Homebrew Neo Geo DS?

iq_132

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Is there a way to play Neo Geo games on the DS using an M3 Lite? Thanks in advance

The DS is not fast enough nor does it have enough ram to run neogeo games (at nearly a playable speed [without a lot of slow slow slow vram]), and definitely not for Neo-Geo CD ones (the Neo-Geo CD has ~7 mb of ram).
Believe me. I doubt there's anyone on this forum that knows more about that system than me.

*Edit*
Just wanted to specify a few things.
 

Mikerochip

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I doubt there's anyone on this forum that knows more about that system than me.

Ah reckon I'd give u a run for ur money
biggrin.gif
 
K

kaoken

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If you are really that desperate for neogeo action on a handheld, a psp would be a good option.
 

Mikerochip

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ah, well, i suppose a bit.

I'd know a bit about the tech specs, i suppose.

A bit about the architecture, how it all fits together.

Little things
smile.gif


I suppose I'd be able to rustle up some working code on it if i had to.

You know, stuff
smile.gif
 

iq_132

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Sweet, you in the arcade emulation scene at all? (maybe under a different nick?)
I contribute some things to MAME, FBA, and FBA-XXX every so often, it may be helpful to know someone with a little better understanding of 68k ASM than me, as mine is fairly rudimentary. It'd be a great help to have someone track down a few of the bugs I've come across while implementing Neo Geo CD support in FBA (It does run pretty well though
smile.gif
).
 

Hadrian

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NGPC emulation is pretty poor right now and I can never see Neo Geo emulation on a DS, maybe some of the ealier games you might get it going at about 10% speed but thats me being optimistic.
 

Mikerochip

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Sweet, you in the arcade emulation scene at all? (maybe under a different nick?)
I contribute some things to MAME, FBA, and FBA-XXX every so often, it may be helpful to know someone with a little better understanding of 68k ASM than me, as mine is fairly rudimentary. It'd be a great help to have someone track down a few of the bugs I've come across while implementing Neo Geo CD support in FBA (It does run pretty well though
smile.gif
).

Nope. I just don't have the interest any more.
And it kills me to write ASM - Its only if I really really have to any more,
and usually I don't.

I tried with the whole mame thing for a while - but,
I never learned C - just a couple of different types of ASM , and then Delphi
(And ASM in delphi
smile.gif
)

So, It just annoyed me working out the C code as to whats going on,
then working out what the c should actually be doing.

:offtopic:
About the only games I play are on the DS or EMU on the PSP.
Which annoys me, but, whatever.
/:offtopic:

Learned 68K ASM on the Atari ST
smile.gif


Any atari or Amiga ASM book should serve you pretty well for that, if thats all you want !

I've long since forgotten the names of them, but I can still remember the covers
smile.gif


I'm not a brilliant coder or anything, just interested in it, once upon a time!

-M
 

reaperman@home

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The DS is not fast enough nor does it have enough ram to run neogeo games (at nearly a playable speed [without a lot of slow slow slow vram]), and definitely not for Neo-Geo CD ones (the Neo-Geo CD has ~7 mb of ram).
Believe me.  I doubt there's anyone on this forum that knows more about that system than me.

*Edit*
Just wanted to specify a few things.

speed is going to be a problem, DS is a slow clunk. but neo geo emulators have been around for a very long time, neoragex must be a good 10 years old by now. I seem to recall running it with playable frameskip on a cyrix 120 (or maybe it was even the 486?). still I think either were more capable than the DS.
how much more ram does the expansion give the ds? another 4 mb? if it's another 4mb that should be enough for CDs or small games. And how does the read speed directly from the sd card compare to gp2x's? It doesn't have enough ram either and seems to read bits of the larger roms directly off sd.

really neo geos aren't that expensive, especially the mvs units, and they're worth more in cool points than emulation ever will be. I don't know why people get so fixed on emulating it, when life's just better on real hardware. Seriously the games are mostly $10-40 now.
 

iq_132

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Sweet, you in the arcade emulation scene at all? (maybe under a different nick?)
I contribute some things to MAME, FBA, and FBA-XXX every so often, it may be helpful to know someone with a little better understanding of 68k ASM than me, as mine is fairly rudimentary. It'd be a great help to have someone track down a few of the bugs I've come across while implementing Neo Geo CD support in FBA (It does run pretty well though
smile.gif
).

Nope. I just don't have the interest any more.
And it kills me to write ASM - Its only if I really really have to any more,
and usually I don't.

I tried with the whole mame thing for a while - but,
I never learned C - just a couple of different types of ASM , and then Delphi
(And ASM in delphi
smile.gif
)
C/C++ is soooo easy! And if you know those, it makes a few other languages extremely easy to pick up as well. ^^
So, It just annoyed me working out the C code as to whats going on,
then working out what the c should actually be doing.

:offtopic:
About the only games I play are on the DS or EMU on the PSP.
Which annoys me, but, whatever.
/:offtopic:

Learned 68K ASM on the Atari ST
smile.gif


Any atari or Amiga ASM book should serve you pretty well for that, if thats all you want !

I've long since forgotten the names of them, but I can still remember the covers
smile.gif


I'm not a brilliant coder or anything, just interested in it, once upon a time!

-M
I know the simple stuff that many books teach, I mean disassembling complex subs.
I'd like to simulate a larger portion of the Neo-Geo CD bios than what I am right now as it interfaces with
the CD-ROM drive unit itself (in a shared portion of RAM). Most of what it does is fairly undocumented and
needs to be worked out manually by reverse engineering some of the bios's functions. Like I meantioned
I don't have the necessary skills to do that (at least very well) by myself.


speed is going to be a problem, DS is a slow clunk. but neo geo emulators have been around for a very long time, neoragex must be a good 10 years old by now. I seem to recall running it with playable frameskip on a cyrix 120 (or maybe it was even the 486?). still I think either were more capable than the DS.Â
NeoRageX used x86 asm and a lot of speed hacks. The sound is not properly emulated either.
how much more ram does the expansion give the ds? another 4 mb? if it's another 4mb that should be enough for CDs or small games. And how does the read speed directly from the sd card compare to gp2x's? It doesn't have enough ram either and seems to read bits of the larger roms directly off sd.
The ram extension gives 8mb more, but afaik, the access is very very slow. It would make Neo-Geo CD possible, but still not plausible (due to the DS's cpus being very very slow).
really neo geos aren't that expensive, especially the mvs units, and they're worth more in cool points than emulation ever will be.
Neo-Geo systems (AES/MVS/CD/CDz) are all fairly expensive. Especially for hardware that was produced more than a decade and a half ago.
 I don't know why people get so fixed on emulating it, when life's just better on real hardware. Seriously the games are mostly $10-40 now.
None of the games that are worth playing are that cheap. A Metal Slug 1 AES cartridge can go for more than a thousand dollars.
 

reaperman@home

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None of the games that are worth playing are that cheap.  A Metal Slug 1 AES cartridge can go for more than a thousand dollars.

right, but the mvs metal slug is 1/10 of that and a metal slug 2 cart is $20. Really as far as mvs goes most carts are $10-40 (loose cart) with a few exceptions. And yes, a large number of the systems best titles are in that range.

The mvs hardware can be had for as little as $50 for a system board or if you hunt $250 for a full cab/game combo (u-haul it away shipping of course). I paid quite a bit more for mine, but I've been snatching up the low cost games like mad these days, the most I've ever spent on a game is $55 shipped and that was for mark of the wolves, but I tend to stay in the under $25 range otherwise.

MVS is less expensive and has better games then the next-gens IMO, not to mention the extra 'cool points' associated with owning one versus something they sell at kmart. Emulation has also never really felt right to me, probably my imagination though. And don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to snob emulation. I'm a firm believer in the try-before-you-buy club.
 

iq_132

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Quite cheap ^^ Legit carts? And I agree. Emulation is certainly never the same, there's not that feel like the original controller, the 'fuzziness' of the original video, or the fun of pulling an old cartridge out of the case, blowing on it a bit, and then slapping it in the console.
smile.gif
 

reaperman@home

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Quite cheap ^^ Legit carts? 
the best deals are on ebay, but certain stores are almost as reasonable price wise. (the top list is legit, 'special' list are boots)
of course 'legit cart' doesn't mean 100% collector quality, a fair number have label problems, either destroyed serials or totally new labels for a variety of reasons.

getting back on topic, the gp2x is somewhat similar but *much* faster with more memory, and still has a few speed problems. I expect that neo geo mvs emulation could be done, but pretty much just to say it has been done, much like the snes emulator on gba--which is incredible for what it is.

again the gp2x has a method of stripping bits off the larger roms that's worth looking into. Part of the game must be loaded into ram and the rest is accessed from SD (I don't know if it swaps into ram or reads directly). If the emu on 2x has an asm core, I wonder how different it could be for porting purposes. seriously, I'm asking, as I have no clue, and yes, I'm remembering that there is one helluva clock speed difference between the systems and it would be really slow.

the current version of it uses both gp2x CPUs, but previous versions only use one.
 

Rayder

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Years ago, I DL'd a full set NEO GEO emu for the PC and I have yet to find a game in it that doesn't run, but then again, I've not played them all. It has 182 NG games. I assume a few of them are homebrew. Many of the games I've played in the arcade and they sound EXACTLY the same to me, at least 99% accurate (maybe and occasional missing sound here and there, so who really cares if the sound is faked in some of them? Certainly better than paying big bucks just to have the actual console and games.

The one I got was called:
NeoRAGEx.5.0.

I looked it up in a P2P program and it's still available. It has a great frontend and is very playable. No slowdown or anything. Bit of a border around the screen, but again, who cares.

The one for DS that ran NGP/NGC games was called RACE, I think. It had pretty spotty compatibility though.
 

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