Popful Mail versions?

[Bonknuts]

So I decided to play the game on mednafen the other day. There were some graphic glitches on the sprites during the cinemas, but the game played fine. That is, until I encountered a cinema that couldn't be skipped and would stall out (black screen with the internal code waiting for something).
 I did some research and mednafen has no issues with this since build 9.0 (I'm using 9.8..something or other).

 So I ripped the bram data from the emulator save state, updated my SCD unit BRAM with it, burned the game, and continued to play it on that. Same thing happened. I decided to try it without the arcade card, and it played fine.

 So either my arcade card is defective (as well as the mednafen even though it claims to run the game fine), or the game I have is bad dump (I sold off almost all my PCE/CD games a few years ago, so I don't own the original anymore). Usually a bad dump would be bad regardless of using a ACD or SCD card. Last I checked, and used, my Arcade Card worked just fine.

 I wished I have ripped my games before selling them with turborip, so I'd know of it I had a good copy or not. But that's neither here nor there. So, anyone else run into this issue? I've played up to the very last level without problems using SCD (built in card).

Note: The image/dump itself is labeled: HECD4011

[Digi.k]

I was getting a similar problem towards the end with the last remaining cut scene. Either it just hang on black screen or I'd get some graphics corruption but I reloaded that same part several times and tieh would either hang or give corrupted graphics.  It eventually managed to play fine and I managed to beat the game.

It was occurring on both arcade card pro and normal super system cards.

[ClodBuster]

I could rip my original CD for you, just shoot me a PM if you're interested.

[Bonknuts]

Digi.k: Interesting! I'm leaning towards originals that have game bugs. What version number is yours?

ClodBuster: No PM needed. Definitely! I want to see if there are differences between versions.


 Also, does the arcade card give more animation during the cut scenes, or just reduce loads during cinema segments?

[Digi.k]

Digi.k: Interesting! I'm leaning towards originals that have game bugs. What version number is yours?

ClodBuster: No PM needed. Definitely! I want to see if there are differences between versions.


 Also, does the arcade card give more animation during the cut scenes, or just reduce loads during cinema segments?

I couldn't really notice any extra animations so i guess the load times were reduced but even then I didn't notice much difference between the two....sadly I don't have a pc that can do screen capture anymore and sadly I have no capture device for macbooks that can capture 240p stuff

I'll get back to you later on the CD version..

EDIT

Actually there is a difference of like 6-7 seconds loading between running on an ARCADE card and Super System card..

My CD version I hope this is what you are looking for but I think it says:

FILL HE11053 followed either 0 or 4 followed by -1

[Black Tiger]

During a period in which I didn't have a legit copy, I also had issues, but haven't run into any problems playing a few different real copies over the years.

[exodus]

I had a problem like this recently where my arcade card was only working sporadically, and sometimes throwing back glitchy stuff. Now... the problem is mysteriously gone.

I have no advice.

[ParanoiaDragon]

It was several years ago now, but I recall also having problems getting stuck in mednafen.  I ended up giving up, since I couldn't continue.

[DragonmasterDan]

I finished it a few years ago on real hardware with the arcade card in. I don't recall any glitches, so it's either tied to the disc or image. Or the emulator.