Whats this card?

[RockinKat]

Hi,

When I was At NWCGE 2k6 ver2.0 I bought a Turbografx with turbo CD and no power supply.. anyway... while getting frustrated on the whole ps unit thing, I decided to stop and take pictures of my gaming collection since I hadn't updated what I had online in a long long time.... and when I got to my TG 16 stuff I found this card....

I seem to recall someone sold it to me saying I'd need it to be able to play all CD games(the card I got with the TG 16 from another vendor was a ver 1.0 cd loader card..or whatever they're called).... anyway it has some japanese on it and well.... when it comes time, am I going to need an adapter card to make it work?

/tg16/duocardcase.jpg
/tg16/duocard.jpg

[Turbo D]

This is the arcade card duo. It allows you to play arcade cd and all other cd games on a duo. You need the arcade card PRO to play arcade games on a turbo grafx + Cd player. You can see the compatibility guide on this site. The arcade card duo usually goes for 30 bucks and the pro goes for upwards of that. In order to use any of these japanese cards on your system, you need to either get a converter or do and internal mod. Converters are really expensive and hard to find, expect to pay around 100 bucks. You can do the mod yourself if you solder or some dudes on this forum might do it.

[Nazi NecroPhile]

What turbo D said with two caveats: Games Express games require there own system card, and Altered Beast will only work with version 1.0 (Japanese only - TG-CD is v. 2.0).

[Joe Redifer]

What the hell are Games Express games?  And why do they need their own cards?

[Ninja Spirit]

What the hell are Games Express games?  And why do they need their own cards?

Games Express is an adult game developer. They take some of the most popular game franchises and give them an adult twist.

Here's one of them, Hi-Leg Fantasy.




https://catalog.pcengine-fx.com/#cd1590

[Joe Redifer]

Do their games require much less RAM than the official System Cards?  Do the Games Express cards cripple the system so it is shitty enough to run those games?

[SignOfZeta]

They are unlicensed games. The card is needed, presumably, because they couldn't figure how to make a bootable CD otherwise. They also couldn't figure out how to make a good game, but that's another matter.

[nat]

Didn't they do Strip Fighter II? That one wasn't SO bad.

[termis]

The game express card supposedly uses the 2MBit RAM that's in the Duo + whatever extra RAM the actual card has (if any), so I suppose it utilizes at least as much memory as Super System Card 3.0.

I wouldn't mind getting a hold of that card, if only for the sake of making my system 100% compatible with everything. (yeah, I have the 1.0 card as well).  However, I have no idea what the actual card fetches.  Though I've never actively looked for the card, I've never seen it for sale anywhere.

[Keranu]

Can anyone list all the Game Exress CD card games? Strip Fighter II is the only one I can think of at the moment. I am pretty sure there was a mahjong parody game too.

[M1Savage]

Strip Fighter II is a card game so I don't think it would count. Here's the ones I come up with -

AV Tanjo
Bishojyo Jyanshi Idol Pai
CD Bishojyo Pachinko 4 Sisters
CD Hanafuda Bishojuo Gambler
CD Mahjong Bishoujo Tyuushinha
CD Pachisuro Bishojuo Gambler
Hi-Leg Fantasy

[TurboXray]

The game express card supposedly uses the 2MBit RAM that's in the Duo + whatever extra RAM the actual card has (if any), so I suppose it utilizes at least as much memory as Super System Card 3.0.

The Game Express card doesn't have any memory and it only uses 64k of the CDRAM. So it's a equivalent to CDROM 2.0 card.  The reason they have there own card is so they don't have to pay a license and royalty fee for using the copyright string in the normal PCE CDROM boot sector. Matter of fact the CD layout is ISO-9660 like the SEGACD format. This means you can actually look at the game files with a PC or MAC.

 Game Express also did Lady Sword, which despite the nude pic at the end of beating each boss, is really a decent game. I liked it much better than double dungeons.

[termis]

Can anyone list all the Game Exress CD card games? Strip Fighter II is the only one I can think of at the moment. I am pretty sure there was a mahjong parody game too.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/company/76506.html

I don't think that's a complete list, though.  There was the Shiawase Usagi series game that some of us were talking about months ago.  It's not listed up on the gamefaqs site, but I'm pretty sure that's a gamexpress game as well.

The game express card supposedly uses the 2MBit RAM that's in the Duo + whatever extra RAM the actual card has (if any), so I suppose it utilizes at least as much memory as Super System Card 3.0.

The Game Express card doesn't have any memory and it only uses 64k of the CDRAM. So it's a equivalent to CDROM 2.0 card.  The reason they have there own card is so they don't have to pay a license and royalty fee for using the copyright string in the normal PCE CDROM boot sector. Matter of fact the CD layout is ISO-9660 like the SEGACD format. This means you can actually look at the game files with a PC or MAC.

Really?  I got that info from this Japanese PC Engine faq site, saying that the reason why it doesn't work on the briefcase system was because it requires the 2Mbit memory from the Duo/SSCD-Rom units. 

(it says that in the highlighted part, as far as what I can decipher, anyway...)

26. HACKER CD CARDってなんですか？

NEC-HE非公認ソフトを発売している、GAME EXPRESS社、通称ハッカーが発売した同社CD-ROMゲーム専用システムカードで、同社発売のソフトに付属しています。これは同社がNEC-HEとの技術ライセンスを結んでおらず、CD-ROM2 SYSTEMを(法的に)利用できない為、その解消方法として開発された方法です。ソフトウェアのみならず、独自にSYSTEM CARDまでも開発する同社の開発力には目を見張るものがあります。
本体内蔵の2Mbitのメモリを要求する為、CD-ROM2 SYSTEMでは使用できず、SUPER CD-ROM2 SYSTEMまたはDUOシリーズのみで動作します。ブルーとグリーンの色違い、2種類が存在します。

[TurboXray]

Thumpin_termis: I just checked out Hi-Leg Fantasy on the debugger and sure enough.... the game uses the SCD/DUO additional 192k. Well I'll be damned. I guess that makes sense, since the copyright date on the card's title screen is 1993.

[Keranu]

Strip Fighter II is a card game so I don't think it would count. Here's the ones I come up with -

AV Tanjo
Bishojyo Jyanshi Idol Pai
CD Bishojyo Pachinko 4 Sisters
CD Hanafuda Bishojuo Gambler
CD Mahjong Bishoujo Tyuushinha
CD Pachisuro Bishojuo Gambler
Hi-Leg Fantasy

Thank you and thumpin_termis for the lists!

[guyjin]

Thumpin_termis: I just checked out Hi-Leg Fantasy on the debugger and sure enough.... the game uses the SCD/DUO additional 192k. Well I'll be damned. I guess that makes sense, since the copyright date on the card's title screen is 1993.

So, this means the Supergrafx (not being a duo) isn't compatible with everything?

The SGX just became a little less leet. But only a little.

[termis]

Thumpin_termis: I just checked out Hi-Leg Fantasy on the debugger and sure enough.... the game uses the SCD/DUO additional 192k. Well I'll be damned. I guess that makes sense, since the copyright date on the card's title screen is 1993.

So, this means the Supergrafx (not being a duo) isn't compatible with everything?

The SGX just became a little less leet. But only a little.

If you have a SGX+RAU adapter+Briefcase CD-ROM system, I suppose that means it won't be compatible with the GameExpress card.

However, SGX+SCD-Rom unit (the gray piggyback unit) should still be compatible with the GameExpress card, since the SCD-Rom, just like the Duo, has the SSC3.0 card 2Mbit memory built in.

So the basic answer is, the SGX is still compatible with everything, as long as you have the right peripherals.

[TurboXray]

I just checked and apparently there are multiple versions of the Game Express card (I know of 1.1 and 1.0). The early versions can only access 64k (that's built into the CD unit) and the later versions can access the 192k+64k in the way that the arcade card DUO does, that's on the Super CDROM 3.0 unit and the Duo models.

 The later versions of the card can play all GE games, but the earlier versions can only play the earlier games.

[akamichi]

I wouldn't mind getting a hold of that card, if only for the sake of making my system 100% compatible with everything. (yeah, I have the 1.0 card as well).  However, I have no idea what the actual card fetches.  Though I've never actively looked for the card, I've never seen it for sale anywhere.

You probably won't find too many Games Express Cards by themselves.  They were included with every CD game so it's probably much easier just to buy one of the games with the card.  That's how I got mine.

[termis]

I just checked and apparently there are multiple versions of the Game Express card (I know of 1.1 and 1.0). The early versions can only access 64k (that's built into the CD unit) and the later versions can access the 192k+64k in the way that the arcade card DUO does, that's on the Super CDROM 3.0 unit and the Duo models.

The later versions of the card can play all GE games, but the earlier versions can only play the earlier games.

Ah, good info.  Had no idea.

You probably won't find too many Games Express Cards by themselves.  They were included with every CD game so it's probably much easier just to buy one of the games with the card.  That's how I got mine.

That makes sense.  I came across couple of their titles, and I recall them being on the pricier side - that's perhaps one of the reasons...

[Nazi NecroPhile]

For those who haven't seen one, the Games Express CD games come in funky little jewel cases that holds both the disc and the system card (kinda cool looking).

[offsidewing]

For those who haven't seen one, the Games Express CD games come in funky little jewel cases that holds both the disc and the system card (kinda cool looking).

Didn't the PCE game Populous (sp??) come in a similar format??  I thought there were a couple of CD games that came with a supplimental HuCard.

Too lazy to search...

[Nazi NecroPhile]

I don't think so.  Populous came in a double jewel case with two HuCards receptacles, and Populous: The Promised Lands came in a double jewel case with two disc holders.  The G.E. cases would hold the system card directly on top of the disc, not on opposite sides of the case.

[termis]

Any pics of the case?   

[Nazi NecroPhile]

  Sorry, but I don't own any G.E. games.  Perhaps someone else could be kind enough to share (nudge, nudge).

[CrackTiger]

Any pics of the case?   

[termis]

Neat.  Thanks for the pic.