replaced the potentimeter and now the sound works yay!! but something seems wierd so now the music is fine but the sound fx like punching and that is kinda distorded and crackly ideas?
 
What about the diagnostics menu? There's a sound test in there that will play a couple songs and a couple sound effects. Kinda odd that the music would be fine but just sound effects be distorted unless the speaker is bad and the sound effects are just loud enough to distort the speaker.
 
I did the sound test. and it came back good, ran test and it says 0 tone bad, 1 tone good, 2 tone ram 1. 3 tone ram 2 bad and I got just 1 tone so all good. also I did sound clip test and all the music was fine but when it did, a smack-punch and hiya scream it was distorted, so it is the sound fx the music is clear and nice.
 
Junk the insides, except for the monitor, and build yourself a MAME/emulator cabinet.
There are some spectacular front ends for running these things, like Hyperspin.
All you need is a half decent PC and a little work.
 
Sounds like maybe the speaker's blown? Should be a cheap replacement, it's probably small. Could use any cheap car audio speaker for it.
 
i took my boom box speaker and tried it and same thing.. hmm idk im getting tired of messing with it lol
 
It's not as if the sound effects in Mortal Kombat were anything spectacular. Your cabinet might be working just fine and producing exactly the sounds it should.
 
um no, i played mortal kombat for many many years, and this is not right. like when u select ur fighter normally it would say his name. mine does not and when ur fighting u will hear screaming or u will hear goro or crap like that when ur not with goro or 2 men fighting.... laughed my ass off when it should say fight in the start but it says finish him instead.
 
So maybe someone messed with the ROM on the board. If it's confusing sounds then either the ROM is corrupt or you're playing with a hack or bootleg.
 
Heh, I collect arcade cabs

I think, for the most part, an arcade machine plays the game thats installed in it. There are exceptions, but to summarize everything would take a whole lot of research and I don't think you're going to find that type of conversation around here, but someone might be able to offer of some nice links.
Click to expand...

Wrong. Most arcade machines are wired for either JAMMA or JVS, which means as long as you are sticking a JAMMA board into a JAMMA system, it will work just fine. There are some catches, button position, monitor res (which is not an issue if you have a tri-sync) but for the most part you can swap them all out. Mortal Kombat is a JAMMA board, so his cab is wired for JAMMA and can thus play any JAMMA game, buttons may need to be rewired/moved but that's easy.

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1037049562&postcount=1395

One of my Egrets!
 
Firebomb said:
also another question i was wondering can u take other game roms and put it in same board IE get a mk2 rom and put it in and play it, not sure how arcades work this is my first one and I need to find a help- faq area lol..
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sd11 said:
Most arcade machines are wired for either JAMMA or JVS, which means as long as you are sticking a JAMMA board into a JAMMA system, it will work just fine. There are some catches, button position, monitor res (which is not an issue if you have a tri-sync) but for the most part you can swap them all out. Mortal Kombat is a JAMMA board, so his cab is wired for JAMMA and can thus play any JAMMA game, buttons may need to be rewired/moved but that's easy.
Click to expand...

He was asking about replacing the ROMs on the board. Nobody has said anything untruthful.
 
Mozex said:
He was asking about replacing the ROMs on the board. Nobody has said anything untruthful.
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He can probably still do that as well. As long as the board is the same series. Most arcade "ROMS" are just game carts. You can freely swap them all you want.

IMG_0011.jpg


The ROM is the cart in the center, that's an atomiswave board.

If it doesn't have a swap kart, then the "ROM" "PCB" "Kit" "Kart" or whatever you want to call it gets swapped out entirely (I've seen them called all those names and more), at which point all that matters is JAMMA vs JVS unless it's some really odd game.
 
sd11 said:
He can probably still do that as well. As long as the board is the same series. Most arcade "ROMS" are just game carts. You can freely swap them all you want.

...IMG...

The ROM is the cart in the center, that's an atomiswave board.

If it doesn't have a swap kart, then the "ROM" "PCB" "Kit" "Kart" or whatever you want to call it gets swapped out entirely (I've seen them called all those names and more), at which point all that matters is JAMMA vs JVS unless it's some really odd game.
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MK1 doesn't appear to use a swappable ROM cart.

http://www.jammaboards.com/store/mortal-kombat-jamma-pcb/prod_136.html
Package Contents:
* 1 - Mortal Kombat CPU Board - JAMMA PCB
* 1 - Mortal Kombat Sound PCB
* 1 - Ribbon Connecting Cable between Sound and CPU PCBs
* 1 - Interconnect Cable between Sound and CPU PCBs
* 1 - 50K Sound Pot w/ cable

Although I wholeheartedly recommend the OP get a NeoGeo or CPS2(capcom) mainboard which are two fantastic cart-based arcade platforms. And judging from the fact that he like MK I'm guessing he'll enjoy the plethora of fighters those platforms open up.

<edit to remove quoted image>
 
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Yep he should get it, will probably have to redo the CP though.
 
I wanted the MK cuz of the attachment I have to the game, it was my first game I ever bought with my own money and I spent hours on it. while I like SF2 and others MK it just the game for me.... that being said Im trying to find somthing I can get so I can put a mk2 board in there cuz its the same joystick pattern as mk1 and a switcher so i can switch between 1 and 2 ... still working on the sound fx gonna have a electrician come look at it.,, here is some pics. I just added stuff to the bezel and looking to do something soon to the side.
205272_1507679710893_1801339287_905282_6536167_n.jpg

205272_1507679910898_1801339287_905283_1747711_n.jpg

206699_1512458550361_1801339287_911028_841547_n.jpg

206699_1512458430358_1801339287_911027_3646972_n.jpg
 
If that's the case you just need an MK2 board. Have you opened it up yet? There should be a JAMMA harness in there connected to the board with the CPU on it, you just swap the boards.

Here are some pics....

IMG_0031.jpg


That black part is the end of the JAMMA wiring harness, the board will have an edge you slide in there, it's no different than plugging something into a PCI slot. Since your system is already wired up for MK you shouldn't have any issue.

There isn't really a way to "switch" between them outside of this.

When dealing with arcade games it's either the ROM/CPU/PCB are all one thing, in which case you must swap it all out, a ROM cart (or HD, or disk) that you can swap out with games for the same base board, or in rare cases a board that can hold multiple carts like the neogeo system.

You could get a multi in one board, but those are all knock offs for nubes and rubes and all have problems. They are just barely a step above mame on the scrub scale.
 
Ironically I built my mame cabinet out of a former MK2 shell but it had most of its guts ripped out by the time it got to me. Interesting to see what I might've gotten, had I received it in better condition.

I had to rebuild it with a custom control panel (2 players, six buttons, street fighter 2 style) and an IPAC from ultimarc hooked up to a pc, so it feels nothing like the original arcade machine under mame, but still pretty damn close. Hope you get your machine working! That is a sweet possession.
 
Jalidi said:
Ironically I built my mame cabinet out of a former MK2 shell but it had most of its guts ripped out by the time it got to me. Interesting to see what I might've gotten, had I received it in better condition.

I had to rebuild it with a custom control panel (2 players, six buttons, street fighter 2 style) and an IPAC from ultimarc hooked up to a pc, so it feels nothing like the original arcade machine under mame, but still pretty damn close. Hope you get your machine working! That is a sweet possession.
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.Meh, MAME cabs, go to some arcade forums, MAME is rather crappy compared to the real deal. At least you didn't gut a candy cab.

I'm currently eyeballing another taito viewlix!
 
Firebomb said:
this is what the sound is doing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDN5Lx-tNsw
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Ouch that's terrible. You said the sound test passed? I would guess either the sound ROMs are corrupted or there's some problem with the electrical signal to/from the ROMs that could be anything from a bad solder joint on one of the sound chips to a loose pin on the ribbon cable that goes from the sound PCB to the CPU PCB.
 
I'd suggest starting a thread over at KLOV: http://forums.arcade-museum.com if you haven't already. The guys over there are very helpful with fixing problems with arcades.

I've got 3 arcade games myself, and working on getting a MKII cabinet this week.
 
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i been a member there for 2 days but I cannot post at all not sure why I registered and I clicked the email to activate but still not working. lol not sure.
 
I really wanna get a arcade cabinet and pimp it out. But im too lazy lol
 
Firebomb said:
i been a member there for 2 days but I cannot post at all not sure why I registered and I clicked the email to activate but still not working. lol not sure.
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I don't know. I registered there several years ago and I can't remember. What's your username there? I can PM the admin there and ask.
 
Ron1jed said:
I really wanna get a arcade cabinet and pimp it out. But im too lazy lol
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Just be careful, you don't want to end up on here: http://wickedretarded.com/~crapmame/ :eek:

The easiest way to go about it is to search CL and find a gutted cabinet for <$50, then wire it up for MAME, although I prefer to get the real games myself, I'll probably do that at some point for some of the later games that were in generic cabinets anyways.
 
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