What's new
By:
Filters

MSTREET-6 Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition Bootleg: Restore & Upgrades

SmokeMonster

SmokeMonster

Champion
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
1,291
Reaction score
1,687
Location
USA
I'm a big fan of the "MSTREET-6" SF2CE bootleg. It's a one-piece board that's more reliable than the real thing, and you can pick it up readily and cheaply. Although it uses some generic chips in the audio circuit, they can be swapped out. This bootleg does have a few small problems, but I didn't even notice them until they were pointed out. After wrestling with a real SF2WW board for way too long (dead in typical CPS1 fashion), this superior CE boot really pleased me.

I fully recapped the PCB, fixed a burned resistor, and swapped the following components:
AU301 Sound Chip: Replaced with socketed Yamaha YM2151
AU302 DAC: Replaced with socketed Yamaha YM3012
1458TC Op-Amps: Replaced all four with RC4558

Synrgy87 first documented these upgrades, and he has a repair log for this board on Youtube. Mikejmoffitt detailed the issues with this bootleg at shmups.

Testing video, post-mods:

Post-recap, pre-swaps:
DSC1995-2.jpg


Socketing/replacing the generic chips
20150925_024258-2.jpg


Before:


Burned Resistor (values are printed on the PCB)
DSC19502.jpg
 
Last edited:
Video is private! Just saw one pop up on KLOV and now I'm tempted to play with it.
 
Sorry, I've fixed the video.

I saw that board come up too. A nice deal if you can fix it, but I paid $40/shipped for my PCB working. It used to sell for around $40-50 on eBay.
 
Thanks for the pricing. I will let it sit for a bit then maybe make an offer. I don't mind the repair work, especially on a cheap board, since I'm still learning
 
Just keep in mind on a lot of the SF2 CE bootlegs that there are issues with the video blanking PAL getting fried, this PAL is undumped and it's locked so you can't dump it and copy it yourself :(

Something to keep in mind if it's a repair candidate, if it has video but it's messed up or something else is wrong with it, go for it.

I've got one here at the moment I bought with a video issue, turns out it's working perfectly but the video ground wire isn't connected on the board so in a cab like an Astro where it isn't connected in the cab you get a messed up video signal. Works great on my Supergun. I had the same issue with my system 16 adapter.

Also: I don't remember that many hadoukens in the attract mode lol, wow that's a lot, I wonder if it's been modified or if that is just the CE attract - I'm sure I remember at least one seppanyaku and a couple of shoryuken being dished out, but I could be thinking of WW too
 
Last edited:
Sorry for the necro bump, but one of these popped up on KLOV recently and I had a question for those of you more familiar with it than me. What's up with this daughter card here? All of the MSTREET-6 boards I've seen either in person or online haven't had this in place.

attachment.php
 
M-STREET boots are nuts. The sprites lag by one frame, and each BG layer has a slight X/Y offset that makes things not align properly. The latter can be fixed in software, but not the former. You can see the layer issue even in the youtube thumbnail in OP's post, where the blue rounded corner overlays are mispositioned for the Player 2 Ryu portrait. Ryu's stage suffers a lot from this in particular.

Many don't populate the 74LS05s used to pull down the RGB lines during a screen fade, so that feature is missing until populated too! OP's board has this section populated, though.

I'm pretty sure (if I remember correctly from when I owned one) that the screen refresh rate is lower than the nominal CPS1 rate. It looked closer to 55Hz than ~60, making SF2CE even slower than the pedestrian pace it was designed for.
 
Negativity mode: On

Who gives a shit about bootleg/trash hardware?
I'd toss 'em right in the dumpster where they belong. :evil:
 
Bootlegs have their place.

A prime example is converting a Bubble Bobble bootleg into The Lost Caves, since the authors now support it. Better than converting an original $400 board (I think they’re priced that much now) into a hacked version of the game.

I would totally convert these SF2 bootleg boards into Rainbow edition, or equivalent SF2 hacks. If that’s even possible. They are pretty fun, if indeed wacky. ;)
 
SmokeMonster said:
Is there a hacked ROM that can be burned to fix the X/Y issues @Hatsune Mike?
Click to expand...
It doesn't exist, but it's probably something that wouldn't take more than a bit of weekend work. If I come across another MSTREET bootleg I might do it for some tiny bounty, I dunno. I will happily give away hacks that I did out of interest or that solve a problem for me and others, but this one is steeped in yawnsville so it's super low priority.

As for failing CPS1 boards, it is nearly always a problem with CPS-A-01, and next most frequently CPS-B-** on the C board. The impression I have gotten from talking with a few others is that this is usually a result of a chemical defect that occured during manufacture, rather than an electrical failure. That would mean that running it less often, or with a heatsink, etc. likely has no effect on it.

On the flipside, my 100% conjecture take on it is that most of these chemically poisoned CPS-A-01 chips have already passed their half-life, and that most which still work now will still work in ten years. I'd really like to put together a database of those which have failed, and those which are still working, and record the manufacture dates to look for a pattern. I've come across many failed CPS-A-01 chips, but have only ever watched one transition from working to non-working myself. I wonder if most failures occured in the late '90s and early 2000s, and if we will see less of them going forwards.
 
Hatsune Mike said:
That said, you scarcely hear of a CPS2 CPS-A-01 chip failing
Click to expand...
That was my point... I've had a bunch of CPS1 A-boards die, but I've never had a single CPS2 A-board die.
So sure killing a CPS2 is sad, but to save the far more faulty CPS1 it's worth the sacrifice.

IDK what you do with a dead C-board on the other hand... I guess convert the set to use the more common B-21?
 
opt2not said:
Bootlegs have their place.

A prime example is converting a Bubble Bobble bootleg into The Lost Caves, since the authors now support it. Better than converting an original $400 board (I think they’re priced that much now) into a hacked version of the game.

I would totally convert these SF2 bootleg boards into Rainbow edition, or equivalent SF2 hacks. If that’s even possible. They are pretty fun, if indeed wacky. ;)
Click to expand...
This. $400 is on the low end for an original BB these days, way out of my league. I did however just fix a 56 pin bootleg which is in great condition and I'll be modding it to be both a Redux and Lost Caves board :)

I have an MSTREET6 board I plan on throwing Red Wave or Rainbow onto, my original SF2 will stay original

I do however agree with @jassin000 that most bootlegs are trash. Prime example the CPS1.5 bootlegs. Yuk.
 
I can get down with conversions, but not bootlegs or even ports that use different hardware.
So while I don't love Rainbow or Redwave, at least these bootlegs do run on official CPS1 hardware.
 
Most are overwhelmingly trash but there are treasures out there. MSTREET6 is actually pretty cool (until someone points out its issues and then you can never un-see them!). They're cheap thrills really, nice holdovers until you find the real thing, or just curiosities.

I have a Ms Pac boot that seems nice--it's JAMMA and accepts the original speed up EEPROMs and whatnot. And I have a Mortal Kombat bootleg that's much more convenient than my real MK & MKIIs. It has everything on one board, and a JAMMA+ edge so you don't need a kick. Oddities for sure but not ready for a landfill just yet.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top