NeoGeoX Hacking and Mods

nerdstick

Crossed Swords Squire
Joined
Oct 1, 2012
Posts
183
I'm opening up mine now because I'm bored and have the afternoon free.

Good luck! I remember someone asking to try and boot it up without the 2gig card inserted to see if it would work. Pretty sure Lectoid said it was glued in a bit as well. And of course, a .dd backup for posterity.
 

GohanX

Horrible Goose
20 Year Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2001
Posts
12,490
Lectoid:

You're awesome for doing all of this!
 
Joined
Nov 10, 2012
Posts
30
Good luck! I remember someone asking to try and boot it up without the 2gig card inserted to see if it would work. Pretty sure Lectoid said it was glued in a bit as well. And of course, a .dd backup for posterity.

Unit doesn't boot without the sd card in. Blue Led comes on and thats it.

IMG_1104_zpsa0bfafff-1_zpse1be4355.jpg


That glue REALLY has some elasticity to it. There is no way that sd card would have just popped out if you dropped it.
 

Lectoid

n00b
Joined
Dec 19, 2012
Posts
30
Well I think that's good news, should make it easier to get to the data. I still wish I had another microSD card to through something else on, like that linux distro that someone mentioned earlier.

I am d/l the forensic took kit thing now, it's taking over an hour. Meanwhile I still can't get anything to recognize the Ninja Masters SD card, at least windows and Mac. I am downloading ultimate boot CD and hoping that'll get me somewhere.
 

nerdstick

Crossed Swords Squire
Joined
Oct 1, 2012
Posts
183
Hi there.

How do I convert .zip files to .fba files?

Thanks

You need to go to the official Dingoo Technology's site ---> http://www.dingoo.hk/en_main.asp

and download the A380 Neogeo Conversion Tool (Win32) from the "service" section.

Unzip the program, put your roms in the "roms" folder and launch "fbacache.bat". It will start to convert all roms in .fba format. I have had a lot of luck converting MAME roms with this program. H.G.

So it's just the roms in a game folder?

Try placing a new game in it and see if it runs?
 

Lectoid

n00b
Joined
Dec 19, 2012
Posts
30
Nice dude, now I don't have to take mine apart again. I don't know how many times the plastic can take it before the threads get mangled. How did you do it? What programs did you use?
 

SSS

neo retired
Joined
Sep 27, 2002
Posts
10,771
Oh boy oh boy oh boy. If it's just a matter of getting a larger SD card and dragging in new roms... :buttrock:
 
Joined
Nov 10, 2012
Posts
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Nice dude, now I don't have to take mine apart again. I don't know how many times the plastic can take it before the threads get mangled. How did you do it? What programs did you use?

I tried that software package linked in the thread but couldn't get it to work.

to dump it i just used: dd for windows (http://www.chrysocome.net/dd) and to look at the contents I used Ext2 volume manager. I haven't had a chance to tinker with it just yet. I'm heading out the door now (family stuff ugh) but I'm sure dumps will show up in this thread shortly. I'll check back in once I get home and if no one has injected any roms into it I'll try it.
 
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mr_e

Tarma's Gun Polisher
Joined
Sep 24, 2012
Posts
108
Woohoooo! So when the SD is in and the system is on, plugged into a PC. You can browse a part of the SD card from the pc right? So maybe create a file from the PC, on the SD card. Then check in the SD image to determine where that files location is on there. Then, copy the sd "game" folder to that location and symlink it to the original location. Potentially getting us read/write to the roms directory without having to dissassemble the device again.

Another thing to check would be restoring that DD image to another SD. Making sure it boots. Maybe restoring it on 32g SD. Since the spec sheet says it can read them.
 

SSS

neo retired
Joined
Sep 27, 2002
Posts
10,771
If this works this is gonna be awesome. Turn your 20 built in game neo x to every neo game built in neo x. I would try this, but mine's showing up monday
 

mr_e

Tarma's Gun Polisher
Joined
Sep 24, 2012
Posts
108
If this works this is gonna be awesome. Turn your 20 built in game neo x to every neo game built in neo x. I would try this, but mine's showing up monday

Along with the rest of the emus...

On your TV,with a decent arcade stick,for 200 bucks.
 

Jonmkl

Rasputin's Rose Gardener
Joined
Aug 29, 2012
Posts
715
Holy balls! If the boot volume is on the card as well couldn't you just have this system boot whatever the heck set up you want it to?
 

Spoonman

Enemy Chaser
Joined
Jan 14, 2004
Posts
1,163
So I found this today using a hexeditor for that sys_update_file. There's pages of this, I didn't want to post a hundred screen shots.

vqJte.png

R6qXE.png

Well, now we all know all the proper romset/dir naming.

I can hardly wait for V-Liner (Set 2) to be released!! :P
 

NeoCverA

RevQuixo. Who He?,
20 Year Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2002
Posts
6,691
So, what's hierarchy for loading up on the device. Is it possible to burn the image with added roms on a standard sd card and booting it all from there? Without opening the system?

Extract a rom and view contents to see if the .fba extension is simply a rename from .zip or .7z
 

SlickDizzy

Mr. Big's Thug
Joined
Jul 20, 2004
Posts
202
Sort of relevant, but if any of you haven't been tracking the other thread, NG:DEV team seems to think that the crappy NGX video can be fixed on the software side:

It's mostly if not all software.

I see 3 main problems.

1. A wrong video resolution is used
The NEOGEO uses 320x224, but the NGX scales it to 320x240 and upscales it to 640x480 for HDMI.

Scaling 224px to 240px is a bad idea.
This also results in a 2nd problem that if you apply scanlines with a videoprocessor those are off.

Solution: don't scale to 240, just add 8px borders at top and bottom. Then scale pixel perfect to 640x480

2. The NEOGEO uses an odd video refresh rate 59.18hz, but HDMI requires 59.94hz

This results in tearing, no vertical sync possible.

Solution: speed up the emulation to 59.94Hz/60hz.

3. Sound lag.

Solution: Unknown. Probably just a bug, maybe hardware problems too?
 

nerdstick

Crossed Swords Squire
Joined
Oct 1, 2012
Posts
183
Since the internal memory dd is being uploaded, can anybody upload a rip of the Ninja Master's SD?
 

Jbrodack

n00b
Joined
Oct 12, 2012
Posts
13
Thought it was worth mentioning that the Open Dingux based GCW Zero shares the same exact cpu as the neo geo x. It had a small release and looks like it will have a larger release on kickstarter. Homebrew development effort should be able to be shared between the two devices.
 

Lectoid

n00b
Joined
Dec 19, 2012
Posts
30
I am booted in to Linux using the Ultimate Boot CD. I still can't get my PC to even recognize the Ninja Masters SD card. I've used testdisk and other partition software, It just doesn't even know it's plugged in. Maybe it's my PC
 
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