Neo Save Masta use

[Tanooki]

I got one in today and I was curious about general usage with it as I never had any form of memory card before. It appears to fit snug into the slot fine withe victoly joke emblem with the dipswitch facing down just fine.

I had 8man int he slot, went for a high score and it never accessed it. I went into the softdip (no unibios here) and rolled through the hardware test and upon hitting memory card screen it had the option to hit a button to flash it, but it also didn't note on screen that one was inserted at all which has me concerned.

Is there anything I can do or do I have a damaged card or card reader by any chance?

 

[GohanX]

Memory cards aren't for saving high scores, they are for saving progress in a game. Probably the easiest way to check is to stick a fighting game in, when you lose it will ask if you want to save your progress if a memory card is detected.

I believe newer revisions of the unibios will save high scores as well, but I haven't updated the uni on mine so I couldn't tell you for sure how that works.

 

[Tanooki]

I just tried Magician Lord and took it to stage 2. I then ate it, 'saved' and then went back to the title. it start press start to continue from memory card and it went back to the start of the game.

 

[egg_sanwich]

Could be a dirty memory card reader. Those things just soak up dust in an arcade environment with no dust flaps.

Open it up, take it apart and try to clean out the pins. I used a piece of paper dipped in isopropyl wrapped around a credit card to wipe between the rows of pins. Be careful not to bend any.

Good luck!

 

[RAZO]

I just tried Magician Lord and took it to stage 2. I then ate it, 'saved' and then went back to the title. it start press start to continue from memory card and it went back to the start of the game.

If the system sees the memory card then its working fine. Like Gohan said, the memory card isn't for saving scores, it's for picking up were you left off .

Try going to stage 3 and save again and see what happens.

 

[kuze]

Also make sure you've formatted the card via the BIOS menu (though I believe NTM pre-formats them ahead of time).

 

[Tanooki]

Issue was worse than what you all assumed but with a steady hand and a tool I got in a soldering kit I fixed it.

I removed the board entirely then removed the sleeve and found some ditz abused it in the past years ago (the home owner of it before me had no save card.) 3 pins were jacked up, two bent diagonally and a third was crushed down almost an L shape along the bottom. I got them as straight as possible then use the NTM card to line it up fine the rest of the way. Have a long tool with an edge flat end on one side and a pin point on the other that could get in there

It works now, guess 8man doesnt save but going to Magician Lord and into the hardware test before showed a formatted card in the slot after that. While I was at it as it had been nagging me, some other doofus attached the audio cables in reverse so the L and R speakers were swapped so I pulled some slack from the zip tied cables and changed that too. As it is now its all good. Ive so far thrown Magician Lord and Bust-A-Move at it and they both ask for the memory card so its fine now.

Thanks anyway, glad I got impatient and started digging and was capable of straightening the pins. Probably just going to leave the card in there to protect it now.

 

[egg_sanwich]

Yup, bent pins will do that too. Glad it was an easy fix!

 

[Tanooki]

Yeah no doubt I was paranoid sitting there trying to use that conal pin tip end of a wand I had to get under that crushed one, the other two were fairly easy using the flat angled edge bit. Once I was able to slot the card in a few times it all evened out great. The last thing Id want to end up doingi s find a replacement slot then hope I can deal with the soldering on it. With that and the reversed audio fixed up, I need something on ebay to sell or try here and get that unibios for the thing and Im solid.

 

[Razoola]

For highscore saving to memory card you will need a unibios that supports it.

Raz

 

[Tanooki]

Thanks I know, I just still have yet to order it and I really should. Just had bad luck the last couple ebay weeks selling basically nothing then my laptop hdd ate it so I am stuck on a tablet with a micro keyboard so I kind of put it on the backburner along with other stuff.

 

[Tanooki]

Hey I just discovered and oddity with the NSM with a multicart. I have the popular big 161in1 and when the NSM is slotted into the memory card port you can no longer hold 1P Start for a few seconds to pop the menu back up to select another title, but if you remove it then it is fine.

Anyone know if theirs does this or other multicarts? Im just curious as I found it interesting also kind of wondering why it would do that too.

 

[Razoola]

That is a known problem with the 161n1, its not just related to the NSM, it affects official SNK memory cards also.

 

[Tanooki]

Fascinating, thanks. Makes me curious if any of the others have a fit with it too.

As it is though, it gives me more motivation to shelve the stupid thing and use my legit carts anyway of which a few are already on it anyway and quite a few considered good to excellent games it lacks. Frees up a spot for something awesome. I left in 8man, removed the 161 and tossed in Aerofighters 2 to replace it for now.

 

[Reclaimer]

For highscore saving to memory card you will need a unibios that supports it.

Raz

Wait, MVS high scores save to the card with Unibios? I actually had no idea, super cool.

Always thought it was just the last handful saved to system battery memory.

 

[Razoola]

Yes, it does on MVS with unibio. Very helpfull if you have dodgy backupRAM.

 

[Neo Alec]

How do you use high score saving on MVS? My backup ram has to be cleared a lot. Does it get saved to the ram, then additionally to a file on the card? Can I see the file in the memory manager? Does the data get loaded back into the ram when I play the game?

 

[Razoola]

It works in an identical way to how AES works (which does not have backupRAM). The physical natue of backupRAM on an MVS is totally ignored when saving highscores to memorycard on MVS. The same limits however relating to games that wipe highscores on a daily basis also currently applies to the save on memorycard when used on MVS (does not affect AES). I will probably address this in a future unibios release.

 

[Gyrian]

I have to say I didn't realize UNIBIOS had this feature (3.2 here).
Turned it on the first bank of my SaveMasta and I'm loving it!
Thanks for implementing this one, Raz.

 

[aha2940]

I have to say I didn't realize UNIBIOS had this feature (3.2 here).
Turned it on the first bank of my SaveMasta and I'm loving it!
Thanks for implementing this one, Raz.

It works great with the slugs, blazing star and a few others that are the ones I play the most. Too bad the NGDev games do not play ball with the UniBIOS, so their scores are not (can not?) saved.