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