Offroad Thunder Magic Bus Errors

Still no luck getting this thing going. Going to work on it some more today. May just part it out at this point. Not sure what else to do.
 
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It is the video card. Finding an offroad thunder vid card is not going to be easy. Lots of arctic thunders out there....not interchangeable. :(
 
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If it is your card, That could suck. But I am not 100% sure that offroad thunder uses the same security as Hydrothunder. so you may get lucky if you can install a voodoo2 12 meg PCI card in it. It may just work. I did some crude tests quite some time ago when I was trying to assist in the hydrothunder hack and I have a Offroad Thunder PC here, that still seemed to function with the wrong Card installed. I hd it connected to a I/O board and could start a game ect... But I did not have a steering wheel or any "controls" connected. I was just using jumper wires to act as switches.
So you could try that.....
 
There is a guy here locally that works on this newer stuff. I am going to take the computer over to him and let him have at it. There is a complete CPU for sale for offroad thunder on eBay but it isn't cheap. Not sure this game is worth it.

On the card itself, I am sure I can find one of those but I thought that those video cards were locked down with some Midway propriety security stuff so you couldn't use just any old card. Is it a 3d card or 2d?
 
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There is a guy here locally that works on this newer stuff. I am going to take the computer over to him and let him have at it. There is a complete CPU for sale for offroad thunder on eBay but it isn't cheap. Not sure this game is worth it.

On the card itself, I am sure I can find one of those but I thought that those video cards were locked down with some Midway propriety security stuff so you couldn't use just any old card. Is it a 3d card or 2d?

Hydrothunder had the Security that enabled the video card to unlock the i/o board. I am (like I mentioned) not 100% sure that offroad uses that Same security. One of the programmers for Hydro Thunder was David Foley He was really into locking things down to specific parts to keep repair costs "in house and high" He was not involved in Offroad as I know.
The card for the game is 3D only It is based on the old voodoo 2 add-on 3d accelerator cards used in PC's.
Don't get rid of your old card if it is indeed faulty, and has the "security" enabled (Bios chip) that chip can be removed and installed on another card that doesn't have the security on it. AKA the obsidian 2 card (those are also hard to find) but not as hard as the security locked ones.
 
Well it is absolutely the video card. And they have the security chip. I can use the voodoo two card buy I have to have a hard drive with the security feature disabled in the software or I have to find a video card.
 
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Contact the one that finally made the Hydro patch He was talking about making one for offroad but he did not have a system for that one so he never started the project.

I know mine has at least some controls using a standard Voodoo 2 card....... but I do not have the full cab, just the PC with the I/O board.

Did you ever install a voodoo 2 card and try it in your cab? What did it do?
I think I will dig out my PC again and re-visit my tests if you can give me some information on what it does or doesn't do with the wrong card installed.
I know mine came up with video and I was able to start a game, but I have no wheel to "control" it with so I couldn't play it on my bench.
 
OK some things I have questions about. What I/O board do you have?
I will post 3 photos pick the one you have.


What Exactly does your game Do?

I connected my PC back up to the bench today, No matter what I did I couldn't get it to "NOT" display video. I tried a Voodoo2 card, A Obsidian 2 with a 014 chip and a Obsidian 2 with the 024 chip (This is the Security chip for Hydro thunder 024) All displayed video perfectly.

One thing I did was to connect a Diego I/O board to the PC (Photo 1) and the game would not load at all. Kill Thread ?!? is what was displayed on the VGA Monitor and nothing on the Game monitor. So game did not load.
I do NOT have the I/O board in Photo 2 This is a Offroad Thunder I/O board. But I DO have I/O board 3 which is a I/O board from a arctic thunder. These are actually the same except for the addition of the Video port on the 2nd one) Game loads and communicates with the I/O no matter what Card I install.

So I am back to thinking there is NO security in Offroad thunder. Because with HydroThunder you can see the game but you have NO controls you can not start a game or anything. I can jump the coin up and player 1 start and start a game with I/O board 3. So if this holds true for security I should not be able to do that, because you can not with Hydro thunder. But I can...... So....
 

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Video card replaced. Also HDD had an issue--i replaced the drive with a card based solution which removes the additional issue that could come up in the future. Game is up and working fine. For those having a similar issue test that card. Also, there absolutely IS a security chip in that card. Hydro and Offroad use the same card and it has security. The Arctic Thunder card does not have security but IS not compatible.
 
So please describe the issues experienced when not using a security chip video card on it? Lack of controls, no video??
I had my test bench running for several hours with no adverse effects. I could still coin up start a game ect...

The Whole issue i have is that Offroad thunder does NOT use the same I/O board as Hydrothunder. The I/O is what does the security for Hydro.
So while yes they use the same PC and the same Video cards, this does not mean that it uses the same security as Hydro.

I even downloaded a new CHD from MAME to test if I had some odd version and it Still works with that one.

BTW Glad you got it working :)
 
I for one would love some clarification when it comes to the Offroad Thunder "Security". Someone that has the means please test your system with a off the shelf voodoo 2 card and post what happens.
 
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