Marble Madness graphics issues

kstillin

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Hey-

I finally got a Marble Madness up and running (almost).

The game plays through and responds to controls.
Sounds/music are fine
EPROMS all check out fine with a burner

It has some screwy graphics problems though.

First of all, the blue ball doesn't show up. If it falls, then the graphic of it reappearing shows up, but when the ball is on the playfield, it is invisible. You can control it and even make it to the end of maze 1 by watching where it reappears and playing blind.

The red ball shows up, but the trakball has a bad axis.

The mazes are missing a bunch of detail.
Most of the top of maze one is black. Maze two is missing a lot of vertical pieces, but most of the paths show up.

The board I'm working with is a TTL type. I was focusing on the graphics ROMS (chips E3-E12, D8,D10,D12).
All of the address lines at those chips ohm-out the same across chips.
All of the data pins at chips within a graphic plane (0-4) appear common across chips too.
Both the address and data lines appear to be properly pulled-up to +5V through the resistor packs.

I focused on the graphics chips, suspecting crappy sockets, but am not finding proof of that.

I tried simulating the issue in MAME by substituting ROM files filled with FF's or 00's, but can't get the same stuff to show up.

I think the correct Slapstik is there (103).

I'll try to snap a photo or two when I'm with it next.
Any pointers appreciated.
 
I f'ed around with bunches of shit on mine when it had problems. My symptoms were varied, and not quite exactly like yours, but after all the rebuilds, replacements and troubleshooting, replacing the big blue finally cured what ailed me.
 
Hey-

I finally got a Marble Madness up and running (almost).

The game plays through and responds to controls.
Sounds/music are fine
EPROMS all check out fine with a burner

It has some screwy graphics problems though.

First of all, the blue ball doesn't show up. If it falls, then the graphic of it reappearing shows up, but when the ball is on the playfield, it is invisible. You can control it and even make it to the end of maze 1 by watching where it reappears and playing blind.

The red ball shows up, but the trakball has a bad axis.

The mazes are missing a bunch of detail.
Most of the top of maze one is black. Maze two is missing a lot of vertical pieces, but most of the paths show up.

The board I'm working with is a TTL type. I was focusing on the graphics ROMS (chips E3-E12, D8,D10,D12).
All of the address lines at those chips ohm-out the same across chips.
All of the data pins at chips within a graphic plane (0-4) appear common across chips too.
Both the address and data lines appear to be properly pulled-up to +5V through the resistor packs.

I focused on the graphics chips, suspecting crappy sockets, but am not finding proof of that.

I tried simulating the issue in MAME by substituting ROM files filled with FF's or 00's, but can't get the same stuff to show up.

I think the correct Slapstik is there (103).

I'll try to snap a photo or two when I'm with it next.
Any pointers appreciated.

I had some graphics issues with my MM board. Turned out to be a bent pin on the bottom side of the board. It was shorted to a trace causing some graphics issues.
 
No bent pins that I can find.

all the ROMS check out and the ROM sockets show good continuity to the appropriate connections.
 

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the board is stuck in a machine at the moment.

It is the TTL type as opposed to the LSI type.
There are two rows of EPROMs running the length of the board opposite the connectors.
Many are unpopulated, but they agree with the MAME list.
 
Reason I'm asking for a pic is that Arcadenut is looking for a direct pic of the pcb, he's working on a similar issue with a MM.

A pic would help both of you out.
 
I just discovered tonight that I'm having a similar issue with one of my Marble Madness boards but it is nowhere near as severe as yours. Those black, blocky, pixelated areas you're getting (photos 1, 2, and 3) appear on my board only in between the "waves" at the end of level 3, and the blocky areas are dark green rather than black. I swapped in my other Marble Madness game board and the second board is fine; the color at the base of the waves (in between them) is light green and graduates up the waves into dark green as it should. My problem board has no apparent issues on levels 1 or 2, nor on the first half of level 3 as far as I could tell, and I did not see any issues on level 4. (I'm not good enough yet to get any farther than the end of level 4.)

I bought the problem board recently from shilmover (not his fault; it appeared to test perfectly and the glitch appears only later in the game) and he's going to track down the cause. I'm gonna take both my boards and my control panel to his place soon. If/when he is able to determine what is causing it I will report our findings here.
 
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That's cool. Any help is appreciated.

I actually got a Road Blasters card off of shilmover and have that hooked up currently. Works great!

Some Marble Madness would be fun too. Maybe I'll take some time and fix up the trakballs.
 
It turned out to be a broken/missing leg on the ROM chip at position 146. Barry said it was the pin that receives power for the chip. He burned a new chip using ROM data from MAME and popped it in. We tested it and the graphics glitch I previously reported getting at the end of level 3 is now gone.
 
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