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Any PGM Conversion info out there?

Hey guys, Just got these conversions from Sheep_Nova... I was wondering if you could confirm that there is lower quality audio on these carts? I used to own all these PCBs and don't remember the audio sounding so thin and with audio artifacts and staticky sound. For example, I notice the staticky/noisy audio in the "presented by cave" voice at the start, and the music in the character select screen in Espgaluda is especially crackly.
I'm just trying to confirm if it's just the way these carts behave, or if it was always in the original PCB's, but somehow masked differently, or maybe my carts have a problem?
Thanks for the info!
 
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Pustule said:
Hey guys, Just got these conversions from Sheep_Nova and they seem to play nicely. I was wondering if you could confirm that there is lower quality audio on these carts? I used to own all these PCBs and don't remember the audio sounding so thin and sometimes with audio artifacts and staticky sound occasionally. For example, I notice the staticky/noisy audio in the "presented by cave" voice at the start, and the music in the character select screen in Espgaluda is especially crackly.
I'm just trying to confirm if it's just the way these carts behave, or if it was always in the original PCB's, but somehow masked differently, or maybe my carts have a problem?
Thanks for the info!
Click to expand...
My carts from SN and the ones from another seller sound the same, I just did a test to sell some stuff off two days ago.

I will say that the cart slots are finicky as hell and need a really good cleaning both at the cart input and sometimes where the PCB connects at a right angle to the motherboard.

Also. the audio wheel seems to be shit on these, so mess with it and spray some Deoxit in there if you have it.

Most of the wheels seem to get replaced due to bad noise, so that might be why.
 
Also, I have a legit ESPGaluda PCB, so if you can't get it fixed from the wheel, shoot a phone video of your issue. I'll shoot video of the real PCB, SN's cart, and another members cart to do a 4 way show down!
 
XtraSmiley said:
Also, I have a legit ESPGaluda PCB, so if you can't get it fixed from the wheel, shoot a phone video of your issue. I'll shoot video of the real PCB, SN's cart, and another members cart to do a 4 way show down!
Click to expand...

Thanks a bunch XtraSmiley! I don't *think* it's a problem with the volume wheel, as I can adjust it without any crackling, and the junky audio sounds the same on both the PGM mobo's that I have. I've also tried it on both my cabs, and i'm noticing the same audio on both. Interestingly, the in game background music appears to be ok though. I'm not that knowledgable on the technical side of these things, but I wonder if it's just a product of the way the audio is processed on the PGM?

I'll try and see if I can record some audio clips showing what i'm noticing today and post them up later. Maybe we can get that shootout going! :)
 
Ok. Audio recording is a success. Now you can hear the crackly junky sounding audio i'm hearing too :)

I broke the audio into separate clips for your listening...uhh...pleasure(?)
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zrzxk48ebxw76gv/AADNKbrFbKOHNOBOilPpDClxa?dl=0

I also realized another problem, the DDPDOJ cart has a visual glitch when the attract screen cycles to show scores.. I'll attach a photo of that here too.

Curious to hear your thoughts on these things...
 

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Pustule said:
Ok. Audio recording is a success. Now you can hear the crackly junky sounding audio i'm hearing too :)

I broke the audio into separate clips for your listening...uhh...pleasure(?)
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zrzxk48ebxw76gv/AADNKbrFbKOHNOBOilPpDClxa?dl=0

I also realized another problem, the DDPDOJ cart has a visual glitch when the attract screen cycles to show scores.. I'll attach a photo of that here too.

Curious to hear your thoughts on these things...
Click to expand...
Well, holy shit. You are RIGHT! These were tested on a repaired PGM motherboard with a new volume dial which is working well.

Sheep Nova = scratchy during Cave intro.
View: https://youtu.be/hufN-ZgnZPw


Other conversion cart = not scratchy during Cave intro.
View: https://youtu.be/xwy_XKt14WY


Original PCB = not scratchy during Cave intro.
View: https://youtu.be/GyvX-AQScLc


Pew pew, shootout complete!
 
As for DDPDOJ, I just sold and mailed off my SN version so I can't test it anymore. I will say that all of my carts (original and conversions) show glitches like that until they are cleaned, so I hope that is what it is. Also, I tested and recorded a video of the SN DDPDOJ before I mailed it and there was no glitching on the screen.

But to be fair, I don't think I let it cycle, only displayed once.
View: https://youtu.be/aK3zIYmNJq8
 
FWIW I had 4 conversion carts for Espgaluda pass through my hands.
1 I made myself converted from another game -scratchy audio
2. I got from Sheep Nova... crystal Clear audio, no problems
3. I got from Lydz - scrachy audio
4. Built on Fluffy PCB - crystal clear audio

it's definitely the second board (with the audio / sprite ROMs) as the bad audio traveled with that board when swapped around.

I could never for the life of me figure out why mine had scratchy audio... both the lydz and the sheep nova board use the diode trick to drop voltages and power routed via magnet wire and hot-glue. one had scrachy audio, one was fine.

mine used a proper dc-dc converter and really clean wires for power.
all 3 used the same model ROM chip. I even pulled off the chip, verified, it, tried a different chip... different DC-DC converter... no dice. I probably spent a whole weekend trying to figure it out without success.
 
XtraSmiley said:
As for DDPDOJ, I just sold and mailed off my SN version so I can't test it anymore. I will say that all of my carts (original and conversions) show glitches like that until they are cleaned, so I hope that is what it is. Also, I tested and recorded a video of the SN DDPDOJ before I mailed it and there was no glitching on the screen.

But to be fair, I don't think I let it cycle, only displayed once.
View: https://youtu.be/aK3zIYmNJq8
Click to expand...

Wow! Thank you for taking time to do this audio "shootout". I'm disappointed that fixing this problem appears to be out of my level of expertise though. I spent a fair amount of time researching the different conversion carts out there and had high hopes I chose the right one...
Audio stuff like this kind of drives me nuts, haha X/

One positive thing, cleaning all the contacts in the cart + the jamma edge on the mobo seemed to get rid of the graphical glitch on DDP! :)

I sent Sheep_Nova a message about it so I guess I'll just see what he suggests
 
Well, if you are really hard pressed, I'd be happy to sell you my extra conversion carts. They are done by a forum member here and have all the correct conversions.
 
XtraSmiley said:
Well, if you are really hard pressed, I'd be happy to sell you my extra conversion carts. They are done by a forum member here and have all the correct conversions.
Click to expand...

That rules man. Thank you. If I can't work out an audio fix on these SN carts, and if yours sound good I might take you up on that :P
 
That is interesting, because there isn't really that much between the sound ROM and the cartridge... there is a decoder, that maps the sound ROM on the motherboard or the cartridge, and my board contains a multiplexer to use a 16 bit ROM for an 8 bit bus.
I wonder if you could access the sound ROM through the sound chip to verify it - the sound chip supports wavetable RAM, but that uses a DRAM style row/column interface.
 
Fluffy said:
That is interesting, because there isn't really that much between the sound ROM and the cartridge...
Click to expand...
This was what was so infuriating to me. on the original PGM board it's even an 8-bit ROM so there's no multiplexing... it's like there are 3 parts and I replaced all 3 and there bad audio was still there.
 
Fluffy said:
That is interesting, because there isn't really that much between the sound ROM and the cartridge... there is a decoder, that maps the sound ROM on the motherboard or the cartridge, and my board contains a multiplexer to use a 16 bit ROM for an 8 bit bus.
I wonder if you could access the sound ROM through the sound chip to verify it - the sound chip supports wavetable RAM, but that uses a DRAM style row/column interface.
Click to expand...
I'm sure you have all the same stuff I do, but if there is any way I can help please let me know. I'll be home until Sunday then on the road again.
 
Fluffy said:
That is interesting, because there isn't really that much between the sound ROM and the cartridge... there is a decoder, that maps the sound ROM on the motherboard or the cartridge, and my board contains a multiplexer to use a 16 bit ROM for an 8 bit bus.
I wonder if you could access the sound ROM through the sound chip to verify it - the sound chip supports wavetable RAM, but that uses a DRAM style row/column interface.
Click to expand...

This is all out of my league in terms of troubleshooting on my end, but I'm happy to take photos of the boards if it's any help to you guys at all.
 
I had that kind of shit audio on a TMNT TiT conversion, solved by replacing the rom. It always verified fine in my programmer but it certainly seemed to have issues in circuit. It was hard to tell what was bad... age? Speed? Fake? Anyway they were 27c160’s. Maybe find/swap the rom and see if that helps. I ser twisted tried that on his but maybe you’ll have better luck. I’m not sure if they’re DIP in those conversion carts tho :/
 
XtraSmiley said:
I'm sure you have all the same stuff I do, but if there is any way I can help please let me know. I'll be home until Sunday then on the road again.
Click to expand...
Not in the short term. I just got a pile of components from eBay (if you just need 1-2 GBP worth of parts it is not worth to order from a "proper" distributor) to make some progress on some other projects that I hope to finalise this weekend. I do have a PGM test/dump jig PCB almost ready to go, to help with another project.
 
Hey does anyone know if it is possible to change a Demon Front cartridge with China region roms to a different region?
 
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