Universe Bios 4.0 MVS/AES released!

skate323k137

Professional College Dropout
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Jan 7, 2013
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4,245
Hi all,, thanks Razool for a wonderful bios
I’m trying to copy bios on to eprom st m27c4002.
Can I still just put the data in once ? as this eprom
I think is 4 times volume? Do I need to put it in twice
Just I think I copied correctly and I get watchdog...
Appreciate any help

You need to copy the file 4x into a new file to fill the chip ideally. In linux;

# cat file.bin file.bin file.bin file.bin > 4xfile.bin

In windows you can do with copy /b function, but I use Linux.

Then burn that to the 27c4002
 
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Neo Alec

Onigami Isle Castaway
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"Hiscore saving support on AES hardware by smkdan (memory card required)." Taken from the unibios website.

I've been looking around, but does this save MVS hiscores too? From reading the 2 slot manual, the MVS only saves up to 8 games' high scores/settings from my understanding, before erasing the last used one in order.

If Unibios can help me keep my scores and not have me worrying about the battery, that'd be great :)
Yeah, it works on MVS. The last character of the file user name must be an exclamation point.
 

kuze

Galford's Poppy Trainer
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You enter a name when you format the memory card IIRC and that's the one that must be named with a ! at the end.
 

geladobom

War Room Troll
Joined
Aug 26, 2020
Posts
524
Haze lied to me, it said when all the bios of neogeo was released the games i mean "prototypes and a few full versions" will be released in the mame project, but it never cames up at all.
It said that before the last bios came up.
S A D with big 3 letters. :cry:
What i got is a bunch of casino, gambling 🍆 & :poop: all over my desk.
Razoola i didn´t had the opportunity to say thank you so much for giving us the latest bios emulated on our computer.
NeoGeo updates on mame as been more slow then i was more younger.
But maybe everything is passing throw HBMAME, but i don´t see nothing interresting since today.
That's all.
 
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lithy

LoneSage: lithy is just some degenerate scumbag
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I wanted to add some recent experience I had. I just want to put this here in case anyone comes along later with similar troubleshooting issues. None of this is complaining, love Raz's work on the Unibios.

My hardware:

I have my Unibios 2.0 (which I am 99% sure I got from Raz around release). This was installed in the MV-4 board in my Big Red in 2004ish and was still in there when I bought it back.

I got a Unibios 4.0 with a soft reset patch to work with a Vortex All-in-One cart (modded 161-in-1) I got both the cart and bios from leonk.

I ended up with an MV-1A that had a Unibios 3.0 already in it from buyICnow.com. I bought this board mostly to get the unmodded 161-in-1 V3 multicart that came with it.

My issues:

The 2.0 bios seemed to work just like I remembered with the four carts it came with (SamSho1, KOF98, Slug X, and Windjammers). But I also did not use it extensively before getting the All-in-One and putting the patched 4.0 bios in.

With the All-in-One, the patched 4.0 bios worked as expected, I could soft reboot back to the menu. I mostly used this cart until I acquired a few more real carts. Once I did, I loaded up the four slots and started to notice some sound issues.

I found the comments from earlier in the thread that it is a known issue for multislots with 4.0 to need a cart in Slot 1 otherwise won't have sound. But beyond that, even with a full board, letting it cycle I would lose sound when it returned to the splash screen in attract mode between Slot 4 and 1. Sometimes on the first time through, sometimes it would work for a while but it seemed like no matter what I did, if I left it running in attract mode, eventually sound would drop out and the only way to get it back seemed to be a power cycling the cab.

Also as a minor issue a Ghostlop cart (I don't know the donor cart it's a PROG 4096 and a CHA-256, and chips are again from buyICnow.com) would show a garbled name in the Soft DIP settings as seen below. (Showed this way whether it was the only cart or if there was a full board).

PXL_20241208_150143522.jpg

My fix:

Ultimately I decided to try putting the 3.0 bios in my 4 slot, so far I have run three hours each on attract with two different combinations of four carts (four originals in one group, then three different originals and the Ghostlop in the other group) and still have sound.

The Ghostlop display name issue in the Soft DIP menu is also fixed. (this was taken before I reseated KOF98 in slot 2)

PXL_20241227_010109169.jpg

I suspect the 2.0 bios would be stable as well, but I'm not going to disassemble the board again at least at the moment. I put the patched 4.0 in the MV-1A and will likely just swap the board entirely if I want to use the All-in-One or PickNmix with the unmodded 161 and just use original carts with 3.0 on the 4 slot.
 

Neo Alec

Onigami Isle Castaway
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@lithy did you reset the backup ram each time you installed a different bios? I suspect clearing the memory would have fixed the garbled game title too.
 

lithy

LoneSage: lithy is just some degenerate scumbag
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@Neo Alec, The 4 slot spent a while without a battery and then I cleared the backup RAM through the test menu after installing the 4.0. Although I guess I don't know that I specifically cleared it after noticing the garbled name, I would have used a few other carts before Ghostlop, so I'm not sure.

I did not clear it after switching it over to the 3.0, although I did remove the battery again and had to reset the date and time. I kinda think it's a small compatibility issue, especially since every other cart name was fine, but if I get a chance to do some more testing I can make sure I clear the RAM first.

I did notice that whoever made this Ghostlop used unsplit roms. The one I made on a SamSho2 board 20 years ago I think was double the amount of C, V, and P roms.

PXL_20241207_213000412.jpgPXL_20241207_213005831.jpg
 
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Razoola

Divine Hand of the UniBIOS,
Staff member
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The ghostlop issue is probably related to backupram as mentioned. clearing the backupram might fix that issue with 4.0.
Certainly with 161 in one, it uses the backupram in a custom way to fit all the games into it, its not advisable to go from 161 in 1 to normal carts without clearing the backupram between.
 

lithy

LoneSage: lithy is just some degenerate scumbag
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@Razoola Thanks! Glad you're still poking in here every so often!

I'm thinking I like the idea of keeping the 161s in use on the 1 slot and have the 4 slot available to use with individual carts, being able to retain high scores and run a more traditional 4 slot style cab attract mode (although PickNmix is great by the way). I guess I knew the multicarts cleared the ram somehow when used because they would erase score data for other carts, but I didn't realize that it was an integral part of their operation.

If you have time for a few more questions:

Is the audio drop out in attract mode something that sounds typical like has been mentioned earlier in the thread? I know mine is a patched version of 4.0 that you wouldn't be able to vouch for so at some point I should get an unpatched 4.0 to have as well to try on the 4 slot.

Next, do you have any way to contribute to you as thanks for your work? I know at this point you're not selling chips, but just a donation link or anything.

Last, just out of curiosity, I haven't been able to confirm for sure from old posts of mine that I definitely got my 2.0 from you, there is no serial on the bottom of the chip and any paperwork that might have come with it is long gone by now. I definitely didn't burn it myself having never flashed my own eproms, and I can't imagine I would have gone through anybody else 20 years ago. Just wondered if you might recognize it from the chip label or if you have any other way to confirm it came from you.

PXL_20241111_002014159~2.jpg
 

Razoola

Divine Hand of the UniBIOS,
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That 2.0 is not an original I know that. There are some known issues with 4.0 on multislot. As for your patched 4.0, I would need to know more about it, like how was it patched?
 

lithy

LoneSage: lithy is just some degenerate scumbag
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That 2.0 is not an original I know that. There are some known issues with 4.0 on multislot. As for your patched 4.0, I would need to know more about it, like how was it patched?

Thanks. Bummer I didn't get it from you, now I definitely owe you a donation.

As far as I know, the patch is the one here called Back To Menu.


It solves an issue with the modified 161, the Unibios soft reboot only soft reboots the current game and does not kick you back out to the menu until you power cycle the board. The back to menu command on the unmodified 161 (hold start for ~5 seconds, I think), doesn't work. I don't know enough after that to understand the why of either case.
 
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