Hydrothunder Video Out

bteeter

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Aloha All,

I just picked up a couple more Hydrothunder cabs playing blind. I'm planning to slap in nice LCD's inside them both as they look great with them.

The last one I converted over a year ago, I used the Gonbes board, and I thought I went from the Hydrothunder Video Card -> Gonbes RGB input -> Gonbes VGA Out. So I did that but no dice.

What am I forgetting/missing? I can always go to the route and pull apart the machine that I did it in previously if I need to.

Thanks!

Brian
 
ive never converted one of those so i dont really know, but it seems to me those were problematic for video cards acting up iirc.
 
You cant remove the video out from the I/O board on that game. If you want to use the video out you need to get a VGA Y adapter or just use the video coming off of the I/O board. The I/O board uses the video signal to monitor the CPU's activity.
 
You cant remove the video out from the I/O board on that game. If you want to use the video out you need to get a VGA Y adapter or just use the video coming off of the I/O board. The I/O board uses the video signal to monitor the CPU's activity.


Interesting. I guess I'll hit up Radioshack to see if they have a splitter in the morning.

I wonder if I can connect that direct to the monitor? If so that would be way cool as I can use the converter board elsewhere!

In theory, I could also have the VGA out from the PC Video Card, through to the IO board, and then slice the out bound JAMMA style Video connectors to connect them to the GONBES RGBS inputs too then correct?

Thanks for the help!

Brian
 
I'm not sure if the I/O board modifies the video out to the monitor or the computer does. My guess would be the I/O board but the output from the computer may be scaled down to make up for the difference between VGA and EGA (the actual screen real-estate will be smaller in EGA). You can try it and it would be interesting to see what it turns out looking like though. If the output is full VGA from the computer it should look nice.

You should be able to connect the I/O boards video output to your Gonbes RGB board and have that scale the signal up to VGA.
 
That is what I thought too. So, I connected VGA Out on the CPU -> Gonbes -> Gonbes VGA Out -> Monitor - but I could not get a signal. I could see the Gonbes menus but nothing from the game.

If the game needs to have the Video go through that board, then that might explain why. I am going to try the splitter idea next, and if that fails, I'll slide and dice the video out coming off the IO board and use the RGBS inputs on the Gonbes board instead.




I'm not sure if the I/O board modifies the video out to the monitor or the computer does. My guess would be the I/O board but the output from the computer may be scaled down to make up for the difference between VGA and EGA (the actual screen real-estate will be smaller in EGA). You can try it and it would be interesting to see what it turns out looking like though. If the output is full VGA from the computer it should look nice.

You should be able to connect the I/O boards video output to your Gonbes RGB board and have that scale the signal up to VGA.
 
OK, so I got the VGA splitter from Radio Shack for a mere $45. (WTF right?) It didn't help. So I looked at another Hydro thunder sit down I have with a dead monitor. Apparently I'm missing the cable that came off the seperate Diego board and that went to the old monitor. I grabbed the one from the sit down, but no luck.

The system does not appear to be booting. Sometimes I get the 2 beeps errors (CPU error), sometimes 6 beeps (perhiperal error) and sometimes no beeps, but no video either.

This CPU worked fine until I yanked the dead CRT out so I'm super puzzled. I don't want to spend $400 or more on a new CPU. I'm guessing I'm just doing something wrong. I might pick up a cheapie PCI Video card so I can at least see the PC's video.



On a good note the sit down works fine with the Gonbes card and an LCD. Now I just need to yank the dead CRT out of it and replace.
 
Yeah, might be a good idea to get a PCI video card to see what the computer is doing. You could very well be stuck at some POST error screen cuz of a dead battery.
 
Hydro Thunder

The system does not appear to be booting. Sometimes I get the 2 beeps errors (CPU error), sometimes 6 beeps (perhiperal error) and sometimes no beeps, but no video either.

Did you ever get this working?
I have had so many problems with my pair of sit down HT and it came down to that little chip on the video board, which you can't get anymore.

Could you let me know if you have resolved this. I have more info on it and someone is supposed to be working on a replacement HT game that doesn't require the usual hardware.

Thanks
Russ
 
The system does not appear to be booting. Sometimes I get the 2 beeps errors (CPU error), sometimes 6 beeps (perhiperal error) and sometimes no beeps, but no video either.

Did you ever get this working?
I have had so many problems with my pair of sit down HT and it came down to that little chip on the video board, which you can't get anymore.

Could you let me know if you have resolved this. I have more info on it and someone is supposed to be working on a replacement HT game that doesn't require the usual hardware.

Thanks
Russ


Aloha Russ,

No, I never did get it working. I did get a PCI Video card as was suggested and was able to get to a strange boot failure message on that video output. Let me see if I can find what it was in my notes... Ya, I don't have it. I'd reproduce, but the machine is buried in the garage and has no monitor at the moment.

This project got put on hold as I had other games to fix and place out on the route. I think in my case its that the CPU Board is bad, as I get different beep results depending on where the RAM is located in slots 1, 2 or 3. It could be the input board as well, but not sure.

If I ever resolve it I will post the result.

Thanks - Brian
 
I have 3 hydros. Two have the original video card, one is missing it. I tried multiple types of other cards I had lying around to see if it would work, I got the 6 beeps. I put the original quantum obsidian 2 board from another and it booted with no issue. I know that might not help much but it may only boot with that specific board. If there is another out there that will work, I haven't found it. But then again I only used old cards I had lying around. :)
 
I think that the game will only boot with a 3DFX VooDoo2 Quantum Obsidian video card. The PC will error out with the beep code saying that a VGA adapter is missing even with a good 3DFX card in one of the PCI slots.

I've never tried a VooDoo3 card in HydroThunder so I dont know if one will work.

EDIT: The card may not be a Quantum Obsidian2 but it is a 3DFX card...
 
The Video card is a Voodoo 2 PCI.

This has been discussed here several times.
But I will repost just to help out.

The Video card in a Hydro IS NOT a standard off the shelf PC card per say . And I am not sure you will ever find a "off the Shelf" card that will work.

And the reason I say this is This:

These cards use a special Bios That has to be De Soldered and Moved to the "replacement" card before the system will work.

There are several posts about what the bios Numbers are, and what card can be Modded to work.
No one to my knowledge has decompiled the bios for that chip so the only place to get them is from a old dead Hydrothunder Video card.

I hope that helps. :)
 
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