ARTAX TTX3 MEGA MULTI – Taito Type X3 Multi – [JVS] [FASTIO] [1080p] [v4.1] – Re-Up

ARTAX TTX3 MEGA MULTI v4.1 is a Taito Type X3 multigame image with over 550 games, built to run on ORIGINAL Taito Type X3 arcade hardware with a JVS or FASTIO IO board in your cabinet.

It is designed to be written to a 1TB SSD and fitted into your original TTX3 system. Don’t sell this multi or pay for it, silly. It is free, made from tools freely available online. Arcade fun even your grandma will approve of.

Download

The download is approx 450GB compressed. Uncompressed, you will need a 1TB SSD to write it to.

Usenet

Download NZB

No password needed.

Rapidgator

Rapidgator links

No password needed.

Torrent (original release)

Torrent

The original torrent still works. We recommend Tixati as your client; it copes far better with a pack this size than most.

The torrent archive is password protected. Extraction password:

ttx3freetodownloadmultigame#99}.

The full stop at the end is part of the password.

What is this?

A multigame arcade image designed to run on a Taito Type X3 unit with either a FASTIO or JVS IO board, connected to an arcade machine. It works out of the box on the standard TTX3 unit with the i5 CPU and GTX 660 GPU.

It is designed to be newbie friendly: download, write, connect to your cab, play. It is not made for tweaking configs and settings (apart from the important Nvidia settings covered below). Yes, the TTX3 is just a PC and you can mod it however you like, but if that’s what you’re after, you may be better off with a more mod-friendly image. On the intended hardware, (almost) every game has been tested, a lot, and should work as long as you use the controls shown in the menu for that game. Even that horrible KOF MIRA should now work properly.

It will run on other computers, and most games are playable with a keyboard, but some functions (like exiting a game properly) are tied to IO board button presses. Other hardware is untested, so if something doesn’t work, it’s up to you to work it out.

Tested IO boards

• FASTIO: official Taito boards only, not Chinese clones
• JVS: SEGA JVS/JAMMA IO 838-13683-93 REV B

These are the recommended boards if you’re wondering what to buy. Other JVS boards may well work, but they aren’t tested, and nothing will be done from our end to fix them.

If you are still on vanilla v4, you should definitely upgrade. The nag screen is gone, every script has been redone and runs very fast with all race conditions removed, and MAME now uses ArcabView for scanlines, which is 10x better than the old HLSL effect. If you’ve moved on to a different multi that does everything you need, stick with it. There’s no right or wrong, you have choices.

Want to add games to the frontend? Search for How to setup Attract-Mode Frontend with Nesicaxlive theme and you’ll find a very detailed guide.

What you will need

• A TTX3 unit (or a PC) with a JVS/FASTIO IO board
• An Xbox One gamepad, plus a keyboard and mouse for games that need them. Only the Xbox One pad has been tested.
• An arcade cabinet (optional, but come on)
• A 1TB SSD (WD Blue is tested). A non-SSD drive will work with this version as the scripts no longer have race conditions, but it is slower and not recommended.
• A 1080p 60Hz screen. Plenty of games work at 720p and some don’t, so 1080p 60Hz is the hassle-free option.

Quick start

1. Download all the files.
2. Extract. Open the file ending in .001 with 7-Zip and extract it to a drive with at least 1TB free. This must NOT be the SSD going into your TTX3; extract to a separate drive, then write the resulting 1TB image file to the SSD. It is highly compressed, so extraction can take many hours. On a slow machine it could take a day. This is normal. (Torrent downloads need the password above; Usenet and Rapidgator don’t.)
3. Write the image. Use balenaEtcher or dd to write the image to your SSD. On Windows we prefer balenaEtcher as it verifies after writing. Expect a few hours at least. balenaEtcher doesn’t get on with some drives; HDD Raw Copy Tool is an alternative, but it is up to 10x slower and will probably take a day or more.
4. BIOS. Fit the SSD to the TTX3, power on and press Ctrl+Alt+F9 to enter the BIOS (password opentdeg). Disable HDD Security, and make sure HDD mode is set to IDE, not AHCI.
5. Boot. Reboot with the SSD and your IO board connected and it should boot to the menu. If the picture is not aligned properly, reboot once more with your monitor connected; it sometimes does this on the first boot on new hardware.
6. Set your IO. Connect a keyboard and go to the Utils menu (W and E move the filter left and right). Select ENABLE JVS or ENABLE FASTIO to match your board, and let the system reboot.
7. Set up gun games. Enable the mouse from the Utils menu, open TeknoParrot from Utils, and run CONTROLLER SETUP for each shooting game. This is needed because controls are tied to your own USB device, so ours won’t work with yours. Skip this if you don’t want the gun games, but their controls won’t work until you do it. Then disable the mouse from the Utils menu.
8. No sound? Go to Utils, open Sound Devices, make sure the device you want is Set as Default and that its volume is not at 0 (it is in the tabs on the sound device).
9. Play.

IO connection note: FASTIO must be connected to the ethernet port on the daughter IO card, and JVS must be connected to the USB port on that same daughter card. The regular USB and ethernet ports on the TTX3 will not work for IO.

Controls

Use your arcade controls. You’ll want 6 buttons for most games.

Check the controller icon for each game in the menu. If it shows a gamepad, that game needs a gamepad; the same goes for mouse and keyboard. Gamepads only work on games that show one. When you exit, you’re back on your arcade controls. Some games that need a gamepad won’t start at all without one connected.

If a game natively supports local 2 players, it has generally been set up for 2 players on both FASTIO and JVS. If a game doesn’t natively support local 2 players (SF5, Tekken etc.), it doesn’t work. Nothing special has been done to add it.

Button combos

• P1 B1 + B2 + B3 + B4 + Start: exit any game back to the menu (JVS and FASTIO)
• P1 B5 + B6 + Start: shut down the system (FASTIO only; on JVS use Utils > Shutdown)
• P1 B1 + Start: add coins. Works on most games, not all. If it doesn’t, use Service or your coin mech.

In the games menu, P1 button 1 selects a game, and buttons 2 and 3 jump between systems.

Always shut down properly using the button combo or Utils > Shutdown, which both trigger a normal safe Windows shutdown. There is no write filter on the drive, so pulling the power can break Windows (v4.1 makes this less likely, but don’t push your luck).

Nvidia settings (important)

Some games need 2 custom resolutions set in the Nvidia Control Panel (open it from the Utils menu, go to the resolutions section and add custom). Only change the horizontal and vertical resolution boxes and the refresh rate, nothing else:

• 1024×600 @ 60Hz: needed by Operation Ghost to run in 1080p
• 1440×1080 @ 60Hz: needed by a few games

These reset any time you change or remove the video card or update drivers, so you’ll need to add them again.

Scaling: if you change video cards at all, go to Adjust desktop size and position and set Perform scaling on to GPU, not Display. Set to Display, older 4:3 games get stretched. Quick check: run Tetris The Grand Master on TTX. Black bars on the sides means it’s correct; stretched to fill the screen means it’s wrong. AMD cards are not recommended and will probably break a lot of things; if you use one anyway, find the equivalent setting in the AMD control panel.

System notes

Atomiswave / NAOMI

The emulator for these needs a mouse connected or it shows an error. To get around this, disconnect your mouse and run the fix from the Utils menu. Plugging a mouse back in disables the fix, so re-run it after you’ve finished with the mouse. Some of the Atomiswave gun games can be flaky, so calibrate them.

ES3

Some of these run at a lower frame rate at 1080p on stock hardware and need a video card upgrade to run faster. Star Wars sometimes fails to load and drops you back to the menu; just run it again. Try them first though, as v4.1 has a number of optimisations and you might be happy on the stock card.

TTX3

Some of these also run at a lower frame rate at 1080p on stock hardware. Try them; most run perfectly playable. They will crash if you use the P1 B1 + Start coin combo with 0 credits in the machine, so add coins through Service, the coin key (5) on your keyboard, or your coin mech.

Other

Taisen Hot Gimmick (TTX) can’t be controlled; it’s just there for looks.

Music

A music section for background tunes on your cab. Run the tile and the video plays; up and down on your stick is volume, left and right skips through the file, and the exit combo closes it. There’s also a left/right speaker test to check your stereo channels. To add your own, copy one of the .a3x files, rename it to match your music video file exactly, then add a line for it in the romlist.

Fightcade

Fightcade (online arcade gaming) is included but has never been logged in, as you need your own account. No ROMs are included, but the auto download scripts are, so games download as you play them. Use mouse and keyboard to navigate Fightcade; your cab controls take over once a game starts.

1. Go to fightcade.com/register and sign up for an account.
2. Run the Fightcade tile from the Fighting group.
3. Log in with your credentials.
4. Add a game to the list on the left (clicking Test Game downloads it for you).
5. Set your controls the first time for each game via INPUT on the top menu (or F5 in game), using your cab joystick and buttons.
6. Play.

Note: the ROM download triggers when you JOIN a game and add it to your list. If you already have an account with games joined, leave the game group and join it again to trigger the download. Just running an already-joined game won’t do it.

System BIOS update

There’s a Utils tile with the tools for updating your TTX3 BIOS. Updating to b23 lets you use any video card, rather than being stuck with older non-UEFI cards.

All 3 BIOS files are included for archive purposes, full dumps taken from desoldered chips (thanks to the people who dumped and supplied them):

• TTX3_E9A46I3E_V1.0b13_040512
• TTX3_E9A46I3E_V1.0b16_071113
• TTX3_E9A46I3E_v1.0b23_092614 (the one you want to flash)

1. Start the flash tool from the Utils menu.
2. Click OPEN.
3. Browse to E:\system\BIOS\BIOS_FILES\.
4. In the bottom right, under ROM FILES, choose the .bin file type so the BIOS files show, then select b23.
5. On the SETUP tab, check these 4 options and NOTHING ELSE: Program All Blocks, Main BIOS Image, Boot Block, NVRAM. Make sure nothing else is ticked, especially ME Ignition and Restart After Programming.
6. Click Flash, then OK on the close programs warning.
7. All blocks should turn green. If you see any red, DO NOT REBOOT; try the flash again. If b23 won’t flash, try b16.
8. If everything is green, exit and reboot.
9. Flashing resets all BIOS settings and re-enables HDD Security, so go back into the BIOS and disable it again or it won’t boot.

If your system won’t boot after all that, you’re in real trouble. You were warned.

TTX3 hardware notes

There are generally 2 models of TTX3 about:

Version 1: i3 CPU, 4GB RAM, Nvidia GT 640. Runs all the emulator games fine, but the card won’t handle the heavier stuff like ES3, TTX3 and possibly RING, and the i3 won’t run Tekken 7. Not recommended unless you plan to upgrade the CPU, RAM and video card. Easy way to tell: if you can see MSI cut out of the back of the video card, it’s the 640.

Version 2: i5 CPU, 8GB RAM, Nvidia GTX 660. Runs almost everything at 1080p, with a few exceptions (SF5, Fighting Layer, some ES3). This is the one to get. The stock hardware plays 95% or more of the games at smooth frame rates, so you might not need to upgrade at all. Just make sure both fans on the GPU work, as a dead fan can hurt performance.

Buying one: Yahoo Japan Auctions is usually the best place, via a proxy service like Buyee or Zenmarket, who bid, pay, receive and ship it on to you. Shipping can be expensive, but it’s usually still a lot cheaper than eBay. View these in Chrome for auto translation:

• Arcade PCB section
• Taito filter
• X3 filter
• Sold prices (so you can see what they actually go for)

Changelog v4.1 (July 2022)

• ArcabView 2.1 installed for scanlines in MAME. Visually much better than the HLSL used in v4.
• Nag screen removed from scripts. No more nag screen on game start-up.
• Intro video changed.
• All scripts optimised. Very fast loading, and race conditions completely removed for more stable operation.
• Most TTX3 games updated with the newest nxl2 DLL, so difficulty can now be changed.
• Lindbergh games now enabled by default, and should no longer run too fast as long as you are on a 60Hz screen.
• Wangan 6 1080p patched.
• Most Windows telemetry and automatic online activity disabled, including system and driver updates. You will need to trigger these manually. On a TTX3 you should not need any drivers.
• SF4 games render at 4K in a 1080p window (fine on the stock GTX 660).
• KOF MIA finally fixed. Renders at 1080p in proper 4:3 with a working intro video. This is the best we could get it, but it now works consistently and looks good. You are stuck with the DXWnd window in the bottom left; you can drag it to the bottom right so only the corner shows, but do not click anywhere in the game window or it will most likely kill the game. Also don’t let the full attract mode play through, as it breaks the scaling at the end (it takes about 2-3 minutes, so just start a game).
• Music section added, with some toons to watch when you are high.
• KOF XV PC added. 4 attack buttons mapped, with Esc, Enter and Space on the remaining player buttons and Start. You can navigate the whole game with these, no button combos needed. Runs perfectly at 1080p on the stock GTX 660, NO video card upgrade needed.
• Fightcade added, with auto ROM download scripts. See the Fightcade section above.
• Stereo sound test in the music section for checking left/right channels on your cab. SF3 3rd Strike seems to default to mono; it is set to stereo on this image.
• System BIOS flashing tools added to the Utils menu, all 3 BIOS revisions included. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
• RING Operation Ghost video config fixed. Displays correctly and is properly upscaled through the whole game (it was semi-broken before).
• TTX Block King Shooter video mode fixed. It used an odd resolution needing its own custom entry; it now runs at 1440×1080 with the other 4:3 games.
• Windows tweaks to reduce the chance of corruption on C: after an improper shutdown. It is not the write filter, but the risk is lower still. You can probably enable the write filter, but we are not certain no games rely on writing.
• Save partition shrunk to 1GB. If there is ever another release from us, this partition will be used a lot more. Native FASTIO support will be reinstated for all TTX2/3 games that support it where possible, and JVS support will be removed entirely, making it FASTIO only.
• Sound Devices shortcut added to the Utils menu for quickly switching between HDMI, sound card and so on.
• Persona games fixed. They had loader issues and only ran sometimes; the loader that removes online messages is now bypassed so they run every time.
• Probably more small stuff we forgot.

Credits

Credit to the creators of everything used in this multi. None of the software creators are involved in any way; it’s a collection of freely available tools pieced together, nothing more or less. If you enjoy it, great, that’s what it’s about. If it bothers you, you’re free not to use it.

Be kind to each other and enjoy.

Releases: Artax v4, July 2021. Artax v4.1, July 2022. Re-release with fresh links, 2026.