VP from the inside...

[roveer]

I've said in a few other posts that once I got a chance to fool with a real live VP machine from the inside, I would post my findings.  We'll, I've been fooling with a VP machine from the inside, so here's what I've learned. The machine I've been looking at is what I'd consider a late model Game King VP machine.  It's an upright machine not that it matters.  The inside is broken into 3 different areas the upper portion which contains the printer, card reader and in some casinos the comps keypad or touch screen.  At Harrah's I order my drinks right from this screen. The second area is the video display area, older machines have CRT's, newer machines have LCD's.  This one had a nice LCD which left lots of room behind the display and probably took 25lbs off the weight of the machine.  I can only imagine how ugly the CRT's must get with all the smoke/dirt/dust that probably accumulates in this area. The third area is where the real brains are.  The lower portion contains the MPU (main processor and game ROMS), Motherboard (kind of a fancy back plane where the processor board plugs in, Video/Sound modules, power supplies/communication boards, bill reader and cash drawer.  In older machines this area would also have the hopper for coins.  The door of the machine contains lights, flouresent light tube, ballast, buttons, coin-in/coin-out/jackpot physical counters and decorative glass.  Not much going on here. So, I was expecting to find full ethernet communication inside the machine.  Nope, looks like serial port is all it has.  Still looking though, could be wrong. The processor is an intel i960.  A quick blurb:  Intel's i960 (or 80960) was a RISC-based microprocessor design that became popular during the early 1990s as an embedded microcontroller, becoming a best-selling CPU in that field, along with the competing AMD 29000. No heat sink or fan on this processor.  I've seen a few reports that it's running at 12mhz or 24mhz in turbo mode (mhz, not ghz like we have today!).  That's a whole lot slower than today's 3.xghz processors! There are areas for game ROMS, this particular machine being newer only had 1 slot for a game game ROM or which is often called a BASE or BOOT CHIP.  There are lots of different variations on this, some are multiple chips, some are chips and simms that need to be paired it all depends on the hardware.  This particular machine had an IGT 044 MPU (Processor board). Here's where it gets interesting: There are a number of setup screens and setup levels.  There attendant (someone outside the machine) which is activated by turning the jackpot key on the side of the machine.  Minimal menu's, some test screens, sound menu, accounting menu, ability to see previous hands played etc.  There's an Operator Menu (inside the machine) which it accessed by hitting the button on the MPU with the door open.  More advanced screens, some ability to change things etc. Than there is what is called Key Chip.  You remove the game rom or base chip, insert the specific key chip for that series machine, put the board back in, reboot the machine, in this case you get a menu where you can clear some of the memory settings or select the "key chip" option.  Once you've done that, you turn the machine off, remove the key chip, put in the original base chip, put it all back together and turn the machine back on.  Once it boots up, your in the key chip menu where you can make all the machine settings.  I mention "interesting" because I do not believe you can make significant changes to these machines without doing this process.  I believe it was designed this way so basically no-one besides a slot tech would have the means to do all these things without being detected by casino personnel.  Heck, just an open door would alert the casino and probably bring security running.  I'll talk more in a bit about the SAS protocol and what it does. So, I have to say (with no great authority other than my observations), that paytables can only be changed via this process or replaceing chips physically at the machine.  As much as it saddens (or makes me happy actually), there is no guy in the back room making these machines tighter or loser.  Software changes or configurations on these machines is extremely cumbersome.  Afterall, this is almost IBM PC era technology, definetly 90's at any rate. I won't go into all the encrypted software or tilt mechanisims, but rest assured, they are there.  Suffice it to say, the machine code are well kept secrets. What I have seen in the setup menu's is all pretty straight foward, although I've only had limited time.  Pay table adjustments that I've seen are all 96+ percent and pretty much followed what I remember to be standard pay table percentages.  I will eventually check that out more in dept since it was something I was really wanting to know.  Expect and update on this. There were lots of other features and options to tweak.  Some commication settings, settings to talk to the printer, to talk to the bill accepter, to talk to the casino mgmt system etc.  There were denomination settings how many denoms to allow on a machine, how many and what type of games to allow on the machine, there were game specific options, card backs, sound options (Hey if anyone wants a really clear recording of a jackpot, I could get one made), but for all that I saw, I didn't see anything that would allow the machine to be set for anything other than legit pay tables.  No inhibiting play in any way, no monkey business etc.  They even had a progressive setting on Royals which I guess allowed you to take a fraction of coins in and put it toward a royal progressive.   So far, it's all good and well all the things that I learned, but hey, what about the rigging, the 83% payback, the no multiplier on STP.  What about all the things that happen to us players.  Here's what I've found. All of these base chips that go into these games are "Jurisdiction" specific.  That means there are different chips for different areas of the country.  I saw a IGT document that showed probably 20-30 different Jurisdictions.  Why?  Because the different gaming juirisdicitons have different rules.  So, well, it appeared that I was looking at a machine that had a "Minnesota" base chip in it (not 100% sure on this).  What I really want to see is a NJ base chip.  I'm looking into how that can happen, but no guarantees that it ever will.  But with all the things that I did find, I really still can't answer the questions I want to answer until I can get a NJ base chip and see what it's software setup's look like.  So I guess this issue will have to smolder some more until we can get a better look. SAS Protocol:  There is a protocol for communication called SAS which allows the machine to communicate back to a central host for a number of things.  Tilts/errors, jackpots, some accounting stastics, possible dealt hand information (saw an option for this), ticket validation, probably coin-in/out information, slot attendant, drink orders, players card etc.  It did not appear that advanced settings could be intitiated through this protocol as the machine has to be in key chip mode to access this information. Another interesting thing I found out is that stand alone machines that are not connected to a casino network won't read their own tickets and allow credits.  So if I tried to put in a 300 dollar ticket that I just cashed out on the same machine, it would not accept it.  This is kind of a bummer for home users who have these machines since it makes the ticket printer pretty much a useless novelty.  But, a few guys on the interwibble have come up with different boards that simulate the back end servers the machine needs to connect to in order to allow it to accept it's own tickets, or tickets from other machines that also contain one of their boards.  This is huge for those with multiple machines in their home game rooms.  Otherwise your stuck putting money in the machine as that is the only way to get credits on the machine. Hope you found this informative, who can help me get GK 6.2 single base chips for an 044 MPU for NJ Jurisdiciton?  Who, say what? Questions, fire away. Roveer 

[shadowman]

The 960JT processor was 100 MHz and came out in the late 90s. The Game Kings came out in the early oughts I believe so it would be a good fit (although probably overkill). [EDIT: Looks like they used slower processors to at least 2004 (12 and 24 MHz).] I read somewhere that they upgraded to 200 MHz in the mid oughts and I would suspect they are at least 400 MHz these days (probably more) simply because older technology would no longer be manufactured.

[sam434343]

Rover, very good imformation, I kinda have a question if you had one of these NJ computer chips or for that matter any other jurisdiction chips, is it possible the makers or engineers of these chips could hide,trick, or for that matter makeing believe you seeing one thing, but is doing something else, or on one time give one RF then wait 400,000 before it gives you another then go 300,000 hands before it gives another then change to 75,000 hands so as that profits are higher for a casino?But in this way you dont see a pattern in there chip? Are the makers of these chips that advanced that they could do this? Maybe my question is out in left field but this chip seems to be the core of all video poker machines. Sam

[Vman96]

Rover, very good imformation, I kinda have a question if you had one of these NJ computer chips or for that matter any other jurisdiction chips, is it possible the makers or engineers of these chips could hide,trick, or for that matter makeing believe you seeing one thing, but is doing something else, or on one time give one RF then wait 400,000 before it gives you another then go 300,000 hands before it gives another then change to 75,000 hands so as that profits are higher for a casino?But in this way you dont see a pattern in there chip? Are the makers of these chips that advanced that they could do this? Maybe my question is out in left field but this chip seems to be the core of all video poker machines. Sam

Well, they can technically do anything they want if they really want to break regulations and possibly ruin their business. You can design a game to behave anyway you see fit; slot machines are great examples of that. And if you changed the Royal cycle to let's say 1 in 100k, it would take a longgggggg time for a human to prove it with reasonable certainty (probably would need over 1 million hands tracked minimum), and you would have to have a player as devoted to tracking play like DaBurglar to boot. But it would be pretty easy to prove it was rigged if the chip was tested electronically.

[sam434343]

Vman, thanks writing back,and your answer i agree with! I guess I should have said are the makers/engineers of these chps so advanced that they can fool the electronics machine that can test these chip, are the makers/engineers that good now that they could do this, they have secret codes that 98% of the people could not figure out, so that leaves 2% could they fool them? I only say this because $$$/hundreds of millions of dollars are involed.  Kinda like the credit card companys that was fined  million dollars for doing illegal things to there customers, didnt hurt them they took in over millions to cover it. Put search of credit cards fined for illegal practices, the list is very long! If you take in more than you have to pay out in fines what going to stop them?

[shadowman]

Need to repeat the fact that the makers of the chips are completely separate companies from the casinos. They are fortune 500 corporations with board of directors, etc. Do you really believe they would risk their entire business to help casinos make a bigger profit but do nothing for their own bottom line? Remember, the chips themselves are coded by software/hardware developers who could move on to another job at any time. What would keep these people from blowing the whistle?

In fact, the better the machines pay off the more players that would play them ... and play them longer. This would increase the demand for the machines. If anything, the motivation of the VP machine manufacturers is the exact opposite.

[DaBurglar]

this is cool so far, i've never personally seen the stuff being described here, I've only heard anecdotal accounts from peopke who used to work in the biz, etc. ...... Game king.....hmmmm?   If I recall correctly this type of machine represents what percentage of the total VP machines on the floor of most AC casinos????   I'm asking here..... Roveer, you say there are still menu(s) and options you have NOT accessed yet, but have not seen anything untoward so far.....thats good and bad (more good of course) The thing that still sticks in my craw, besides my abysmal playing results the past months, are the several NOVELTY-type VP games I have encounterd (such as the games in the orleans from a few years back offering the Toyota 4x4 trucks for four 4s, where the machine clearly stated the odds of getting any quad, much less four fours was dramatically LESS than normal....)   Does this mean they had to custom order, or program this thing rather than just access some menu?   Again I;m asking.....it may explain why we dont see more of these Novelty games if you have to custom make them.......  Note:  My cousin visited yesterday....he has experienced a 67.5% "dud" rate in the Trump casinos (taj and plaza) over 5 days and about 30K hands.....but he did hit a royal so he about broke even, but still, he said he had several really LONG streaks of absolute Nothingness that seemed really out of bounds.   He follows my methods so i trust his results (i have watched him, both in the open and kinda secret as he plays....he is good) He agrees with my dud rate but like you guys, he scoffed at my fullhouse total, but he did concede it was not impossible and given it is NJ, anything is possible.

[roveer]

Roveer, you say there are still menu(s) and options you have NOT accessed yet, but have not seen anything untoward so far.....thats good and bad (more good of course)
 I would say there's still a bunch of things I haven't seen or understood about the setup menu's.  It's a lot to take in.  I did read a post about a thing called HIDENOM.  I'm still looking into what that means.  From what I just read, HIDENOM lowers the pay table to bring a certain type of hand (FH I think) on a 5 dollar machine down to just under the W2G limit (239 coins vs 250 coins).  This is shown on the paytable so there's nothing nefarious about it.

[sam434343]

Going to burst your bubble out those 500 fortune comps. take the first top100 of them and atleast 10 of them have been fined,or done ilegall activity(this was me just looking at there names) to the american people this is fact, so save your almighty they would not do anything to the american people to get there money. Do a search of the 500 fortune compys.on your computer fined,criminal,fraud,death,money ect.ect. almost half them are on that list. They cost them american people 300 to 500 hundred billion. Dont tell us they would not do ilegall things it is fact that they do it all the time. My point/question was to find out if these engineers are smart enuff to fool a test of electronic equipment that test the video poker chip? At one time back in 90s there were some youths that figered away to found out what the video poker chip was doing and they won alot money before the casino caught on to it. So the question stands can they!LOL! My guess is that if they could very few people would know they could do it.

[Vman96]

From what I just read, HIDENOM lowers the pay table to bring a certain type of hand (FH I think) on a 5 dollar machine down to just under the W2G limit (239 coins vs 250 coins).  This is shown on the paytable so there's nothing nefarious about it.


I think you mean quads or straight flushes. And HIDENOM...lol What a weird sounding name.