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Price Check Virtua Racing development cartridge (Mega Drive)

Nemesis

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Hi guys, I've had this in my collection for the better part of a decade:
IMG_0566_resized.jpg
IMG_0561_resized.jpg

It's a development cartridge for Virtua Racing. It's the same kind of cartridge you can see in this old magazine photo:
virtuaproto.jpg

Apart from some unimportant header changes the ROM data is binary identical to the "Virtua Racing (E) [a1].gen" ROM, so there's no unseen version of the game on here, but it is an interesting little nugget from the development of this unique title. This game was the only one to use the "SVP" chip (math DSP) which they used to do polygon rendering, hence why it needed this unique development cartridge. Any ideas what it might be worth?
 

z3ntn3l

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It looks like its missing a rather big IC?
 

SuperH

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Any ideas what it might be worth?
I know one almost identical to this was bought for USD$1100 earlier this year, however, it was purchased with the hope there might be beta features (seller hadn't tested it and the ROM data was unknown); so in that instance it may have been sold for a bit more than otherwise (I mean if the buyer knew it was identical to retail then he probably wouldn't have paid as much). After testing there were no discernible differences in the game from retail and I believe it was dumped but possibly not yet released.
 

Nemesis

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It looks like its missing a rather big IC?
The cartridge has several configurations for supplying the ROM data. One is using four separate 8-bit eproms, as is the case with my cartridge. Another is a single larger 16-bit eprom, as is shown in the picture from the magazine. A third option is using that connector under the 16-bit eprom socket, which would have connected to some other device, possibly a DRAM-based device with a live connection back to a development PC, where the data could be more easily updated during development. Everything it needs to work is present though, and the cartridge happily boots in the console.

I know one almost identical to this was bought for USD$1100 earlier this year, however, it was purchased with the hope there might be beta features (seller hadn't tested it and the ROM data was unknown); so in that instance it may have been sold for a bit more than otherwise (I mean if the buyer knew it was identical to retail then he probably wouldn't have paid as much). After testing there were no discernible differences in the game from retail and I believe it was dumped but possibly not yet released.
Wow, $1100 is quite a bit more than I thought someone'd be willing to drop on this. As you said, might have been in the hopes of a beta. Unfortunately being a development cartridge, they probably all got used right until the end, and you couldn't send a review copy of this to a magazine really, or if you did, you'd definitely make sure you got this one back. I doubt betas of this survived. Where did that cart sell, was it ebay or somewhere else? Wouldn't mind comparing it to mine.
 

ERROR

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Here is mine. The connector on the right is a scsi connector. I am not sure what it does. If yours is retail it hurts the value pretty big. I had high hopes for mine having an edge 16 modem menu in it since it was supposed to be supported in Virtua racing. But i can’t find anything debug or extra menus.

 

ERROR

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What’s weird is the sticker over the eproms says old genesis only. I assume model 1 high definition graphics ones.

And the other sticker says genesis2 vao prepared
 

Nemesis

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Thanks for sharing the picture of your cart. It looks like the number on the second line of the sticker over the SVP processor might be like a serial number. This would mean there were at least 179 of them made, based on the number on my cart, which is more than I thought they'd run off. Maybe they really did send these out to magazines for review? It's interesting about the compatibility notes on the stickers as you point out. Maybe that's what the hand-edits under the blob of hot glue are about? They probably found out about the compatibility problems after some initial use, and labelled the carts they'd assembled with that note. Later on someone worked out a fix and modified the carts to address the issue, and stuck that sticker on to indicate when it had been done.

Have you taken a ROM dump of the game yet? Although it may appear to not have anything special in it, if these were sent out to magazines for review, they'd often just do a special build of the current dev version with anything they didn't want them to see disabled in trivial ways. It's possible it could contain differences from the final version, even if nothing's initially apparent when playing the game.
 
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ERROR

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I haven’t but I will. I’m interested in trying a big eprom to see if it loads from that slot on the side.

Are you looking to sell yours? I also thought they were far more rare. I have an edge 16 modem prototype and I’m dying to find a game that has code for it in it. Rumored was Virtua Racing, Balls, Brutal paws of Fury, I think one other.

They showed Balls working with the modem, but I cant find a build with the modem menu in it.

You dumped yours and checked the data and the whole thing matches European retail except the header? Sometimes they put weird headers to tie it to the person that had it so it didn’t get leaked.
 

z3ntn3l

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The cartridge has several configurations for supplying the ROM data. One is using four separate 8-bit eproms, as is the case with my cartridge. Another is a single larger 16-bit eprom, as is shown in the picture from the magazine. A third option is using that connector under the 16-bit eprom socket, which would have connected to some other device, possibly a DRAM-based device with a live connection back to a development PC, where the data could be more easily updated during development. Everything it needs to work is present though, and the cartridge happily boots in the console.

Thank you very much for your explanation! (y)
 

ERROR

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Hey Nemesis. Are you looking to sell it? I’d love to buy it for my collection. Maybe if I do find a dump with the edge 16 data I can run both and do some online 2 player.
 

Nemesis

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Hey Nemesis. Are you looking to sell it? I’d love to buy it for my collection. Maybe if I do find a dump with the edge 16 data I can run both and do some online 2 player.
If you want to make an offer in private I'll consider it, but probably not I'm afraid. I do work on emulation, and this cart makes it quite easy to run tests on the SVP chip, the workings of which aren't fully deciphered at this point. If I wanted to run hardware tests in the future, my plan was to use this cart. There'd be a price I'd let it go for though, but I'm not sure what it is honestly, I'd have to think about it.
 

ERROR

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If you want to make an offer in private I'll consider it, but probably not I'm afraid. I do work on emulation, and this cart makes it quite easy to run tests on the SVP chip, the workings of which aren't fully deciphered at this point. If I wanted to run hardware tests in the future, my plan was to use this cart. There'd be a price I'd let it go for though, but I'm not sure what it is honestly, I'd have to think about it.
No prob. Let me know. I did pm you. I’d rather you find or more about the chip than have it be in my hands to be honest.
 

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