Question on Sega Model 2 video output, specifically Virtual On...

[Shoegaze]

I've been on a huge VO kick lately (a new KLOVer in my area picking one up inspired me to start brushing up), and I got to thinking about the live monitor. After some reading up, it seemed like the trail went cold with this thread.

I don't have any good news to report -- just getting that out of the way before anyone reads this and gets excited -- but I've been doing some emulator testing and wanted to share my findings.

The first test I conducted was recreating rikitheshadow's previous experiment. US ROMs, PCB 1 was set to master, PCBs 2 and 3 were set to slave. This resulted in the "Illegal Nodes: 3" error displayed on all three instances of the game. Interestingly, the test menu seems to become completely inaccessible once a game has registered an illegal node count.

Interesting theory that the "Live monitor" option under game-assignment might not be available UNTIL a 3rd unit is attached... based on rikitheshadow's information this might only be possible on the Japanese version.

The second test was with Japanese ROMs, PCB 1 set to master, PCBs 2 and 3 set to slave. This resulted in the same "Illegal Nodes: 3" error on all three instances of the game, and the test menu was still inaccessible. Not looking promising.

For the third test, I wanted to try setting up the game as a Twin, but with something that wasn't a second slave on the network. The first configuration I tried was PCB 1 set to master, PCB 2 set to slave, and PCB 3 set to "nolink". Here's where things got kind of interesting. PCB 1 and PCB 2 detected the presence of PCB 3 and threw the "Illegal Nodes: 3" error... but now I could get into the test menu again. Alas, this did NOT unlock the elusive "live monitor" mode in the test menu, but it shows that the games behave differently depending on what else they see on the network.

It may be worth noting that while PCBs 1 and 2 were throwing the "Illegal Nodes: 3" error, PCB 3 worked fine in "single cabinet" mode, seemingly oblivious to the presence of any other VO PCBs on the network.

I tried a few other goofy configurations: 1 master, 3 slaves (Illegal Nodes: 4), 2 masters, 1 slave (same result as 2 slaves, 1 master), I even tried 1 master, 1 slave, 1 Daytona USA just for laughs. None of these yielded any interesting results.

Granted, my results could be down to problems or shortcomings with Model 2 Emulator, but I think it's safe to speculate that the live monitor probably wasn't just another regular VOOM board on the same network.

 

[twistedsymphony]

...
I don't have any good news to report -- just getting that out of the way before anyone reads this and gets excited -- but I've been doing some emulator testing and wanted to share my findings. ...

At least we have some solid confirmation of what doesn't work.

Over the last year or so I've managed to talk to a few people who have got Live Monitor mode working on other (no VO related) games and from what I understand when it's supported it will show up as an option in the Test menu. I also believe that for those that support it you can do it with just 2 units... one for master and 1 for the live monitor. I even saw a picture of this setup in a Daytona (2 I think?) twin where they had switched the 2nd player cab to live monitor mode.

I'm beginning to think that, at very least OMG doesn't offer the live monitor feature.

Now that I think of it I did manage to pickup a Model 3 VOOT service manual a short while ago, I should check to see if I can find anything in it related to this.

I still don't have my Model 3 VOOT boards setup yet... once I do I should be able to determine if the option exists in the menu... There are a few people here on KLOV who have obtained VOOT machines over the last year too, so they might be able to confirm before I can. kspiff and DrCirno both have them, and I sent a lead on one to Radiac that I think he bought.

 

[twistedsymphony]

Here are some pictures from the VOOT Model 3 manual...
I don't read Japanese but I get the impression from the first pic that that you can set the communication mode to "master", "slave", and "satellite"

Also... on the next page they show a 4 unit configuration, which is new to me... I'm not sure how that works since AFAIK there is only a 2 player mode in this game.

EDIT: I posted this up on Oratan here: http://www.oratan.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1562&p=11687#p11687

MentholMoose (the admin there) confirmed that he's seen live monitor mode on the Model 3 variation, he also confirmed that 4-linked cabinets are possible, the game offers a matching service so that any 2 players on the "network" can compete, which is kind of neat.

 

[MasterFygar]

Over the last year or so I've managed to talk to a few people who have got Live Monitor mode working on other (no VO related) games and from what I understand when it's supported it will show up as an option in the Test menu. I also believe that for those that support it you can do it with just 2 units... one for master and 1 for the live monitor. I even saw a picture of this setup in a Daytona (2 I think?) twin where they had switched the 2nd player cab to live monitor mode.

I'm beginning to think that, at very least OMG doesn't offer the live monitor feature.

I know that it does, though. I have pictures (on a now dead hard drive sadly) from the Japanese side of the web with a Live Monitor set up on top of the OMG cabinet, and I've seen tournament footage from OMG recorded from a Live Monitor with a special Live Monitor view.

It IS baffling, though, that even in emulation we cannot seem to reproduce the results at all. Is it possible that for some reason SEGA sent out special boards with the Live Monitor kid that had the capability enabled, and those ROMs were never dumped? Maybe?

 

[twistedsymphony]

I know that it does, though. I have pictures (on a now dead hard drive sadly) from the Japanese side of the web with a Live Monitor set up on top of the OMG cabinet, and I've seen tournament footage from OMG recorded from a Live Monitor with a special Live Monitor view.

It IS baffling, though, that even in emulation we cannot seem to reproduce the results at all. Is it possible that for some reason SEGA sent out special boards with the Live Monitor kid that had the capability enabled, and those ROMs were never dumped? Maybe?

I didn't realize there was actual evidence of this feature, I'd only ever heard people talking and speculating about it.

I suppose it's possible that it was a special rom set made for tournaments.

Sega does do special builds every so often such as the 3-player full motion simulation setup of Initial D 4, or the R360 version of Model 3 VOOT. Both were only ever available at Sega Joypolis in Japan.

 

[MasterFygar]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dptjP5aHaNc

That's the best video footage I could find. You'll see the view a few times in the video, starting in the first scene, with the signature "LIVE" flashing on it from the Live Monitor setups. You can also see the cabinet showing the regular view in the background on the right.

In the comments the uploader says

"There were events of "Virtual-On:Operation Moongate" every week from 1996 to 1998.

Event name was "Virtual-On Ranking Battle (VORB)"."

So perhaps it was exclusive to this series of tournaments, with a special romset, maybe at the SEGA owned (literally) underground VO only arcade Tangerine Spur?

 

[twistedsymphony]

wow that's awesome, I don't think I've ever seen OMG play that fast and precise either.

 

[Pinball Wizard]

I don't currently have anything to contribute of value to the thread, but I wanted to stop in an say Hi MasterFrygar! Long time no talk! I actually obtained a set of VO cabs so I am interested in seeing if this is ever figured out. I would say it is not unlikely that Sega had custom ROMs to allow the "Live" feed. Realistically with source code for a game, that would have been pretty easy to do. Basically its like running attract mode, just rendering from data coming in from other machines vs. what pre-coded data is in ROMs.

 

[MasterFygar]

What's up man! Yeah it's been forever! I don't get on here that much sadly but I'm still slowly picking away at my projects. I've about given up on my OMG restoration though (thankfully I did get it working again), it's a cabinet that's destined to be in horrible condition forever it seems and my attempts so far have just made it worse lol (the plastic filler I tried to use to repair the damaged chunks and chips hardened before I could even mold it and is fused on and fucking nothing will get it off--still pissed at myself for that). Eventually I might just pick up a better condition cabinet and sell this one on the cheap if a better one comes along. On the plus side it does have NOS seat back pieces so that's good I guess. That's awesome that you got a set, they're pretty rare in these parts! Get good at it and come give me some competition man!

None of my contacts on the Japanese side of the VO scene seem familiar with the variant ROMset, if there even is one. It's killing me knowing it's out there, though. I'll start keeping an eye on yahoo auctions japan and see if any interesting PCBs of it come along that show promise...

 

[twistedsymphony]

I search YAJ daily for VO arcade parts and have been for at least a few years now. I've only ever seen the model 2 boards pop up for sale a handful of times, and they usually sell pretty cheap. I've never seen anything out of the ordinary pop up.

 

[Shoegaze]

Here's a quick question... the Xbox 360 release of Operation Moongate included the live monitor feature, correct? Do we have any details on how that port "works"?

If internet gossip is to be believed, ElSemi, the author of Model 2 Emulator, was hired by Sega around 2012. If that's true, considering the game hit the 360 a year and change later, it seems like there's a reasonable possibility that the 360 version is actually running on a port of Model 2 Emulator... so the ROMs we need might be sitting on my Xbox 360 as we speak.

ElSemi seems like the next logical person we should reach out to, I just have no idea how to get ahold of him. Apparently he rarely posts on the Nebula forums anymore, and the contact form on his website threw a 500 Internal Server Error for me -- could someone else give it a shot?

I search YAJ daily for VO arcade parts and have been for at least a few years now. I've only ever seen the model 2 boards pop up for sale a handful of times, and they usually sell pretty cheap. I've never seen anything out of the ordinary pop up.

Trouble is... let's say for arguments' sake that there really is a mysterious "version 1.1" of the game like we theorize. It would almost certainly be a plain ol' Virtual On Model 2 stack with some updated ROMs. Someone selling this hypothetical "1.1" board could have absolutely no idea that there's anything special about it. :\

 

[twistedsymphony]

Trouble is... let's say for arguments' sake that there really is a mysterious "version 1.1" of the game like we theorize. It would almost certainly be a plain ol' Virtual On Model 2 stack with some updated ROMs. Someone selling this hypothetical "1.1" board could have absolutely no idea that there's anything special about it. :\

That's true, though I do tend to check the revision label whenever I see a board posted. with VOOT thats the only way to tell the difference between version 5.2 and 5.4 ("VOT" and "VOT VER. 5.4" respectively)

I would hope that Sega would do us the kindness of including the rev on the label if they did indeed make more than one revision of OMG. They might not if it was just a 1-off board, but if this was ever released in any official capacity then I would think that they would add a rev on the label, not to mention I doubt any 1-off board would find it's way to YAJ.

 

[MasterFygar]

Good point. I guess the big question is whether Sega sold this as an option with a separate boardset or possibly a way to activate the option or whether it was a one off at one Sega owned arcade deal.

Finding out more information about those old weekly Virtual On Ranked Battle tournaments would give some answers. Like, was it hosted by Sega? At a Sega owned arcade? Etc. Might help us figure out if the option was at least available outside of Sega locations.