Voting is up for DarkSofts Neo Geo Multi Cart Design.

hyper · Feb 23, 2017

SHOTS FIRED

Razoola said:
The butter is spreading very thin ATM.

Fygee · Feb 23, 2017

Its kind of amazing how enthusiastic some of the members over there are. I get being excited for something, but "shutting the mouths of non-believers in the word of Darksoft?" Yeesh.

Rot · Feb 23, 2017

Fygee said:
Per one of the more...ermm...."enthusiastic" members over there, Mitsurugi will be live streaming DS's cart with the NeoSD cart for comparitive purposes. Should be interesting, if anything.

The issue is we have no tech specs... the DS team refused to play ball with NG.com's memberbase... hence, how do we know if it's just a fancy 161-1 cart.... or a raspberry pi...

The reason the Neosd has been the success it has.... is the openess of the Neosd team on all aspects of their project...

I must confess... i want this device released... we've been waiting over 18 months... I wanna see it working on ALL the NG hardware'z

xROTx

PS. Gotta love it really... so much happening atm... keeps my short attention span in check...

pulstar · Feb 23, 2017

Fygee said:
Its kind of amazing how enthusiastic some of the members over there are. I get being excited for something, but "shutting the mouths of non-believers in the word of Darksoft?" Yeesh.

The way I see it now, though, is with the NeoSD already out the Darksoft cart has to be something different to compete. That could be a cheaper product, offer a different UI, making loading instant or something along those lines. To me the promise of the cart has been delivered by NeoSD (and more), so why wait? Darksoft needs to offer something before people take it to that level of fanaticism IMO. But it is his forum so I suppose you can't expect nay-sayers on there?

Rot · Feb 23, 2017

I LOVE the DS fanboyz....

Their tears are delicious... salty... and full of regret....

xROTx

PS. Some might say... I tend to "impose" my views here... and yes, it could be true to some respect...

However, there's accountability and balances on NG.com...

Fygee · Feb 23, 2017

Rot said:
The issue is we have no tech specs... the DS team refused to play ball with NG.com's memberbase... hence, how do we know if it's just a fancy 161-1 cart.... or a raspberry pi...

The reason the Neosd has been the success it has.... is the openess of the Neosd team on all aspects of their project...

I must confess... i want this device released... we've been waiting over 18 months... I wanna see it working on ALL the NG hardware'z

xROTx

PS. Gotta love it really... so much happening atm... keeps my short attention span in check...

Agreed. Additionally, it was great that NeoSD didn't announce anything until they actually had a real, functional product to show off. That's especially true for something many people have wanted for years and years, but no one else was able to successfully do. In a world of retro gaming filled with hyped up items that frequently end up being vaporware, it was refreshing to see someone say "yup, we made it, it works, here's a video of it working".

Looks like the post that "enthusiastic" member made about Mitsu comparing the two in real time was actually a joke. Joke or not, if Darksoft wants to prove people wrong and demonstrate that he has a superior product, that would be one great way to do it.

pulstar said:
The way I see it now, though, is with the NeoSD already out the Darksoft cart has to be something different to compete. That could be a cheaper product, offer a different UI, making loading instant or something along those lines. To me the promise of the cart has been delivered by NeoSD (and more), so why wait? Darksoft needs to offer something before people take it to that level of fanaticism IMO. But it is his forum so I suppose you can't expect nay-sayers on there?

Also agreed. I think that to compete it has to be better, it can't just be cheaper. You might be able to get away with a cheaper product being a draw on other platforms, but not the Neo Geo.

But yeah, he has followers that are loyal to a fault, and they're going to wait for his product no matter what. That's fine, that's their perogative. Others like me are holding off because dropping $400 is a big investment for a nerdy hobby, and my money is going to to go whichever has the superior product. That said, if DS doesn't make some big strides towards release along with evidence that its the better product, chances are NeoSD will get my dough.

neosd · Feb 23, 2017

Fygee said:
Agreed. Additionally, it was great that NeoSD didn't announce anything until they actually had a real, functional product to show off. That's especially true for something many people have wanted for years and years, but no one else was able to successfully do. In a world of retro gaming filled with hyped up items that frequently end up being vaporware, it was refreshing to see someone say "yup, we made it, it works, here's a video of it working".

Looks like the post that "enthusiastic" member made about Mitsu comparing the two in real time was actually a joke. Joke or not, if Darksoft wants to prove people wrong and demonstrate that he has a superior product, that would be one great way to do it.

Also agreed. I think that to compete it has to be better, it can't just be cheaper. You might be able to get away with a cheaper product being a draw on other platforms, but not the Neo Geo.

But yeah, he has followers that are loyal to a fault, and they're going to wait for his product no matter what. That's fine, that's their perogative. Others like me are holding off because dropping $400 is a big investment for a nerdy hobby, and my money is going to to go whichever has the superior product. That said, if DS doesn't make some big strides towards release along with evidence that its the better product, chances are NeoSD will get my dough.

Its all about "common sense"

You can´t have a 100% working product with all games running in all different MVS and AES boards when 2 weeks ago you showed the smaller game running with glitches and no sound.
You can´t get into production stage 1 day after your product is ready to be produced.
If you have a product ready to sell, you wont show a video where your product can´t be seen, you show your product to start selling it.

Its allways the same, "common sense". He has been telling the same lies for 18 months, time passes and he is on the same stage, the lies stage.

Common sense. If he would have something to show, youtube would be flooded of videos, we are in the smartphone era, even in Poland they have phones with cameras and internet to upload a video to youtube, i have also heard some places in Poland have light to make proper videos without shadows and mirrors.

Common sense guys ...

Make a flashcart that works with all untouched games and in all boards is something no one did before for a reason, the fact neosd does it dosent make it easy to acheive.

Common sense ...

Razoola · Feb 24, 2017

I'm all for a side by side comparrison of both carts if ds ever releases one. But it would need to be by an independent third party to have any validadity and testing the most advanced games for example (like kof2003). I am not sure Mitzu would be the best placed to do such a review given his ties to ds, it would be butter if someone like GadgetUK or Todd did it. I would put myself up also to do it but I'm sure ds would take issue with that.

X68 · Feb 25, 2017

I bought the darksoft CPSII kit and although there were hardware and software fixes required it is a solid product with good support - very happy with it. From the get go I thought his vision for a neo cart was fucked up - 4 slot rotation seemed like a wack idea.
I've bought a neosd - very happy with this product too.
Good luck to DS, hope he can finalise his cart with success, I personally prefer to have one game flashed for simplicity and that combined with the fact that I am really impatient is the reason I jumped ship.
The awful fanboy posturing on either side does my head in - why not have respect for everyone?
That said PC Engine is way better than the NG anyway so what's all the fuss about

greatfunky · Feb 25, 2017

X68 said:
I bought the darksoft CPSII kit and although there were hardware and software fixes required it is a solid product with good support - very happy with it. From the get go I thought his vision for a neo cart was fucked up - 4 slot rotation seemed like a wack idea.
I've bought a neosd - very happy with this product too.
Good luck to DS, hope he can finalise his cart with success, I personally prefer to have one game flashed for simplicity and that combined with the fact that I am really impatient is the reason I jumped ship.
The awful fanboy posturing on either side does my head in - why not have respect for everyone?
That said PC Engine is way better than the NG anyway so what's all the fuss about

Darksoft made a working CPS II kit , OK , he clearly demonstrate he's not an ignorant guy , but ...
There are intelligent people and some others much more, for me clearly Darksoft and neosd doesn't play in the same playground.

And i dislike particularly the reception he gave to neosd team.... not really fair-play , for that reason i wouldn't go for one of his product .

Razoola · Mar 17, 2017

Just saw those new darksoft videos in relation to game swapping. A real downer to see the system reset between each game swap. Not like a real multislot at all. Loading times are hard to judge given the videos do not show the largest games but the UI still looks to require some work on the usability side.

Fygee · Mar 17, 2017

Razoola said:
Just saw those new darksoft videos in relation to game swapping. A real downer to see the system reset between each game swap. Not like a real multislot at all. Loading times are hard to judge given the videos do not show the largest games but the UI still looks to require some work on the usability side.

Yup, I saw that and I'm disappointed by it too. Still, for AES users, having four games at the ready even if there's a reset involved is a good feature.

My spidey senses are tingling and telling me that something isn't right with it beyond that. Maybe its years of jaded internet experience involving fan made projects, but....we'll see eventually I suppose. My wallet awaits the winner.

leonk · Mar 17, 2017

anyone else surprised the console with multicart is never in his videos?

Every video I've ever seen that tried to prove a point always shows the device connected to the tv and how it even plugs to the tv so no funny business is happening. For all we know he just make a rom running in mame on a pc!!

hyper · Mar 17, 2017

yea.. comes off as fake, probably running in emulation.

most of that forum talk is about how great Darksoft is. occasionally somebody will ask a question or request technical details but DS ignores it & regularly posts totally unrelated Dreamcast shit somewhere else

one guy said "The neo-geo flashcart will be Darksoft's Magnum Opus" :lolz:

FAT$TACKS · Mar 17, 2017

hyper said:
one guy said "The neo-geo flashcart will be Darksoft's Magnum Opus"

I got a feeling it's going to be more like Darksoft's Aeschylus' tortoise.

greedostick · Mar 17, 2017

greedostick said:
Go here and register if you need to. There are 2 proposals, one that has no battery and flashes one game at a time, and another that uses a cellular phone battery and flashes 4 games at a time.

Sucks ma' cawk....

This is what we have all been waiting for, for a very long time. Get over there and add your input.

I just noticed someone edited my initial post. LOL.

Rot?

Rot · Mar 18, 2017

greedostick said:
I just noticed someone edited my initial post. LOL.

Rot?

Yes... Was me... Next question plz..

xROTx

GadgetUK · Mar 18, 2017

FAT$TACKS said:
I got a feeling it's going to be more like Darksoft's Aeschylus' tortoise.

LOL! I am still keen to see how their end product looks and works - just out of curiosity more than anything. I don't see this as so much of a direct competition with the Neo SD, because I suspect all the collectors out there they will end up wanting both carts probably! And its easy to see the Neo SD has established itself a pretty much 100% complete solution at this stage. Yes there's still the odd minor issue with some setups that they are looking at, we've had hole gate, shell gate, and people kicking off about their free shell delivery, but those things will all get ironed out over the next weeks.

For your average consumer the price might dictate which cart they go for, but if I've learnt anything from the experience with the Neo SD, there are a lot of differences related to timing and impedance between different MVS and AES board revisions, which can make it difficult to get everything working really well with the wide range of board revisions, and the Neo SD team have pretty much nailed that I think - but a lot of work has gone in to get it to that stage and I think it cannot be underestimated. So even if it landed tomorrow I suspect it will take them a lot of time and pain yet to get it 100%.

What is their ST-V cart like, does anyone have one, what are your opinions of the ST-V cart, what problems if any, and what was the post release process like with regards to any problems or bug fixes? I also imagine the ST-V cart not having to deal with many different host revisions too. That's one of the problems Krikkz had with the SNES everdrive for example - different PPU / CPU revisions, different board layouts, some chips merged into single ASIC design etc. Still to this day there are some SNES boards that glitch with some Super Everdrive and its the same with the SD2SNES. Not saying they cannot do it, just saying that 90% of the time will be spent on 10% of the problems.

Rot · Mar 18, 2017

I must confess... I am looking forward to the DS flashcart...

Mainly because I like stuff like that... and comparing it to the Neosd as well...

IMO... the Neosd is close on perfect atm... a few niggles that neodev is working on...

We'll see... either way the DS fanboyz are welcome to come play... but bear in mind DS's exit from here was sorta a bitter divorce...

xROTx

daithidownunder · Mar 18, 2017

GadgetUK said:
LOL! I am still keen to see how their end product looks and works - just out of curiosity more than anything. I don't see this as so much of a direct competition with the Neo SD, because I suspect all the collectors out there they will end up wanting both carts probably! And its easy to see the Neo SD has established itself a pretty much 100% complete solution at this stage. Yes there's still the odd minor issue with some setups that they are looking at, we've had hole gate, shell gate, and people kicking off about their free shell delivery, but those things will all get ironed out over the next weeks.

For your average consumer the price might dictate which cart they go for, but if I've learnt anything from the experience with the Neo SD, there are a lot of differences related to timing and impedance between different MVS and AES board revisions, which can make it difficult to get everything working really well with the wide range of board revisions, and the Neo SD team have pretty much nailed that I think - but a lot of work has gone in to get it to that stage and I think it cannot be underestimated. So even if it landed tomorrow I suspect it will take them a lot of time and pain yet to get it 100%.

What is their ST-V cart like, does anyone have one, what are your opinions of the ST-V cart, what problems if any, and what was the post release process like with regards to any problems or bug fixes? I also imagine the ST-V cart not having to deal with many different host revisions too. That's one of the problems Krikkz had with the SNES everdrive for example - different PPU / CPU revisions, different board layouts, some chips merged into single ASIC design etc. Still to this day there are some SNES boards that glitch with some Super Everdrive and its the same with the SD2SNES. Not saying they cannot do it, just saying that 90% of the time will be spent on 10% of the problems.

Agreed, I think many people will buy one of each. I think the DS cart will work much better in a multi MVS cab due to faster load times and being able to hold 4 games in memory. The NeoSD would be my preferred option for an AES or a JNX CMVS.

Either way it will be great to have two solutions on the market, where previously there was none. It's win-win for everyone

neodev · Mar 18, 2017

hyper said:
yea.. comes off as fake, probably running in emulation.

most of that forum talk is about how great Darksoft is. occasionally somebody will ask a question or request technical details but DS ignores it & regularly posts totally unrelated Dreamcast shit somewhere else

one guy said "The neo-geo flashcart will be Darksoft's Magnum Opus"

I think it is running on real hw, at least the previous videos were. The random colored squares screen only appears on real hardware, and not in emulators that I know. The current ones don't show the screen but maybe because that tv takes a while to switch to the AV input, or they are holdint the NG in reser for less time.

I guess the cart is never shown because it probably has several wires attached and would look a bit messy.

Why is never a large game shown? There are plenty of large games with just standard banking thst should work without issues. Also in the video where he loads 3 games in the slots, he's just loading a new game in slot 1, and the same that were already loaded in slots 2 and 3.

The multislot switch video shows several glitches. When switching to the 2nd game, the neogeo logo glitches and sound goes wrong, that might be he trying to switch slot while in the neogeo screen that is handled by the bios, that leads me to think that it might be done via an external switch connected to the cart. Also, alpham2 has some audio issues in game.
Rebooting to switch slot is the easy way to do that. Doing it in a more real multislot way is more complicated without bios mods, also I think the reset way won't work too well in real multislots. Also, does he have enough ram and flash to hold 4 large games ?

In short, I think it is running on real hw but has some issues big enough to not showing it fully yet.

Razoola · Mar 18, 2017

I hear he has pretty much confirmed on his forums that 4 games are not working, its easy to guess which games they are (kof2003 etc). Although he has not yet said it, I also suspect a few games may also be limited to a set version only and not any version. neodev is correct about the random squares on powerup kind of confirming its real hardware. I also agree that the game swapping is probably done with a switch on the cart, not userfriendly compared to say how NeoGeoLand does it (which is not really difficult to do).

sparksterz · Mar 18, 2017

GadgetUK said:
What is their ST-V cart like, does anyone have one, what are your opinions of the ST-V cart, what problems if any, and what was the post release process like with regards to any problems or bug fixes? I also imagine the ST-V cart not having to deal with many different host revisions too. That's one of the problems Krikkz had with the SNES everdrive for example - different PPU / CPU revisions, different board layouts, some chips merged into single ASIC design etc. Still to this day there are some SNES boards that glitch with some Super Everdrive and its the same with the SD2SNES. Not saying they cannot do it, just saying that 90% of the time will be spent on 10% of the problems.

My STV cart worked great. I guess there were still a few protected games that didn't run out the gate. There was a minor revision, but it wasn't anything significant. I don't recall updating firmware, but I believe they had another update post release which enabled a couple more games to be played. It was a pretty clear cut device.

aoiddr · Mar 18, 2017

sparksterz said:
My STV cart worked great. I guess there were still a few protected games that didn't run out the gate. There was a minor revision, but it wasn't anything significant. I don't recall updating firmware, but I believe they had another update post release which enabled a couple more games to be played. It was a pretty clear cut device.

The firmware update allowed the STV multicart to auto-reset once a game loaded instead of having to turn the board off and back on after switching a game.

neodev · Mar 18, 2017

Razoola said:
I hear he has pretty much confirmed on his forums that 4 games are not working, its easy to guess which games they are (kof2003 etc). Although he has not yet said it, I also suspect a few games may also be limited to a set version only and not any version. neodev is correct about the random squares on powerup kind of confirming its real hardware. I also agree that the game swapping is probably done with a switch on the cart, not userfriendly compared to say how NeoGeoLand does it (which is not really difficult to do).

Yes but switching the adressing and resetting is a lot simpler compared.to any other mode.

Voting is up for DarkSofts Neo Geo Multi Cart Design.

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