We all know ST is an extremely weird game concerning the differences in regions. Chris Doyle and I were discussing some topics about ST yesterday, and the topic about phoenixed boards came up. My theory about them is that each and every single CPS2 game that capcom has made has all the regions saved on the roms. The reason I believe this is that when you boot up US ST you see the SSFIIX logo where the date code is.
So the question of regional differences came up. Chris believed that the only thing saved on the eeporms for the phoenix set is the language differences. I believed that the differences are saved on their as well. So I began the test since I have a spare phoenixed board. The easiest test for this would be zangiefs neutral jump headbutt. So I proceeded to boot the game in US mode and began doing the head butt (took me a long time since the damn ai is retarded lol). So finally I hit chun with it and no dizzy. So I proceeded to boot the game up in JP mode. As soon as ryu jumped at me I hit him with the head butt instant dizzy. I was shocked since I haven’t seen any documentation on this.
My question now is if anyone has any expertise in doing speed tests please do it so that we can make this theory into fact.
IMO the easiest way to do speed tests involves recording the game with something that’s capable of frame-by-frame replay. Alternatively, you can use a stopwatch to check how long it takes the timer to run from 99 to 0.
I don’t think stopwatch is accurate enough, although that’s how zass tested the speed differences. I’d advise either 60fps recording or my ghetto way of doing things (also used by CigarBoB in his speed comparison):
Have 2 setups side by side reach the same stage (with the same characters) and start up a match as close to the same time as possible.
When the match starts, hold up on both setups (with the same character) and do nothing else.
Watch the jumping up and down. If it stays consistent through a whole round, there’s no speed difference. If it varies, there is a speed difference.
My USA pheonixed board (which I sold), could be booted in Japanese or USA mode. Japanese Mode ran just like the Green japan CPS2 board., with correct japanese speed and everything. When booted in USA mode it ran just like the Blue USA CPS2 board, USA speed was different than Japanese SPEED. So to answer your question, Yes they are different not just the language.
We didn’t think that the eeproms would be able to hold the information for these differences. So this furthers my assumption that all cps2 games hold info for all regions regardless the region its locked too.
Something else to try would be o.Zangief’s reversal 360-HK. You’ll see how in US and Japan region on a phoenixed board, it doesn’t teleport-grab. But in the world version, it does. So yeah, there are no known differences for a phoenixed ST board with its region switched to JP.
But be warned that this is not always the case when region changing on a phoenixed CPS2 board. Some games have different data that can’t transfer over. For example, SFZ3 and SFA3 aren’t interchangeable at all because they apparently don’t have the other’s font. In fact, Razoola just warned about that again not long ago: Quick CPS2 Phoenix Question - Neo-Geo Forums
I just did the test and found the differences are present. Remember that in the JP version zangief’s neutral jump head butt instant dizzies, and the US version doesn’t.
So if you phoenixed an original American (Blue) Super Turbo and changed the region to Japanese is freeplay mode disabled?
Also a sad thing about the Phoenix edition for Street Fighter Alpha 2 is that there is no Evil Ryu:( The Phoenix edition is based on the original Japanese board. So if you put Street Fighter Alpha 2 in American mode and do the Evil Ryu code it won’t work. Which sucks. So don’t Phoenix your American Alpha 2’s. Keep them battery operated.
Next time you come over we can run the game through my capture card. Is your Phoenix JP, US, or both? We can compare with my non-phoenixed US. Since the capture card auto saves the resolution and framerate it will record at the 59.97 (60) FPS. We can then run it through Adobe Premiere and count frame by frame, and potentially make a comparison video.
Additionally we could run each of the speed versions to verify the speed times for Free # and Set # speeds just for arguments sake.