CP System II
The CP System II, also known as Capcom Play System 2 or CPS-2 for short, is an arcade system board that was the successor to Capcom's CP System, CP System Dash and Capcom Power System Changer arcade hardware. It was first used in 1993 for Super Street Fighter II and was succeeded by the CP System III hardware in 1996, of which the CPS-2 would outlive by over four years. New releases for the system were produced until the end of 2003, ending with Hyper Street Fighter II. Technical support for the CPS-2 ended on February 28, 2019.
Like its predecessor, games can be exchanged without altering the core hardware. The CP System II uses separate daughterboards enclosed in plastic cases to store both the games and the main board on, which are then put together so that the games can be played. Unlike its predecessor, however, games are encrypted, and must be decrypted via a decryption key stored on the main board's battery-backed memory to run them.
History
Capcom announced the development of the CP System II in 1990. They had planned to complete and release the CP System II hardware in 18 months. They also originally had plans for the system to be capable of 3D graphics.The earlier Capcom system board, the original CP System, while successful, was very vulnerable to bootleggers making unauthorized copies of games. In order to rectify the situation, Capcom took the CP System hardware with minimal changes and employed encryption on the program ROMs to prevent software piracy. Due to the encryption, the system was never bootlegged until unencrypted program data became available.
The CP System II consists of two separate parts; the A board, which connects to the JAMMA harness and contains components common between all CP System II games, and the B board, which contains the game itself. The relationship between the A and B board is very similar to that between a home video game console and cartridge. CP System II A and B boards are color-coded by region, and each board can only be used with its same-colored mate. The exception to this is that the blue and green boards can be used together.
The B boards hold battery-backed memory containing decryption keys needed for the games to run. As time passes, these batteries lose their charge and the games stop functioning, because the CPU cannot execute any code without the decryption keys. This is generally referred to as a "suicide battery". It is possible to bypass the original battery and swap it out with a new one in-circuit, but this must be done before the original falls below 2V or the keys will be lost. Consequently, the board would just simply die, even if used legally it would not play after a finite amount of time unless a fee was paid to Capcom to replace it.
Due to the heavy encryption, it was believed for a long time that CP System II emulation was next to impossible. However, in January 2001, the CPS-2 Shock group was able to obtain unencrypted program data by hacking into the hardware, which they distributed as XOR difference tables to produce the unencrypted data from the original ROM images, making emulation possible, as well as restoring cartridges that had been erased because of the suicide system.
In January 2007, the encryption method was fully reverse-engineered by and Nicola Salmoria. It has been determined that the encryption employs two four-round Feistel ciphers with a 64-bit key. The algorithm was thereafter implemented in this state for all known CPS-2 games in MAME.
In April 2016, Eduardo Cruz, Artemio Urbina and Ian Court announced the successful reverse engineering of Capcom's CP System II security programming, enabling the clean "de-suicide" and restoration of any dead games without hardware modifications.
Capcom ceased manufacturing the CP System II hardware on December 22, 2003, with Hyper Street Fighter II being the final game released for the hardware. Capcom ended most of the technical support for the hardware and its games on March 31, 2015. Battery replacements ended on February 28, 2019, ending all official support of the CP System II hardware and software.
Region colors
| Region | Case | Version screen |
| Japan | Green plastic | White text |
| U.S.A. | Blue plastic | Red text |
| Euro/Etc./World | Blue plastic | Blue text |
| Asia | Grey plastic | Yellow text |
| Hispanic | Orange plastic | Green text |
| Brazil | Orange plastic | Magenta text |
| Oceania | Blue plastic | Orange text |
| Rental | Yellow plastic | |
| Black metal "all-in-one" |
Technical specifications
- CPU:
- *Primary: Capcom DL-1525 @ 16 MHz
- *Sound: Kabuki DL-030P or standard Z80 @ 8 MHz
- Capcom custom chipset:
- *GPU: CPS-A & CPS-B Graphics Processors @ 16 MHz
- *Sound chip: Lucent DL-1425 Q1 QSound DSP16A Processor @ 4 MHz
- *DRAM Refresh Controller: DL-2227
- *I/O Controller: DL-1123
- Display:
- *Active resolution: 384×224 pixels
- *Overscan resolution: 512×262
- *Sprites: 900 on screen
- Colors:
- *Depth: 32-bit
- *Palette: 16,777,216 colors
- *Alpha transparency: 256 levels
- *Colors on screen: 4096
- *Colors per tile: 16
- RAM: 1328 KB
- *A-Board: 1 MB FPM DRAM, 280 KB SRAM
- *B-Board: 16 KB SRAM
- *Communication Board: 8 KB SRAM
- Maximum ROM capacity: 322 Mbit
- Dimensions : 40 x 27 x 8 cm
List of games (41 games)
| English title | Release date | Developer | Japanese title | Genre |
| Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers Super Street Fighter II: Tournament Battle | September 9, 1993 | Capcom | Super Street Fighter II | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Eco Fighters | December 12, 1993 | Capcom | Ultimate Ecology | Shoot 'em up |
| Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom | January 13, 1994 | Capcom | Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom | Beat 'em up |
| Super Street Fighter II Turbo | February 23, 1994 | Capcom | Super Street Fighter II X: Grand Master Challenge | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Alien vs. Predator | May 20, 1994 | Capcom | Alien VS Predator | Beat 'em up |
| Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors | July 5, 1994 | Capcom | Vampire: The Night Warriors | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Ring of Destruction: Slammasters II | August 8, 1994 | Capcom | Super Muscle Bomber: The International Blowout | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Armored Warriors | September 16, 1994 | Capcom | Powered Gear: Strategic Variant Armor Equipment | Beat 'em up |
| X-Men: Children of the Atom | December 8, 1994 | Capcom | X-Men: Children of the Atom | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge | March 2, 1995 | Capcom | Vampire Hunter: Darkstalkers' Revenge | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness | April 20, 1995 | Capcom | Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Street Fighter Alpha | June 5, 1995 | Capcom | Street Fighter Zero | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Mega Man: The Power Battle | September 22, 1995 | Capcom | Rockman: The Power Battle | Fighting game |
| Marvel Super Heroes | October 24, 1995 | Capcom | Marvel Super Heroes | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| 19XX: The War Against Destiny | December 7, 1995 | Capcom | 19XX The War Against Destiny | Shoot 'em up |
| Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara | February 6, 1996 | Capcom | Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara | Beat 'em up |
| Street Fighter Alpha 2 | February 27, 1996 | Capcom | Street Fighter Zero 2 | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo | May 29, 1996 | Capcom | Super Puzzle Fighter II X | Puzzle game |
| Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters | July 8, 1996 | Capcom | Rockman 2: The Power Fighters | Fighting game |
| Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold | August 5, 1996 | Capcom | Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Quiz Nanairo Dreams: Nijiirochō no Kiseki | August 26, 1996 | Capcom | Quiz Nanairo Dreams: Nijiirochō no Kiseki | Quiz game |
| X-Men vs. Street Fighter | September 9, 1996 | Capcom | X-Men vs. Street Fighter | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Battle Circuit | March 19, 1997 | Capcom | Battle Circuit | Beat 'em up |
| Vampire Savior | May 19, 1997 | Capcom | Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter | June 20, 1997 | Capcom | Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Capcom Sports Club | July 22, 1997 | Capcom | Capcom Sports Club | Sports game |
| Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix | September 4, 1997 | Capcom | Pocket Fighter | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Vampire Hunter 2: Darkstalkers' Revenge | September 13, 1997 | Capcom | Vampire Hunter 2: Darkstalkers' Revenge | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Vampire Savior 2: The Lord of Vampire | September 13, 1997 | Capcom | Vampire Savior 2: The Lord of Vampire | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes | January 12, 1998 | Capcom | Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Street Fighter Alpha 3 | June 29, 1998 | Capcom | Street Fighter Zero 3 | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |
| Giga Wing | February 22, 1999 | Takumi | Giga Wing | Shoot 'em up |
| Jyangokushi: Haō no Saihai | May 27, 1999 | Capcom | Jyangokushi: Haō no Saihai | Puzzle game |
| Dimahoo | January 21, 2000 | Eighting/Raizing | Great Mahō Daisakusen | Shoot 'em up |
| Mars Matrix: Hyper Solid Shooting | April 12, 2000 | Takumi | Mars Matrix | Shoot 'em up |
| 1944: The Loop Master | June 20, 2000 | Eighting/Raizing | 1944 The Loop Master | Shoot 'em up |
| Mighty! Pang | October 10, 2000 | Mitchell | Mighty Pang | Platformer |
| Progear | January 17, 2001 | Cave | Progear no Arashi | Shoot 'em up |
| Puzz Loop 2 | February 5, 2001 | Mitchell | Puzz Loop 2 | Puzzle game |
| Janpai Puzzle Chōkō | August 20, 2001 | Mitchell | Janpai Puzzle Chōkō | Puzzle game |
| Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition | December 22, 2003 | Capcom | Hyper Street Fighter II | Head-to-Head Fighting Game |