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The wizardry of AndyGeezerServices

Arcadian 5

I want to share a website and service with you today that I’ve known about for some time. One important side of what we face as arcade operators is keeping the games maintained and working.  There are a lot of technicians out there who can assist in that regard, who run their small business to support those of us running the games. One such company which is based in Cambridge, UK is known as AndyGeezerServices. Andy really knows his stuff and maintains a blog as well as a Facebook page where he details his work. As his website states, they can repair just about anything, with advanced service when it comes to Sega-made arcade boards. He is in the market to assist arcade operators and our issues with games.

On a sidenote, one thing Andy does in his spare time involves modifications of arcade titles which generally entails getting a game to run in a higher resolution than what it shipped with or fixing issues the game has that were never resolved with an update. Multiple instances can be seen on his blog of running Battle Gear 4, Fast and Furious and OutRun2SP in higher resolutions. As personal example, I recently sent him my Super Street Fighter AE board for repair after a “repaired” board from Capcom came back having similar issues to what it had before. He repaired it in such a way that allowed the game to run in 1080p as opposed to 720p, bringing it more in line with the home versions. It also has resolved various crashing issues and glitches that the original game came with that Capcom didn’t bother to address. Here’s some pics of the new setup running at 1080p, click to enlarge

Another game he’s worked some magic on as seen below is Sega’s OutRun 2 SP. That was a personal project of his and not a service he offers through the site (he’s not selling modified versions of OutRun 2SP in case you are wondering) but it certainly shows off his skills. Andy also has a number of very rare items on-hand that he shares pictures and information about on his site, he’s shown an English version of House of the Dead EX as well as Virtua Fighter 5R among other things.

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I would highly recommend checking out his website; here is his Facebook page.

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Arcadian

Website: https://arcadeheroes.com

I'm a lifelong fan of video games and I have been operating my own arcade, Arcade Galactic in West Valley City, Utah since 2008. Soft spots in my heart for Atari, Sega, and Nintendo.

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5 comments
ECM

Neat-O on the up-rezzing of arcade games.

Reply
AndyGeezer

Thanks for the feedback, Adam. Rarely in the industry do I get a thank you, probably because most operators are tired about having to get there “new” equipment fixed generally in the first 18months of purchase.

Another fix I did for an operator was a Let’s go jungle, as the original hardware had an upscanner to take the 1360×768 signal and upscan it to the 1920×1080 resolution of the DLP monitor, but if the upscanner goes, you can use the VGA cable and plug it directly into the monitor, the downside is a massive black border! My solution at the time was to make the game run in 1920×1080 (and to my knowledge the only Lindbergh game that runs in such a resolution), this means the operator could continue to run in the native dot-by-dot resolution without having to wait for an upscanner box (which at the time was out of stock, and also saved him like £300).

Reply
Joe

So he decrypted the game data for you?

Not sure what glitches you’re referring to in the Arcade version; I’ve never had issues with my drives.

Reply
    arcadehero

    Both PCs I had came with a lot of problems. Multiple crashes constantly, graphical glitches and lockups. Overheating out the wazoo. Whatever Andy did, solved the problems

    Reply
    AndyGeezer

    Hi Joe, what I did for Adam was upgrade his Windows XP embedded kernel to support other stock Nvidia cards – in his case I sent him a 9800GT Eco board, which is proven very reliable for me in field testing (I use these for Rally 3, Grid, Terminator Salvation repairs), as a bonus I did him a 1080p version of SSF4 (as he is using a bespoke LCD with a native resolution of 1920×1080, I am a fan of 100% dot-by-dot which is an issue with LCDs as they are a fixed resolution and the upscanners range from OK to poor), the original is still retained in its original form (with dongle so Adam can re-sell) -as a bonus it showcases both the game and GameGrid where it is operated.
    The other thing he has had SSF4 down for almost 2months, and for the PC to come back with the same fault was very disappointing – I believe Adam would have sent the PC direct to me, but at the time I believe it was still under warranty. TypeX2 PCs as a whole are reliable, the only mainboard issue I’ve had is corrupt CMOS (in the case of a game like Battle Gear 2010/ChaseHQ2) will render the game useless, like Lindbergh the big issue is the 7900GS, they generally will start to become unreliable after about 12months.

    My view is about supporting the industry, and making the most from an operators purchase.

    Reply