Help with multi-cart!

Just received a 48 in 1 multi-cart. I know most aren't big on these, but I am a gamer, not a collector, and for $200 for 48 games, thats a decent deal. I am, however, having a probelm with the cart. I am running off of a uni-bios 2.3 and everything works great except their is no volume on any of the games. The normal menu screen comes up with a listing of all the games. When I pick a game it takes you directly to a uni-bios error page and states to report the error to the uni-bios home page. I'm assuming these carts are not fully compatible with the uni-bios and this is why their is a problem. I will be installing the stock bios in the next week when I receive it and hopefully this takes care of the problem. Has anyone else had this problem and any experience with these mult carts running off of a uni-bios. Other than this problem, the games work great and are identical to the original from what I have seen so far.

There may be some setting within the carts menu if it has one for volume

I don't believe it does but if there is I have no idea how to enable it.

Oh, I was thinking about buying one of these, but I have a unibios too, and I don't wanna deal with that bullshit. Post here if you get everything to work with it.

From speaking to KPJ, he thinks its the uni-bios. I'm sure once I put the stock bios it will be fine. Other than this problem, everything else works like a charm and the games seem identical to the originals. Once I play it more, I will be able to give better results, but for the money, its well worth it. 48 games for $200 bucks??? Where can you get a better deal?

are these the ones that excellent and welink are selling now? is it just straight plug and play into the motherboard and go? or does it require extra wiring and funky stuff like that?

boss0033 said:

From speaking to KPJ, he thinks its the uni-bios. I'm sure once I put the stock bios it will be fine. Other than this problem, everything else works like a charm and the games seem identical to the originals. Once I play it more, I will be able to give better results, but for the money, its well worth it. 48 games for $200 bucks??? Where can you get a better deal?

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If you're going to spend $200.00 for a bootleg with only 48 games, you might as well spend a little over $300.00 and get this.

I never trusted the multi carts but I can confirm that this works like a charm. The games are fully customizable so you don't have to scroll through all of them. You pick which ones you want in a menu. Most of the SNK games are on this unit.

On the whole copied roms cant be as good as the original.
I use mame and neorage (try before you buy) and for the majority of the games the sound is not as crisp as the original carts or pcbs.

Plug in and play

No, all you have to do is put the cart in and go. I believe it is like the excellent carts, but I purchased this from Yaton. As far as the 1069 in 1 goes, I am thinking about getting one but I currently don't have a supergun. That board plus the SG you are looking at a lot more that $300. More like $800 if you get a mas SG and get the upgrades to the jamma board.

Um, do you know what JAMMA is? It means almost all arcade boards have the near the same standards, so you can plug those boards right in your neo geo cab. So you don't need a supergun at all. And FYI, MAS ones are overpriced a tad, there are good deals to be had around here, some members make great ones.

No cab!

That's the problem, I don't have a cab. I only have a consolized 2-slot.

boss0033 said:

That's the problem, I don't have a cab. I only have a consolized 2-slot.

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I was under the assumption that you had cabinet.

So, I was asking excellent com about their multi carts, and they told me it will only work in a one slot board. What the heck? Is there any reason for this? Can I get it to work in a normal ol' two slotter?

2 slot

That sounds strange. Like I said, everything works fine except for the volume and according to KPJ and Razoola it is probably due to me using the uni-bios which I will be switching out once I receive the stock bios. I'll keep you posted on how it functions after this.

I'm interested to see how this turns out. I just ordered one of Welink's 100-in-1 carts (the price just got too good and even 4 slots just don't seem to be enough). No telling if it will have the same problem but I do have some stock bioses around that I can try it with if necessary.

For what it's worth, this is what they said when I asked about what kind of carts they are: "It is normal snk cartridge work with Neo Geo Mother board." Nothing about "only 1-slots" or anything. Anyway, we'll see about mine when it gets here in a week or so.

Edit: I wonder, if it does turn out to be a Unibios thing, if we could convince Raz to look into making it work. I mean, he put CRCs in there for King of Gladiators and such, maybe this wouldn't be that much of a stretch. I'd be perfectly willing to ship mine to him if necessary or dig through the memory viewer or whatever would be helpful.

Yeah, I asked them if it would work in my two slot, and they were very precise in telling me no way jose.

I have never tested these multi carts with the unibios but I suspect the problem is in the way the game switches data. I suspect the switch causes an error which the normal bios would just cause a reboot. Thats the problem with these bootleggers. If they were to switch games properly they would be copying their program to switch games into the systems RAM and run it from there, then the games could switch with no error. Once switched they simply jump to the games start code.

Its possible I could add support for these games but its something that would need much testing and Im not really interested in putting money into bootleg carts.

I guess that would help explain it not working on a multislot as well. If it's rebooting when you pick a game, the multislot might be doing an extra step to prevent it from working.

*shrugs* ... like I have any idea.

Well if money wasn't as much of an issue, would you be willing to put in some time? Like I said, I'll have my cart soon and would cover shipping both ways if you'd be willing to look at it. Alternatively, is there anything I could do remotely with a 3.0 and PC-to-Neo cable?

I figure it's either get it working like this or pick up a dedicated 1-slot to use with this thing. Since it's a boot, I'm not really going to try to unload it on someone else.

How many different types of multi carts are there? Its possible if they all use the same method something can be done. Firstly I would need information on the error screen the unibios throws up. Then need to know if its always the same error or if it changes depending on the game (the values of all data and address registers would be important also).

It would also help if I could see the game switching code. This could be done by someone who has one of these carts also makes the PC-2-NEO cable and dumps it. I have never seen these carts in action but would I be right in saying that you choose the game you want always at power on, then to swap games you have to power off and back on? The cart never boots to the last saved game automatically?

I fired off a question to Welink to see if I can confirm whether the 100 cart will work with a multislot. I may just cancel it if they say it won't.

If it does go through, I'll go ahead and order a new Universe bios and get to building the cable.

There are a few of these. Welink is currently selling a 100, two different 48s, and a 45. I know Yaton's 48s can be switched with the power on by holding the start button for 5 seconds but of course that doesn't necessarily go for all of them. I sort of expect that most of these after the original 8-in-1 (that required a separate display board and select button) are using the same loader but just adding more flash or something.

Edit: I just heard back from Welink and they confirmed that it only works with 1-slots. I went ahead and canceled the order. It could be fixable in the bios but I'd rather not spend a pile of money on a boot that's known not to work right out of the box.

Update!

Shit, where did you get a 100-1 cart and what is the link. I wish I would have known, I would have just got one of these.

I somewhat fixed the problem with my mult-cart. When I moved the cart from the second slot to the first slot everything worked great including the volume. I still get an error message when I choose each game but all you have to do is hit (C) to reset and it takes you back to the neo intro at which time the game that you originally chose will come on. The only problem that I have now is there are a few metal slug games on the cart and the controls do not work. The game loads fine and the volume works. However, when you attempt to use the a, b, c, and d buttons on the controllers you get no response from the metal slug characters. In other words, you can move the characters left to right on the screen but you can't make them shoot, jump, or throw a bomb. All the other games work fine so far. Here is what the bios error page displays on all of the games including the metal slug boots:

Exception Error Handling
Illegal Instruction
Adress: 002F00C0
AC ADRS: --------
R/W:----
D/A Registers
D0:00007001 D4:00EF00FF
D1:000000AA D5:008000FF
D2:00000000 D6:00040000
D3:00000007 D7:0000FF3F
(A) To Alternate
C=Reset
D=Memview
SSP45AFFFF
SP:2700

Please report this error to the unibios home page

When you hit the A button it displays the following

A0:0010FD9A
A1:0010FEEE
A2:00380001
A3:00108140
A4:0D100230
A5:00100200
A6:00C11074
A7:0010F2BE

Thanks for all the help!

What's the gamelist on the 100-in-1? 90 KOF Super Plus Extra + hacks and 10 real games? Blah... Spend $200 and buy the games you actually want to play...

Hater?

Another hater on boots. $200 will only get me one game. These may have some duplicate hacks of games, but my 48-1 has at least has another twenty different games. Just of the top of my head Strikers1945 and Prehistoric Isle 2 originals are worth more than $200 and thats only two games. Face it bro, these multicarts are ruining the collectors side of things and your pissed. There will be a day where you can get any original Neo for cheap because people will finally realize it is not worth it. And don't use the theory originals are better because they are not. I have several original carts and they play identical to these multicarts. Keep spending hundreds on originals while the smart people spend that and get a bunch more games.

Welink has the 100-in-1. It's $90 + shipping ($35 or so to the US). If it was guaranteed to work on a multislot, I'd go for it, but I just don't want the hassle of a flaky boot. I really only wanted it to keep from having to swap carts so much ... I have a bunch of the originals of what's on it already.

Send an email to jacky@welink.cc and ask about them. He can send you the price list and game list.

Cheap!

That sounds too good to be true. I paid $200 for a 48-1 and that was from yaton who has great prices. Seems shady to me.