Custom Radiant Silvergun Arcade Cabinet Finished!

LeeB99

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So, over the last couple of years, I have been making custom games during the winter months to put in to the arcade just in time for our annual "New Year's Eve" party. Last year, it was a custom pedestal setup with a 42" plasma all wired up to play PS3/PS2/PS1, Xbox and Xbox360 games with the arcade controls. It was a HUGE hit, and is a great piece to have in the arcade. I was LITERALLY wiring it up as the first guests were arriving last year.

This year, things were a little different. We have had TONS of ridiculous stuff going on with our house and personal lives, and these things made it VERY difficult for me to get the project done on time. But somehow, through determination and just being on a mission through many setbacks, I managed to finish a totally custom Radiant Sivergun arcade machine and get it in the arcade just before guests started to arrive. The amazing thing is that I didn't even have the artwork until after 2PM that day!

If you are not familiar, Radiant Silvergun is considered by MANY to be the ultimate overhead space shoot-em-up, and is the spiritual predecessor to Ikaruga -another highly regarded game that didn't get much noteriety until a version of it was made available for download play on the Xbox360 through Xbox Live Arcade. The Saturn version of the game, which was the ONLY home release that has been available since 1998 often commands a MINIMUM of $150 and upwards of $300 for complete mint copies. Since the Saturn was never "hacked", the only way that you could play the game at home was with a legit copy of the game and a japanese converter cartridge (if you have a US Saturn system).

Since the Saturn had an arcade board counterpart, the "ST-V", which is mostly known in these parts as the board that "Die Hard Arcade" was released on, Japan and Europe saw the release of the arcade version of the game on an ST-V cartridge. I have had this cartridge and boardset for a number of years, but always wanted a dedicated cabinet for just this game. I have also been a fan of the "Big Blue" Capcom Qsound cabinet, so when I aquired one recently at auction with a dead Marvel Versus Capcom boardset in it, I decided that it was time...

One of the more tricky parts of the conversion, other than the custom artwork, was to wire up the ST-V board to The Qsound stereo amplifier and speakers. The ST-V board has support for stereo sound, but it is not amplified. I had to decifer from foreign guides the pinouts on pin header "CN24" and then wire it into the qsound amplifier. Since the qsound amp runs at full power and only accepts a regulated input signal, I had to make a custom wiring harness to go between the ST-V boardset and the Qsound amplifier which contained a stereo volume potentiometer. At first, I was only getting sound out of the left channel. At first, I thought that I had to put the board into "stereo output" mode, as the ST-V board manual states that you must be sure to turn a switch to the proper position on the boardset. I looked EVERYWHERE, and no such switch exists. Looking very thoroughly through the BIOS settings revealed that no stereo mode option was present there as well. As it turns out, I had done nothing wrong, and the stereo outputs for that specific ST-V board were not working properly. I had recently purchased a spare board, and the problem went away when I swapped out the boardset with my backup.

All in all, it turned out GREAT. I have attached a couple of pics...

Lee
 

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So, over the last couple of years, I have been making custom games during the winter months to put in to the arcade just in time for our annual "New Year's Eve" party. Last year, it was a custom pedestal setup with a 42" plasma all wired up to play PS3/PS2/PS1, Xbox and Xbox360 games with the arcade controls. It was a HUGE hit, and is a great piece to have in the arcade. I was LITERALLY wiring it up as the first guests were arriving last year.

This year, things were a little different. We have had TONS of ridiculous stuff going on with our house and personal lives, and these things made it VERY difficult for me to get the project done on time. But somehow, through determination and just being on a mission through many setbacks, I managed to finish a totally custom Radiant Sivergun arcade machine and get it in the arcade just before guests started to arrive. The amazing thing is that I didn't even have the artwork until after 2PM that day!

If you are not familiar, Radiant Silvergun is considered by MANY to be the ultimate overhead space shoot-em-up, and is the spiritual successor to Ikaruga -another highly regarded game that didn't get much noteriety until a version of it was made available for download play on the Xbox360 through Xbox Live Arcade. The Saturn version of the game, which was the ONLY home release that has been available since 1998 often commands a MINIMUM of $150 and upwards of $300 for complete mint copies. Since the Saturn was never "hacked", the only way that you could play the game at home was with a legit copy of the game and a japanese converter cartridge (if you have a US Saturn system).

Since the Saturn had an arcade board counterpart, the "ST-V", which is mostly known in these parts as the board that "Die Hard Arcade" was released on, Japan and Europe saw the release of the arcade version of the game on an ST-V cartridge. I have had this cartridge and boardset for a number of years, but always wanted a dedicated cabinet for just this game. I have also been a fan of the "Big Blue" Capcom Qsound cabinet, so when I aquired one recently at auction with a dead Marvel Versus Capcom boardset in it, I decided that it was time...

One of the more tricky parts of the conversion, other than the custom artwork, was to wire up the ST-V board to The Qsound stereo amplifier and speakers. The ST-V board has support for stereo sound, but it is not amplified. I had to decifer from foreign guides the pinouts on pin header "CN24" and then wire it into the qsound amplifier. Since the qsound amp runs at full power and only accepts a regulated input signal, I had to make a custom wiring harness to go between the ST-V boardset and the Qsound amplifier which contained a stereo volume potentiometer. At first, I was only getting sound out of the left channel. At first, I thought that I had to put the board into "stereo output" mode, as the ST-V board manual states that you must be sure to turn a switch to the proper position on the boardset. I looked EVERYWHERE, and no such switch exists. Looking very thoroughly through the BIOS settings revealed that no stereo mode option was present there as well. As it turns out, I had done nothing wrong, and the stereo outputs for that specific ST-V board were not working properly. I had recently purchased a spare board, and the problem went away when I swapped out the boardset with my backup.

All in all, it turned out GREAT. I have attached a couple of pics...

Lee

Nice but I have to correct you on a few things.

1: Ikaruga was the "successor" to Radiant Silvergun

2: "Hacked" Saturn's are indeed around as are chips, patching the region on an ISO with Satconv makes a converter cart irrelevant.

I'm not really feeling it in that cabinet(doesn't help I think they are hideous for any game), game belongs in a candy, but you did a nice job.
 
I was in a hurry when I typed all of this up, so I used the wrong terminology with regard to which one came first. I was looking to do something unique, and have always liked the Qsound cabinets. This is the "bigger" of the two, and I suppose that I would have preferred to have used the slightly smaller Qsound "1" cabinet that was used as the dedicated cabinet for Street Fighter 2: Champion Edition. I didn't want to do this game as a "sit down" candy, so this is what I imagined an original US release to be like, had it ever been released here in the states. I didn't think that you could ever burn Saturn games, as I've never heard of it and I don't think that I have ever seen anyone post the roms on any of the typical warez sites for those games. Here are a couple of control panel images to show how the art was done. I collaborated with Sean from MCS to come up with the overall concept and to get things the way I felt they should be...

Lee
 

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