Level 8 difficulty on NGCD?

[Hyacinth]

Hi, everyone. I'm sorry if this is not the best place to post this question, but...
The NeoGeo CD is one of my favorite systems, and I am saving money to buy a front loader NGCD, that's my dream. There are many retro games I like, such as Robo Army, Mutation Nation and Metal Slug, that run okay on this system.
The problem is, I am a somewhat hardcore gamer, and I really enjoy doing 1CC and RTA, specially on Level 8, on MVS(however Level 1 and Level 4 runs also have their purpose), so I would like to use my NGCD to do this on real hardware at home but aparently the NGCD and AES do not support Level 8?

The difficulty levels are as follows:
Easy: Level 1
Normal: Level 3
Hard: Level 6
MVS: Level 4

In that sense, Level 8 would be "Very Hard", which is available in the Steam ports of Metal Slug and Metal Slug X on the PSX for instance, but there is no Very Hard on NGCD.
Since most NGCD games are "conversions" from the original NeoGeo, is there any secret or mod to access Level 8 on NGCD?, is the Uni-Bios capable of doing that, perhaps?

 

[Neo_Mike_81]

Good question never thought about that when I had a Neo CD back in the 00's I usually picked MVS and that was it.

 

[Hyacinth]

The MVS is great!, specially now that we can have a consolized MVS with Uni-Bios. It is probably the best option right now, but I really love the NGCD. =)

 

[Neo Alec]

Perhaps a NGCD Unibios?

Are you sure "Hard"=6? I would just set it to the highest available difficulty on the NGCD. In most games there's usually almost no noticeable difference, if any at all.

 

[BBH]

Neo CD games are pretty much identical to AES games in terms of difficulty selection - a lot of the games from the first couple years (1990-1991) don't even have difficulty selection at all. Something like NAM-1975 will just plop you into the game with no choice of difficulty setting whatsoever. Some later ones will have the Easy/Medium/MVS/Hard selections like you mentioned. Some of the newer stuff (i.e. fighting games) may have all 8 levels to select from - KOF 95 gives the option to select all 8 levels (but the Neo CD is not really a system that was made for KOF).

If you want full control over difficulty level for every game, you have to go MVS.

 

[joe8]

The Neo Geo CD is fully a home console, that's why you can't usually change the difficulty to all 8 settings. You're restricted to the arcade features that SNK decided to include.
The AES is essentially the same hardware as the MVS, but you still have to be running a game in MVS mode to get all eight settings (which requires a UniBios).
All AES games (as far as I know), or games running in AES mode, give you a choice of four settings (Easy, Normal, MVS, Hard).
On easier games like fighters, or Metal Slug 1, you may want to increase the difficulty past the MVS setting. If you'e practising to do a 1CC, you might want to go lower or higher than MVS difficulty. But normally, MVS is the main difficulty setting to beat the game on.

 

[Hyacinth]

Perhaps a NGCD Unibios?

Are you sure "Hard"=6? I would just set it to the highest available difficulty on the NGCD. In most games there's usually almost no noticeable difference, if any at all.

At first, I had to test this by "feeling", but then in order to make sure, I used an emulator with UniBios so I could boot into AES and still access MVS Soft Dips, and there I enabled Level display. Then using Metal Slug 2 as a reference. I selected each difficulty level from the AES in-game menu (easy, normal, hard and MVS), and observed as the MVS level display now displayed which level I was him. I tried a few other games, but only Metal Slug games would keep the level display on AES mode for some reason.

I can't confirm, but it seems the NGCD UniBios can only access Debug Dip Switches and it also retains that "patch memory" option from what I have seen on a video, so I was wondering if something can be done about this situation with those options. The UniBios 3.3 is available for the Front Loader NGCD as well, so I would consider installing one. I know Debug Dip Switches activates developer options, but I am not sure what that "patch memory" does and if it could help me. I wonder if anyone here knows?

Neo CD games are pretty much identical to AES games in terms of difficulty selection - a lot of the games from the first couple years (1990-1991) don't even have difficulty selection at all. Something like NAM-1975 will just plop you into the game with no choice of difficulty setting whatsoever. Some later ones will have the Easy/Medium/MVS/Hard selections like you mentioned. Some of the newer stuff (i.e. fighting games) may have all 8 levels to select from - KOF 95 gives the option to select all 8 levels (but the Neo CD is not really a system that was made for KOF).

If you want full control over difficulty level for every game, you have to go MVS.

The MVS would be the better choice, but since I love the front loader NGCD so much, I'm at a loss. I can only buy one, but if I could buy both, that would still be redundant. That's so unfortunate =(, but thank you!

The Neo Geo CD is fully a home console, that's why you can't usually change the difficulty to all 8 settings. You're restricted to the arcade features that SNK decided to include.
The AES is essentially the same hardware as the MVS, but you still have to be running a game in MVS mode to get all eight settings (which requires a UniBios).
All AES games (as far as I know), or games running in AES mode, give you a choice of four settings (Easy, Normal, MVS, Hard).
On easier games like fighters, or Metal Slug 1, you may want to increase the difficulty past the MVS setting. If you'e practising to do a 1CC, you might want to go lower or higher than MVS difficulty. But normally, MVS is the main difficulty setting to beat the game on.

I thought the NGCD also had the same hardware as the MVS, but was I mistaken?. I just noticed it is only possible to access the MVS Soft Dips thanks to UniBios as you said, so if the hardware is the same, do you think the Soft Dips are still in there and the UniBios would be able to access it?

By the way, thank you all for your answers!, I love you guys.

 

[Hawwa]

If you can only afford one, buy an MVS. Main problem is then purchasing games, on the ngcd you can go the old piracy way and just play but for MVS you will have to spend some money on games.

 

[Digmac]

If you can only afford one, buy an MVS. Main problem is then purchasing games, on the ngcd you can go the old piracy way and just play but for MVS you will have to spend some money on games.

The 161 in 1 is a classic solution for this for people on a budget.

 

[Burning Fight!!]

Some neo-geo CD games (especially those straight ass ports from early games) do have debug dipsw that correspond 1:1 to their MVS counterparts (Magician Lord...) but the majority doesn't and have the debug dipsw be a mirror of the options you already get normally through an options screen ingame, or simply ignore a lot of it. Metal Slug is one where the difficult switch is literally Easy/Normal/Hard instead of Level 1-8, so no much point in not using the options screen anyway aside from blood on/off.

The Neo CD SD Loader allows you to change those at will with a key combo not unlike an unibios. And trivia time, apparently Magician Lord is set to Level-1 on the CD version.

EDIT: if there's any specific game you'd like to see the options screen and debug dipsw, please let me know. I highly recommend you to try to find a SD Loader if at all possible if you're planning to go the CD route, because actual CD playback is not really worth it on 100-mega shock era games, but to be honest if I was starting now I'd just get a bananacart and consolize an MVS board, you'll have all the features you want unrestricted that way. Plus the CD pad is hard to find in an usable state, you'll probably have to do a bit of soldering and find those rare ass microswitches (I basically had to cannibalize a second pad to have 1 pad with all good microswitches lol)

 

[Atro]

Just be a man and play 'em all in the hardest setting

 

[Hawwa]

The 161 in 1 is a classic solution for this for people on a budget.

Yes, I completely forgot about the 161in1, good point.

Some neo-geo CD games (especially those straight ass ports from early games) do have debug dipsw that correspond 1:1 to their MVS counterparts (Magician Lord...) but the majority doesn't and have the debug dipsw be a mirror of the options you already get normally through an options screen ingame, or simply ignore a lot of it. Metal Slug is one where the difficult switch is literally Easy/Normal/Hard instead of Level 1-8, so no much point in not using the options screen anyway aside from blood on/off.

The Neo CD SD Loader allows you to change those at will with a key combo not unlike an unibios. And trivia time, apparently Magician Lord is set to Level-1 on the CD version.

EDIT: if there's any specific game you'd like to see the options screen and debug dipsw, please let me know. I highly recommend you to try to find a SD Loader if at all possible if you're planning to go the CD route, because actual CD playback is not really worth it on 100-mega shock era games, but to be honest if I was starting now I'd just get a bananacart and consolize an MVS board, you'll have all the features you want unrestricted that way. Plus the CD pad is hard to find in an usable state, you'll probably have to do a bit of soldering and find those rare ass microswitches (I basically had to cannibalize a second pad to have 1 pad with all good microswitches lol)

I'll be selling a top loader with an sdloader in a few days/weeks but shipping from Spain to Brazil will be expensive as fuck...

 

[BlackaneseNiNjA]

...Plus the CD pad is hard to find in an usable state, you'll probably have to do a bit of soldering and find those rare ass microswitches (I basically had to cannibalize a second pad to have 1 pad with all good microswitches lol)

Hey whats up Burning Fight!!. There’s a few non-destructive ways to restore functionality to neo cd controllers that has worked well for me over the decades of abuse I’ve put the cd units through. I’ve tried a lot of methods over the years including removing and cleaning the metal pads within the individual microswitches (this works but removes the trademark “click” from the switch itself). The following worked wonders on all subsequent pad issues if you’re interested:

Using this method did a much better job of removing the contaminants and oxidation that was impeding the performance of the individual switches.

 

[BBH]

Just be a man and play 'em all in the hardest setting

Nah.

You really, really don't want to play Magician Lord on Level-8.

 

[Burning Fight!!]

Yes, I completely forgot
I'll be selling a top loader with an sdloader in a few days/weeks but shipping from Spain to Brazil will be expensive as fuck...

But I do have one already lol. Thanks for the offer though.

Nah.

You really, really don't want to play Magician Lord on Level-8.

Hahah I'm glad you got to try this yourself after I tweeted my video. So ridiculous you'll see slowdown eventually (and the game never does that normally).
I found the claim of level-8'ing games a bit dubious from OP but I let it slide...

 

[Burning Fight!!]

Hey whats up Burning Fight!!. There’s a few non-destructive ways to restore functionality to neo cd controllers that has worked well for me over the decades of abuse I’ve put the cd units through. I’ve tried a lot of methods over the years including removing and cleaning the metal pads within the individual microswitches (this works but removes the trademark “click” from the switch itself). The following worked wonders on all subsequent pad issues if you’re interested:
Using this method did a much better job of removing the contaminants and oxidation that was impeding the performance of the individual switches.

I'll have to try that out once I get to play my Neo CD again, aside from the now switch-less second pad, I do have a third one that I put into storage until I could find more microswitches so it's going to be a nice way to test that method.

 

[joe8]

The Neo Geo can't even render that many sprites in that ML video on Level 8- a lot of sprite flicker. I don't think SNK expected many arcade operators to set their games to Level 8, so it didn't matter if there was flicker or slowdown from too many sprites.

Just be a man and play 'em all in the hardest setting

You don't need to do anything more than play on the MVS setting, to be a man.

 

[Neo Alec]

That amount of flicker and slowdown was better than normal back then. If anything, that's an impressive showing from the hardware.

 

[Burning Fight!!]

It's always easy to underestimate how much shit the Neo-Geo is doing, as I said in another thread about ports. Even ignoring VRAM space hardly any hardware could be pushing that many sprites per scanline excluding obvious stuff from the arcade realm.

A home port would have sprite drop-outs with 5 of those spawned enemies, and that's me being generous.

 

[joe8]

I found the claim of level-8'ing games a bit dubious from OP but I let it slide...

I've 1cc'ed Shock Troopers on level 8. And I could probably do that on an easy game like Metal Slug 1 as well. And most Neo Geo fighters would be feasible to 1cc them on level 8, if you had techniques to beat the bosses. So, the inherent difficulty of a game matters, as well as the difficulty setting it's set to.

 

[slugger_dan]

That level 8 Magician Lord video is pretty funny…the game on normal difficulty settings isn’t too bad to 1cc if you keep the default form all the way through along with POW3 shots. Some bosses need a certain strategy but some die easily just by walking up close and mashing the A button. There’s no recovery time on the projectile so it's really down to how fast you can mash.

Kizuna and Samsho3 are another 2 fighting games that are pretty easy to 1cc on level 8.