NEO4ALL/AES alpha released

[chui]

Alpha version of NEO4ALL (http://chui.dcemu.co.uk/neo4all.html) fork for playing NEOGEO roms under Dreamcast.

First, you need convert your NEOGEO game roms with convert tool included.
Second, toast all files of dreamcast directory and place your converted roms where you want.

At the moment, 10 large games have preliminar prefetch for fine playing:
- Art Of Fighting.
- Blazing Star.
- Captain Tomaday.
- Magical Drop III.
- Metal Slug X.
- Shock Troopers.
- Aero Fighters 3 / Sonic Wings 3.
- SNK vs Capcom - SVC Chaos.
- Tecmo World Soccer '96.
- Zed Blade / Operation Ragnarok.

Games below 16MBytes can be played without problems, i have tested 44 games. Another games of compatibily list can be loaded, but you will have a lot of cdrom read switching.

See README.txt.

Download here (http://chui.dcemu.co.uk/releases/neo4all_aes-alpha.rar).
Problems and comments about your tests here (http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=14926).

[obelisk]

cool beans, Thanks chui, and Fox68k, and Team DCiberia, you WIN top DC coders Team award. if i could, i would buy U guys a round of your fave pints. It would be relaesed when i don't have any cdr's, heh. next week i get paid, so: Bills, Presents, and CDR's.

[dcsteve]

does it still work as a bootdisc for neocd games like beta 4.

[quzar]

no, this is a completely seperate program. also, you do realize that it is illegal to release a program under gpl without releasing the source code at the same time right?

[SlyBeast]

I wasn't sure if this should go under the "tests" topic or not so my apologies in advance if it should have...

Anyway, first I'd like to say thanks for this emulator and the NEO4ALL CD emulator. I've enjoyed the CD emulator thoroughly and I respect all the hard work you guys put into it.

Now, with this one I'm having a bit of trouble. I can't get the .zip files to convert to .aes. The bios files are placed as instructed in the readme, but when I try to convert the .zip I get this error:

"No valid romset found for source rom file"

I'm not sure what it means; can anyone help me? Thanks in advance.

My syntax is as follows: convertneo svcplus.zip

[BaldMonk]

I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to use this converter. Any chance someone could create a simple GUI for it please? Whenever I try to access it from the DOS prompt I just get an error message.

Cheers. Can't wait to try this thing.

[chui]

... you do realize that it is illegal to release a program under gpl without releasing the source code at the same time right?

Only it is a alpha preview of a new fork, the main source code is published.
I will release all source code when i will build a new html for NEO4ALL.
But if you want it, you can download sources here:
CONVERTNEO (http://chui.dcemu.co.uk/releases/convertneo-src-05-12-2005.tar.bz2)
NEO4ALL/AES (http://chui.dcemu.co.uk/releases/neo4all-src-05-12-2005.tar.bz2)




... with this one I'm having a bit of trouble. I can't get the .zip files to convert to .aes. The bios files are placed as instructed in the readme, but when I try to convert the .zip I get this error:

"No valid romset found for source rom file"

I'm not sure what it means; can anyone help me? Thanks in advance.

My syntax is as follows: convertneo svcplus.zip

Maybe this 'svcplus.zip' not a valid romset, uncompress it to temporary folder and search 'svcplus' on romrc file (description rom list of gnegeo emulator).

Also, sure that convertneo.exe, svcplus.zip and romrc files are in same directory, convertneo directory with prefetch and bios subdirectories.



I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to use this converter. Any chance someone could create a simple GUI for it please? Whenever I try to access it from the DOS prompt I just get an error message.

Cheers. Can't wait to try this thing.

Sorry and yes, we need a GUI/Front-end of rom converter. Anybody wants build it?

[NixMix]

Are these files:

ng-lo.rom
ng-sfix.rom
sfix.sfx
aes-bios.bin

the same as these ones:


NeoCD.bin
Neo-Geo.rom
Ng-Lo.rom
Ng-Sfix.rom
Ng-Sm1.rom
?
Do I have to rename the files or...what?!?

[M Dash]

chui and Fox68k... YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST!! YOU ROX! :-D

[chui]

Are these files:

ng-lo.rom
ng-sfix.rom
sfix.sfx
aes-bios.bin

the same as these ones:


NeoCD.bin
Neo-Geo.rom
Ng-Lo.rom
Ng-Sfix.rom
Ng-Sm1.rom
?
Do I have to rename the files or...what?!?

Please, don't post your problems and comments here, i open a new thread for this:
http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=14926

[benoitlol]

Thank you very much for this release !! :)
I'll try it now!!
Metal Slug X and Shock Troopers on dreamcast...?? oh yessssss!!!

thanks!!

[dcsteve]

Clessy's friend made this GUI easy to use convertor, just put it in the same folder as the game of choice. You no longer need to add .zip extension. If your game is mslugx.zip, just type mslugx

EDIT by MetaFox: Clessy is a backstabber for leaking a beta when he was trusted by the author to keep the build to himself, and as such he will not be allowed to be promoted here.

[David Lynch]

Guys, thanks for your hard work, and the joy we get from your efforts!

The Dreamcast emulation scene has reawaken my interest in my good old dreamcast. Im not only playing emulators, but also my collection of old games. Im even getting some new for christmas (and a new controller) (check www.wolfsoft.de)

Dreamcast, ROCK ON!!! :D

[Christuserloeser]

LOL! Even David Lynch is playing Neo4All on his Dreamcast ;)

Thanks a lot for this fantastic emulator! I really cannot wait to give this goddess of an emu a try :)

@ Quzar: Cool down mate. I am sure a PM would have been worked too.
You really need to stop insulting Chui and Fox68k with every second post you do. I cant remember that Chui & Fox ever would not have released the source code to their work.

[quzar]

I don't see why you think it's an insult. He did something illegal, I brought it to his attention. The point is you are supposed to release them together, and give credit to contributors (such as mamez80 and sdl).

[NixMix]

I played Last Resort on Dreamcast yesterday...great fun!
Thanks a lot for this emu!

[David Lynch]

@christuserlöser

Sure, if David had a favourite console... It would be the Dreamcast.

And of course, other underground consoles ;)

[SiZiOUS]

Thanks for the info !!! ;)

Chui tu es gigante !!! ;)

[AkumuHau]

so this can't play games like Rage Of The Dragons yet?

[drcacho]

Hi, i made a little tool for batch convert roms with convertneo. Just put the executable on the convertneo.exe folder and execute.

Enjoy

[Christuserloeser]

drcacho, thanks for releasing this GUI! Been using it for my disc. Very nice :)

[chui]

Hi, i made a little tool for batch convert roms with convertneo. Just put the executable on the convertneo.exe folder and execute.

Enjoy

Thanks for GUI.

[Christuserloeser]

I have to say it's incredible how good most games do work with this emu. Very close to perfection. Thank you once again Chui :)

*bows*

I got some questions: When will FAZE be implemented into Neo4All ? Will Neo4All/AES & Neo4All/CD merge at some point ?

[chui]

Yes, NEO4ALL/CD and NEO4ALL/AES are 2 fork of same source emulator like mame and mess.

But implement FAZE spends a long time.

[ace3093]

I keep getting a bad file when i download. Anyone else getting this?

[fox68k]

I have to say it's incredible how good most games do work with this emu. Very close to perfection. Thank you once again Chui :)

*bows*

I got some questions: When will FAZE be implemented into Neo4All ? Will Neo4All/AES & Neo4All/CD merge at some point ?

Unfortunately, the merge has some issues :(. Chui and me were talking about that before AES release, and we were agree about some memory restrictions:

We should not keep Neo-Geo CD BIOS (512 KB) in RAM because that will put AES memory capabilities under pressure. AES wants as much free RAM as you can. Otherwise, we could allocate and deallocate BIOS depending on console mode. However, that will force user to put in the BIOS disc inside DC anytime we want to go back to CD mode.
In addition, many code differs making things harder.

In practice, you may think you will only play in one mode (AES/CD) each time you turn on Neo4all, but who knows...

Anyway, i want to see the two creatures in the same thing too, of course. Lately, FAME has lightweighted notably (around 170 KB) and FAZE will be smaller than current z80 core so let we see what can we do here.

Greetings.

[fox68k]

I got some questions: When will FAZE be implemented into Neo4All ?

Hard to say for the moment. If you want to know about FAZE progress, take a look at this topic (http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=72611#post72611).

[odino]

Hi, it is possible to compress the rom gfx with the Vector Quantization of dreamcast?

[Christuserloeser]

Chui & Fox, thanks for your replies. I've been playing Neo4All/CD & AES a lot lately. I can't thank you enough for your great work with the emus :)

It's almost scary how good this emulator is ;)


We should not keep Neo-Geo CD BIOS (512 KB) in RAM because that will put AES memory capabilities under pressure. AES wants as much free RAM as you can. Otherwise, we could allocate and deallocate BIOS depending on console mode. However, that will force user to put in the BIOS disc inside DC anytime we want to go back to CD mode.
In addition, many code differs making things harder.

In practice, you may think you will only play in one mode (AES/CD) each time you turn on Neo4all, but who knows...

Anyway, i want to see the two creatures in the same thing too, of course. Lately, FAME has lightweighted notably (around 170 KB) and FAZE will be smaller than current z80 core so let we see what can we do here.

Cutting the size of FAME for about 170 KB is very impressive !

Regarding merging both emus: I think it probably would be the best to switch the whole emus ! If you'd add a menu option to switch between CD/AES (and maybe later on MVS) emulation, the whole .BIN (including NEOCD.BIN) would be unloaded from RAM and the other emu would be loaded. That way the emus still would be seperate projects with their different code, but for the user it would feel like one big NeoGeo emulator :)

Would that be possible ?

If you ever merge both emus, the Neo4All/CD MOD would have my vote for the menu music. I love that brilliant tune! Great find that is! :)