Post here every time you get something new!

This is about as smutty as my shooting game addiction is going to get I think. Today I received an official Taito G-Net PCB. It's had the BIOS flashed (to the latest 2011 revision) and accepts games on compact flash cards via a PCMCIA slot (the exact same way official Taito G-Net cards are made).

OK, it's a bit of a grey area, but it plays exactly the same and will do me just fine! Of course one day I'd like to source G-Darius and Night Raid cards but that's for another time.

Here's a few shots of the board, I've uploaded a video of it running which you can find in the WARNING! SHMUP PORN! thread.

Andrew76 wrote: »

Cool stuff. I must admit, don't think I've really played many Darius games and I was permanently put off that G one watching o1s1n spend ages on the last boss at retr0's once. :eek:

That's probably because he had no jellies. Jellies provide the shooting game fan with a superior inner strength to destroy King Fossil!

Will have to do tomorrow

I have to say fair play to those lads who are signing the carts for you, it really adds something to see carts signed by their coders/devs

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Whats the story with that PCB arrangement pyongyang?
What does it do?
Does that flash card carry the game files?
Need more input! (to paraphrase Johnny-5).

I'm interested in seeing what else my Supergun can do aside from running my MVS board.

Sounds more or less like a legit board, running a hacked bios, which allows it to "skip authentication checks" ahem ahem cough ya know

EnterNow wrote: »

Sounds more or less like a legit board, running a hacked bios, which allows it to "skip authentication checks" ahem ahem cough ya know

That's more or less exactly what it's doing. The hardware is completely legit. What normally happens when you boot an official card, the board contacts the card looking for an encrypted password and an extra piece of authentication. You can tell the difference as a legit card performs a 'loading' check on boot then loads the game on a separate loading screen.

The 'tweaked' version is the exact same game flashed to a compact flash card that slots in to a PCMCI card that goes in to the slot on the board where an official G-Net card would go. The difference however is the authentication process is skipped as the BIOS is altered to not look for authentication, hence it skips the first process and the game boots up.

The best part about the modified BIOS though is that it will accept games designed for other boards, which is why you are able to play G-Darius v1.0 and v2.0 on a G-Net board for example.

The legit board also plays host to lots of fun connection options. 3 and 4 player ports, trackballs etc. Cool stuff which I probably will never use but it's fun to see it on the board anyway.

I think it's a very cool modification. One day I will maybe look to source official cards, but for now it's a great way to play a whole host of quality shooting games on a really cool system.

EDIT: Sorry Adultapplebeveragemale, I forgot to answer your question. The PCB's are arranged in 3. The bottom being the motherboard, the middle is an audio board and the top is the I/O board.

EDIT2: Check out my video in the SHMUP PORN! thread if you want to see it running. I'm going to post some more videos tonight of G-Darius v1.0 and v2.0 and check out the revision differences. Then I'm going to make a 657hr long documentary on how brilliant the Darius series is (like a certain someone who has an obsession with Boulder Dash).

Here is a game I never dreamed I would ever own. Just landed on my desk now.

1. Ibara [PS2, NTSC-J, CIB]