Neo Geo folder - is it worth it?

[thelostsoul]

I use FBA, MAME and Neo Geo for Arcade games. I like to have Neo Geo separately, because its a console on its own too and I have all settings and games related to Neo Geo on one place. I don't mind if it is using the same core as FBA. I even have different button mappings for Neo Geo. I also setup it with the AES BIOS, so it works like the console with normal continues (no coins needed or supported) and the options menu. I like them to be separated from regular Arcade coin games, the differences and changes are big enough to distinguish them.

[thelostsoul]

But I have a question, not sure if I should create a new thread.

As I mentioned above, I use FBA and MAME folder for Arcade games, because I don't need to change and select an emulator for each rom and all emulator related roms are at one place. But at the same time, I would like them all showing up in Arcade folder only, but the way they stay where they are, just showing them in Arcade. Is this possible?

[caver01]

@thelostsoul I would say anything is possible, but this is not how it is designed to work. You would have to customize a lot of things. For example, I am thinking of using a bunch of dummy ROM files in Arcade, but modifying launch commands to include the actual paths to the real roms. This seems like a big mess to maintain, and you would still need to use Runcommand to select the launching emulator. You would, in effect, be selecting the launch path by doing so. They would probably each need custom config files too. Then you would have to remove the default systems unless you wanted both to show up.

Maybe there are easier techniques, but to me, a setup like this would be harder to maintain than just keeping track the details and combining the ROMs in the Arcade folder.

[mitu]

@thelostsoul said in Neo Geo folder - is it worth it?:

Is this possible?

You could create a custom collection ("All Arcade") and add there any ROM from the FBA/MAME folders. This way you have your unified view and each ROM will be launched with the right emulator. As opposed to adding them also in the Arcade folder and keeping separate config-per-rom settings for the emulator used.

[thelostsoul]

I am doing a lot of custom collections, but I wanted this one to be automated like the other systems. I also want to have Arcade as main system and hiding FBA and MAME. In my mind, nothing should be touched and working like it is, but just all of them are put together to showed up like "ALL GAMES", only showing up FBA and MAME.

Maybe the easiest way is to put all roms in Arcade folder. Is it possible to put symbolic links or something like I saw with Genesis and to Mega Drive folder?

[mitu]

@thelostsoul The issue with the Arcade folder, as @caver01 explained, is that you must manually configure the MAME emulator used for ROMs (not all, but the ones that are not run with the default for Arcade). You can put all your Arcade roms in arcade and then make sure each ROM works.
Symbolic links won't help in your case, becase the emulator choice is per system (arcade) and it's not deduced from your symlink.

[thelostsoul]

Thank you for your replies. I think there is no easy way to do this. Sorry for hijacking this thread.

Back to topic, yes Neo Geo folder is worth it; reason are said abov.

[MrSkyle]

@thelostsoul No need to apologize, it was an interesting question! I enjoyed all your opinions and feel tempted to go with the Neo Geo-separated folder approach (duplicate the NG roms already existing in the FBA romset rather than moving them) in order to have both versions (arcade and console) of the same game.

A couple of questions though:

• Would you consider the list of GnGeo-Pi roms listed here to build your separate NeoGeo romset? I'm assuming they can all be found in the most recent FBA romset... Otherwise, what other rom list would you suggest?
• Where can I find more info about that AES bios and how to use it?

[thelostsoul]

@mrskyle I agree, this is a cool place to ask questions. :-)

• I am not familiar with GnGeo-Pi, but looking at that linked page, it is nothing else than a more recent version of Mame (which is 0.138) than default lr-mame2003 (which is v0.78). The problem with newer Mame versions is that more new the Mame is, more accurate and processing hungry it gets; that means (especially on new games) the raspberry pi could have not enough power. But if you want try it out, then just look for romset of MAME 0.138, which is GnGeo-Pi using. If roms from FBA are working, I cannot say that.
  And FBA is a really new emulator, which is optimized and working better with raspberry pi than a recent Mame version. So what is my recommendation? Stay with FBA, unless there is a really good reason to switch. You can just duplicate them, if you want have both versions, arcade and neo geo mode.

• list itemAbout AES, I don't remember where I got the right BIOS files. I did have different versions of Neo Geo BIOS with drastically different content. The one I use contains 32 files, have a size of 1,7 MB and these are the containing files:
  "
  000-lo.lo
  asia-s3.rom
  files
  japan-j3.bin
  neodebug.bin
  neo-epo.bin
  neopen.sp1
  neo-po.bin
  sfix.sfix
  sm1.sm1
  sp1.jipan.1024
  sp-1v1_3db8c.bin
  sp-45.sp1
  sp-e.sp1
  sp-j2.sp1
  sp-s2.sp1
  sp-s.sp1
  sp-u2.sp1
  uni-bios_1_0.rom
  uni-bios_1_1.rom
  uni-bios_1_2o.rom
  uni-bios_1_2.rom
  uni-bios_1_3.rom
  uni-bios_2_0.rom
  uni-bios_2_1.rom
  uni-bios_2_2.rom
  uni-bios_2_3o.rom
  uni-bios_2_3.rom
  uni-bios_3_0.rom
  uni-bios_3_1.rom
  uni-bios_3_2.rom
  v2.bin
  vs-bios.rom
  "
  There might be bios files inside which are not for Neo Geo, but I just leave them there. Unfortunately, I am not 100% sure of each step, as I changed and tried a lot different things through whole last month installing a bunch of emulators and doing all sort of settings back and forth (had some trouble too). But I can look in my last accessed webpages about Neo Geo AES and link them here, if you are interested:

• https://forums.libretro.com/t/how-to-run-neo-geo-in-aes-mode-fbalpha-libretro/8693

• https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroPie/comments/4kpzyj/need_help_activating_neo_geo_aes_home_mode/

If installed the Neo Geo Bios correctly, you can change in Retroarch menu itself the mode you want to use.
Btw, I also use the same roms from FBA (FB Alpha v0.2.97.42) romset and all of them works without any problems (so far).

[MrSkyle]

@thelostsoul Thanks for the prompt reply.
I was actually referring to the roms listed further down that page, as what I'm trying to do is simply filter the Neo Geo roms existing in the FB Alpha v0.2.97.42 romset and copy them to the Neo Geo folder. This is because I'll use the default emulator to run Neo Geo games (lr-fbalpha) and will therefore use the versions from the required romset for that emulator. In short, all I wanted to know is if there is a list of Neo Geo games-only from the latest FBA romset and the closest I found was that one. If there is another, more updated (read "from the 0.2.97.42 romset") I'll appreciate it.

Regarding the AES bios, could this be it?

[thelostsoul]

@mrskyle Oh ok, I am not aware of such a list for a specific romset now. I just look looked at webpages about Neo Geo games in general, as I was hand picking all games.

About AES bios. The Uni Bios is something different, more or less. It is something like most powerful. I am aware of 3 different bios types: MVS, AES and Uni. If you have them all, you can select in the options menu of Retroarch which to use. If selected Unibios, then you choice many options before starting the game. I dont use it, because then it required me to set AES mode for each game. Unibios means Universal I suppose and thererfore requires setting for each game what exact settings you want.

This is a bit confusing. All you need is a bios containing AES and set it once in Retroarch through AES. Then all games will use this.

[MrSkyle]

@thelostsoul Gotcha! Thanks for clearing that up! So AES bios is the only one I need to make the emulator (lr-fbalpha in this case) run those roms as if they were their console counterparts, correct?
And where exactly should I put the AES bios? Inside the "bios" folder or the "neogeo" rom folder, just like the "neogeo.zip" bios?

@thelostsoul said in Neo Geo folder - is it worth it?:

This is a bit confusing. All you need is a bios containing AES and set it once in Retroarch through AES. Then all games will use this.

Regarding this bit, this will only apply to all games in the "neogeo" rom folder, right? The ones in the FBA rom folder will remain untouched as arcade/MVS versions? Because that's the whole point of creating the separate Neo Geo folder for me now: leave one copy in the "fba" rom folder to run as arcade and another copy in the "neogeo" rom folder to run as console version, set to AES...

[thelostsoul]

Yes, you put neogeo.zip bios file in the folder with the neo geo roms. In fact neogeo bios is the only bios needed to do that. While I did not not test it out, both folders should work indipendently, so you can have both type of bios, one in FBA and one in Neo Geo. But be aware I did not test it. If I am at home, i can test it for you - but I expect it to be working anyway.

My biggest problem after finding out about all those bios things, I had trouble finding the right one. So be careful.

Edit: Ok, I tested it out and I must say, it does not work (the way we want it). I just copied the same bios file and Metal Slug rom to FBA folder and changed from AES to MVS and checked if it affects the Neo Geo folder games -- and yes, it affects it. They use same emulator with same settings.

After looking in the file structure if I can find any config file for this, I must say I am clueless what to do now. Maybe changing something in /retropie/configs/neogeo/retroarch.cfg and /retropie/configs/fba/retroarch.cfg or in the same folder the file emulators.cfg will do the trick. For now, I don't know more.

[thelostsoul]

Ok, I found the file where the Neo Geo mode is specified, it's /retropie/configs/all/retroarch-core-options.cfg and the corresponding line to this is fba-neogeo-mode = "MVS". And I have no idea how to make it separate setting for FBA and Neo Geo, as this is in all.

[quicksilver]

@thelostsoul if you are using Lr-fbalpha I believe you can change it through the retroarch menu. Run a game then press select+x (default). There should be an option to change the bios in there. Just remember to save the core remap when you are done.

[AndersHP]

I use the Arcade folder for MAME, FBA and ADVMAME as described in this thread, combined with a dedicated Neo Geo folder (all FBA).

The reason for the latter is mainly that Universal XML Scraper lets you get coverart for the Neo Geo games, so this folder looks really neat, like the console folders.

The Arcade games have no coverart, just screenshots and logos.

[thelostsoul]

@quicksilver Yes, I did it through the Retroarch menu before. The point here is, to have two different settings for same Lr-fbalpha emulator. If I change FBA setting through the menu, it will affect the Neo Geo games too in that different folder, because it is a global setting. Thats because I was searching for a way to change it through some command line parameters or including it in retroarch.cfg.

[MrSkyle]

Bummer, there goes the plan of having the roms in the "neogeo" folder automatically run as AES and the ones in the "fba" folder automatically run as MVS...

Still, I find solace in what @AndersHP said - having a separate folder for scraping purposes and game covers seems quite nice. Maybe I'll do it anyway and perhaps someday we'll have an option in lr-fbalpha that automatically uses AES settings whenever loading a rom from the "neogeo" folder.

[quicksilver]

@thelostsoul have you tested saving on a per game basis?

[thelostsoul]

@quicksilver I did and I am not sure, but I think the MVS/AES setting remains as a global one if emulator is loaded (in said file above). After inspecting the resulting file, there seems no setting saved in there which saves the MVS/AES setting. Also, because I have already a config file for each game, I am not entirely sure. And I fear I would mess up something, if I try more. For now, I just leave it as it is. Looks like an emulator limit.