Namco System 246/256 Arcade Hardware Information

The Namco System 246 is a PS2 based arcade hardware. The original units (versions A and B) had a regular Playstation 2 Motherboard along with a Namco Daughter board. The first version, version A board came in two original variants, the Driving version with the large amp connector on the front for the driving games and a special gun version with the interface board for the shooting games integrated into the case. The third variant of this early a board had the i/o board removed for some more standard inputs and outputs along with a 6 pin jvs power connection. Later variants (version b and beyond) of this system would have standard jvs connections on the front along with a ribbon cable port on the side for Namco's own custom i/o board. Strangely enough, the standard jamma or jvs power interface on the front was removed in favor of a custom 6 pin connection.

Now when it came to hooking up any board version b or later you had a few options. These boards came standard with a Namco JAMMA interface board. This board connected to the aforementioned ribbon cable interface on the side of the board and it had a place to connect a cable to the 6 pin power interface on the front. Alternatively you can connect a JVS to 246/256 adapter to the 6 pin and connect a JVS I/O board to the usb like plug by the dip switches. One warning I have for anyone trying to get this hardware working, do not use one of those small min dong or happ 16 or 15 amp power supplies with the screw terminals because it will simply not be enough power to run this whole system as it is a bit of a power hog and needs alot more then one of those supplys can provide. I learned this by trying to power one of these beasts with one of those power supplys for quite a few months only to have the video cut out after about 30 minutes or so. Of course this being my first arcade hardware I had no way of knowing there were other power supplys such as jvs and the larger ones like Gauntlet Legends would use.

The video can be connected a couple ways as well. There are dual vga plugs on the front of the unit, if you are using a standard jamma cabinet, you can connect the included small vga cable fron the vga port on the front to your Namco or JVS I/O board for standard jamma/JVS video. If you are like me and are connecting this unit to a pc monitor you can alternatively connect the vga port directly to a pc monitor as long as dip switch 3 is set to the on position which sets the game into 31 kHz mode or 640X480 pc vga resolution. This is also called High Resolution when it comes to arcade games. A few games such as Bloody Roar 3 do not support this video mode and will only display in 15 kHz Standard resolution mode, in which case a video converter like a GBS8200 or GBS8220 will be needed to make a pc monitor be able to handle the signal.

Now when it comes to controls there are also a couple options. The nice part, is when using the earlier (pre version c) hardware, you can just connect a Playstation controller to the port under the program dongle slot and play the game with it. Games such as Soul Calibur II and Soul Calibur III Arcade Edition support this. However, if you are either using a later revision or a game that does not support this (most do not), you will need to wire up either JAMMA or JVS controls. I personally use my Sega Jamma to JVS I/O which I had received with my Sega Naomi system as it is very easy to wire up and uses the standard Jamma interface only requiring changing the connections to fix the button configuration for your chosen game. The Namco I/O requires a kick harness for some of the extra buttons, so it is a bit more of a hassle to wire up.

A Game for the Namco System 246 comes with a DVD or CD disc along with a memory card looking Program dongle. The dongle contains the game's full program along with a any needed security key to unlock game content on the disc. The disc as you would imagine contains the full game assets including character models, textures, stages, music and more. The way the system functions is the first check is to the dongle, it checks security and program code and if all is well it will indicate this with a beep code. The system then spins up the disc and runs the game. Some games such as Soul Calibur II use a memory card to save character data instead of having it in the onboard chip. This is very good for such games as valuable location data is not lost when games are switched. Unfortunately not all games support this and high scores still save to the system.

Namco System 256 is an Upgraded version of the 246. It basically is an upgraded PS2 Spec in the same vein as Naomi 2 is a very upgraded Dreamcast spec. Like the 246 Version C board, the 256 board looses it's controller ports in favor of an on board interface which can be used to play its flagship game Tekken 5 with a ps2 controller. This game is also the first on the system family to support players saving their play data onto data cards similar to what Virtua Fighter 4 and Initial D use. The System 256 can also run most if not all System 246 games by changing a Jumper on the board from 256 to 246+ mode. Some people claim that the graphics to 246 games get enhanced when running them in such a way but I have not seen a difference. There was also an "enhanced" version called Namco Super System 256 but from what I have seen the only difference is that the gun I/O board is integrated into the system. The only game to use this system is Time Crisis 4 which can be run on a Standard 256 with the proper Gun I/O board attached.

The only other thing that the Namco System 256 and 246 Version C add is the ability to run certain games that use a hard drive such as Fate Unlimited codes on 246 and Gundam Vs Gundam Next on 256. Namco System 246 a and b board will not run hard drive games at all. In this case you remove the dvd-rom drive and replace it with the hard drive. The system functions in the exact same way but the game content is read off of a hard drive instead or the normal CD or DVD disc. This of course is good for games that contain too much data for an optical disc as the largest games only use a single layer dvd.

At the time of this writing neither Namco System 246 or Namco System 256 are emulated since a good deal of the interface and how the games are run is not fully understood on a technical level. Perhaps in the future emulation of these systems will happen but for now the only way to play these games is on the original hardware.

Namco 246 Version B


Namco System 256


Namco I/O board


246/256 To JVS Power Adapter

Atari Vegas 777 Arcade Board Set Information

Wow, 2 posts in one day, going for a record here.

Over the last couple weeks I learned quite a bit about the Atari Vegas arcade boards (info here will become part of the website) and figured it wouldn't hurt to get some of this information out there (all of which will be included on the website eventually). First of all the Atari Vegas arcade board is a combination of 3 parts. The Sound I/O board, The System Board and the Video Card.

The Sound I/O board is the first board in the series which has the Jamma edge connector and connector for the hard drive's power on it. This board (as far as I know right now) is pretty much interchangable when it comes to the different games. It also contains the dip switches for making adjustments to game settings (known as hardware dips) as well as the sound rom and Security chip (both socketed and changable). From the boards I have seen this board had several revisions ranging from 1 to 6. It would appear that some games need a dip switch changed based on which version of SIO board it is using. The ones I have seen personally are the original 1.0 version and the 3.0. Both of which look basically identical. This board also has interfaces for additional controls such as guns, players 3 & 4 as well as the interface for the additional hardware needed for the 49 way joysticks. The Hard drive connects to this board with a 4 pin molex to 4 pin molex cord for power. This same cord may also connect to several cooling fans depending on your setup. This board also has a connection for unamplified stereo audio if you do not plan to use pins 11 & M for the second speaker and the on board amplifier.

The System Board which connects to the video card and sound i/o board with dual pci connectors on either side, is basically the guts of this system. It houses the main processors and several other important chips. This board comes in 2 different flavors. They are named Vegas (the original) and Durango (upgraded version). Both board are capable of running Gauntlet Dark Legacy, NFL Blitz Gold, NBA Showtime and Sports Station (both sports games on one board). The Vegas Board can additionally run Gauntlet Legends and Unreleased fighting game Tenth Degree. The Durango board breaks compatibility for those last two games but can run the newer game War Final Assault. The easiest way to determine which system board you have is to simply look at them. The Durango board has an extra metal heat sync on the video card side and (atleast the one I have) has a Sticker by the video card pci slot saying RM5271/8 which indicates the cpu. Under or near that sticker the word Durango is also printed on the board. The Vegas board lacks the sticker and extra heat sync and a few of the components are in different places. This board houses the Boot or Main program rom as well as revision rom slot which can be used to upgrade games. The hard drive connects to this board with a standard IDE interface (usually a pretty short cable). This can also be swaped for a compact flash to ide adapter for better reliability (no moving parts). The boot and revision roms can be removed and replaced for different games as well.

The Video Card is a standard pci video card which can actually be used in an older computer. Gauntlet Legends, Gauntlet Dark Legacy, Tenth Degree and War used an Obsidian Voodoo 2 3dfx card with 10mb of video ram while the sports games used an Obsidian Raven video card. No games will boot at all if the proper video card is not present. If your Voodoo 2 based games need a replacement card any Voodoo 2 card with atleast 10mb of ram can be used. I have tested this myself and have successfully ran an Diamond Monster 3d Voodoo 2 12mb with no noticable change. As fas as I know, weather a game can display in 640X480 VGA (Arcade High Resolution), is software dependent not hardware dependent. I have tested Gauntlet Dark Legacy which displays in VGA straight from the video card on both the Durango and Vegas System board. However Gauntlet Legends could only display in Standard 15hz or Medium 24hz video which a PC monitor would not be able to handle without a video converter such as the GBS8200. When you are displaying video through the jamma harness a short vga extension cable is used to go from the video card to the system board. From what I heard your harness must supply -5v to the board in order for video to be properly displayed this way.

Video Card Comparison


Vegas 777 Board Set with Voodoo 2 Card and Vegas System Board


Vegas 777 Board Set with Obsidian Raven and Durango System Board

Proposed large Website update

Along with my planned Arcade section of the website I plan to make a few other improvements. Of course this is all still in the planning stages so nothing is final yet. The biggest thing I plan to do is place the main sections on the top of the link bar (Dead or Alive and Arcade) and everything else below that. I figure this way I can make it easier to get to my largest website sections instead of having to scroll through all of the one or two page console sections. Mind you I will still have that content on there but just lower on the link bar. Of course I still plan on linking everything to the proper sections, such as making a link to the doa1 costume page on both the Sega Saturn and Playstation sections since both of those systems are covered there but that will probably come later.

Another page of the website I hope to expand is the PC section which currently is like a small paragraph and a stock photo. I plan to atleast include the specs of the computers I own and maybe even more then that.

Going back to the arcade section, I plan to have a page for each "system" such as Namco System 11/12, Namco System 246/256, Sega Naomi 1/2 and so on. Basically combining the systems that are just upgrades of each other onto the same page as they share alot of the same properties and work in a very similar way. I will also be having a full software listing for each board with pictures (which of course will take some time, it will go up a little at a time instead of in one burst).

The other thing I hope to do some day is have a full game listing on my website with links to all console sections as well as a central hub where all of the collections are linked. Similar to what Yakumo has on Segagagadomain.com. Of course that will be something I might work on this year after the arcade section is finished.

Website Arcade Section Idea.

I am thinking of making an arcade section on my website detailing the hardware that I own. There idea here would not only be to show off what I have but to also share the knowledge that I have acquired in the process of getting it working. Unlike console games getting each piece of arcade hardware working (in a home setting) is not always straight forward and I feel that this section of the website could really serve as resource for people who are in the same boat I used to be in. Basically something to help people who want to try out the idea of getting arcade games working at home but might not want the headache of having to figure everything out on their own.

Currently I have the following hardware: KLOV Vaps Profile Here (New pickups spoiler warning, full list will be on the site soon too)

Sega Naomi 2 w/GD-Rom (Too many carts and discs to list)
Namco System 246 (b) (Tekken 4, Soul Calibur 2 and 3 Arcade Edition)
Namco System 256 with Tekken 5 and 5.1
Sega Model 2 w/ Virtua Fighter 2
Namco System 12 (2 Boards, Tekken 3 & Tag)
Namco System 11 (3 Boards Soul Edge, Tekken 1 & 2)
Tecmo TPS ZN Dead or Alive ++
Capcom ZN-1 Heaven's Gate
SNK Neo Geo King of Fighters 2003 Japanese Jamma Board
(More to come soon)

Getting some of these working were pretty easy since they were just jamma boards but others took quite a bit more. One of the systems (since it was my first) that was hard to get working was Namco System 246. The biggest mistake I had made was using an pc power supply spliced into the jamma harness. Not only was this connection not reliable, the psu didn't provide the amps needed for the quite power hungry system so it would turn off after only having been run for a few minutes to an hour. The solution to this problem came much later. By using an adapter connected to the jvs power supply I had received with my Naomi setup, I was finally able to get 246 running reliably. This of course worked perfectly with my 256 I eventually acquired. Its these month after month headaches I hope to spare people who want to do this kind of crazy arcade stuff.

In the coming weeks and months I will be working out how this will be setup. I am thinking of putting my main sections (dead or alive and arcade) on the top of the links bar and putting all of those console sections under them, thus making my main and more important sections easier to navigate to. I am sure I will figure something out soon enough. Keep an eye on the website for coming changes.