These are not the chips you're looking for


[EDIT dec7th 2009] the wikipedia page has been corrected!Thanks!

According to wikipedia there is a VRC6 chip inside a North American Nigel Mansell "World Challenge" cartridge. Well no, there isn't. And there's no such thing as "World Challenge" either, only "World Championship" same difference.

Looks like Ill have to dig up the big bucks for a Japanese Castlevania 3 cart.

Comments

  1. Next step: Konami SCC!

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  2. Unfortunately wikipedia will take any website as a "source" and thus doesn't need it to be factually correct. I ran into this in a dispute over a different Nintendo entry long ago. I had proof, but since it wasn't "published" it was ignored. The incorrect website sources were taken as fact instead.

    That said there are only 3 games I know of that use the VRC6. Castlevania 3 (Japan) uses VRC6a (Mapper 24) as you mentioned. Esper Dream 2 and Mouryou Senki Madara use VRC6b (Mapper 26). They are basically the same, except one of the lines is swapped with another. You may have better luck finding the later two games for cheaper.

    Lastly, while the racing game was called "World Championship", the title screen actually says "World Championship Challenge".

    Good luck!

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  3. Anon: gosh.. dont have an MSX! .. argh must resist temptation...

    vitaflo: yes you are right about the wiki policy.
    i cant reach the http://nesdevwiki.org/wiki/Konami_VRC6 page to see what it says.. really curious on where this info originated from. Maybe SOME Nigel carts have it? doubtful though.

    Yes i will get one or two of your mentioned famicom carts, however, i need to get a fami adapter before.. i hope i will be able to hack one up with a Gyromite adapter, and to tap on the audio outs of the chip directly (since the NES doesnt pass thru those signals).. As you have guessed i don't have a famicom... argh... again a must resist temptation thing.

    Thanks a lot fot all that info!

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. In any case the tech has been covered by kevtris here: http://www.tripoint.org/kevtris/nes/vrcvi.txt

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  6. but i need to double check myself if i want to put it in chipsounds... its just one of these dogmas i put upon myself.

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  7. good... bought 3 famicom carts from a french seller.
    not very expensive indeed!

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  8. Great that you found some games! That link you posted to the VRC6 info looks awesome, I hadn't seen it before. The lines I was talking about that could be reversed are A1 and A0. Though I'm not sure which is which in each game. You'll have to figure that out yourself.

    As for different versions of the Nigel cart, there was only one version made, it was universal and shipped to all countries. It makes sense that the VRC6 is not in there. It's a Konami chip, used in Konami games. Hard to believe it would show up in some random GameTek game.

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  9. on a side note i just got lagrange point (VRC7) :)

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  10. Hi, I made that anonymous comment earlier about the SCC, and I'd gladly help you record from my MSX2 through the line in of a Zoom H2 recorder if you are willing to do this by proxy. Speaking of VRC7, I also have an "FM STEREO PAK" (dutch FM-PAC clone with YM2413 and a stereo output for separate drums and tone channels) that I could record for you. Get back to me at linde.philip at gmail.com if you're interested.

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  11. i usually record at 192Khz on a DC coupled cound card + oscilloscope :)

    But i might have some spare cash for those anyway
    is the ym2413 a clone as well

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  12. Maybe sometime in the next month's worth of time I can contribute to Chipsounds with purchasing and donating an Akumajou Densetsu cartridge. For the NES itself, I believe there's a simple mod one can do to the expansion port to allow for expansion chips in FC carts to play properly (which was done for the NES PowerPak).

    I am curious about something: is there anything else missing from the AY-3-8910 implementation? I was curious given the sounds of the music from the arcade version of Gradius (which uses two AY chips). Closest I can come is to use the Gameboy instrument.

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  13. Hi

    1)I have my modded NES to play famicom carts and hear extended audio. So a jap c3 cart would be nice, although it wont be necessary, since i ordered two other vrc6 carts. of course i wouldn't mind c3 :)

    2)i dont think many MAME games use the envelope sound of the AY (from some comments). I think its down to the programming of gradius. I just played it in mame and i didnt notice anything that chipsounds coulndt do with proper sequencing on the MIDI side. unless you have an explicit audio sample/or level/effect to point me to that i could analyze with register dumps?

    Regards

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  14. Gradius also has two othber chips:
    Konami 005289 (a two channel 4bit wavetable, like the GB)
    and a
    VLM5030 Speech synth.

    Maybe those are what you hear

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  15. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_System

    hummm tempting....

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  16. Next time look at Bootgod's database: http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/
    It's a really nice page with technical data about cartridges, its mappers, boards, regions, ...

    Also, did you see that Lagrange Point cartridge with an VRC7 and FM modulation? I've got mine from a french seller for ~7€ w/shipping.
    It sound awesome :D

    And talking about the NES sound expansions, check my video of a Gimmick! reproduction with an AY-3-8912 attached: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbH_AMOAfdE&feature=channel_video_title
    It's fun to try if you have some unused AY-3 sound chips as I did

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  17. Nice Gimmick Repro! awesome.

    Yeah I do have a Lagrange Point Cart now...

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