"We all know how awesome Metal Slug 3 is so I won't go into detail about that. However I did notice that when I booted up the game with the developer's MVS setting the game would give me a black screen with red print saying that it is not legal to possess copied SNK boards or something similar to that. It also flashes small white text before this screen saying it is checking the MVS version. Anyone else get these messages? The game works fine in all Home modes and in the Developer Home modes."
Regarding the above:
King of Fighters 99' Home cart was the first to use the newest program board with a new SNK chip. This chip is called the NEO SMA and is sitting between the NeoGeo system and the program rom. This chip does several different things - one of them is to monitor the status of key parts of your NeoGeo motherboard. The next operation it does is monitor the current system settings like console type (MVS- Home) and console language (US, Japanese, Asia).
If your slots are loose or the cart is not sitting perfectly in the system this chip may not detect everything its looking for and present you with a screen saying the system you have is not a real SNK made unit. Then proceed to shut down the system forcing you to power down.
A simular screen is shown if you use the developers bios chip to change system settings while the chip is active. The NEO SMA is not active all the time so its possible to change the system from Home to MVS in mid-game but you may find it will stop you if you try it at the title screen. The status of the chip is controlled by the program rom so it can change from game to game.
Games that have the NEO SMA chip:
Kof 99 (MVS and Home)
KOF 2000 (MVS and Home)
MS3 (MVS and Home)
MOTW (MVS Final, Home)
For those who are interested - Not all newer games use this chip. Games like Strikers 1945 Plus, NITD or Ganryu don't have this chip. Popular home carts like Kof99 and Kof 2k however do, making the "girls" over at you know where search out a second sac cart with a board that does not have the NEO SMA.
Best Regards
!Arcade!