Bran new, never Played VOOT Twin Unit

[twistedsymphony]

Anyone Interested in buying a Brand new VOOT Twin unit?

Caffeine sent me a tip on a importer in LA who had a VOOT twin for sale. I called the guy and apparently he bought a bunch of games on close out new, directly from Sega. This VOOT twin has been sitting in his warehouse, untouched for 10 years now. The DNA side is still in the original Packaging and the RNA side was unwrapped at one point and played a few times but is still essentially new. It's a Model 3 unit, I have no idea if it's 5.2 or 5.4

He wants $1400 for it

I'm posting this here hoping that someone else wants it because this very tempting, despite the fact that I'm 90% of the way towards building my own VOOT cab from my USA unit. If this were the 5.66 version I would have bought it already but no one will probably ever get a chance to buy a brand new VOOT cab ever again.

if this is something you're interested in shoot me a message and I'll give you the details.

[Porcupine]

Is it a genuine VOOT cabinet and not a VOOM cabinet with VOOT inside? What version does it run, and can't the version be easily upgraded?

If I were living in California now I'd probably buy it. $1400 for a new unit is nothing compared to how much these things used to cost long ago. I know that the market prices are much lower now, though. I think MentholMoose should buy it.

Even living in Hawaii, I would consider buying it but I think the shipping will cost way more than the unit. I guess you can PM me the details if you like, thanks.

[twistedsymphony]

yes, it is a genuine VOOT cab, not a VOOM upgrade i have some pictures of the DNA side on my phone.

like I said, I have no idea if it's 5.2 or 5.4. It's definitely NOT 5.66 due to the cab design.

[MentholMoose]

Playing VOOT with perfect CRT screens (no burn in) would be sweet experience. Ver.5.2 versus 5.4 shouldn't be a big deal since you can probably just swap in 5.4 ROMs. $1400 for a *new* cab would be well worth it. I think a used one that was auctioned a while back went for $1200. Hopefully a collector will buy it and take good care of it.

Can you share any more details, like where you heard about this and who is selling it? Or at least share the pics? Unfortunately I can't buy this... I simply have no space for it. I already feel cramped at home and I just had a second kid. I should have upgraded to a bigger house back when they were going for pretty cheap (if $700K can qualify as cheap).

[Porcupine]

Hmm so I guess MentholMoose won't buy it. I sort of have space for it at the moment, but I don't feel like playing it and it would just have to go into a dirty garage-like storage room. Probably not ideal conditions for preserving the new condition.

Wait on second thought, I can probably find somewhere nice for it. However it would probably go unplayed. Shipping to Hawaii seems like it would be a killer though. I'm hoping it can be done for under $1000. Can you PM me the guy's contact information?

VarryoChoco is another recently active player in SoCal who might want it. I will tell him about it.

[twistedsymphony]

I've already passed the contact info along to another arcade collector who is trying to obtain a complete set of Sega Model 3 games in their original cabinets. He already has quite an impressive and well kept collection.

As I stated in the first post the member here named caffeine is the one who told me about this machine. and it's being sold by an arcade importer in LA. He claimed that he could source me a NOAMI VOOT or Force twin unit and import it from Japan for about $2000 but he wanted cash up front to do so and I wasn't interested in paying that much for something that might not ever materialize. I did buy a Lupin the Typing machine from him that he had in his warehouse. I plan to convert to Typing of the Dead; he's supposed to ship it later this week.

The pictures of the VOOT cab I have are on my phone, so I'm unable to post them right now I can still post them up tonight if people are interested.

EDIT these are the pics:

[twistedsymphony]

this machine is up on eBay now... $1000 no bids, pickup only: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Arcade-game-cyb ... 3cfa7724fb

[MentholMoose]

So how hard would it be to get Ver.5.66 installed in this thing?

[Porcupine]

No idea but I'd be happy playing 5.2 or 5.4, especially 5.2 because it's a lot weirder and different. There are a lot of differences from 5.4 to 5.66 too but I consider them more like tweaks. I want to tell VarryoChoco about this but haven't seen him in the last few days.

[twistedsymphony]

So how hard would it be to get Ver.5.66 installed in this thing?

Difficult.... you'd have to swap out the monitors as Model 3 used 25K (Medium resolution) monitors and NAOMI uses 31K (VGA resolution) monitors.

This is the reason I'm attempting to convert my OMG cab to 5.2 instead of 5.66 as Model 2 uses 25K monitors as well.

NAOMI can be forced to run at 15K resolution ("standard" resolution) which should work on a medium resolution monitor, but it will literally be running at half the resolution that the game is designed to run at, it wont look good.

-------------

I should note that this machine is likely still available, it seems the person who I tipped off about it never actually bought it, and the guy selling it listed it on eBay for pick-up only, twice at around $1000 and no bids...

[Porcupine]

Well it's not on ebay any longer, was taken down a week ago. It didn't sell on ebay but it could be that the seller took the ad down to complete an off-ebay transaction and avoid the ebay fees.

I seem to vaguely remember claims that the 5.2/5.4 Model 3 based versions of VOOT had better graphics than the 5.45/5.66 Dreamcast/NAOMI based versions. Was there any truth to that?

[twistedsymphony]

Well it's not on ebay any longer, was taken down a week ago. It didn't sell on ebay but it could be that the seller took the ad down to complete an off-ebay transaction and avoid the ebay fees.

I highly doubt it, it's been listed and ended without bids 4 or 5 times now, he keeps mis-listing it in the video game section instead of in the arcade section.

if this wasn't a $1000+ shipping fee for me I would have already bought it... heck even with $1000 shipping fee it's still a damn good price.

I seem to vaguely remember claims that the 5.2/5.4 Model 3 based versions of VOOT had better graphics than the 5.45/5.66 Dreamcast/NAOMI based versions. Was there any truth to that?

I don't know about VOOT in particular but...

Model 3 was way ahead of it's time in terms of performance, it so used super expensive chips which is why it's life span was pretty short and they replaced it with NAOMI once the much cheaper DC hardware was developed.

NAOMI is essentially just a DC with more RAM, but they are NEWER than the Model 3 by a couple of years.

On paper the NAOMI is slightly more powerful but I've heard a lots of claims that many of the ports from Model 3 to DC/NAOMI were done quickly and either don't take advantage of the added performance or have slight graphical downgrades as they were made to just run instead of run well.

It's also worth noting that Model 3 runs at Medum Resolution which is 512x384P as opposed to the 640x480P that NAOMI runs at. All other things being equal higher resolution usually = better in terms of graphics, but it also means more processing power, so it's possible that other graphical assets had to be turned down in order for the NAOMI to support the same game at a higher resolution.

I don't know how much any of this actually mattered or how the different games actually stack up, i wouldn't mind seeing some comparison shots though.

[twistedsymphony]

actual specs (from system16)

Model 3 Step 2.0:

Main CPU : 32bits RISC PowerPC 603ev 166Mhz
Graphics Chip : 2 x Lockheed Martin Real3D/PRO-1000
Sound CPU : 16bits 68EC000 11.3Mhz
Sound chip : Yamaha SCSP/YMF-292F/"LAKE" FH1 128-step DSP x 2, MIDI interface, 16 bits 64 voices 4 channel, maximum of 16.5 Mbytes ROM, 64 PCM channels
Audio RAM : 1meg (8 megabits, 512K per SCSP chip)
Main Memory : 8 Mbytes 66mhz Ram, graphic ROM maximum of 64 Mbytes, backup RAM 64 Kbytes
Video resolution : 24KHz 496(H)x384(V) one or two plane 24khz, It uses the VGA pinout however. And, the voltage levels of the video output is at VGA levels (.7vdc Peak to Peak)
Scroll Window : two plane (24KHz/two plane mode), 16 colours/32,768 1024 palette x 2 bank, 256/32,768 64 palette x 2 bank
Geometrizer : At least 1,000,100 polygons/s for square polys, 2,000,200 for Triangle polys
Renderer : At least 60,000,000 pixels/s
Video : Full Color Texture Mapping, Tri-Linear Interpolation, Micro Texture, Shading High-Specula Gouraud Shading , Fix Shading, Flat Shading, Texture & Edge Multi Layered Anti-Allasing, Lighting Effects, Parallel Light, 4 Spot Light, Pin Spot Light, Special Effect Zoning-Fog, 32 Levels of Translucency.
Board composition : CPU + VIDEO + ROM boards
Others : 10mbs Connection, calendar IC

NAOMI:

The NAOMI (New Arcade Operation Machine Idea) is also Japanese for beauty above all else.
CPU : Hitachi SH-4 32-bit RISC CPU (200 MHz 360 MIPS / 1.4 GFLOPS)
Graphic Engine : PowerVR 2 (PVR2DC)
Sound Engine : ARM7 Yamaha AICA 45 MHZ (with internal 32-bit RISC CPU, 64 channel ADPCM)
Main Ram : 32 megs
Main Memory : 32 MByte
Graphic Memory : 16 MByte
Sound Memory : 8 MByte
Media : ROM Board (maximum size of 172MBytes) / GD-Rom
Simultaneous Number of Colors : Approx. 16,770,000 (24bits)
Polygons : 2.5 Million polys/sec
Rendering Speed : 500 M pixel/sec
Additional Features : Bump Mapping, Fog, Alpha-Bending (transparency), Mip Mapping (polygon-texture auto switch), Tri-Linear Filtering, Anti-Aliasing, Environment Mapping, and Specular Effect.

And just because here is Hikaru (VO Force):

CPU : 2 x Hitachi SH-4 128 bit RISC CPU with graphic functions @ 200 MHz 360 MIPS / 1.4 GFLOPS
Graphic Engine : Sega Custom 3D
Sound Engine : 2x ARM7 Yamaha AICA @ 45 MHz with internal 32-bit RISC CPU, 64 channel ADPCM
Main Memory : 64 Mbytes
Graphic Memory : 28 Mbytes
Sound Memory : 8 Mbytes
Media : ROM Board (max 352 MBytes)
Simultaneous Number of Colors : Approx. 16,770,000 (24bits)
Resolution : 24 KHz, 496x384, 31 KHz 640x480
Polygons : 2 Million polys a sec
Shading : Phong Shading
Lighting : Horizontal, Spot, 1024 lights per scene, 4 lights per polygon, 8 window surfaces.
Effects : (at least) Phong Shading, Fog, Depth Queueing, Stencil, Shadow, Motion blur
Others Capabilties : Bitmap Layer x 2, Calender, Dual Monitor (24 kHz)
Extensions : communication, 4 channel audio, PCI, MIDI, RS-232C
Connection : Jamma Video complient

And Model 2B-CRX (OMG):

Main CPU : Intel i960-KB @ 25 MHz 32bits RISC
Co-Processor : 2 Analog Devices SHARC FPU 32bits 16M flops
Co-Processor Abilities : Floating decimal point operation function, Axis rotation operation function, 3D matrix operation function.
Memory RAM : 8 M-Bits + 1 M-bit
Memory ROM : 720 M-bits (max.)
Video resolution : 496x384 24Hz Horizontal sync, wave, non interlace.
Scroll Surfaces : 2 Surfaces, Horizontal line scroll, 16 colours x 123 colour palettes / 32,768 colours
Window Surfaces : 2 Surfaces, Horizontal line scroll, 16 colours x 123 colour palettes / 32,768 colours
3D Graphics Engine : Built in floating decimal point unit.
900,000 vectors/sec (max.) 300,000 polygons/sec (max.)
Polygon Surfaces : 2,000,000 pixels/frame (60 frames/sec)
1,024 colour palettes x 64 luminance tables, 16,777,216 colours.
Texturing Information : Perspective Texture, 16 shade mono texture
Map size : 1024x2048x2 (sheets)
Micro Texture : 128x128x8 Sheets
Translator Map : 128 shades x 256 sets
Transparent 1 shade, checker board, texture antialiasing.
Notes : Advanced communications function, can link many machine together.

The step from Model 2 to Model 3 is enormous.... Model 3 to NAOMI is a slight upgrade across the board.

Hikaru blows away NOAMI in some aspects and is a slight downgrade in others... it's really an oddball piece of hardware. I believe it was actually developed BEFORE the NAOMI but was abandoned quickly because of the cost. I could be wrong.

[Porcupine]

I also vaguely recall that Soul Calibur 1 was another game that when ported to Dreamcast raised some complaints, and the developers addressed them in detail. The issue was that the Namco arcade hardware rendered rectangles while the Dreamcast could only render triangles. And presumably the Dreamcast was not powerful enough to simply render double the triangles for each original rectangle, so they had to redo the models from scratch (Soul Calibur 1 on Dreamcast was a polished release). And some people did not like the way it looked.

So I'm wondering if VOOT 5.2 vs 5.66 also has the same issue with the polygon models possibly not being identical. The polygons per second data provided for Model 3 vs NAOMI vs Hikaru is suspicious. Especially for Hikaru because Force, while not being a huge (full generational) improvement in polygon count, still has at least 5 times the polygons of VOOT. (There are twice as many VRs plus the models themselves do have at least twice as many polygons).

[twistedsymphony]

Weird, the original Soul Calibur ran on Namco System 12 which is PS1 based, I recall Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast being considered one of the console's best looking games (heck it still looks pretty good today), I can't imagine anyone complaining about the improved graphics.

[MentholMoose]

I seem to vaguely remember claims that the 5.2/5.4 Model 3 based versions of VOOT had better graphics than the 5.45/5.66 Dreamcast/NAOMI based versions. Was there any truth to that?

I'm not sure about lighting or poly count, but one big and noticeable downgrade from 5.2/5.4 to 5.45/5.66 is the lack transparency effects. The model 3 games made use of transparency on weapons like explosions, lasers, and projectiles. If you can find a video of Angelan from 5.4 it will be very noticeable on the ice pillars. In 5.66 they are basically just opaque blocks, but in 5.4 they are partially transparent.

[MentholMoose]

Looks like it will be auctioned here:

http://www.bidspotter.com/en-us/auction ... 1e008e773e

[Porcupine]

I finally remembered to tell VarryoChoco about this, but he said he doesn't have the space for it either. I think I might have told him earlier as well, but I had forgotten.

[VOTwinstick]

I looked at the auction pics. Something a little fishy, messed up or very cool. Look closely. I don't know much bout nothin. That said I had no idea Sega made USA VOOT! Again... something going On there. Uncharted territory? 1 Japan cab and 1 USA cab. Questions rise: Will they link Death Match play? Will each boot? USA Master/network communicate with it's Japan brother/slave (network)? Proceed with caution? Maybe. Up to $1400(?) risk? If U buy and let me know

[MentholMoose]

If I have time I will go to the auction to take a look and see it if it works. I can't buy it, though.