neo geo upgrade

I have a Neo Geo single game cabinet. Is it possible to upgrade it to hold multiple cartridges?

It is, but it's probably easier to buy a multi-game cartridge, which costs around a hundred bucks.

If you want a real multi-slot, you'll need to pick up a new 2- or 4-slot motherboard. They're readily available, and are going to cost around $100-$150. They have slightly different pinouts, and I'm not 100% sure they can swap without rewiring. Another consideration is the select game button — you may need to wire one up if you don't have one on your control panel.
 
It is, but it's probably easier to buy a multi-game cartridge, which costs around a hundred bucks.

If you want a real multi-slot, you'll need to pick up a new 2- or 4-slot motherboard. They're readily available, and are going to cost around $100-$150. They have slightly different pinouts, and I'm not 100% sure they can swap without rewiring. Another consideration is the select game button — you may need to wire one up if you don't have one on your control panel.

What he said. The one slot should be wired for jamma. The multi slot boards are not full jamma compatible as they have stereo output. You can get an adapter to let them run in a jamma cabinet. You would then just need the extra game switch button wired up. I agree with the idea of using a multi cart.
 
I have refurbished 2 and 4 slot boards that I sell between 80 to 120 plus shipping.

Or you can go with the multicart.

RJ
 
I didnt think about the game select buttons. It might be easier to just hunt down a four slot neo geo cabinet.

The 4 slot boards you sell are they easy to instol?
 
I didnt think about the game select buttons. It might be easier to just hunt down a four slot neo geo cabinet.

The 4 slot boards you sell are they easy to instol?

The 2, 4, and 6 slot boards need the select button. They are all a modified jamma with stereo sound. You can get an adapter board to hook it into a jamma cabinet. Some of them will allow you to switch games without the game selection button.

For the multi-carts you just hold the player 1 button for 5 to 10 seconds.
 
If you have a 1 slot cabinet that is wired for stereo then you just plug them in and screw them down in the cabinet. Nothing else is needed.

If it's a 1 slot cabinet wired for mono/JAMMA sound then you can either rewire the speakers or use the JAMMA adapter mentioned.

The select button is as easy as drilling a hole in the control panel and wiring up another button.

RJ
 
Or you could wire the select button up to an existing fire button. The system won't allow you to change the game once you've pressed start.
 
I investigated the option of a multi slot mvs as well. I am no longer considering that option as that many 4 and 6 slot boards require extensive maintenance, tracking down problems once they occour is said to be a nightmare due to the complexity of the board catering to so many slots. Also its not 100% jamma if you are doing the wiring yourself.

Just look on feebay, you are going to find listing after listing of non working mvs 4 and 6 slots. I own an mvs-1f myself and the board contains a mono/stereo switch. The switch is a bypass to a 4-pin male connector (for a 3.96mm VH, if im wrong someone please correct me) that is found on the side of the board.

The way this works is if you install the board in a jamma cab with only one speaker then you set the swith to mono and use the jamma connector's speaker connection to the 1 speaker. However if you have a cabinet with two speakers like an mvs cabinet then you terminate the jamma harness leads for the speaker connections instead of hooking them up, switch the pbc's audio switch to stereo, and utilize the 4-pin connector on the board to wire up the speakers. Polarity on the pins is documented as +, -, -, +
 
I investigated the option of a multi slot mvs as well. I am no longer considering that option as that many 4 and 6 slot boards require extensive maintenance, tracking down problems once they occour is said to be a nightmare due to the complexity of the board catering to so many slots. Also its not 100% jamma if you are doing the wiring yourself.

Just look on feebay, you are going to find listing after listing of non working mvs 4 and 6 slots.

Buh. They don't require "extensive maintenance," any more than any other arcade PCB does. There are two preventative maintenance tasks you should do, which is replace the battery and recap the audio amp. That's it. The top PCB is pretty much just the cart connectors and traces to connect them to the other board, hardly complex.

There are numerous listings for dead PCBs of all kinds. Guess that means I should dump my original PCBs and use a 60n1.
 
Buh. They don't require "extensive maintenance," any more than any other arcade PCB does. There are two preventative maintenance tasks you should do, which is replace the battery and recap the audio amp. That's it. The top PCB is pretty much just the cart connectors and traces to connect them to the other board, hardly complex.

There are numerous listings for dead PCBs of all kinds. Guess that means I should dump my original PCBs and use a 60n1.

+1 to that.

I've owned a 4 slot for the last 3 years and other than cleaning the third slot with a Sega Genesis cartridge slot cleaner and performing the battery mod and audio cap kit as previously mentioned, it has required no other maintenance.

Also, the switch on a MV-1F will allow stereo on the JAMMA plug just like the standard MVS connector. I don't have a MV-1F here right now, but I would bet that the 4 pin connector is stereo all the time, since I know for a fact that the switch routes stereo to the JAMMA connector.

Brian.
 
I investigated the option of a multi slot mvs as well. I am no longer considering that option as that many 4 and 6 slot boards require extensive maintenance, tracking down problems once they occour is said to be a nightmare due to the complexity of the board catering to so many slots. Also its not 100% jamma if you are doing the wiring yourself.

Just look on feebay, you are going to find listing after listing of non working mvs 4 and 6 slots. I own an mvs-1f myself and the board contains a mono/stereo switch. The switch is a bypass to a 4-pin male connector (for a 3.96mm VH, if im wrong someone please correct me) that is found on the side of the board.

The way this works is if you install the board in a jamma cab with only one speaker then you set the swith to mono and use the jamma connector's speaker connection to the 1 speaker. However if you have a cabinet with two speakers like an mvs cabinet then you terminate the jamma harness leads for the speaker connections instead of hooking them up, switch the pbc's audio switch to stereo, and utilize the 4-pin connector on the board to wire up the speakers. Polarity on the pins is documented as +, -, -, +

You are grossly over exaggerating uninformed propaganda. Four and six slots are no more prone to failure than any other of the various MVS mobos. Maintenance is the same with a six slot as it is with a one slot with the only difference being your simply easily cleaning 6 slots as oppose to one. As far as tracking down problems when they occur, the complexity depends on your skills. If you can't tell a soldering iron from a curling iron than yes I can see how intimidating potential faults can seem. Hell fixing a konami board can be called complex, fixing a ninja warriors board can be called complex if you don't have the skills.

I have working pcb of every mvs mobo released in duplicates. I have been buying broken mobo for 12 years, repairing and selling them. There is tons of broken stuff on ebay because stuff breaks man. Just because you have broken 4/6 slots mvs boards listed on ebay is not testimony to their unreliability, there are tons of broken 1 slots on the bay too btw.
 
http://wiki.arcadeotaku.com/w/Beginners_Guide_To_SNK_Neo_Geo_MVS

"Generally, it is not wise to purchase a 6 slot motherboard as they can be very unreliable due to the amount of cartridge slots, and the motherboard drawing more current than any other version. It can take a while to get all 6 games working due to the age of the hardware and how clean your motherboard slots and game software carts are."

"Generally if you want a compact MVS motherboard for your cab you want to be aiming for a 1 slot, if you wish to have multi-cart functionality go for a 2 or 4 slot (obviously). One caveat with the 2/4/6 boards is that that are *not* a plain JAMMA pinout. I will address this later and how it affects operating one in your JAMMA candy cab."

http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=31&threadid=58374

ulasamosa - "It should have freeplay via the DIPs

all Neo boards are JAMMA so they are interchangable with anythying using that connection standard

don't get a 6 slot. Nothing to do with the cabinet size but the simple fact that everyone I know that has a 6 slot have the back 2 cart slots go bad.
"

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?13402-Wich-is-the-best-MVS-board-to-get

Robivy64 - "I have always enjoyed (and currently own) the MV-1FZ. It sounds like he has MV-1F boards based on you mentioning the controller ports. I have owned the MV-1F as well and it is a nice board.

I've never been a big fan of the multi-slot boards. They are ungodly huge, finicky, and require more power (something you need to consider if you plan on consolizing).

Each board has pros and cons. You have to consider that the multi-slot boards require MVS-JAMMA as opposed to regular JAMMA, so if you are going to install this in a standard JAMMA cabinet, you will need to make some modifications or buy an adapter. MVS-JAMMA having stereo at the JAMMA connector as opposed to mono."

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?13402-Wich-is-the-best-MVS-board-to-get

tomwaits - "There's a comparison chart of MVS motherboard versions here: http://www.hardmvs.com/html/PCBcompare.htm

I've got a couple single slot MVSs, and I'm using them with both a Vogatek supergun and a cab. The MV-1 is big, but it's full featured with a socketed bios, stereo sound, volume control, joystick ports, and connectors for headphone jacks/memory card reader.

The only problems with the MV-1 are the size and compatibility issues with a couple of the later MVS games (Rage of the dragons, Matrimelee, maybe others?). I also have an MV-1C which is much smaller and works with all MVS game. As GohanX mentioned the NeoBiosMasta lets you add a unibios to the MV-1C and you can also mod a MV-1C for stereo pretty easily. No way to add memory card support though.

I'd also recommend sticking with a 1-slot. Multi-slots are big, heavy, use more power, individual slots may fail, and they have compatibility problems with MVS multicarts.



Also, SvC Chaos Plus is actually 'better' than the original. It has all the extra characters unlocked by default and it's impossible to unlock them on an official MVS cart without a unibios."

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/103803/educate-me-on-neo-geo-arcade-hardware

elliotw2 - "The multicart would be a terrible idea with games that get upwards of 100MB. If you do want to upgrade your motherboard to more than 2-slot, go for a 4-slot. The 6-slot ones weren't very reliable, due to them having 6 heavy carts and having to flip through all of them"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4kBm6HXPAE

Read the comments from other viewers.

Unfortunately I've been unable to obtain production numbers for how many of each boards shipped. Perhaps its just a matter statistics and averages? Maybe more 4/6 slots were produced for ops than 1 and 2 slot boards because it was such an awesome way for them to save money and space.

Maybe it is just that time of year and broken 4/6 slots are more plentiful? Who knows. My apologies for coming off as "grossly exaggerating" what I had posted. My apologies for utilizing the phrase "extensive maintenance", I should have used, "routine preventative maintenance". As far as "uninformed propaganda", I wasn't aware that people were considering http://wiki.arcadeotaku.com as unreliable now days, my apologies for using dated sources.
 
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I also wanted to note that imoho, I tend to believe that the more complex or intricate something is, or if something just simply has more parts, the margin for failure tends to be higher. Again, a matter of statistics and averages. Of course, there are always exceptions as with anything.
 
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I also wanted to note that imoho, I tend to believe that the more complex or intricate something is, or if something just simply has more parts, the margin for failure tends to be higher. Again, a matter of statistics and averages. Of course, there are always exceptions as with anything.

You keep saying multi slots particularly six slots are bad but do you even own a 6 slot. Please don't use the friend or friend of a friend or my cousin girl friend brother told me it was unreliable argument in conjunction with a site who contributors are quoting word of mouth with no personal experience. IF by any chance once upon a long time ago in a galaxy far away when you once owned one in the past and it went bad on you and if this scenario did play out are you going to fault all six slots because you came across a REAL bad apple. I bought a bad flat panel once but exchanged it and it has been working correctly for the last 4 years.

I physically own 2 six slots and 4 four slots which I have run for twelve years and none are giving me the nightmare experiences you are describing. In reality at my pinnacle I used to own 20 six slots and around 23 four slots but cashed out on the surplus. So out of the 6 multi slots boards I still do own right now and you are advertising to avoid like the plague none are giving me problems, that's one heck of a statistical exception. Christ man this stuff WAS AND STILL IS running in arcades, for decades. If you are putting these mobo in a cab or super gun with a crappy power supply don't fault the mobo. If it make you fell better its a Sony being designed and manufactured by the Japanese. By the way the M in MVS stands for multi so if your going to get into the MVS don't make your cab a liar by slapping a one slot in it.
 
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http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?13402-Wich-is-the-best-MVS-board-to-get

Robivy64 - "I have always enjoyed (and currently own) the MV-1FZ. It sounds like he has MV-1F boards based on you mentioning the controller ports. I have owned the MV-1F as well and it is a nice board.

I've never been a big fan of the multi-slot boards. They are ungodly huge, finicky, and require more power (something you need to consider if you plan on consolizing).

Each board has pros and cons. You have to consider that the multi-slot boards require MVS-JAMMA as opposed to regular JAMMA, so if you are going to install this in a standard JAMMA cabinet, you will need to make some modifications or buy an adapter. MVS-JAMMA having stereo at the JAMMA connector as opposed to mono."

Everyone is welcome to their opionons, even you, but this particular quote is about feasibility of consolising the board. I don't think these comments are as relevant in this discussion.

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?13402-Wich-is-the-best-MVS-board-to-get

tomwaits - "There's a comparison chart of MVS motherboard versions here: http://www.hardmvs.com/html/PCBcompare.htm

I've got a couple single slot MVSs, and I'm using them with both a Vogatek supergun and a cab. The MV-1 is big, but it's full featured with a socketed bios, stereo sound, volume control, joystick ports, and connectors for headphone jacks/memory card reader.

The only problems with the MV-1 are the size and compatibility issues with a couple of the later MVS games (Rage of the dragons, Matrimelee, maybe others?). I also have an MV-1C which is much smaller and works with all MVS game. As GohanX mentioned the NeoBiosMasta lets you add a unibios to the MV-1C and you can also mod a MV-1C for stereo pretty easily. No way to add memory card support though.

I'd also recommend sticking with a 1-slot. Multi-slots are big, heavy, use more power, individual slots may fail, and they have compatibility problems with MVS multicarts.



Also, SvC Chaos Plus is actually 'better' than the original. It has all the extra characters unlocked by default and it's impossible to unlock them on an official MVS cart without a unibios."

Again, welcome to his opinion. But I'm not going to put much faith in something said by someone who says SvC Chaos Plus bootleg is "actually 'better' than the original."

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/103803/educate-me-on-neo-geo-arcade-hardware

elliotw2 - "The multicart would be a terrible idea with games that get upwards of 100MB. If you do want to upgrade your motherboard to more than 2-slot, go for a 4-slot. The 6-slot ones weren't very reliable, due to them having 6 heavy carts and having to flip through all of them"

I guess you didn't read this one carefully enough.... he recommends getting a 4-slot. :p

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4kBm6HXPAE

Read the comments from other viewers.

YouTube commenters? Really?

Unfortunately I've been unable to obtain production numbers for how many of each boards shipped. Perhaps its just a matter statistics and averages? Maybe more 4/6 slots were produced for ops than 1 and 2 slot boards because it was such an awesome way for them to save money and space.

Maybe it is just that time of year and broken 4/6 slots are more plentiful? Who knows. My apologies for coming off as "grossly exaggerating" what I had posted. My apologies for utilizing the phrase "extensive maintenance", I should have used, "routine preventative maintenance". As far as "uninformed propaganda", I wasn't aware that people were considering http://wiki.arcadeotaku.com as unreliable now days, my apologies for using dated sources.

*feigns shock* Something on the internet might be unreliable?!?!! I'm a member of Arcade Otaku, but like the KLOV database, it's wiki is maintained by it's users and therfore succeptable to opinion and mistake. The members of AO are not the end all of the arcade world, just as those of us that frequent these forums aren't. Everyone should make their own informed opinon. Hopefully the OP will do his own research and figure out the best option for himself.

Brian.
 
The members of AO are not the end all of the arcade world, just as those of us that frequent these forums aren't. Everyone should make their own informed opinon. Hopefully the OP will do his own research and figure out the best option for himself.

Brian.

True but if you want to learn about the oldies such as pacman klov is the spot, if you want to know something about street fighter than shoryuken is the place. Shoot em ups go to shumps. But since the debate is about the neo well heck I wish there was a site dedicated to it, oh well.
 
but since the debate is about the neo well heck i wish there was a site dedicated to it, oh well.

:D:D

Let's look.... Here's a thread with a recommendation from a user who frequents this forum as well : http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthread.php?186882-New-to-Super-Auctions-any-Suggestions

Post #3 : Honestly, you can get the cab for dirt cheap no matter what. If you get a pcb you dont want you can always swap it out easily. But yes go for the multi slots unless there are none left.

I'm sure if I spent more that 10 minutes searching I could come up with plenty of people extoling the virtues of MVS Multi-Slot PCBs..

Brian.

PS - Yes, there are lots of threads about non-working 4 and 6 slot boards (1 and 2 slots, too). If you look in our repair forum you will find lots of threads about non-working Pac-Man PCBs.. I guess that means they are all crap as well..
 
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