SNK Neo Geo

[olive garnet]

Once things turned from circuits and 74xx chips, and went into microcontrollers and programming, it started to become a topic that wasn't really at home on gamesx.

[soft juniper]

just giving the anonymous owner of the site grief 😄

[olive garnet]

he deserves it, whoever he is

[tropic tartan]

Alls I care about is where I can get that Rolling Thunder t-shirt Mr Jotego has.

I want that.

[fading verge]

Just realized I have never used the memory card function in the core. Anyone here has it plugged as a default? I imagine it would need to be plugged for AES game saves, but do MVS games support game saves? Eg. playing metal slug mvs will it save my level progress ?

[full raven]

Yes. It works the same

[austere nymph]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/NeoGeo_MiSTer/commit/0d3bccbc7bd40448f789d9481b2584565fe7ff92

[slow grail]

@austere nymph is this the bug with the demo?

Oh nevermind, it's different (I can read, hooray)

[austere nymph]

SGZ demo audio issue is more edge case. I have opened an issue as asked by Paulb-nl

[slow grail]

I saw, thank you for being on top of that, duder

[south cloud]

Knight's Chance is correct now.

[slow grail]

This probably won't hurt anything

[soft juniper]

Heh, hope the asic isn’t locked in yet 🤡

[quaint cypress]

seems like it might be stuck on some unrecognized roms in my folder.

[slow grail]

that's actually something I want to test. Give it a second, it should clear them and ask you want you want to do. It's trying to fuzzy match them

[quaint cypress]

I let it sit for a few minutes and it didn't do anything. I'll try it again

[slow grail]

it took about a minute to clear through 31 unknown roms in my folder, so if you have more than that, it will take longer

[quaint cypress]

I only have 10, so I'll let it sit and give it another go

[slow grail]

If that still gets stuck, you can try this one, which will just skip the unknown roms

[quaint cypress]

I realized I had a different set on my SD card, and it's not reading my USB drive, so I'm transferring over my set to my SD card and then I'll try it again.

[quaint cypress]

It still was trying to process the unknown roms with the other script, so I had to turn it off mid-script. However, I can now load my Neo Geo games from Arcade, so it was still succesful

[slow grail]

we will call that a win

[full raven]

How to do a mgl only for NG CD?

[austere nymph]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/NeoGeo_MiSTer/pull/249

[austere nymph]

Maybe it could fixes issue with new demo of shadow gangs zero

[south cloud]

That's the intent.

[marble anvil]

Does anybody know if there's a way to pump up the volume to the Neo Geo? I feel the volume is too low compared to other cores... 🤔

[austere nymph]

There is this issue
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/NeoGeo_MiSTer/issues/245

Maybe audio filter could do the trick

[fading verge]

Is the volume low on analog only? I don't seem to mind the volume but use HDMI exclusively now.

[marble anvil]

I'm on HDMI, and compared to the rest of the cores the volume is quite low...

[full raven]

the sound has a lil bit of hissing

yes

[ocean phoenix]

I wonder if all this Neo Geo core improvement is the direct result of the Neo Geo AES+ announcement

[fluid idol]

Or it could just be your random "paulb-nl fixes stuff in the background as he always does" change

[ocean phoenix]

I refute your hypothesis

[fluid idol]

The american way

[ocean phoenix]

https://tenor.com/view/murica-gif-11967745087810666193

[fading cape]

Great to see the FPGA approximation getting closer to ASIC accuracy

[austere nymph]

It fixes this issue. Testing now and the music is running no more issue.
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/NeoGeo_MiSTer/issues/247#issuecomment-4387456868

[bright magnet]

+1 I’ve been playing for a while with today’s build and music has been fine in gameplay. In the previous I was getting the note hangs quite regularly

[austere nymph]

I wonder if it could help for areo fighter 2 issue ticket need to check if I have the issue with previous build and try with new one

[fading verge]

What issue do I need to look for? I play it very often haven't noticed anything unusual.

[south cloud]

Boss fight of the second level.

If the sound cuts off.

[south cloud]

On my end, I cannot trigger any sound issue on Aero Fighters 2 / Sonic Wings 2.

Tested with a SS1 console, MiSTer v20260504, NEOGEO v20260506
UniBIOS, Arcade, Japan.
.neo file format, done myself with neoSDconv.

No autofire activated.

[rain horizon]

I think since we now know the asic was based on the mister core. The asic is just as much an approximation.

[fading verge]

The levels change depending on which character you select. I just tried it with 2 characters (ninja and dolphin) but couldn't trigger it. Maybe it only happens with one character combination?

[south cloud]

I checked with the same character than the person who reported the issue firstly.

And the same boss on video.

[fading verge]

I had a look at the video posted on the GitHub issue, used the same character and boss but couldn't trigger it. Tried 4 characters so far. Funny thing is I found out bosses will destroy themselves after a set time. Tried to just survive the boss without shooting to see if the music looping would trigger it but the boss self-destructed before that. And just to note I have been playing Aerofighters 2 quite often since getting my mister like 5 years ago. It is part of my weekly game rotation and I have never encountered such a bug.

[golden galleon]

Found something weird in Shock Troopers 2nd Squad. If you watch the intro, about 11 seconds in there is a scrolling text banner at the top of the screen moving from right to left. It says something like "The four specialists..." In the MiSTer NeoGeo core, inlcuding the latest unstable build, you will see glitches in that text, kinda like parts of the text is broken up. The same glitch appears in the latest MAME as well, and also in the Geolith core in Retroarch. However, the FinalBurn Neo core in Retroarch displays that text banner correctly with no glitches. Not sure if this glitch affects other parts of the game.

[austere nymph]

We need to try on real hardware or find a real hardware yt video to see if it is the same

[golden galleon]

Good point. I found an old review and to my surpise... looks like it may happen on real hardware too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1U2nVDVebQ

So I guess that glitch is accurate, and FinalBurn Neo is not even though it looks better.

[austere nymph]

great !

[golden galleon]

For anyone curious, it can be seen about 50 seconds into that video.

[south cloud]

Sorry, I was busy elsewhere for some minutes, yes that's a real hardware quirk.

[fickle hollow]

"we must stop DIC"

[uneven vector]

too late! They already ruined Inspector Gadget and made Gadget Boy.

[exotic anvil]

Just booted up Aero Fighters 2 on the latest unstable neogeo core and I hit the issue where the sound drops out during the first level boss fight.

I was using the dolphin character. One thing of note is that it happened very early in the fight, and the FM chip held the note that was playing in the song when the issue occurred. This makes me wonder if the Z80 hit some sort error, because the YM2610 seems to still generate sound when it happens

I’m using the official de10 nano with mister addons components, haven’t had issues in any other cores

[fading verge]

Does it always trigger in the same place?

[exotic anvil]

Nope. I tried it again later and didn’t have the issue.

Not sure exactly what causes it

[fading verge]

I played for a whole hour yesterday with different characters. Couldn't get anything like that to trigger. Seems quite a random error and difficult to diagnose if we can't get it to happen consistently.

[fading verge]

No more issues left on github then, well, besides the Aerofighters 2 mystery.

[naive coyote]

hi everybody i once again ask you to help me ... i still couldn't figure why i can't play my neo geo games on ARCADE...
my settings are good "MVS bios: ORIGINAL" but each time i try to play whatever games on arcade it's says "Z80 ERROR".
i thought it was some MGL issues so i tried the MGL generator i found here but no luck .. this app freeze as soon as it finds unknown roms
please help me i want to play big tournament golf scotland so bad.
thanks

[tropic tartan]

You can't load any neo geo games at all?

Only through mgl?

Or always?

[tropic tartan]

I would guess you might have the wrong roms

[charred dock]

Try to change to uni bios , save settings and reload the core

[tropic tartan]

Mame roms don't work I think

I may be wrong

[charred dock]

I think the roms are the same for MVS than for AES. If they work in AES mode, they should be fine

[tropic tartan]

Make sure your roms are .neo format

[charred dock]

Meanwhile pimpkie works out his problem I have a real tough question: in the menu for managing the saves in the card (accessible pressing ABCD when booting a game), there is an option that allows u to set a name (stored in the card). Does anybody knows the use of that name?

[marble anvil]

The AF2 issue happened to me today on the 3rd stage.

[naive coyote]

thanks for all these advices ...
i can play all my .NEO games without no problems on the Neo geo core, but on the ARCADE folder every neo geo games i launch gets a black srceen with "z80 error" olny on arcade
i tried to delete the NEOGEO.CFG and retry to play but it didn't work
on arcade "mame" folder all the neogeo games are on .zip format

on the neogeo core either mvs or aes works for all the .neo roms
but on arcade no .zip rom works ... no matter what mode i change " aes,mvs, unibios or original" i get either a white screen or a hatch test screen for calibration followed by a "Z80 error" sceen

[charred dock]

Is there a neogeo in arcade cores?

If u want to play MVS, you load the console core and change in the osd from AES to MVS

[charred dock]

A video from the begging to see which core are u loading is possible?

[naive coyote]

all i want is to play at Big tournament golf scotland but it is only available on the arcade core

[charred dock]

The Scotland course is in the cd version

[quaint cypress]

As long as you have the correctly patched ROM, you can play this by launching the Neo Geo core from console

[naive coyote]

as you can see i can play at every .neo rom but the script for big t golf scotland doesn't work
if anyone had ever played at this version tell me please how did you managed to play this rom

[naive coyote]

sure but how to get that rom on .neo format ... if you know send me on MP

[haughty veldt]

As always, make sure to not ask for roms here.

[naive coyote]

my bad i'm sorry

[haughty veldt]

No problem. You can ask how to convert a rom though. I don't personally know how to do that though. 😅

[naive coyote]

no problem thanks again

[haughty veldt]

I do very much recommend the Neo Geo CD version of Neo Turf Masters. It's excellent and the loading isn't bad at all with the 4x CD speed option. It has more exclusive features beyond the Scotland course!

[naive coyote]

so if anyone knows how to convert a rom it would be great to share your knowledge with me

[haughty veldt]

My favorite feature of the CD version of the game is that you can create a profile in the game, and have it track all your records.

[naive coyote]

sure it's a great way to play it ....though i had the choice to play it with the "insert coin" update

[wintry agate]

The AES hack removes the Australia course though. Best version is the Neo Geo CD one with the Scotland course unlocked imo.

[naive coyote]

sure but you can either paly the original with australia or the hack version with scotland you have both game in the same file ...yet both are not working "z80 error"

[charred dock]

It's a problem with a ROM. I understood that you presented the problem as a general issue

[wintry agate]

https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/neo-turf-masters-cd-scotland-unlock-patch.17334/

My prefered way.

[naive coyote]

thanks to all of you you did your best to help me ... there must be a way to play it imma find it somehow ...thanks once again

[charred dock]

In the roms folder there is an .XML file with the info of the zipped roms. You can create a new entry copying the original neo turf and aiming to the new file. That way u will be able to load the hacked ROM in the normal core. Maybe you have to tweak something of the info if the ROM is different in size

[versed gyro]

🚨 I need someone who owns a spinner to test a bugfix: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/NeoGeo_MiSTer/issues/244

[slow grail]

I’ll try and look at it today

[naive coyote]

thank you so much ..indeed i had to add the rom on the .xml file everything's working fine thanks to you and all the others who helped me so far 🫶

[ocean phoenix]

What’s the lead time required for ASIC manufacturing? Two months to get a testing sample, a month for final verification testing, and another two months for a full manufacturing run?

Any chance these fixes are going to make it for the AES+ or is it already too late?

[soft juniper]

Nothing stopping them from multiple chip revisions.

[fluid idol]

money might

[soft juniper]

Money didn’t stop other design decisions (well, other than cart roms)

[thorny sun]

Finally this problem was identified!! I thought this was related to my arcade stick specifically

[fading verge]

Finally after playing for days I got the Aerofighters 2 music bug. Hit me on level 6 with the ninja, just before the boss. Casually is the same level and boss the video on github referred to. Latest unstable.

[marble anvil]

It seems to happen randomly as I experienced it on the 3rd stage...

[slow grail]

I cannot get the spinner to work but it's on my end, it's not working in anything.

I can say that I still cannot enter the unibios on boot by holding A+B+C..but if I hit a direction first, it works

[austere nymph]

Did you set correct configuration on mister.ini ?

[slow grail]

yeah, it moves, but it's not predictable movement. it jitters and then slams to one side or another. I tried tweaking it but still nothing. it's on my end, though

[versed gyro]

does the spinner get autodetected with that test build? no change with previous builds? even when jittery for something on your end, if it gets detected and switches to spinner mode properly is good enough

[versed gyro]

please mention in the issue report if the test build fixes your issue

[marble anvil]

What I used to do was to first boot the game so the inputs get registered, soft reset it and then get into Unibios using ABC. It is annoying as hell...

BTW, never knew there's a spinner controller for the Neo Geo, is it like the ones used to play Arkanoid and such games?

[still gorge]

So what's the bug in Aero Fighters?

[marble anvil]

The sound randomly locks up while playing, some think is connected to autofire settings.

[still gorge]

Ahh I just found it thank you

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/NeoGeo_MiSTer/issues/210

[ocean phoenix]

Gonna be real funny when this bug shows up on the AES+

[marble anvil]

Does it happen in real hardware?

[ocean phoenix]

Also true lol

[golden galleon]

Could possibly be an obscure coding bug in the game, and in an arcade environment may have even gone unnoticed.

Does it also happen in MAME I wonder?

[fading verge]

Been having some odd issues with unibios setting my games to console instead of arcade with the latest unstable. Sometimes loading another game will fix it, but every now and then will set one to console and won't go back to arcade unless I reboot. Using .neo files. Can unibios file be corrupted? It should just default to arcade am I right?

[fading verge]

It is not, I do not use autofire and got the bug.

[slow grail]

It’s detected once I press a button (which I think is the bug in the initial report).

[versed gyro]

once you press a button? that is interesting. the code suggests spinner rotation should toggle it

which spinner do you have? can I look it up somewhere?

[versed gyro]

I should reply to you to trigger a notification next time 😄

[slow grail]

It’s the thunderstick GRS spinner thing. But the direction triggering it is the bug I think. Like the bug (I thought) was that the buttons wouldn’t work until you hit a direction (so that would map to the spinner working when you spin it).

I would not trust my testing because, as I mentioned, I need to sit down and set it up properly again. I haven’t used it in ages. However, I couldn’t enter the UniBios settings (by pressing A+B+C) until I pressed a direction

[versed gyro]

that still happened with the testing build I posted?

if there is no control until the dpad is pressed that means that the spinner detection has been set, and I found a bug that could cause it to latch at cold boot

[slow grail]

yeah, the unibios thing was the first thing I tested in your build

[versed gyro]

interesting. that makes this bug more complex than I thought

then some sort of data is coming through HPS that is also triggering the spinner detection

[slow grail]

I think the true fix is to just make joystick the default input choice in the osd as then there isn’t any detection. But I couldn’t think of a backwards compatible way to do that

[versed gyro]

nuke the autodetection is one way to do it

disabling autodetection fixes the issue so it does prove that this latch is what I need to look at

[unreal swallow]

did the mod! I was lucky I had my friend print 8 of them because I was having trouble getting up and/or down to return back to center, but after swapping out a few I got it working. Seems pretty cool so far with Blazing Star. I’ll have to try it with some other games to form a better opinion

[austere nymph]

https://bsky.app/profile/meson.ninja/post/3mkqxuvakas2t

𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗯 (@meson.ninja)

who's got two thumbs up and found a Z80 mirroring bug in their M-ROM patching tool?

this guy

now fatal fury special has adpcm-b channels sorted out right on MV1C

(before and after in video)

declined.quest/058-m1.ips

#neogeo #romhacking

▶ Play video

Bluesky · May 1, 2026, 1:25 AM

[golden galleon]

Great to hear! I found it made a big difference on mine, hope you enjoy.

[slow grail]

I can confirm this fixes the ABC unibios issue

[upper garden]

what filament did you use for printing? PLA, PETG, resin? thanks

[golden galleon]

Technology: Stereolithography (SLA)
Material: Resin, Standard, Opaque, Grey
Infill: Solid

[tawdry plover]

Nice!’

Great work @versed gyro

[quick jungle]

SLA? Neat, I thought DLP had replaced that, but I never got into resin printers, yet

[versed gyro]

thank you, that was a fun one

[snow plume]

How can I update my ASIC based NeoGeo with these great recent updates? 🤔

[late void]

first you pick up your soldering iron...

[tawdry plover]

Everyone is assuming the asic based Neo Geo has the same flaws as the FPGA core, but is that actually the case?

Idc, I’m not buying one, just curious

[late void]

jotego working on it is the main reason people think so iirc

[tawdry plover]

Seems like a large assumption. I guess time will tell

[quick jungle]

Do we have any idea if they started producing the asics yet?

I assume the AES+ is why there have been a sudden increase in neo-geo updates

[snow plume]

Gotta make sure that the ASIC is broken on day 0 so MiSTer wins again!

[versed gyro]

probably not the bug I fixed today. that was a combination of the core and the main framework interfering, should not happen on an asic

[golden galleon]

Not that I'm aware. The only relevant bit of info I've seen is that Plaion has budgeted for more than one production run for the ASIC before shipping. I believe that was from an interview with Jotego.

[golden galleon]

I would guess not, or at least not necessarily. Again noting that Jotego interview I saw the other week, there are apparently aspects to the AES+ that are not identical to just having the MiSTer core in an AES case. We will see.

[rain horizon]

Whether or it's identical or not I love seeing the people that were talking crap about the mister core and how the AES+ was gonna be so much better. Have to backtrack now because it's based on the core..lol

I'm here coz I like playing games and like talking about it with others. I couldnt really care less about what you played them on.

[golden galleon]

Anyone talking crap about the MiSTer core is ignorant. But yeah, it's probably safe to say the AES+ may not have happened at all without the various work on NeoGeo emulators and FPGA cores over many years.

[fading verge]

The only issue that remains on the core would be the Aerofighters 2 music. Would be a bad if the AES+ carried that one with no way to patch it.

[slow grail]

I think we need to determine if it happens on real hardware

since it's been a real pain to reproduce on the mister

[golden galleon]

Is there a video of the AF2 sound cutting out on the neogeo core?

[rain horizon]

I do like that the AES+ has triggered a surge to work the bugs out of the mister core.

[golden galleon]

Not sure this is of any use, but I searched neo-geo.com tech support forum and found this very old thread: https://www.neo-geo.com/forums/index.php?threads/aero-fighters-2-mvs-sound-problem.19411/

"i went through the whole steps, still no better result. Cleaned the cart (although the cart was in very good condition), cleaned the slots, tested the cart in both slots (i got the 2-slot MVS). Still no sfx, music in level 10 and only music in level 10+. If theres music in the end sequence (i dont know cause this is the only AF2 cart i have) theres no music/sfx, too)." "PS: cart isnt a bootleg (at least it seems to be authentic, cause orig. SNK PCBs)"

Possibly evidence of a sound cutting out bug on original hardware?

[rain horizon]

I'd say your test at least makes it a possibility

[fading verge]

I've been having issues with the latest unstable. Unibios keeps defaulting to console upon loading some games randomly. Fatal fury special, core set to MVS using original bios does not boot at first, a z80 error appears, I need to reset & apply and it will then load. Reverting to stable and the error disappears. Anyone with similar issues?

[unreal swallow]

what’s the issue with the game? Sound cuts out? I can try and test it on MVS…I only have a 161-in-1 though

[slow grail]

The music dies randomly

[unreal swallow]

ahh ok

i’ll definitely add it to my rotation and see if I can reproduce

any specifics I need to know? Does it matter if I’m in Console vs. MVS mode (using Unibios 4)

[rain horizon]

Neogeo games have always defaulted to console on mister for me. It saves the change when I switch it to arcade tho.

It's seems to work the same with new unstable

[fading verge]

Are you using unibios or original bios?

[rain horizon]

Unibios

[fading verge]

So when your games start the unibios splash screen defaults to arcade or console? It always defaulted to arcade for me, unless I changed each game manually via the unibios menu.

[rain horizon]

Console first time running a game but once I change it in the unibios settings it saves

[fading verge]

How odd, mine is completely opposite, all my games with unibios default to arcade. If someone else does what mine does please say so. Oh, just realized unibios will change defaults based on the osd setting MVS or AES. Makes sense. Still mine is set to MVS but unibios will randomly switch, driving me crazy.

[unreal swallow]

what is the console type setting in the osd set to?

[rain horizon]

What system type do you have it set to in the osd

[fading verge]

Mine is set to arcade (mvs)

[unreal swallow]

oh weird

[fading verge]

Anyone can test fatal fury special, MVS on original bios with the latest unstable? I get the z80 error everytime

[rain horizon]

Unless they have fixed the defaults for mvs mode I mean that's what it's supposed to do set it to arcade for mvs and console for aes

[fading verge]

Yes, mine is set to MVS, but will randomly load a game in console mode. Which it should never do.

But still something is off with the latest unstable, as I have never seen a z80 error in the core beforehand. And using the stable core has no issues.

You can see in the video, just changing the core from stable to unstable will switch modes on the unibios splash screen, but the settings are the same.

[unreal swallow]

wow level 10 of Aero Fighters 2 is nuts and no continues

[fading verge]

And this is the issue with fatal fury special using MVS/ original bios. Stable core has no issues, unstable won't load on a z80 error. Maybe the latest fixes broke something.

[uneven vector]

I need to test more, but the "Joystick or Spinner" issues still seem to be there. I pressed ABC twice on the unibios screen with the "Joystick or Spinner" setting and it didn't register.

Fatal Fury special worked ok for me with original bios, though I had to reload on Unibios a couple times where it sometimes loads without sound.

5-13 unstable

[uneven vector]

I got the Z80 error on the 5-10 core with the settings at "Joystick or Spinner". FF Special worked when I switched to just "Joystick" It's probably the same for the 5-13 core, I'm guessing.

[fading verge]

Thanks for confirming. Good find on the joystick or spinner setting causing the z80 error.

[versed gyro]

interesting

I don't think my patch can cause this. the only thing it does is ignore one mouse event from main on boot, that's the reason why spinner mode incorrectly triggers and screwed up the buttons

while testing I did notice some jank in system type MVS/AES not toggling. I suspect there is another bug there

[versed gyro]

try just resetting, leave joystick or spinner on

this may be a regression in the watchdog code from paul. that is also missing in stable, more likely to be the root cause. you should raise a github issue to grab his attention

[versed gyro]

yes the reset change is the root cause for the regression. I opened an issue already

[tawdry plover]

I’ve noticed this too, my Neo Turf Masters is stuck on Console

[full raven]

I always use the console mode.

[naive coyote]

hi everybody i noticed if i want to play neogeo games on ARCADE folders, i had to change on the MGL file the path from ../../games/NEOGEO/rom.zip to ../../games/MAME/rom.zip
how could i change this line ''neogeo'' to ''mame'' for ALL the MGL files ?. besides my SSD have the priority over my SD card and i don't want to add zip files on the same usb0/games/neogeo/ folder that already contains .neo files
thanks a lot

[rain horizon]

Not no easy way to change them all that I know of. I think they did it that way to save space and not have the ROMs in multiple places but didn't consider there are multiple types of ROMs for neogeo and everybody may not want the mame ROMs for the console core.

[austere nymph]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/NeoGeo_MiSTer/pull/253

[austere nymph]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-8Xc2TZ_6s

[still gorge]

Wow that looks good!

[tawdry plover]

Looks sick

[rain horizon]

Game looks awesome..I don't like that they make you buy a neo SD to get a digital copy of the game.

[tawdry plover]

Wonder how long til $80 repros are on Ali

[still gorge]

So the game is already out?

[rain horizon]

Pre order

This particular game is only on a neo geo cart but there other games offer a digital version that comes with a neo SD So I'm assuming it will eventually get the same

[still gorge]

and you can't buy the ROM any other way?

[rain horizon]

Not that I've found. I think they got some sort of deal with terraonion coz it goes to the terraonion website when you order. And that why it's that way. But it's not cool for someone that doesn't need the neo SD.

[quick jungle]

So you need to buy like a $600 flashcart to get that game?

[still gorge]

or who is not a fan of terraonion

[rain horizon]

If you want a digital version. As I've said it's only on physical cart right now but past games were done that way so I'm assuming it will get the same treatment

[quick jungle]

So they DO sell it digitally... but only if you buy a flashcart? What? SO what if people already have a Neo SD. they need to buy it physical or buy another neo sd?

Though needing a neo sd is still a ridiculus requirement either way

[rain horizon]

I think they are shooting themselves in the foot. Someone is gonna leak the rom and the people that would have bought a rom are gonna pirate it and they won't get nothing from them.

[still gorge]

Right I am not buying a Neo SD lol

[rain horizon]

I've been in several situations like this where I would have bought digital but they either didn't offer digital or did something stupid like this. I still got a rom they just didn't get paid for it..lol

[still gorge]

Precisely

[quick jungle]

Yeah, they're totally going to Earthion themselves over this

I guess that's better than pulling a Paprium, but only slightly

[still gorge]

That's another one I'd buy!

[rain horizon]

I think it's worse than paprium. The buy in to get paprium on a cart isn't near as expensive as a neo SD.

You couldn't get a rom but still less expensive

[quick jungle]

yeah, but you can't buy Paprium even if you wanted to, and that game compeltely tanked any respect or goodwill the dev had

[south cloud]

Earthion's protection was relatively simple, and the files were visible outside of the executable or a protected area.

For Daemon of Asteborg DX and other announced Neo Geo games which will available digitally on Steam and elsewhere, the files will be protected much more extensively, with multiple layers of scrambling and encryption keys.

[quick jungle]

Did it have any protection? I thought the files were just encrypted, but had no protection otherwise

Though the latest version no longer says press start, so if you want that yuo would have to mod that back in

[south cloud]

No real protection at all, I can't even say they were 'encrypted' really, just a simple shift in memory.

[quick jungle]

IIRC they eventually changed the rom to just say "Press Button" with the idea being that the emulator the Steam version uses would place the equiavlent controller glyph in that empty space

But there are romhacks to make it say start again

[south cloud]

The real problem for me is more the people who are currently selling the game on cartridges (not only on some websites), some even quite close to Koshiro in certain circles boast about it and even show themselves streaming with bootleg cartridges copies, without any shame.

If Koshiro finds it, heads will roll.

[haughty veldt]

The Earthion cartridge is delayed again too because of the cost issues happening in the world of everything tech related.

[tawdry plover]

I have bought Neo Geo roms before, but I’m not buying them embedded in a flash cart

[quick jungle]

Yeah, selling bootlegs of the game is just shitty behavior

As well as boasting that you have one

Dosen't that game need a mapper? There was only I think one genesis game that had that mapper, are the bootleggers cannabalizing Super Street Fighter II carts to make Earthion carts? Or is there a way to clone the mapper too now?

[south cloud]

Seems to be the same as for Demons of Asteborg, a clone on a Xilinx chip if you know how to do it.

[quick jungle]

Xilinx? So a fpga recreation?

[south cloud]

I know some people who can do it, yes. Like Retroelectronik (who have done the PCB for Neo-FID on DoA).

[green laurel]

Does anyone know where I can find Cabal Neo Geo port that works for MiSTer ? I did a Google search and every one I found doesn't work

[austere nymph]

What is the extension neo or zip if zip is it darksoft or Mame ?

[green laurel]

Well the rest of my Neo Geo game collection is in .Neo format but I only found .zip version of this conversion

[austere nymph]

If zip it may needs to add entry on romset.xml file present in games/neogeo

I will check and give you the entry to add 👍

[green laurel]

I saw this today and thought I would try it since there is no separate Cabal core: https://youtu.be/gL4FB3L-pxY?si=USjbMfbmHPMVdt3e

[austere nymph]

We already this entry on romset.xml
<romset name="cabalng" altname="Cabal" publisher="iq_132" year="2021"/>

Is your zip file is named cabalng ? It is entry working for darksoft set.

[austere nymph]

if the content of the zip is
You could try to change the line above on romset.xml by but still have graphical issues don't know why
<romset name="cabalng" altname="Cabal (Port Neogeo)" publisher="iq_132" year="2021">
<file name="cabal-p1.bin" index="4"/>
<file name="cabal-s1.bin" index="8"/>
<file name="cabal-c1.bin" index="64"/>
<file name="cabal-c2.bin" index="65"/>
<file name="cabal-m1.bin" index="9"/>
<file name="cabal-v1.bin" index="16"/>
<file name="cabal-v2.bin" index="18"/>
</romset>

[austere nymph]

It is normal

A partial fix is available on arcade-project.com

[green laurel]

Do you have a link?

[austere nymph]

it is not a ips file (patch file) so I couldn't share the link but you could find it on the forum of arcade-project.com

[austere nymph]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/NeoGeo_MiSTer/pull/254

[charred dock]

Hi. I'll ask again a small trivia question to see if somebody knows something: in the menu for managing the memory card saves, there is an entry for setting up a name in the memory card. Does anybody knows the use of that name?

[golden galleon]

AI search gave me these:

(1) The Neo Geo memory card includes a User Name feature primarily for operator identification and statistical tracking in arcade environments, though it is also used by home console players to identify their saved games.
(2) Arcade Statistics: Originally, the card was designed to allow arcade operators to copy MVS bookkeeping data onto the card for view on PCs. The username helped identify which cabinet or operator generated the saves and high scores.
(3) Player Identification: For AES (home console) users, the 16-byte username serves as a tag to distinguish between multiple cards or players, as the memory card manager displays data names and allows users to set a custom name for the card.
--- Technical Implementation: The username is stored in the card's header at bytes $10–$1F and can be set or loaded via the CARD system ROM call (commands $06 and $07).

This may also be of interest: http://www.neogeoprotos.com/memcardfaq.htm

I never knew a lot of this before. This is rather disappointing:

"And some games save in japanese language ONLY. It is 100% un-avoidable 🙁
Apparently the designers "forgot" or were "lazy" etc. Here are SOME examples:
Fatal Fury 2
Fatal Fury Special
Fatal Fury 3
The Last Blade
The Last Blade 2
Super Sidekicks 4
Samurai Shodown 5 Special"

[charred dock]

It would have been cool to use that name for hi scores name instead of the 3 letters.

I was searching for info without ia) and didn't find anything. I must admit that this time ia got the point

[charred dock]

Ok. New info found. Still must test it. When the aes system boots, if a memory with a name is found, there is a message: "BOOTING WITH MEMORY CARD / HELLO [YOUR NAME]".

[charred dock]

Can't make it to work in mister when using normal bios

[golden galleon]

Nice. I'll have to try that. So it only worked in unibios? That's odd but maybe it's accurate.

[charred dock]

No. Unibios changes that welcome screen for the unibios splash. It should work in the normal bios, but I couldn't make the message appear

[austere nymph]

Some improvements are ongoing on Kof98 Ultimate

[quick jungle]

The biggest bug in that game was that it had a glitch character people dubbed Orochi that appeared as the last boss, it was clearly a glitch since the character was completely broken.

[cobalt stratus]

Hi all. Sorry for the boring question, but how do you get the core to default to the japanese bios when selecting "original" from the OSD?

[golden galleon]

Where can I find this project?

[austere nymph]

On this forum https://www.arcade-projects.com/ -> Section Neogeo

[fading verge]

I think you can't, maybe manually downloading the japanese mvs and aes bios?

[tropic tartan]

The Neo Geo is so goddamn cool

It always has been

This core feels like owning a real NeoGeo

[tawdry plover]

Bios hashes for all regions here, simply make a legal backup of your appropriate region bios chip: https://wiki.neogeodev.org/index.php/System_ROM

[cinder socket]

Anyone know how to get past the “backup memory not formatted” screen in Neo turf masters on CD?

Actually it’s a whole different issue. None of my inputs are getting recognized at all

[fading verge]

Seems there is no way to make the core select a different original bios. Not even deleting the default ones and adding other regions. Unibios is the only way to change regions.

[cobalt stratus]

Thanks, both! Once I have the SP-J2 bios is it a matter of renaming it to neo-epo (or whatever the core currently looks for) and overwriting that file? Edit: sorry, just saw Mike's follow-up!

This is a shame — I'm going to switch to the original bios for a while to see if I can reproduce a longstanding sound issue in zed blade and rule out unibios as the cause

and had hoped to use the Japanese bios for several other games. No biggie, though!

[fading verge]

Well I didn't think of renaming the files. Maybe that would work. Will try later.

[naive coyote]

Great game, great work but i noticed a sound glitch with Eiji Kisaragi... i dunno if anyone noticed that too?

[restive mulch]

Just tried and can confirm that remaning the Japanese bios files works.

[restive mulch]

Thinking about Zed Blade's audio, I remember that bug being very obvious in early cores but not heard it for a long time now. Could be mistaken but I thought the update "Fix all async clocks to improve stability based on Gyurco changes." on Aug 3 2023 put an end that that one?

[cobalt stratus]

Thanks again everyone! Will definitely try renaming it tonight.

[cobalt stratus]

Ah I'm not sure! It happened again in the latest unstable core, but there's a chance we're talking about separate bugs. This one involves the title screen music jumping in seemingly at random during the stages, and it has happened to me pretty consistently across dozens of different core revisions over 3-4 years. I've never seen anyone else mention it so I do wonder if it's something unique to my mister setup (which should be extremely generic/standard, but still...)

[south cloud]

I played the game until Yggdrasil (Stage 7) during the last 18 mins.
Didn't detected any sound issue so far, and I'm comparing it now with some real hardware captures.

[restive mulch]

Yes, that's the same bug and odd that I have not had it occur in so long when you have continued to. Was just throwing my idea about that particular update out there as you never know!

[full raven]

NEO GEO in MiSTer feels real

[cobalt stratus]

Managed to get it to default to the Japan BIOS, but a new problem has arisen — Operation Ragnarok now refuses to accept any controller inputs beyond pressing start to get to the difficulty selection screen 😛 (Edit: now also resolved!)

[cobalt stratus]

kids are in bed so the volume is low, but the sound thing still happens for me on the original bios with the latest official/stable version of the core

that kicked in about a third of the way into stage 2, but it can happen earlier or later — whenever, really

gets nudged out again by boss themes etc, so it isn't too terrible

[fading verge]

Could it be related to the aerofighters 2 music issue? That one is also kinda random. You can't get it to trigger consistently.

[full raven]

When this thing happens?

It just happened to me, using aes japanese bios

It didnt happen with mvs jap bios

I was using neo file. Going to test with darksoft

Test with darksoft set

Didnt happen

With neo file, yes

[cobalt stratus]

There's no real pattern to it for me. I've always used the same darksoft set (I think it's darksoft, anyway!), but it will happen on AES or MVS at random points during the stages, and occasionally won't happen at all. It's very weird...

[full raven]

Wait

Maybe Memory Card unformatted?

Argh... i dont want to mount the console... 😩

All the times i tested neo file, it failed

But nothing with darksof

Im going to test more

For now 0 errors in Darksoft

3 of 3 in neo file

More people should test

And tomorrow i will mout the console and test with neosd

[cobalt stratus]

Excellent — thanks very much for looking into this! It turns out I was wrong and my Zed Blade is indeed a .neo file. Has anyone noticed any issues with .neo files for other games which resolved when switching to .zip/.rom/.bin files?

I hadn't considered that my romset being a few years old could be a big issue in itself. Time to get rid of them, I guess!

'last modified 14/11/2019' heh

[versed gyro]

I've lost the discussion. more people should test what?

this morning I tried real hard to get aerofighters 2 to break and I could not pull it off unfortunately, with the darksoft rom

[cobalt stratus]

I've been trying to diagnose a Zed Blade sound issue in which the title screen music starts playing seemingly at random during the stages. I won't be able to try a new rom until tomorrow but I think GOEMON might have solved this with his neo file testing!

[versed gyro]

playing the wrong track during the stages? neo file testing means rom issue?

[full raven]

I'm trying with darksoft

[cobalt stratus]

Oh damn, it happened on my first attempt at running the darksoft version. This is baffling lol

[cobalt stratus]

Yeah, it plays the title screen music at random during the actual game. It never happens on the original hardware — the title screen should be the only place you hear it. Currently it's happening for me with both .neo files and the darksoft .zip

(It's another issue entirely but the game also stops accepting any inputs after pressing start at the title screen. It does this about 80% of the time now. I thought it might be a power issue but there's nothing else plugged into the USB hub, at least...)

[versed gyro]

does that fix itself if you use direction inputs? what version are you running?

[cobalt stratus]

I'm using the latest stable version of the core (20250909). The directional inputs don't do anything, so I'm getting stuck at the difficulty selection screen (using the AES mode). Haven't had this happen with any other Neo Geo games yet!

[versed gyro]

"don't do anything" as in, that menu does nothing with the dpad, or as in, I used the dpad but the buttons are still unresponsive?

[cobalt stratus]

I'm unable to move up or down the menu and unable to select the option already highlighted (since the ABCD buttons don't work either). There's no response at all, so I just have to use the OSD to close the game

Then when I start any other game my controls are all fine

Using the "Define NEOGEO buttons" feature on the OSD and then saving the config doesn't help either (that's usually the first thing I check with any other control issue)

[versed gyro]

got it. I'll investigate

[cobalt stratus]

Appreciate it! Oddly, the player 2 side doesn't seem to have this issue — I've just plugged in another arcade stick and am currently playing without issue

[versed gyro]

tried a few levels and got nothing. to be sure, please install the latest unstable and check if you can still reproduce

there are a number of important fixes in there now

[cobalt stratus]

Oh, I have! The latest unstable version gives me both the sound issue mentioned above and this "can't do anything after pressing start" issue

I have a feeling the only solution will be to build a new microSD card for Mister, heh

[versed gyro]

ok good to know

[cobalt stratus]

It's totally random. Just now I restarted the core and the controls work. But at other times I can restart the core all day and they still won't work

[full raven]

use the last version of the beta core

unstable nighty

it has a lot of fixes

ah... and format the Memory Card if you have it attached

[versed gyro]

can you advise your video output settings in mister.ini?

resolution? VRR? direct_video?

[cobalt stratus]

I'm playing on a CRT, so VRR and direct_video are set to 0. Video mode is set to 0 too

I've just noticed vsync_adjust is set to 0. It should be on 2 for a CRT, right?

[versed gyro]

if your crt accepts the video output yes

[cobalt stratus]

Cheers!

[versed gyro]

np

I still can't reproduce it. I have a hypothesis and an experiment we can try

the core stores samples in ddr memory. if that data is late, maybe things can break? because it disables the clock for audio and it has a deadline

[green marten]

Ooh what’s that?

[golden galleon]

https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/wip-king-of-fighters-98-ultimate-match-aes-mvs.15778/

[green marten]

Ooh that one

[deft zephyr]

your controller config file might be corrupt. Try deleting neogeo config file /media/fat/config/inputs folder and restarting your MiSTer and remap

[austere nymph]

@fossil fractal I saw your comments regarding Kof98 Ultimate Match and the comment of the hack dev. We could use zip provided if you want to test it is already present on romset.xml. I reproduce also the issue you reported.
The hack dev said it is the first time he saws this issue and there is also a comment saying the neofile is 123 MB.
I wonder if the issue could be a bug on the core or a size limitation of SDRAM (128MB) maybe it is worth to create an issue ticket for this case.

[cobalt stratus]

Good call! I do have a lot of controller profiles and swap controllers all the time

[cobalt stratus]

I'd really appreciate this if it won't cause you a lot of trouble! What can I try at my end?

[fossil fractal]

The main issue is that he never tested the hack on real hardware, so it is not possible to determine whether it might be a limitation related to SDRAM size. The error only occurs in that particular stage, which is highly animated.

I tested both the pure compressed ROM and the version converted to Neo.

[ocean phoenix]

Ok, ignorant comment here but how do you not test on real hardware anymore

Oh wait Neo geo lol, ok nevermind

[fossil fractal]

According to comments on the forum, Neo Geo EverDrive devices have a ROM size limitation, and this hack appears to exceed the NeoSD limit. Therefore, MiSTer may be the only viable way to test it as though it were running on real Neo Geo hardware.

I own both Neo Geo AES and MVS systems, but I don’t have any of the existing EverDrive cartridges. Maybe if Krikzz actually releases one by the end of the year, I’ll get one 😅😂

[versed gyro]

I think your issue with the music change is different. I think the Aerofighters 2 could be caused by DDR ram contention. that can't cause the wrong track to play, so that is something else

my first guess is an NMI bug but I am not sure. you should raise a github issue for these findings, and add a recording if possible. that helps a ton

[austere nymph]

Ok 🙂

[fossil fractal]

I opened the issue on GitHub; the creator of the romhack had only released the 2020 version, as I suspected, so that may be the problem 😅

[austere nymph]

The new version of Kof98 Ultimate match doesn't fixed the issue for the stage let see if Paulb-nl could find !

[cobalt stratus]

Thanks. I'm happy to do this, but I did report it on github around 5 years ago. Unfortunately, I was away for a while shortly after, and sorgelig decided to close the thread because of my lack of response and because nobody else had mentioned it. Would I be ruffling anybody's feathers if I posted about it again?

[ocean phoenix]

So how do you pronounce SNK anyways? Is it Sink?

[slow grail]

Snick

[ocean phoenix]

Oh ok, thanks man

I love my Snick Neh-oh Gee-oh

[slow grail]

now you're a gamer

[soft juniper]

Wait, it isn’t pronounced “sonic”?!

[unreal swallow]

S(a)N(i)K

[full raven]

SeNeKa, philosopher and orator.

[haughty veldt]

https://tenor.com/view/snickers-snickers-satisfies-gif-5270238

[versed gyro]

I doubt it. if you are legit experiencing a bug and you can post diagnostic stuff to help out like videos, it should not annoy people

[cobalt stratus]

Nice one, cheers!

[strange grove]

let that SNK in

[tawdry plover]

New merch drop is weak

[ocean phoenix]

lol that’s awful

[old horizon]

fixed it, tha huge neo geo logo was really tacky

[ocean phoenix]

I would absolutely rep Neo Geo if they had size fitting tshirt and a good style

I’m not talking about the right T-shirt size but one fitted for men

[austere nymph]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wopyrDFMoMY

[late void]

i really don't get why they aren't using actual photos of the clothing

[slow grail]

https://tenor.com/sZ0704mLAS0.gif

[quick flame]

is the new KoF 98UM just a bugfix version of kof98ae2016? with the old aplash screens removed? or what are the differences?

[thorn dove]

So many people consider KOF98 UM a totally different game from vanilla due to all the balance changes and bug fixes.

You need to look for a wikipage that contains all the changes because there are tons of stuff that probably will take all day to write here lol

[strange grove]

98UM is automatically the definitive version for me because it has my boy geese howard

[quick flame]

Yes, but didn't that Anniversary Edition hack from 2016 not try to be close to UM already? And the "UM" hack tries to improve on that to move it closer to the official UM? Or am I reading that wrong?

[full raven]

where this game can be found ?

[austere nymph]

https://www.arcade-projects.com/ NeoGeo section

[cobalt stratus]

opened that zed blade issue on github if it's of interest or use to anyone here! https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/NeoGeo_MiSTer/issues/257

[inland drum]

Just a double check on a specifc neo geo CD game. And this nitpick (which is all it is) only applies to the CD version as far as i can tell. So us version of Metal Slug 2 NGCD has censhorsip, most noticeable to me sweat instead of blood. Switch to jp region you get red blood yay! However some screen text goes to japanese.......really? Yeah, it's not much but the end of level overview, most noticeably the hostages you rescue become unreadable to me as someone who cannot read japanese. So again, only a minor nitpick, game is perfectly playable. So on the AES/MVS with unibios this is easly sovled. Open your menu and select red blood (at least i remember doing that, maybe should double check 😛 ) but in the in game menu for the CD no such option is there. Is any known workaround? Or would a romhack be required? Hope anyone knows and answer 🙂 Thanks in advance.

[haughty veldt]

I wish there was a way to save your unibios cheats so you don't need to re-input them every time you boot up the game.

[golden galleon]

I have my CD set to Japan region and I still only get white "blood." So I have no idea. It's really annoying they did that in the Metal Slug games. But, that was a stupid time when they thought kids would become psycho killers from seeing red blood in a videogame. Meh.

[quick jungle]

Wasn't limited to SNK either, I remember Capcom pulling that with Darkstalkers