NEOSD MVS Support thread !

Joined
Nov 15, 2000
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1,115
Re-posting this here as I posted in the wrong thread by mistake.

Yesterday I had this thing going on... I had my CMVS running by itself for a few minutes (with NeoSD) - the game was Mutation Nation. All of a sudden, the system started resetting itself. So I went into the NeoSD menu and the system still reset itself (so it went back to the game). I eventually switch it off, back on, flashed another game and now it seems ok. Any ideas?
 

Pinball

Kula's Candy
Joined
May 7, 2012
Posts
294
I'd recommend checking the voltage with a multimeter, and (probably) increasing your PSU voltage a tad (I found 5.2V load voltage into a 6-slot NG board was perfect). Rebooting is due to 'low' voltage, as NeoSD needs slightly more power/voltage than a regular cart, hence the issue. Bottomline, turn up your PSU voltage a bit and it should be fine :-)
 

Rot

Calvin & Hobbes, ,
Joined
Jul 8, 2003
Posts
11,441
Does the neobuilderUI not work on windows XP? it just says not a valid windows 32 application.

I want to use the neo geo monitor test tool as found here : http://www.neohomebrew.com/neo-geo-monitor-test.php

Could anyone convert it for me?

Just download the file from this link (Post 44): http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showt...ort-thread-!&p=4140218&viewfull=1#post4140218

Then come into chat for the password... it's gonna be easier...

The link expires in 10 hours... best be QUICK!

xROTx

PS. The link maybe "renewed" for another 30 days at this rate... n00bs coming out of the woodwork...
 

amurphy245

Kuroko's Training Dummy
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Posts
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samaron

n00b
Joined
Jan 2, 2017
Posts
20
I've finally wired up my 1FZ the way I want it and started to properly use my NeoSD. I've found that it really likes to randomly reboot at startup or within the game, or throw me an exception handling error. Some games seems to be worse than others. I only got two official carts for the MVS (Metal Slug and Aero Fighters 2), both work just fine. All flashed games give me OK on the CRC check.

I have done a stereo mod (including the 5 volt mod), soldered the grounding strap to the crystal for a proper connection, battery mod (disabled charging circuit), Universe BIOS v3.3 and I use the JROK video encoder. The voltage is a stable 5,1 volts coming from a 4 amp PSU. I have thoroughly cleaned both the cartridge and the slot. The NeoSD uses the latest official firmware. The firmware it initially came with caused some line glitching in games, which the new firmware fixed.

Seems like I have a lot of bad luck with this Neo Geo stuff.... I initially planned on using the NeoSD on my AES with the Daedalus converter, but it doesn't work for me for some reason, even though it works for other people.

Do I qualify for this beta firmware I've read about in this thread? My impression is that it could remedy the rebooting/exception error issue on the MVS.
 

neodev

Neosd Tech
Joined
Nov 28, 2016
Posts
256
I've finally wired up my 1FZ the way I want it and started to properly use my NeoSD. I've found that it really likes to randomly reboot at startup or within the game, or throw me an exception handling error. Some games seems to be worse than others. I only got two official carts for the MVS (Metal Slug and Aero Fighters 2), both work just fine. All flashed games give me OK on the CRC check.

I have done a stereo mod (including the 5 volt mod), soldered the grounding strap to the crystal for a proper connection, battery mod (disabled charging circuit), Universe BIOS v3.3 and I use the JROK video encoder. The voltage is a stable 5,1 volts coming from a 4 amp PSU. I have thoroughly cleaned both the cartridge and the slot. The NeoSD uses the latest official firmware. The firmware it initially came with caused some line glitching in games, which the new firmware fixed.

Seems like I have a lot of bad luck with this Neo Geo stuff.... I initially planned on using the NeoSD on my AES with the Daedalus converter, but it doesn't work for me for some reason, even though it works for other people.

Do I qualify for this beta firmware I've read about in this thread? My impression is that it could remedy the rebooting/exception error issue on the MVS.

Yes, please send us an email with your cart serial number
 

Rot

Calvin & Hobbes, ,
Joined
Jul 8, 2003
Posts
11,441
POST... 44...

30 days extension... as from NOW!

xROTx
 

samaron

n00b
Joined
Jan 2, 2017
Posts
20
The e-mailed firmware seems to have fixed my rebooting/exception error handling issues! I will try out a few games the next few days just to be sure. Thank you for the quick reply. :)
 

suzuka

n00b
Joined
Jun 16, 2011
Posts
5
Hello,

I am a bit puzzled on how to get the backup ram area reserved for my program
mapped to work ram as defined in the program header ?

Any help appreciated, thank you !
 

neodev

Neosd Tech
Joined
Nov 28, 2016
Posts
256
Hello,

I am a bit puzzled on how to get the backup ram area reserved for my program
mapped to work ram as defined in the program header ?

Any help appreciated, thank you !

(This is a general MVS question, not NeoSD, so maybe it needs to be moved to its own thread)

The MVS bios copies the backup data to the area you declared in your game header on startup, it also copies back it to backup ram when your game cycle ends.

What the bios (roughly) does is:

Check if your game ID is present on backup ram.
If it's not present, call your USER routine with request 0 (Init). In this case, you must fill the work ram area you declared as "backup" with the default values and then return to the bios as usual (jmp SYSTEM_RETURN). The bios will now create a slot for you in its backup ram and will copy the data you placed. Request 0 won't be called again until the backup ram is cleared or bios deletes your slot.
If data is present, copy the data from backup ram to your working ram area
Run Eyecatcher
Run game
When returning to BIOS after playing a game, the BIOS will copy the data from your work ram backup area to the actual backup ram slot.

So basically, you declare the working ram area you want to use as backup in the program header. Then you only need to handle the initialization (request 0), and updating the data in your working ram. The BIOS will take care of the rest.
 

suzuka

n00b
Joined
Jun 16, 2011
Posts
5
First of all, thank you for taking time to answer my question.

I am not exactly sure what do you mean by "USER routine with request 0 (Init)"

Do you mean the _start entry point just before the _player_start entry point ?

How is passed the request id ?

Also, supposing I define the maximum size for the work area (0x1000). When does it copy back from work ram to backup ram ?

I mean, the slot can be switched off or reseted at any time
 

neodev

Neosd Tech
Joined
Nov 28, 2016
Posts
256
First of all, thank you for taking time to answer my question.

I am not exactly sure what do you mean by "USER routine with request 0 (Init)"

Do you mean the _start entry point just before the _player_start entry point ?

How is passed the request id ?

Also, supposing I define the maximum size for the work area (0x1000). When does it copy back from work ram to backup ram ?

I mean, the slot can be switched off or reseted at any time

the game USER routine is the one at 0x122 in your game. The request is passed via RAM at 0x10FDAE.

I recommend you to read:
https://wiki.neogeodev.org/index.php?title=68k_program_header (you probably read this, as you know how to declare the backup ram area)
https://wiki.neogeodev.org/index.php?title=USER_subroutine
https://wiki.neogeodev.org/index.php?title=BIOS_calls
https://wiki.neogeodev.org/index.php?title=BIOS_RAM_locations

The bios will take care of saving and restoring your data when changing slots, just jmp back to SYSTEM RETURN (0xc00444) when your game cycle ends and it will take care of saving your ram when finishing playing.
 

Rot

Calvin & Hobbes, ,
Joined
Jul 8, 2003
Posts
11,441
I appologize for the wrong thread

Don't worry about it man... it's fine...

You will find Tech is stress free... but the lads get annoyed when you post in wrong sections....

I suppose it's part of their nature...

xROTx

PS. Post that Tech thread as suggested... I will move replies to there...
 

f0rm0za

n00b
Joined
Mar 20, 2012
Posts
9
Today I received MVS NeoSD. I checked cart on two devices MV1FZ(Non-consolised) and MV2F(consolised). The cart works well. I'm very happy that I bought this cart, because i Dreamed for many years that some time a flash drive for NEO GEO will appear on sale. This is my best and long-awaited purchase for the last 10-15 years!!!
Many thanx Neosd developers!
happy, happy, joy, joy =)
 

Morden

Somewhere in Europe.,
Joined
Jul 5, 2005
Posts
711
I've had the NeoSD MVS for a while now, and from day one I was experiencing the reset issues, which were supposedly caused by insufficient power supplied to the unit. I could, however, still run the games fine, as ling as I flashed them onto the cartridge and took the microSD out, disabling the menu hotkeys, etc.

While this was fixed in the update sent to me by the NeoSD team, I have one issue remaining [well, two actually, but we'll come to that]. I can't get Shock Troopers 2 to work. The issue applies to Lansquenet 2004 as well, which is a ST2 hack.

My setup is as follows: MV1-FZ without any modifications except for Universe Bios 2.0, PC power supply, Vogatek supergun MKIV and a ToToTek converter for PlayStation controllers.

Every other game works fine, as far as I can tell, especially now, when the reset loop is no longer an issue, except for Shock Troopers 2. After the Neo Geo boot up animation, I get an error screen from the Uni Bios exception handler:

ShockTroopers2Error.jpg

NeoSD team has confirmed that as far as they know, I'm the only one having this issue, which makes me wonder if the Uni Bios is at fault here.

I haven't tested the game on the original bios, but I'm planning to, unless someone is still stuck on 2.0, ideally with an MV1-FZ. That's issue one.

Issue number two is MOTW. I remember playing through the game before the NeoSD cartridge update, and I don't remember any issues. Now however, the game throws the error screen at me after a few rounds. The current stage music keeps playing, but I get white text on black background, not unlike the warning that software is not for use outside of country XXX, which says the game is designed to run on original hardware.

It would seem that game's protection is kicking in, refusing to run from a different board. I could swear it was running fine before. Any thoughts or solutions would be appreciated.
 

GadgetUK

Ace Ghost Pilot
Joined
Sep 27, 2013
Posts
1,323
I've had the NeoSD MVS for a while now, and from day one I was experiencing the reset issues, which were supposedly caused by insufficient power supplied to the unit. I could, however, still run the games fine, as ling as I flashed them onto the cartridge and took the microSD out, disabling the menu hotkeys, etc.

While this was fixed in the update sent to me by the NeoSD team, I have one issue remaining [well, two actually, but we'll come to that]. I can't get Shock Troopers 2 to work. The issue applies to Lansquenet 2004 as well, which is a ST2 hack.

My setup is as follows: MV1-FZ without any modifications except for Universe Bios 2.0, PC power supply, Vogatek supergun MKIV and a ToToTek converter for PlayStation controllers.

Every other game works fine, as far as I can tell, especially now, when the reset loop is no longer an issue, except for Shock Troopers 2. After the Neo Geo boot up animation, I get an error screen from the Uni Bios exception handler:

View attachment 44014

NeoSD team has confirmed that as far as they know, I'm the only one having this issue, which makes me wonder if the Uni Bios is at fault here.

I haven't tested the game on the original bios, but I'm planning to, unless someone is still stuck on 2.0, ideally with an MV1-FZ. That's issue one.

Issue number two is MOTW. I remember playing through the game before the NeoSD cartridge update, and I don't remember any issues. Now however, the game throws the error screen at me after a few rounds. The current stage music keeps playing, but I get white text on black background, not unlike the warning that software is not for use outside of country XXX, which says the game is designed to run on original hardware.

It would seem that game's protection is kicking in, refusing to run from a different board. I could swear it was running fine before. Any thoughts or solutions would be appreciated.


I've just briefly tested ST2 for you on my 1FZ. I let it run through the intro 4 times without issue. Does it happen every single time you run that game and always on the intro there? I am using a unibios 3.1 at the moment.

Have you checked if your 24Mhz crystal is grounded on the 1FZ? The other problems I've heard about on the 1FZ is where the slots need cleaning, but also where the bridge board connects to the 1FZ main board. It's worth cleaning up all those connections, and the slots, and check the crystal is grounded.
 
Last edited:

GadgetUK

Ace Ghost Pilot
Joined
Sep 27, 2013
Posts
1,323
With regards to MOTW - yes, I get protection popping up too after a round on my 1FZ!
 

Morden

Somewhere in Europe.,
Joined
Jul 5, 2005
Posts
711
With regards to MOTW - yes, I get protection popping up too after a round on my 1FZ!

I also get it on The King of Fighters '99. Same text, red letters, almost immediately after it boots, so I'd appreciate it if you could check that as well. Like I said, I don't remember these issues on the old firmware, which in turn suffered from reset loop issues. As for the crystal, I've seen your videos before, and this is what my board looks like. This is how I got it, and to my knowledge, it has never been fiddled with:

mv1fzcrystal.jpg

Edge contacts and slots on my board are clean as a whistle, but I cleaned them again. No dice. The NeoSD patch was a major improvement, so I started wondering if it's the Uni Bios. Like I said, I'm on the now ancient 2.0. I put the original bios back in, and tested it with Shock Troopers 2. This was the result:


It just keeps on resetting like that forever. This applies to the bootleg as well. The voltage on the powered on JAMMA is the only thing I haven't checked yet, but this would make Shock Troopers 2 the ONLY game affected by the issue, and I find that implausible. Still, I will dig up my multimeter and check at the earliest convenience.

Any and all alternative suggestions are welcome, as I'm at a loss. I don't have another system I could test my NeoSD with.
 
Last edited:

Razoola

Divine Hand of the UniBIOS,
Staff member
20 Year Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2002
Posts
4,662
reset your backupRAM, I guess it has corrupted.
 
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