Strider with sound upgrade?

Yep, I remember this. If memory servers me right, the soundtracks for several levels were gone, it just played the first level music over and over. I had a Strider PCB years ago, and I remember updating one rom on the PCB to correct this. Capcom probably released the game, and then realized the error, and made this ROM update available for operators who wanted to fix it.
-Mark
 
Ooooooh, really?! Does anyone have more info on the exact differences or how to figure out what version is what? I have a Strider board, love that game, and would like to know if mine is missing something that would make it even cooler!
 
I believe the music reverts to the level one music on the gunship/reverse gravity level... It's really noticeable if, like me, you've played through the Sega Genesis version lots of times. :)
 
Bumping my old thread. Does anyone know which rom is for the music and has anyone here done the upgrade?
 
Funny you should mention this, I was playing it on the 400-in-1 Pandora's box last night and thought I had bugged the game or something since the music was repeating old tracks. I HAVE played a version of it with a complete set of music tracks in MAME, so the fix does exist. As btribble mentioned, missing music is very noticable if you've played through it with the proper tracks before, Strider has an amazing soundtrack.
 
This is the first I've heard about this. We had a dozen Striders on our route back in the day. I never heard about any sound problems or got any service bulletins. I do remember every single one of ours looped the same sounds over and over again regardless of the level you were on.
 
I had never heard of this. Very cool.

Strider is still one of my favorite games. I ended up trading my board years back, and wish I hadn't. If I ever track one down again I'll be looking into this for sure.
 
Here is one of the comments on a "Let's compare Strider" videos on Youtube.




For those that don't already know, "ha" sound is in the Japanese version of the game (including in the Megadrive and Japanese Arcade versions) and the Sharp x68 was a Japanese system (as well as the PCEngine of course).

Sharp ports of CPS1 games such as strider tend to be very close as the CPS1 hardware is based on the Sharp x68 hardware (but a bit better in some areas). The Sharp x68 was also literally used as the dev platform for CPS1 games too.

The Playstation version of the game is fantastic as long as you turn off the horrible remix soundtrack (so yes, the original unaltered arcade music is available and the music is also correct for levels 3 and 5, see below).

There's also an issue in the original Strider arcade board where the initial 1st level music plays on the 3rd and 5th levels. You'll see the music restarts at the points in those levels where it was supposed to change to something else as well. This led to a lot of people (at least in the US, not sure if this problem occurred in other countries) to assume that the Genesis port had added music. But later versions of the board had this issue corrected, with all the proper music for levels 3 and 5.

Unfortunately, the mame rom dump from the original flawed board is the most common and is used in all of the Capcom's Classics collections out there (or at least that I know of). I wish the devs at Capcom would finally figure out they can download the romset for the newer strider PCB and finally we can have the proper music. I grew up playing arcade Strider on a machine that didn't have this issue, so having the broken music drives me nuts and makes the game unplayable for me.

The rom is out there, I used to have it (and may still). I suspect it's pretty easy to find in any case. If I remember correctly, it may not be a stand alone romset as it's a revision.
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This is interesting.
So from doing some reading it sounds like there are 3 versions.
One with the messed up missing level 3 and 5 music.
One that fixes the missing 3 and 5 music but still has a screwed up intermission music and ending music. ( as in it plays level 1 music for the ending and that intermission. )
And one version where everything works.
From what read it sounds like the good version with all fixes can't be found and the one in mame now is the 2nd one with good 3 and 5 but bad ending and intermission.
Have not played to the end yet with the mame set to see if that is true or not.
I would love to get my hands on all 3 versions.
If anyone knows more please post.
Was this an error in the sound rom or the program rom?

Here is one of the comments on a "Let's compare Strider" videos on Youtube.




For those that don't already know, "ha" sound is in the Japanese version of the game (including in the Megadrive and Japanese Arcade versions) and the Sharp x68 was a Japanese system (as well as the PCEngine of course).

Sharp ports of CPS1 games such as strider tend to be very close as the CPS1 hardware is based on the Sharp x68 hardware (but a bit better in some areas). The Sharp x68 was also literally used as the dev platform for CPS1 games too.

The Playstation version of the game is fantastic as long as you turn off the horrible remix soundtrack (so yes, the original unaltered arcade music is available and the music is also correct for levels 3 and 5, see below).

There's also an issue in the original Strider arcade board where the initial 1st level music plays on the 3rd and 5th levels. You'll see the music restarts at the points in those levels where it was supposed to change to something else as well. This led to a lot of people (at least in the US, not sure if this problem occurred in other countries) to assume that the Genesis port had added music. But later versions of the board had this issue corrected, with all the proper music for levels 3 and 5.

Unfortunately, the mame rom dump from the original flawed board is the most common and is used in all of the Capcom's Classics collections out there (or at least that I know of). I wish the devs at Capcom would finally figure out they can download the romset for the newer strider PCB and finally we can have the proper music. I grew up playing arcade Strider on a machine that didn't have this issue, so having the broken music drives me nuts and makes the game unplayable for me.

The rom is out there, I used to have it (and may still). I suspect it's pretty easy to find in any case. If I remember correctly, it may not be a stand alone romset as it's a revision.
Show less
 
Ok, so did some testing and mame has the first 2 revisions.
Its easy to test your pcb in the sound test mode.
If the level 4 and 5 (4 is 3 and 3 is 4, they changed the stage order just before release)stage musics all have the same repeat stage 1 track you have the rev 1 (really crappy) sound rom.
I have the rev 2. Its still messed up but not as bad. In the test if one of the cut scenes and the ending are just the stage 1 sound then its the rev 2. What is also bad about rev 2 is that one of the music tracks is missing at least 2 of the instruments so its not 100% there.
Everyone with original untouched pcb's please check yours out. We need to find this rev 3 with 100% working sound.
 
Has anyone else checked to see what revision of Strider they have? And is it just a single rom chip that stores the music for the game?

Does anyone know if the Japanese pcb has the proper music? If it does then maybe that could be used to fix the US version.
 
Sounds good. Just turn switch 8 to the On position on dipswitch C to put the PCB in test mode to check the audio tracks.
 
Are you sure there is a 3rd revision? Could you show us where you read this? I could only find mention of a 2nd revision as I read through wikis and other Strider CPS1 info online.

Here's a youtube link to the 2nd revision tracks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yKfMsC8M0k

This is interesting.
So from doing some reading it sounds like there are 3 versions.
One with the messed up missing level 3 and 5 music.
One that fixes the missing 3 and 5 music but still has a screwed up intermission music and ending music. ( as in it plays level 1 music for the ending and that intermission. )
And one version where everything works.
From what read it sounds like the good version with all fixes can't be found and the one in mame now is the 2nd one with good 3 and 5 but bad ending and intermission.
Have not played to the end yet with the mame set to see if that is true or not.
I would love to get my hands on all 3 versions.
If anyone knows more please post.
Was this an error in the sound rom or the program rom?
 
Tested my Strider, it looks like my Stage 4-5 repeat the Stage 1 music. Stages 1-3 each have their own music. I took a video of me cycling through all of the soundtracks, it's not very exciting, but I'll try and post it here in a minute.
 
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