[Taito Type X2] Flashing a GeForce 7900 with Elsa 979 BIOS

[Arcade-Projects]

This guide will explain how to flash a GeForce 7900 series video card with the Elsa 979 Bios for use in a Taito Type X2.

Any GeForce 7900 series card should work, the Geforce 7900GS is a direct replacement for the Elsa 979. Beware of some of the more "beefy" alternatives like the Geforce 7900GTX which require more power via the PCI-E slot and will be automatically underclocked by the nvidia driver to prevent damage to the card.

Things needed:
USB Thumb Drive ( atleast 256MB )
PC with PCI-Express Slot
GeForce 7900 series video card
FreeDOS USB image with Tools : Download Here
Win32 Disk Imager ( only needed if running windows ) : Download Here
Beer ( Possibly optional )


To make things simple I have created USB disk image with FreeDOS and the tools needed to flash your video card.
Download and unzip the USB disk image.
Using a image writer tool, write the image to a USB drive.
Install the new video card into the PC being used to flash the video card.
Boot the USB drive, depending on your system you may need to play around with some different boot options.
Once booted into the FreeDOS environment, change directory to the "ttx2" folder.
From there run:

nvflash --list (to identify the index of your card, the index of my card was (0))
nvflash --index=0 --save original_firmware.rom (to backup the existing firmware as original_firmware.rom)
nvflash --index=0 -4 -5 -6 Elsa_TX2.rom (to flash the firware to the card, options -4 and -5 are to ignore card differences)

you will be warned and prompted to confirm that what you are doing is dangerous and can brick your card.
agree to the prompts and when the flashing process is completed shutdown the PC and test out your newly flashed card.

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