JROK Vs. Arcadeshop Board - Games play the same?

blkdog7

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I am thinking about getting an Arcadeshop board to replace my JROK board, mostly for Moon Patrol.

Is the emulation pretty much spot on with the Williams games? Or, is the JROK board that much better? Just curious.

Hugs and kisses,

Johnny Nintendo
 
I had the same problem, seeing as how I love Moon Patrol. I think I am going to keep my JROK board and do a JAMMA switcher for a dedicated Moon Patrol board.
 
That's an interesting idea! Hmm....

Yeah it's a lot more wiring but I would rather have as close to dedicated hardware as possible and if I ever decide to sell my Joust I can put it back to original and use the extra parts (Multi-JAMMA, etc) for another project instead of having $400 wrapped up in the AS board.
 
Main benefit of JROK is that the CPU isn't emulated. That's the workhorse of the entire system. The remaining chips that used to control address bus, data bus, sound, video processing is what is being emulated in the programmable gate array chip(s).

CPU emulation and timing is the biggest problem in any of these other emulation boards (plus they fact that most are using a 10+ year old version of MAME as the emulator cross-compiled on a very slow CPU). JROK avoids that all that problem by not trying to emulator the processor.
 
I understand that the JROK board is not emulation and that on paper it must be better. I was asking how is the emulation on the AS board? Is it virtually the same in the real world and when you are playing the game??
 
AS is emulating the CPU. That's you're answer. Nothing is original there.

Yes, it's better than MAME but it's still 100% emulation. It's far better than a 48-in-1, it may or may not be better than a good build of Mame. It probably is not as good as JROK on the same games.


I have all but a JROK so I cannot compare to that.
 
I have the Jrok, the ArcadeShop and a 48-in-1. Moon Patrol on the arcade shop board SEEMS faithful enough to the original, but I am using the "modded" vertical hack version of the game. It still plays fine, though. The ArcadeShop board is a WORLD better than the -in-1 boards, as the sounds are correct and the menu is superior. The JROK plays the williams titles just as well as the original boards, due to the fact that it is using an original CPU. I have never ran my AS board as a horizontal to test how it plays the typical Williams games, so I can't give a DIRECT comparison answer on that one. I do know, however, that the AS board (while more expensive) is FAR SUPERIOR to the -in-1 boards when it comes to all of the old midway, nintendo and sega games. It is DEFINITELY NOT MAME based. I don't know if the -in-1 boards are, but it wouldn't surprise me, given the sound issues...

Lee
 
AS is emulating the CPU. That's you're answer. Nothing is original there.

That's not my answer. I want to know how it plays, not how knowing JROK has the original CPU is affecting your judgement. I am only interested in how it plays and if it PLAYS just like the original and if you can tell the difference. If the emulation is spot on, and you can't tell the difference, then isn't that all that matters?
 
I have the Jrok, the ArcadeShop and a 48-in-1. Moon Patrol on the arcade shop board SEEMS faithful enough to the original, but I am using the "modded" vertical hack version of the game. It still plays fine, though. The ArcadeShop board is a WORLD better than the -in-1 boards, as the sounds are correct and the menu is superior. The JROK plays the williams titles just as well as the original boards, due to the fact that it is using an original CPU. I have never ran my AS board as a horizontal to test how it plays the typical Williams games, so I can't give a DIRECT comparison answer on that one. I do know, however, that the AS board (while more expensive) is FAR SUPERIOR to the -in-1 boards when it comes to all of the old midway, nintendo and sega games. It is DEFINITELY NOT MAME based. I don't know if the -in-1 boards are, but it wouldn't surprise me, given the sound issues...

Lee

Thanks for that! Yeah, the x in 1 boards blow. I recently put one in my Dragonspirit and I forgot just how horrible that board is. HORRID!
 
That's not my answer. I want to know how it plays, not how knowing JROK has the original CPU is affecting your judgement. I am only interested in how it plays and if it PLAYS just like the original and if you can tell the difference. If the emulation is spot on, and you can't tell the difference, then isn't that all that matters?

Okay, they are not exact. I have Robotron and Joust and Defender original boards. The AS does not appear to be an different when not running them concurrently. They feel the same to me. But I am not even an average player on these so don't know if they are exact.

I also own Moon Patrol, DK, DK Jr and DK3 boards.. Moon patrol on the AS has issues exposed by the AS. The pause feature (not in the original) leaves "EEEEE" text artifacts on the screen when unpausing.

The sound in Donkey Kong and DK Jr. on the AS are not the same as the original. The play seems fine to me. But I'm not a high score person so cannot verify the authenticity of timing and what not. I fear they may not be the same given the sound issues. However the sounds are still tremendously better than the xx-in-1's.

Once you start emulating the CPU, you cannot guarentee the same exact play as original hardware. I believe most *collectors* will be more than happy with the emulation of the AS (as compared to most collectors not happy with the emulation of a xx-in-1), while the general public is more than happy with the overall terribleness of the xx-in-1's.
 
Once you start emulating the CPU, you cannot guarentee the same exact play as original hardware. I believe most *collectors* will be more than happy with the emulation of the AS (as compared to most collectors not happy with the emulation of a xx-in-1), while the general public is more than happy with the overall terribleness of the xx-in-1's.

Thanks for that! I think your last paragraph really sums it for me. Thank you!

I think I am gonna try to find a AS board later for my vertical JAMMA cab and the leave the JROK as is, it works to damn good. :)
 
I'm running the AS board for my Multi-Williams and really like it. It's been decades since I played any original Williams games, so I can't comment on how it matches up (but it is fun)
 
The sound in Donkey Kong and DK Jr. on the AS are not the same as the original. The play seems fine to me. But I'm not a high score person so cannot verify the authenticity of timing and what not. I fear they may not be the same given the sound issues. However the sounds are still tremendously better than the xx-in-1's.

Once you start emulating the CPU, you cannot guarentee the same exact play as original hardware. I believe most *collectors* will be more than happy with the emulation of the AS (as compared to most collectors not happy with the emulation of a xx-in-1), while the general public is more than happy with the overall terribleness of the xx-in-1's.

I'm an above average Donkey Kong player (best score 778K) and in my opinion DK looks and plays perfectly fine on the Arcade Shop board. But it also looks and plays perfectly fine on my iCade 60-in-1 board.

I've noticed sound issues on some games on my 60-in-1, but to be fair I have also noticed sound issues on Arcade Shop's board. Gorf, for example, has particular bad sound on the Arcade Shop board. Maybe it's been fixed in a later rev, I dunno, but it wasn't but six months or so I ago when I experienced this, and the owner of the Arcade Shop board on which I was playing kept it pretty up to date.
 
Is anyone interested in selling their JROK board? I am also interested in a 96-in-1 multipac and Multi-Q*Bert (8 game) board.

Thanks!
 
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