Wonderboy in Monsterland Tile issue

[paulcan69]

I never saw this board work 100% as I got it faulty.
Some of the roms were 98% etc... so I burnt off the versions of what it was closest to.
It's the Galaxy Electronics English bootleg version (in mame)
I now have got all the correct roms and in the correct holes (I think) but 100% compared to Maws I have the full Galaxy bootleg set and all roms show identical in romcmp.

Your thoughts please on what/where to try next?
Seems to be a "tile" issue as all titles seem in the incorrect place.
I have 2x eprom prog'ers, a multimeter, a logic probe, a keen attitude to learn, no scope (sorry) not yet, I need to make a video probe, but just want a couple of ideas to try, if you want me to make a video probe I shall, but then can you give me ideas of what/where to probe.

Sometimes the board doesn't boot up first time, then I do nothing different and it will boot fine on a second try.
(Saying that even my Wonderboy 1 sega original does this?)
Could it be in any way Z80 related?
I would try to swap the Z80 if anyone thought that could help?

Or can you think of anything simple to try first, faulty buffer at locaion X?
I can up a pic of the board if anyone wants?
Thanks in advance.
Tim (Trmatthe) and Channelmusic + Vectorglow any ideas of where to go next?

[tube]pxQQPE0uDqA[/tube]
paulcan692011-01-03 21:51:48

 

[trm]

OK. I just played a bit of this in MAME (and now I want to get hold of the real game, it's cool!) and it seems that your board is pretty much running fine apart from the dodgy GFX, so I don't think it's a Z80 problem. Although I believe your version uses a pair of Z80s so if they're socketed you could swap them around as a test - just make sure you know which is which as they may be different speed grades, so a short test won't hurt but leaving an A in place of a C for a long time will.

Can you post a good clear picture of your board as I'm having trouble tracking one down from the usual sources - I'm finding the Sega original and not the boot.

After that I think it's worth pulling a ROM at a time till we find stuff that affects the GFX which will give us somewhere to focus on. I'm suspecting either some dodgy RAMs that are used to build the tilemap (which will hopefully be identifiable by tracing back from the GFX ROMs), possibly some stuck/duff counters somewhere or maybe even some partially dead buffers.

I can't quite tell from the video, but it looks as though it's fetching proper tiles, just in the wrong order. None of the tiles seem to be corrupt - is that correct?

cheers

tim

 

[paulcan69]

Yes spot on.....the info in the tiles seems to be correct, just as you say in the wrong order.

I like those ideas, esp the z80 check, I will remove and socket them so I can swap some other z80's in there.

(I hope I have enough sockets)

I shall post a pic tomorrow of both my wbml boards as I have 2, this one and a fully working one.

Although they are different versions and slightly different hardware design so cannot be just swapped across to check things.

Wonderboy 1 boots and wonderboy 2 boots were both made to go on both of these board types.

1 has a "single" width daughter card

The other has a "double" width daughter card.

I will post pics and show some info I have found out about them and pics from crazy kong etc.. of both types of boards, then it will make more sense to someone who hasn't spent 10 hours reading about all these boards.

Tim play the game for a good 5-6 levels, it gets so more-ish, buy the good shoes as soon as poss as the character moves real slow and sh*t on the first level once you have the 80 dollar shoes (on level 2) the game is so much more playable.

You will get addicted, even though I love wboy 1 and can play it over and over, this board seems to be my fav.

But once I've had a "up to the last level session" (I can't quite complete it yet

)

I then cannot play it for a week, it's a now and then game not everyday like some other games.

Thanks for your help, I shall do my best tomorrow to give you as much info and a longer video of the fault.

Ta.

Paul.

paulcan692011-01-04 00:30:47

 

[paulcan69]

Please ignore this post now and see below, I did had pictures from 'Crazy Kong' website of wboy1 and 2 bootlegs to explain the differences of my 2 wbml boards, but now please see below for my actual images of my boards, this post was in my opinion just confusing this thread.

Many thanks,

paulcan692011-01-04 23:40:19

 

[P-Man]

I recognise that pcb! I regret selling it now

I can't offer any insights on it though, check/replace rams or check the addressing/control signals to them i would say.

 

[paulcan69]

Sorry dude I love this game, when I saw you had it faulty in a bundle, I offered you a fair price for it and you removed it from the bundle.

What makes it even cooler for me is that it's the "other" English text version so it's different to my working one.

Thanks though, I will take care of it, or get it repaired if I can't do it!

Anyhoo, here are my pics:-

First a few shots of my FULLY WORKING WBML board just for ref to the other faulty one:-

REPEAT THIS IS NOT THE FAULTY ONE!!

NOTE THE TWIN SIZE DAUGHTER BOARD

paulcan692011-01-04 23:28:08

 

[paulcan69]

Next up the FAULTY board in question which I'm 'trying' to repair, please note the single size daughter card.

 

[paulcan69]

And lastly to compare the worker and the non worker side by side.

(The worker has the adaptor on it)

Thanks for any ideas or advice in advance.



P.S I know I'm sad, notice the printed off screen shot which is laminated and tied to the pcb so once on the shelf I can tell what board is what.

I didn't mean to take a picture of that but it's too late now.
paulcan692011-01-04 23:43:15

 

[trm]

OK. Given the lack of schematics I'd start by pulling a single ROM at a time to see what effect that has on the tiles and their arrangement.

If you're VERY lucky you'll get something cool, like pulling one ROM will cause some tiles to be black or white and the rest will become sensible

. That's very unlikely to happen, but it'll give you locations for the tile GFX ROMs and then you can work outwards with your logic probe to check what is connected to their data and address busses and see if anything is looking a bit dodgy.

I'd be looking for things like buffers on the addressing side which have one or more static data lines - they won't all be static as you're getting some semblance of proper tile display - and the static line basically adds a fixed offset to any requested address (I think I went into this on another response to one of your questions about tile maps and what/how, but in summary if a device is sending 0x0B, binary %0000 1011, over the bus and the third line on the buffer is stuck high, then the stuck line is the same as adding binary %0000 0100 to whatever is transitioning the buffer. This would turn an expected value of 0x0B, %0000 1011 into 0x0F, B0000 1111, so the game is now looking at the wrong address to fetch/place/whatever the chunk of gfx data).

This may be the address space for your board (nicked from the MAWS entry):

ROM_START( wbmlbg )

 4145      ROM_REGION( 0x40000, "maincpu", 0 )

 4146      ROM_LOAD( "galaxy.ic90",  0x20000, 0x8000, CRC(66482638) SHA1(887f93015f0effa2d0fa1f1f59082f75ac072221) ) /* Unencrypted opcodes */

 4147      ROM_CONTINUE(             0x00000, 0x8000 )             /* Now load the operands in RAM */

 4148      ROM_LOAD( "galaxy.ic91",  0x30000, 0x8000, CRC(89a8ab93) SHA1(11389604017e15aed9a8fcef60e42740acd79917) ) /* Unencrypted opcodes */

 4149      ROM_CONTINUE(             0x10000, 0x8000 )

 4150      ROM_LOAD( "galaxy.ic92",  0x38000, 0x8000, CRC(39e07286) SHA1(70192f03e52dd34c9fe5698a5ec1c24d3c58543c) ) /* Unencrypted opcodes */

 4151      ROM_RELOAD(               0x18000, 0x8000 )

 4152  

 4153      ROM_REGION( 0x10000, "soundcpu", 0 )

 4154      ROM_LOAD( "epr11037.126", 0x0000, 0x8000, CRC(7a4ee585) SHA1(050436106cced5dcbf40a3d94d48202eedddc3ad) )

 4155  

[color="#FF0000"] 4156      ROM_REGION( 0x18000, "tiles", 0 )[/color]

[color="#FF0000"] 4157      ROM_LOAD( "galaxy.ic4", 0x00000, 0x8000, CRC(ab75d056) SHA1(d90d9c723536d0ec21900dc70b51715300b01fe7) )[/color]

[color="#FF0000"] 4158      ROM_LOAD( "galaxy.ic6", 0x08000, 0x8000, CRC(6bb5e601) SHA1(465d67dcde4e775d1b93640ef1a300e958cbe707) )[/color]

[color="#FF0000"] 4159      ROM_LOAD( "galaxy.ic5", 0x10000, 0x8000, CRC(3c11d151) SHA1(7b0c6792ae919ac309a709ca0c89006487e1d6e9) )[/color]

 4160  

 4161      ROM_REGION( 0x20000, "sprites", 0 )

 4162      ROM_LOAD( "epr11028.87",  0x00000, 0x8000, CRC(af0b3972) SHA1(413825f66b84c7e45aa1855131482abead8f7f3b) )

 4163      ROM_LOAD( "epr11027.86",  0x08000, 0x8000, CRC(277d8f1d) SHA1(7854673503ed03d276abe971805a11f8c992f6d6) )

 4164      ROM_LOAD( "epr11030.89",  0x10000, 0x8000, CRC(f05ffc76) SHA1(f3dbb518240f86430840c3d4cda04bac79c20f69) )

 4165      ROM_LOAD( "epr11029.88",  0x18000, 0x8000, CRC(cedc9c61) SHA1(dbe5744f9b6f2a406b52b910dd4e133db7bce6b2) )

 4166  

 4167      ROM_REGION( 0x0300, "palette", 0 )

 4168      ROM_LOAD( "pr11026.20",   0x0000, 0x0100, CRC(27057298) SHA1(654be7abb937bb0720263ee6512e31194662effe) )

 4169      ROM_LOAD( "pr11025.14",   0x0100, 0x0100, CRC(41e4d86b) SHA1(a86e8bb0a465d01b04410edfbb82eb96f12b909f) )

 4170      ROM_LOAD( "pr11024.8",    0x0200, 0x0100, CRC(08d71954) SHA1(df045dbfb3d669e4d42fbdba1e7191cd046f7b47) )

 4171  

 4172      ROM_REGION( 0x0100, "proms", 0 )

 4173      ROM_LOAD( "pr5317.37",    0x0000, 0x0100, CRC(648350b8) SHA1(c7986aa9127ef5b50b845434cb4e81dff9861cd2) )

 4174  ROM_END

I've marked the interesting ROMs in red - if you're lucky you can spot them by their markings, otherwise it's a case of pulling one at a time and finding out what's what.

It should be pretty obvious if you've pulled the program code as it'll stop dead, same as pulling the sounds ROMs will kill the sound (hopefully, and not the entire board).

Not sure if anybody else wants to comment on this bit, but if I'm having to resort to pulling ROMs to find their purpose I sometimes do it with the board powered up. Never killed anything yet and I use a plastic tool to slide underneath the ROM and above the socket so I can't short anything, but it gets rounds awkward boards that test for all expected address space being present before booting.

The other investigation path would be to look for any likely RAMs that are used to hold the display and see about pulling and testing or piggybacking known good. The only problem is this seems to be a hacked system1 game so the protection devices have been removed which means the board in front of you could deviate from the general structure of the sys1 architecture quite significantly, meaning that locating specific RAMs and their purposes from a sys1 schem (are there any?) could end up being useless for you.

If you want to have a hunt for sys1 schematics and link to them I don't mind having a flick through to come up with some pointers.

Let me know if any of this is unclear and I'll try to explain it better, especially the bit about stuck lines.

cheers (and good luck),

tim

 

[DanP]

It might also be worth (as a quick test) exploding that rom zip out (remembering to rename the zip file) and renaming the tile rom files to one of the other files (i.e galaxy.ic4 to galaxy.ic6, etc) to see if you can replicate your issue in MAME. MAME will use files over zips if they are in the /roms directory. If you get something similar to your problem then you know that either you have the wrong roms in the wrong sockets or you have an addressing issue.

Dan

P.S I might have a try at this later tonight if I canDanP2011-01-05 17:28:54

 

[guddler]

I use a normal flat bladed screwdriver. And I normally do it with the power on too. I've not shorted anything yet, I'm just careful!

 

[Equites]

The other investigation path would be to look for any likely RAMs that are used to hold the display and see about pulling and testing or piggybacking known good.

Tim - I read your post with great interest, in particular where you mention piggybacking known good RAMs against the PCB to try and find any bad RAMs.

This seems a nice and easy way of finding problems, can this only be done with RAMs or with other ICs too, like 74 logic? Are there any rules to this?
Equites2011-01-05 18:42:12

 

[guddler]

Not really, no. It certainly can work. It can certainly also not work. On top of that, it can potentially harm the new chip. Don't get me wrong, I do this all the time and I find it very useful but it's as often a case of spotting a change that leads you down the right path as anything.

 

[trm]

My experience is as Martin says. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. A lot depends on luck, the faulty chip and the phase of the moon Sometimes the duff chip will overdrive and beat the piggyback, other times it's dead and the piggyback gets to take over and you notice a difference.

tim

 

[favouredson]

100% compared to Maws I have the full Galaxy bootleg set and all roms show identical in romcmp.

Are you 100% sure, Paul?

In your first pic of the faulty board there is a 27512 (otp) but in the MAWS entry pasted by Tim all the ROMs are shown as 0x8000 which would make them 27256s.

I would have thought it would 'spot the difference' between a 27256 and a 27512 with the same code as half of the 27512 would, presumably, be blank and create a different checksum. I may be completely off track here as I have never used romcmp and I haven't a clue how it does what it does.

As a small aside, I had a bootleg of one of the versions once and it had another daughterboard up near the Z80 toward the bottom of the PCB.

 

[trm]

Hi Garry,

Just as an FYI, I *think* the MAWS entry I listed is the correct one as it was the galaxy bootleg, but it could be different.

Sorry that it's slightly confusing.

Paul - we need to get you a Fluke 9010A That would make this a LOT easier. Plug into the CPU socket and run a RAM/ROM test and see if we get decode errors anywhere. Might be worth considering as your next VAC purchase. I know somebody who just imported three but I'm not sure whether he had to butcher some to get the others working. Will ask on IRC next time I speak to him (prob tomorrow) unless you're reading this Mr X and can pitch in - I don't want to mention your name in case you were planning on holding onto the spares

cheers

tim

 

[paulcan69]

Hi Fav,

No I'm not 100%, but by checking what I have on the board now with romcmp, they are the same dumps as what mame uses, if they are correct for this board is a big??

It maybe this is a bit of a prototype board and these roms aren't correct for this exact hardware version?? ...and maybe no full dumps of what this board used to be are about anywhere??

Well I know what you are saying, and very well spotted sir, I can tell you went to detective school as on my board there orignally were 2x 512's next to each other just where you pointed out.

(5 and 6 on the faulty board)

Both were OTP's but I had to replace one as it was broken, so I used another 512 (as it said on it that it was a 512) and reburnt no. 6 (I did get a dump of it first and used that) but one of the legs just crumbled away which is why I HAD to replace it.

But I'm sure I did already try another rom with the mame dump for no. 6 as well, but I haven't tried a 256 rom??

You have got me really thinking now as I want to find 2x 256's and burn fresh versions of 5 and 6 from MAWS/MAME and see what happens when I put those in??

(To replace both 512 OTP's)

Hmmmm, OK food for thought there.

But just to confirm this board has ALWAYS behaved like this (the same fault) even before I even touched any roms, from day one.

Which makes me think that (and I'm no pro as you know) that it wasn't just a incorrect rom issue.

The only fault I have changed slightly is it used to go black and green like an old Amstrad CPC monitor then back to colour sometimes.

Can't remember how I fixed that now, dry joint somewhere maybe?

With a good flex of the board I can still get it to do this but only just and you have to be rough..

Tim's got the correct ones, the ic5, ic6, ic7 etc... are used in the galaxy bootleg version only.

What scares me is out of 10 goes of booting it up, maybe 3 times it will not boot and be a blank screen which makes me think maybe a dodgy z80a jubbing out??

Who knows....you all know I'm guessing at all this, but I think these comments help you get a clearer picture.

Also what makes me sh*t myself is that I can remove the daughter board totally and the board boots and runs just like this???

Surely it shouldn't do that, should it?? What's the daughter board for?

Does this only come in later in the running of the game?

Here's what work I've put in on it tonight.

I located the roms as mentioned/highlighted by Tim above, they are roms 8, 9 and 10 (on the stickers/labels) this is on the faulty board. - see image above,

First I removed them and checked every pin of the sockets with the base of the board for continuity and all 3 sockets were good.

So next I had the board running and I pulled each one of those 3 "Tile" chips one at a time and each one made the game tiles worse or almost crashed the game

One even showed me the final boss of the game (The robot Dragon thing) almost like it jumped to the last room of the game and froze until I placed the rom back in.

All 3 made the gfx problem worse and 1 made the game halt on the same screen.

Next I looked at the two ram chips (in sockets) right next to 8, 9 and 10 roms, these were two different makes and model numbers of ram so my attention went to them.

First I again checked all sockets were good with continuity test all ok.

Then whilst I searched for replacements for the ram I remembered my other 'working' WBML board - duh!!

So I swapped the ram over - the working board had the same type of ram in both sockets and they looked mint, but still the board booted to the same fault.

I can see a repair on the solder side, I just out of interest un-modded it to see what happened, true enough the board wouldn't boot at all and I tried many times, as soon as I put the mod back it booted. (Not the mod in the pictures above as that's of my working board, I didn't even see this mod till just now, it uses kynar wire which is green and I can barely see it)

Then I spent maybe an hour looking for dry joints, scratches, pins touching and had the odd dabble, still the same on boot up.

Lastly I heated up and blobbed up both Z80 pins ready to then de-solder over the next couple of days, I found 2 sockets (which you kindly donated to my cause last time Tim

) so as soon as I have a bit more time I will socket both z80's and report back on the swap to see what that does, I don't have another exact z80a to hand in nos stuff, but as you know Tim I have those sh*t load of boards to dig through, if the wbml z80's are in sockets at least I can swap and see quickly!!

Tim, yes I would love a Fluke 9010A it would be nice, I def want to own one, I am saving like mad for a USA holiday which is booked for May and even I'm going to be selling 2 cabs (my last remaining mame cabs on fleabay to raise extra spending money so I can live like a king out there - for a couple of weeks

)

But as Fluke's are getting like hen's teeth I never say never, I do want one and could always call in a favour or two buy it and worry about paying for it after the US of A.

Thanks for all your ideas and help, so far I'm loving it, hopefully this info may put other ideas into your heads??

Yeah a Fluke is the way forward, but you would have to teach my dumb-a*s how to use it.

Guess I'm doing this the slow way, why can't one of you live down the road and take my under your wing to teach me all of this, i'd even pay for leasson time.

Thanks y'all.

paulcan692011-01-05 23:54:42

 

[paulcan69]

Just to cross it off the list, I found and wiped 2x 256 roms and burnt 5 and 6 onto them to replace the 2x 512's.

Only just to check, and board won't boot with them.

So now I'm more confused, this board was covered in wbml galaxy roms when I got it.

Fav your quite right my board has 2x 512's but the galaxy mame/maws entry has all 256 rom files.

I thought this may have helped but now even more makes me think I have incorrect roms or something.

I put the old roms back in and it boots and runs as normal (but faulty) just as my video above.

EDIT oooo, just to confirm my wbml working booty has 2x 512's in the exact same place??

Interesting!

Now I want to burn a complete set of the other roms (different English text version) and see how the board behaves?? Obviously check where they all go?

Good idea or bad?

But as I always said, the board has always done this, I have not made it worse??

Ta,

Fluke owner nearby who can help till I purchase one?

Lastly this daughterboard which can be removed with no effect to the game makes me nervous, anyone else feeling that?

Many thanks.
paulcan692011-01-07 00:41:32

 

[P-Man]

I think you are chasing a red herring with all this rom swapping.

I wrekon you should build a video probe and start prodding about, i feel that this will lead you in the right direction.

 

[paulcan69]

I agree, I don't even like herring's

Timbo please can you email me your video probe info so I can knock one out oooo eeeerrrr! even if the version for the site is unfinished? Please?

P-man do you have a link to a video probe creation site?

Thanks P-man I do want to start prob'in may need a bit of guidance there.

Tim please? Unfinished I don't mind.