The OFFICIAL... Neosd MicroSD Card thread...

[Rot]

OK OK... Seeing as more and more of our memberbase are getting the Neosd...

Let's summarise the MicroSD situation...

For this thread... I'd appreciate you posting the following info:

1. Size and Type of MicroSD used. (Pics would be nice...)
2. Firmware on the Neosd.
3. Load Times for (From the MicroSD Erasing to the Loading of the game... please..):
a. KoF 03
b. Magician Lord

xROTx

[greatfunky]

Good idea Rot !

I start the show :

Transcend ultimate 600x 16GB

transcend-ultimate-600x-microsdhc-uhs-i-adaptateur-sd-carte-memoire-16-go.jpg

NeoSD MVS firmware update 1.05

Load Times:

- KOF03 : 2.50
- Magician Lord: 0.22

[Rot]

Thank You GreatSpunky...

Sorry, I forgot to mention... the load times should be from the erasing of the microSD to load of new game...

I will edit the FIRST post..

xROTx

[greatfunky]

lol! yes I have considered the erasing time in my measuring time

[Rot]

lol! yes I have considered the erasing time in my measuring time

Thanks... I was busy when I typed it..

I have a lot of other things to do around here and at real work

xROTx

[GadgetUK]

SD Card.JPG

NeoSD MVS firmware update 1.05

Load Times: (Interesting how my KOF03 took longer than greatfunky, but Magicial Lord took less

- KOF03 : 2.54
- Magician Lord: 0.19

[donluca]

As many things may get in between erasing and game load times, I strongly suggest to run the erase-write cycle 3-4 times and calculate the average to have a more significant figure to compare, if time/will allows.

I'm pretty sure you'll get slightly different results each time, hence why Gadget's Magician Lord time is shorter than funky's and viceversa for KoF03

[RAZO]

As long as it is the same ball park we get the point. Now if someone's MagLord was taking 40s and Kof 3.20 than you may want to avoid getting that particular SD card.

[CZroe]

Wouldn't erase times potentially vary by the size of the game that was loaded previously? Might be best to throw that one out.

[aha2940]

Wouldn't erase times potentially vary by the size of the game that was loaded previously? Might be best to throw that one out.

Maybe the whole memory gets erased every time regardless of the game it was written before?

[CZroe]

Maybe the whole memory gets erased every time regardless of the game it was written before?

I recall some flash carts that used to do it that way but it would be punishing for this one to operate that way. With the significant speed boost that came from FW updates, I'm guessing that they are working on making it even faster and wouldn't shoot themselves in the foot like that. I would speculate that the boost came from eliminating unnecessary erasure except that I've seen enough flashing times of large and small ROM sets to know better.

[neodev]

I recall some flash carts that used to do it that way but it would be punishing for this one to operate that way. With the significant speed boost that came from FW updates, I'm guessing that they are working on making it even faster and wouldn't shoot themselves in the foot like that. I would speculate that the boost came from eliminating unnecessary erasure except that I've seen enough flashing times of large and small ROM sets to know better.

NeoSD will always erase the minimum amount of flash data needed to flash the game, but it's unclear if the erase times are different depending on the game that was previously flashed, as it's up to the flash chip firmware to check if a erase block is already all clear and skip it. I know the flash chip detects when we try to write a buffer that is all FFs and skips it entirely.

The previous firmware update improved flashing time by doing more operations in parallel, for example, erasing a flash while writting another one (that was in the original firmware too), or using the idle times waiting for a write to complete to write to another flash chip.

[CZroe]

Very cool. I think the wait times were already very tolerable in the first place even though I was spoiled with RAM-based backup carts back in the SNES/N64 days. They were still bottlenecked by ATAPI or ECP/EPP transfers but they were fast enough and somewhat comparable to this (depending on your setup). I'll admit that when I found a brand new Stone Age Gamer Super Everdrive for $1.43 at a fleamarket I was kind of annoyed (despite the killer deal), but only because it was slower than some decades-old solutions for the same console... so I traded it for an Ultra Everdrive 64 and bought an SD2SNES for the extra functions (MSU-1!). I think everyone expects larger games to take a little while longer, and pretty much everything on the Neo is comparatively huge, so my feeling is that it's worth the wait.

All that said, is there any reason why it isn't RAM-based? Is it hard to get that kind of capacity with the correct memory type or something? I'd expect copying a dump from flash storage into RAM and setting it up to be accessed like ROM would go a lot faster, but probably a lot harder to engineer (powerful FPGA that can address the RAM and simulate ROM access timings by acting as a memory controller). Obviously, I am not an engineer.

[neodev]

Well, the decision between RAM or Flash based was a though one, each one has its advantages and drawbacks but we finally went the Flash way because of its instant-on feature, as populating all the RAM chips on startup would take a bit, given the size of the neogeo rom data.

Say you want to load kof2003, that is around 90MBytes. The STM SD interface runs at a maximum of 25MHz, when running in 4-bit mode, you can transfer a byte in 2 cycles, so that's 12MB/s so you have an absolute minimum time of 7 seconds waiting every time the board boots, boot it 10 times, and you have spent over a minute waiting the game to load. That's a theoretical value, not taking into account the sending of commands to the SD (it uses a 1 wire protocol) and the filesystem overhead (you can only read a cluster, then check the next cluster in the FAT, and send the command to read another cluster), and the overhead of reading the data from memory and transferring to the actual RAM chips (setting the address, data, moving WE, ...) so I'd say it could easily be 15s to transfer an entire game every boot. Another issue is that the neogeo bios needs to see a valid neogeo header in the program area, so you must either first write a small loader that shows a loading screen, or keep the neogeo in reset while it's being transferred (at least the 1st MB of the P rom but then you'll have garbled graphics while they update). So we went to the flash solution, that has a slower write time, but it behaves exactly like a cart, with instant on time, having all the data ready since bootup (seeing an stock bios AES boot the game instantaneosuly is gorgeous). There are other issues but those are just some of them. From what I can see in the images of the "other" cartridge, he's also using flash chips for some parts (P, S and M roms probably, and RAM for C and V)

About the access protocol to the RAM, you can choose either DRAM (with its complicated protocol, that would need to be handled by the FPGA) or SRAM (actually PSRAM: DRAM chips with a SRAM like interface). PSRAM would be the way we would have chosen in that case, as it's more easily addressed from the FPGA and MCU, although they are usually more expensive.

Also, there are Flash chips that use a technology that gives almost instant erase time, but they aren't manufactured in all the sizes we needed.

[fille1976]

its not a bad choice neodev,you may be proud what the team have accomplished.
you have a working flashcart,with a nice menu,all games working fine.
its the right decision to go flash based for neo geo.
only thing i hope ever coming is maybe possibility for saving to sdcard.
if there's coming more it will make it even better as it is now.
so keep up the good work and success with your other product your creating.

[Rot]

Can we have more times and stuff please... kthx mofos...

DO IT NOW!!!!!

xROTx

[kaironman]

I've received my NeoSD today. This is my setup:

- MV1-FS board - UNIBIOS 2.3
- ArcadeForge.net MAK Strike Supergun
- Phillips PAL CRT TV - RGB Scart input
- Min Dong Arcade PSU, with voltage selection knob, regulated to 5.00V
- Neo Geo Stick
- MVS Neo SD, 1.05 firmware
- 16GB SanDisk SDHC MicroSD card (Class A)

First of all, I loaded Super Sidekicks 2.

Next, I loaded Magician Lord: 22 seconds

Then, I loaded KOF2003: 2 minutes 49 seconds.

This cart is awesome.

IMG_20170221_214630097.jpg

IMG_20170221_214630097.jpg

IMG_20170221_214630097.jpg

IMG_20170221_214630097.jpg

[Rot]

Thank You kaironman... I am currently trying to find a way of checking firmware versions...

Due to the fact that i don't own one...

Where's those pesky neosd team when i want them.... or Raz...

xROTx

PS. more tests to come... so so exciting

[neodev]

I've received my NeoSD today. This is my setup:

- MV1-FS board - UNIBIOS 2.3
- ArcadeForge.net MAK Strike Supergun
- Phillips PAL CRT TV - RGB Scart input
- Min Dong Arcade PSU, with voltage selection knob, regulated to 5.00V
- Neo Geo Stick
- MVS Neo SD, 1.05 firmware
- 16GB SanDisk SDHC MicroSD card (Class A)

First of all, I loaded Super Sidekicks 2.

Next, I loaded Magician Lord: 22 seconds

Then, I loaded KOF2003: 2 minutes 49 seconds.

This cart is awesome.

IMG_20170221_214630097.jpg

IMG_20170221_214630097.jpg

IMG_20170221_214630097.jpg

IMG_20170221_214630097.jpg

You can check the version by pressing B (options) then choose the VERSION option.

The original firmware (first batch) was 1.04. This new batch is sent with the latest one (1.05) that contains the faster flashing code.

For the record:

kof2003 flashing time is 2:55
maglord flashing time is 0:25

with a Samsung Evo 32GB, class 10, UHS - I
on firmware 1.05

[kaironman]

You can check the version by pressing B (options) then choose the VERSION option.

The original firmware (first batch) was 1.04. This new batch is sent with the latest one (1.05) that contains the faster flashing code.

Thank you, edited my post accordingly.

[Rot]

Thanks guys... MORE to come...

I LOVE stats.... i am Azn you know

xROTx

[pixeljunkie]

My cart arrived today - gonna hopefully load up and time my setup tonight on an AES

[Rot]

My cart arrived today - gonna hopefully load up and time my setup tonight on an AES

The FIRST of the AES releases.... I have been waiting for this...

Make my day Pixel_Sexxor!

xROTx

[pixeljunkie]

The FIRST of the AES releases.... I have been waiting for this...

Make my day Pixel_Sexxor!

xROTx

OK, not sure if I need to update FW since this cart is hot off the presses. So, I just loaded it up and hit the ground running.

Using this MicroSD: Samsung 16GB PRO Class 10 Micro SDHC Card with Adapter up to 90MB/s (MB-MG16EA/AM)

I hit the stop watch at the same time I hit "load" then stopped as soon as the screen went black to load game

Magician Lord: 0:23:11

KOF2k3: 3:23:68

[Metal Fatigue]

On a scale of 1-10 what was the boner level once game fired up?