NEOSD MVS Support thread !

neosd · Dec 11, 2016

GadgetUK,

Dont get me wrong, but we cant keep wasting more time with the issues you may have on this firmware, cause we know its broken. It was a test firmware. We changed more things than timming on this firmware, i wont explain what we changed, but those changes were really deep. It was intended as a test, it didnt woked so we have decided to not follow this road anymore.

We would like to focus on issues with retail firmware.

We think that we know whats happening to Nostromo and its not a timming issue. We may be wrong cause it would not be the first time we are wrong, but we have to focus, telling people that there is a timming issue only sends a wrong message.

I hope you understand my point, lets move on, and focus in whats important, you got a replacement neosd comming that will arrive in 3 or 4 days, once you get it, we will continue giving you support to know what happened there, but until this day, focusing things on your nesod and your firmware is a totally waste of time and may only end confussing others.

Thanks

GadgetUK said:
You know what, I am not mixing things at all (he's on a different firmware to me with the same problem), and to be honest I am starting to feel patronised by some of the replies I keep getting recently. Like I am on a beta firmware so that explains all the problems.

The glitch that was reported today - the fact it is intermittant can only be timing related, and you know what - every problem I've had so far (and the few that others have had) are all timing related from what I can see. Intermittancy in CRC checks, line glitches, and now that issue in Pulstar, they would lead anyone to think there's a timing issue somewhere that has the behaviour of either cross talk or something that is not correctly locked via PLL.

I am being patient, and I will continue to do more tests when the other cart arrives next week, and you might not think what I suggest is helping but it's just my opinion at this point in time. That doesn't mean I am saying that the issues I am experiencing cannot be solved, I am not trying to create problems here at all, I am just starting to lose my patience tbh.

Nostromo · Dec 11, 2016

neosd said:
Hello Nostromo,

There is an option on neosd options menu that lets you enable "arcade mode", this mode blocks the in game trigger once you remove the sd card (with a flashed game).

So please, enable arcade mode on neosd options menu after you have the game flashed.
Then remove sd card and see if you are still getting those issues.

Thanks

@NeoSD
Ok, just tried what you said there. Issue has not gone away. I still get the same graphical problems. It happened on fourth try or so.

Please advice.

GadgetUK · Dec 11, 2016

neosd said:
GadgetUK,

Dont get me wrong, but we cant keep wasting more time with the issues you may have on this firmware, cause we know its broken. It was a test firmware. We changed more things than timming on this firmware, i wont explain what we changed, but those changes were really deep. It was intended as a test, it didnt woked so we have decided to not follow this road anymore.

We would like to focus on issues with retail firmware.

We think that we know whats happening to Nostromo and its not a timming issue. We may be wrong cause it would not be the first time we are wrong, but we have to focus, telling people that there is a timming issue only sends a wrong message.

I hope you understand my point, lets move on, and focus in whats important, you got a replacement neosd comming that will arrive in 3 or 4 days, once you get it, we will continue giving you support to know what happened there, but until this day, focusing things on your nesod and your firmware is a totally waste of time and may only end confussing others.

Thanks

Thanks, could you roll me back to the 1st firmware (with the lines fix not applied?) - Just so I can carry out more testing on the MVS systems I have here? Also, what version firmware is on the replacement cart you sent, is it the initial version or the 'lines fix' version? I do appreciate everything you've done so far!

EDIT: That's something I would like to suggest as a future update - the ability to allow any firmware update to be re-applied. I personally don't like this idea of an update can only be applied once. I appreciate there might be reasons why that's required, it would just make life a lot easier if I could revert easily for testing purposes.

neosd · Dec 11, 2016

Hello GadgetUK,

Yes, we wanted to revert your firmware from the moment we knew it was not working. Unfortunally we were out of the office.

Last week, tuesday and thursday were national party days in Spain (again

), so we got force by our families to get a break and go out of the city. We were out of the city, but as you can see, we didnt get the break

Tomorrow as soon as we are back to the office, we will compile a firmware to revert your neosd back to the initial firmware and we will send you that.

About the firmware that we have sent you with the replacement neosd : i think that this was the one with just the horizontal lines glitch fixed.

We just need an small breath to advance, think that we have been working on this 24/7 for some time without a break.

So the plan for tomorrow is :

a) compile you a firmware to revert your neosd to retail, do the same for Sceptre_JLRB cause he still has the beta firmware aswel.
b) fix 4slot issue, compile a firmware and sent it to dkarDaGobert so he can try it.
c) see if we can reproduce Nostromos issue, and fix it.

Thanks

GadgetUK said:
Thanks, could you roll me back to the 1st firmware (with the lines fix not applied?) - Just so I can carry out more testing on the MVS systems I have here? Also, what version firmware is on the replacement cart you sent, is it the initial version or the 'lines fix' version? I do appreciate everything you've done so far!

GadgetUK · Dec 11, 2016

neosd said:
Hello GadgetUK,

Yes, we wanted to revert your firmware from the moment we knew it was not working. Unfortunally we were out of the office.

Last week, tuesday and thursday were national party days in Spain (again ), so we got force by our families to get a break and go out of the city. We were out of the city, but as you can see, we didnt get the break

Tomorrow as soon as we are back to the office, we will compile a firmware to revert your neosd back to the initial firmware and we will send you that.

About the firmware that we have sent you with the replacement neosd : i think that this was the one with just the horizontal lines glitch fixed.

We just need an small breath to advance, think that we have been working on this 24/7 for some time without a break.

So the plan for tomorrow is :

a) compile you a firmware to revert your neosd to retail, do the same for Sceptre_JLRB cause he still has the beta firmware aswel.
b) fix 4slot issue, compile a firmware and sent it to dkarDaGobert so he can try it.
c) see if we can reproduce Nostromos issue, and fix it.

Thanks

That's all fine, and I totally accept that you've had a lot on your plate with bank holidays, and all the sales of MVS and AES carts to sort as well.

What I am hoping is that the CRC issues go away after the rollback. That would just leave the KoF2003 glitch (which I can honestly live with until more research has been done, even if that takes months I can live waiting for a fix for that). The CRC issue is my biggest concern right now. Even the Pulstar glitch is quite a minor problem to live with compared with CRC issues.

Don't rush getting me that firmware tomorrow if there are more important things, I would rather you do things are your own pace and focus on what's best for everyone regards firmware updates. If the 4 slot or Pulstar issue needs more time, I would rather you focussed on those things. That other cart should arrive in a few days anway, so I can do a lot more testing once that arrives.

Razoola · Dec 11, 2016

The crc32 issue you have was there before you updated the firmware so don't expect it to vanish when you roll back the firmware unless your maybe on a different MVS, it the probable cause of the kof2003 issue you had also.

Nostromo · Dec 11, 2016

@NeoSD is there anything else I could try regarding Pulstar issue? I have an MV1C consolized Neo Geo + Unibios (not that it should matter).

neosd · Dec 11, 2016

GadgetUK, we both have the same goal, fix every bug and move forward, adding more features to NEOSD.

We really need that you do some tests for us with the "bad" neosd cart, thats why we have asked you to keep it. So we have contrast betwen two neosds on the same setup.

Every bug/issue is important and our aim is to fix all those.

We will not give up on helping you or anyone else with issues. Giving support everyday at any hour has prooved to be stressful, so we are going to take more time for thinking, from now.

We just need time to think and fix, cause for the last two weeks we have been doing tests/sending firmwares without the needed time to mature the tests, aiming to fix your issue as fast as possible. This work method has been proved to not work, so we are trying another work method

I really apreciate the effort you all are doing reporting bugs/issues.

One thing i would like to ask everyone reporting bugs is to tell us which model of MVS and bios version you are using

Thanks

GadgetUK said:
That's all fine, and I totally accept that you've had a lot on your plate with bank holidays, and all the sales of MVS and AES carts to sort as well.

What I am hoping is that the CRC issues go away after the rollback. That would just leave the KoF2003 glitch (which I can honestly live with until more research has been done, even if that takes months I can live waiting for a fix for that). The CRC issue is my biggest concern right now. Even the Pulstar glitch is quite a minor problem to live with compared with CRC issues.

Don't rush getting me that firmware tomorrow if there are more important things, I would rather you do things are your own pace and focus on what's best for everyone regards firmware updates. If the 4 slot or Pulstar issue needs more time, I would rather you focussed on those things. That other cart should arrive in a few days anway, so I can do a lot more testing once that arrives.

neodev · Dec 11, 2016

Nostromo said:
@NeoSD is there anything else I could try regarding Pulstar issue? I have an MV1C consolized Neo Geo + Unibios (not that it should matter).

Please, run the unibios crc a few times (like 10 times) on pulstar and tell us if it returns any NG. Also, just to confirm, is the consolized version overclocked?

Nostromo · Dec 11, 2016

Ok will do that. No it is not overclocked. By the way, I have had my system resetting (on two different occasions) just when erasing/flashing procedure starts.

Razoola · Dec 11, 2016

I have been able to reproduce the Pulstar stage select issue here. It took about 20 power off and on and entering credits until it happened. I wanted to rule out unibios before commenting because it could have been related but I have been able to reproduse issue again with the stock bios.

However I cannot rule out that this is a real game bug and nothing to do with the NeoSD at all so care is needed ATM here.

GadgetUK, if you have a real Pulstar cart it might be an idea to see if you can reproduce the problem using that like I just did with the NeoSD.

Nostromo · Dec 11, 2016

Razoola said:
I have been able to reproduce the Pulstar stage select issue here. It took about 20 power off and on and entering credits until it happened. I wanted to rule out unibios before commenting because it could have been related but I have been able to reproduse issue again with the stock bios.

However I cannot rule out that this is a real game bug and nothing to do with the NeoSD at all so care is needed ATM here.

GadgetUK, if you have a real Pulstar cart it might be an idea to see if you can reproduce the problem using that like I just did with the NeoSD.

You dont even have to turn the system off/on. Just start a new game and die, and try the next time, eventually it will happen.

Razoola · Dec 11, 2016

Nostromo, that would be the longer way to test the same thing.

I'm 99.9% sure of the cause now anyway although it would still be good if gadget can do that test if he owns the original cart. I will speak to the NeoSD guys tomorrow about it. They were on the right track already when they suggested turning on the 'arcade mode' option and removing the SDcard so I'm sure they probably know it also.

GadgetUK · Dec 11, 2016

Razoola said:
Nostromo, that would be the longer way to test the same thing.

I'm 99.9% sure of the cause now anyway although it would still be good if gadget can do that test if he owns the original cart. I will speak to the NeoSD guys tomorrow about it. They were on the right track already when they suggested turning on the 'arcade mode' option and removing the SDcard so I'm sure they probably know it also.

LOL, we've gone beyond trying to find bugs with the Neo SD now - this IS a problem with the original game I think. I've just tested with the 161 in 1 version and the same glitch occurs there on Pulstar (yes I know its not original but the fact its happening does suggest its the game itself), so I do believe its some kind of known issue with that game. Since Raz has tested on stock BIOS, that rules out unibios. You learn something every day lol. I am amazed no one has spotted that issue on Pulstar before? Maybe they just thought it might be a bad connection or something.

EDIT: At least that's one less thing for neo SD to worry about! Very strange how it doesn't always occur, any idea why Raz?

Nostromo · Dec 11, 2016

GadgetUK said:
LOL, we've gone beyond trying to find bugs with the Neo SD now - this IS a problem with the original game I think. I've just tested with the 161 in 1 version and the same glitch occurs there on Pulstar (yes I know its not original but the fact its happening does suggest its the game itself), so I do believe its some kind of known issue with that game. Since Raz has tested on stock BIOS, that rules out unibios. You learn something every day lol. I am amazed no one has spotted that issue on Pulstar before? Maybe they just thought it might be a bad connection or something.

EDIT: At least that's one less thing for neo SD to worry about! Very strange how it doesn't always occur, any idea why Raz?

I find this veeeery strange. I've owned original Pulstar in the past and played it to DEATH. And I never noticed any issues - believe me with my OCD I wouldn't miss a misplaced pixel.

Razoola · Dec 11, 2016

Yes, its a weird one for sure. I would feel better though if somone could also reproduce that on a real Pulstar cart also to be totally sure.

GadgetUK · Dec 11, 2016

Nostromo said:
I find this veeeery strange. I've owned original Pulstar in the past and played it to DEATH. And I never noticed any issues - believe me with my OCD I wouldn't miss a misplaced pixel.

Do you still have an original to test? I have tested on the 120 in 1 and 161 in 1 and both behave the same way, so I do think it's probably that way on the original too. I am curious as to what the cause is, because it unusual for something like this to sometimes occur and other times not. But at least we know that its not a problem with the Neo SD. I certainly did not see that one coming, and its a pleasant surprise! If we can work out what causes it, maybe Raz or someone could patch the P ROM. Or we could just live with it - it's not that noticeable most of the time anyway.

Razoola · Dec 11, 2016

Nostromo said:
I find this veeeery strange. I've owned original Pulstar in the past and played it to DEATH. And I never noticed any issues - believe me with my OCD I wouldn't miss a misplaced pixel.

Well there is a known undumped Pulstar revision so maybe the bug was fixed. This means we do really need this confirmed with original Pulstar cart, the one that passes the unibios crc32 check.

Nostromo · Dec 11, 2016

GadgetUK said:
Do you still have an original to test? I have tested on the 120 in 1 and 161 in 1 and both behave the same way, so I do think it's probably that way on the original too. I am curious as to what the cause is, because it unusual for something like this to sometimes occur and other times not. But at least we know that its not a problem with the Neo SD. I certainly did not see that one coming, and its a pleasant surprise! If we can work out what causes it, maybe Raz or someone could patch the P ROM. Or we could just live with it - it's not that noticeable most of the time anyway.

Nope, I sold the cart ages ago. I also tried looking up if there is anything reported about the original game regarding this issue, and nothing comes up.

fille1976 · Dec 11, 2016

i loaded pulstar,and crc checked 10 times on unibios 3.3.
its with mv1b consolized,all crc checks are fine here.
and i dont have that bug,why have some guys those strange things?
could it be hardware or the neosd?

neodev · Dec 11, 2016

fille1976 said:
i loaded pulstar,and crc checked 10 times on unibios 3.3.
its with mv1b consolized,all crc checks are fine here.
and i dont have that bug,why have some guys those strange things?
could it be hardware or the neosd?

As raz said, I also think it's an issue in the original hardware too. Seeing it also happens in the xxx i 1, that are absolutely different hw than neosd. Also the fact that it's always the same bad blocks in the same position rules out a timming issue. It should be checked in emulators too, although all emulators aren't fully accurrate to the hardware in some aspects.

GadgetUK · Dec 11, 2016

fille1976 said:
i loaded pulstar,and crc checked 10 times on unibios 3.3.
its with mv1b consolized,all crc checks are fine here.
and i dont have that bug,why have some guys those strange things?
could it be hardware or the neosd?

Well at this stage its a case of
1) Pulstar does appear to have that problem in general - not just on Neo SD. See the comments above on how to re-create it, but even Razoola was able to re-create that. But it appears to be nothing to do with the Neo SD.
2) The other issues that have been reported are simply minor bugs that should get fixed at some point. The CRC issue seems to be unique to my cart and from what neosd team were saying its because its a firmware with deep changes that hadn't fully been tested across multiple systems etc.

So things aren't as bad as they seemed earlier, at least for me they don't seem quite as bad as they were =D

massimiliano · Dec 11, 2016

fille1976 said:
i loaded pulstar,and crc checked 10 times on unibios 3.3.
its with mv1b consolized,all crc checks are fine here.
and i dont have that bug,why have some guys those strange things?
could it be hardware or the neosd?

It seems more a problem with Pulstar rom dump, given it is happening with 161-1 as well (no neosd at all)

Nostromo · Dec 11, 2016

neodev said:
As raz said, I also think it's an issue in the original hardware too. Seeing it also happens in the xxx i 1, that are absolutely different hw than neosd. Also the fact that it's always the same bad blocks in the same position rules out a timming issue. It should be checked in emulators too, although all emulators aren't fully accurrate to the hardware in some aspects.

Well I just tried like 20 times on RetroArch and the game booted fine every single time.

Nostromo · Dec 11, 2016

fille1976 said:
i loaded pulstar,and crc checked 10 times on unibios 3.3.
its with mv1b consolized,all crc checks are fine here.
and i dont have that bug,why have some guys those strange things?
could it be hardware or the neosd?

Did you actually check out for the corrupt graphics? It takes many tries for it to happen.

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