Neorage secrets

[Robert]

I recently obtained neoragex, a special version to run kof2004.

 

The neorage.ini file looks interesting. Under the ROMS section

there are some numbers and some file names.

 

Does anyone understand the significance of the numbers, their

placement, and why some have filenames on them, and some don't?

 

Is there a way to determine what roms are needed for each game?

Such as rom name, size, crc?

 

Also how can I determine the neoragex version number?

 

How does its rom searching work, because I pointed it at my mame

roms, clicked import, and it found nothing.

 

Any and all information would be greatly appreciated.

[Agozer]

* The numbers are NeoRAGEx's internal gamelist scancodes, which determine a game's place in the gamelist itself. They have something to do with how NeoRAGEx detects the available games (and makes them appear white) in the gamelist. You can also overclock individual games by adding a bumber behind the set name like this:

 

I.e. 142096,Metal Slug 2.zip,20000000

 

This overclocks the 68000 CPU to 20MHz instead of the original 12,5MHz. However, I wouldn't fiddle with this too much, since it breaks timing very easily.

 

Some numbers don't have filenames, because you don't have the respective game; so the filename entry after the numbers stays blank but the placeholder is still there.

 

Now, if you import a game that's not in the gamelist itself, NeoRAGEx automatically creates a new placeholder number and filename into Neoragex.ini

 

NeoRAGEx couldn't care less about how the filenames are named in romsets as long as they are in the format xxxxx_xx.rom (where xx after _ is c1, m1, v2 etc.). Nor does it care about how you name your sets. NeoRAGEx does not load sets that have the BIN extension in their files.

 

* The only way to know which roms are need for which game is to use RomCenter and a DAT for NRX. Take this with a grain of salt though, since NRX loads games even if your roms do not match the stuff found in the DATs. I don't even use auditing tools myself when it comes to NRX sets.

 

Most C (graphics) roms are always 8MB, P (program code) can be 4MB, 6MB (some cases) or 8MB. If the P1 rom is 4MB, another 4MB P2 rom is needed. If the P1 is 8MB, it already contains the data of P2, so another one is not needed. You can freely join roms together on binary level and still retain the functionality of the romset, but I don't do this myself.

 

S1 (text) and M1 (Z80 processor code) roms can be 128kB or 512kB. Official versions of NRX only support 128kB to my knowledge. EGCG NeoRAGEx supports 512kB.

 

V (samples and music) roms are usually 4MB each. like the P roms and C roms, they can be joined on binary level.

 

* You can't determine the version number in any other way than looking at the main NRX window. Official builds have the version number at the lower -right or left corner. Unofficial builds might have a version number, but most likely they don't.

 

* The reason why you couldn't import your MAME sets is quite simple. NRX does not support MAME sets.

 

If you get the infamous "Could not load program roms" during game load, you have either:

 

1) An encrypted set

2) The romset contains BIN files

3) Borked P or M1 rom(s)

4) You have - instead of _ in rom filenames.

 

If you have more questions, feel free to ask.

Edited January 16, 2005 by Agozer

[Robert]

Very different from mame which is all i know about.

So you can just throw together a bunch of roms with the

right names and sizes, call the set whatever you want, and

it will try to use it ??... cool. And you put the zip file name

next to an unassigned number in neorage.ini, and it shows

in the list..?? So I guess you could swap a sound rom with

one from another game, and you get different sounds??

 

You say the processor is a Z80... no wonder those arcades

run so fast. My fav 8-bit processor which I did a lot of assembly

language work years ago. No.bin files... ok to call them.rom files?

Thanks Agozer for the info.

[Agozer]

So you can just throw together a bunch of roms with the

right names and sizes, call the set whatever you want, and

it will try to use it ??... cool.

Yeah, pretty much. This is why NeoRAGEx is arguably the n00b-friendliest (is that even a word?) Neo-Geo emulator out there, despite all the flak it gets for missing emulation features and "non-standard" romsets etc.

 

And you put the zip file name

next to an unassigned number in neorage.ini, and it shows

in the list..??

Well, hypotethically yes, but you'd have to know the exact spot in the ini. There's really no point in editing the ini by hand, since Importing does that for you. (except if you want to overclock games, of course... but some games are already overclocked, even if it doesn't show in the ini.

 

So I guess you could swap a sound rom with

one from another game, and you get different sounds??

Basically yes, but then again, no. If you take a look at the official Samurai Shodown V Special thread, you'll see that we talked about replacing the missing V roms and the M1 rom with the ones from SS5. Result: We got a temporary working romset, but the sound was way messed up (since the Z80 code in the M1 and the program code in the P roms didn't match 1:1 with the data in the V roms.)

 

What I'm trying to say is that you can't change the sound and music simply by replacing the V roms and expect it to work flawlessly.

 

You say the processor is a Z80... no wonder those arcades

run so fast. My fav 8-bit processor which I did a lot of assembly

language work years ago.

Yeah, Motorola's 68000. NRX sports Neill Corlett's Starscream Z80 core (the dude is truly an Assembly wizard), which gave NRX the upper hand in speed and whatnot when the NeoRAGE (DOS-only and later the windows port) came out years ago. If you are still interested to see how Corlett handled the Z80 emulation (the NRX guys just added in his code to save some time), Starscream's codebase should be at Zophar's Domain.

 

The official NRX site still exists for those who want to take a trip down Memory Lane, but the site hasn't been updated in 4½ years.

 

No.bin files... ok to call them.rom files?

Thanks Agozer for the info.

Well, now that the EGCG NeoRAGEx is out, I think it supports BIN files and - in filenames, but I've always renamed my files to ROM regardless. EGCG doesn't support the old AES dumps and the Universe BIOS for some unknown reason however. I still go back to play most of my Neo-Geo games in NRX builds that are not by the EGCG team. Old habits die hard I guess.

Edited January 16, 2005 by Agozer

[Xeon]

if im not mistaken, there used to be a NRX ini editor released. maybe Agozer can confirm this as i can only recall seeing a screenshot.

[Agozer]

if im not mistaken, there used to be a NRX ini editor released. maybe Agozer can confirm this as i can only recall seeing a screenshot.

I really have not heard much about this except rumors, so I can't confirm anything.

[Xeon]

i shouldve downloaded that thing i saw back then, i didnt because it was in a martian language that i cant understand :{

[emsley]

Jesus agozer you know your stuff.

[Robert]

OK....I told neoragex to use my input folder which contains

stuff I've downloaded before being massaged for mame/kawaks.

It detected another 10 games... only 3 worked. They were

metal slug 4 (yay), kof2001 (yay again), and another version

of kof2001 with a graphics error on the screen where you select

single player, etc.

svcchaos causes neoragex and explorer to crash.

the others - either missing their gfx files, or totally rubbish screen.

[Agozer]

Most likely you need special P1 hacks for those games to work correctly in NeoRAGEx. Just ditch the funky version of KOF2001.

Edited January 18, 2005 by Agozer

[James]

Make sure you use decrypted sets in NRX as thats all that emulator uses its not a matter of been mame or kawaks stes as long as the rom is decrypted and has rom instead of bin then things should be fine

 

will work if all are the same

 

xxx-xx.rom or xxx_xx.rom

 

NRX checks the P rom ID ( cart ID ) and if supported it show in the list if not it will be placed at the bottom it should still work though.