Some basic questions concerning Kawaks

[Agozer]

Oh crap, I forgot about RomCenter's rom link. I thought they were legit...

So did I, until I wandered to their page by accident. Eh, the intarweb never ceases to amaze me.

Edited January 27, 2005 by Agozer

[Swithin]

I'll give you a little scene-history just so you know the backgrounds to these answers (might help give a little context.)

 

NRX requires each individual rom to be decrypted and incorporates hacks to makes portions of the emulation easier for the program. Newer emulators run "clean", and as James will tell you, MAME is by far the cleanest (and Final Burn Alpha is also up there.) Kawaks and Nebula are the two easiest programs to use for CPS* / NG emulation nowadays. Each have distinctive advantages (for the casual end user: Kawaks can do blitters and motion blur at the same time, has an easy keyboard pause button, and some other stuff, Nebula can do Neo CD emulation, can run at higher resolution, and can use the HQ2X blitter.) Recently (within the last year or so) both these emus are moving towards mirroring the sets MAME uses.

 

NRX requires the least system resources (by a large margin), then Kawaks, and then Nebula.

 

As for your questions:

 

 

1/ Are there Kawaks specific romsets like there are for NeoRage?

 

Technically yes, but you need to be using a morally ambiguous copy of Kawaks. Basically, there was a developer-only version of Kawaks that ran KoF2003 at a time when no other emu could get past the protection. This version also had support for more recent roms. These sets were odd, and as far as I know some of them were only supported in this version of Kawaks. I don't recommend using this version, nor do I recommend finding these sets, as this is sort of beyond the grey of old-school emu and is trodding blatantly on corporate well-being as well as disrespecting the Kawaks team. Please don't.

 

2/ In the case of kof2000 it accepts the 77MB set (MAME rom) rather than the 40MB one (NeoRage). So is it correct to presume that when it comes to kof2001 & 2002 I will need to find the larger romsets for them to work in Kawaks? I ask this because all I can find are the small romsets for these two games and none of them work in kawaks, even though they are now supported.

 

No. Kawaks and Nebula (and MAME) support the decrypted sets. There is no functional difference between sets, the only difference is that the emu itself doesn't have to decrypt them while loading the roms (that's what it does) as it's "temp-decrypted roms" are the ones you're using from the offset. Note that admitting to this will accrue some scorn from the hardcore crowd... but in effect you're just saving hd space.

 

3/ I've also downloaded Kawaks 1.45 + Loader which allows mslug4 & 5 to work. So to run svcplus/samsho5/kof2003 do I need to find specific loaders for each of them? If so I cannot find them anywhere.

 

What the loader does is bypass the emulator's protection against playing newer games. It's a hack, end of story. This means you can feed it *any* rom and it will work. What you need to play <insert game> is feed it that games information so it will know what to load (archive name, file names inside the zip, and crcs of those files so that it knows it's loading the right files.) These are called.dats. Some loaders use a big list that compiles all your add-on dats, some simply circumvent the emu's protection and you can add the game-specific dats next to the legit ones.

 

4/ Why is it that the same mslug4 rom that works in 1.45 Loader doesn't work in 1.53, even though mslug4 is now apparently supported?

 

While I don't know the specifics, most likely because the files are different. The previous answer should give an idea how precise your information needs to be to get an emu to run a game. If even one file is different inside the archive (or something more obvious like *all* files are different or the archive has a different name) between what the dat in the loader says and what Kawaks 1.53 wants, no dice. Check this manually, you might have the same rom but under a different naming scheme. As always, check the CRCs to see if the files are actually the same (because nomenclature is fairly universal, so the files will have the same name even if, say, the m1 required to play on 1.53 is a newer version.)

 

5/ I remembered when I used to use MAME a long time ago that everytime an update was released the list of compatible roms would change, which meant re-downloading certain roms to keep up to date (The reason why I gave up MAME). Is this also a problem when using Kawaks? The fact that it takes MAME roms and is regularly updated suggests yes...

 

Neogeo emulation is virtually complete. Don't expect too many changes from this point on out. The only things that can change are the newer unsupported roms being officially supported at some point (under a more correct set than the ones floating around for loaders) or the emus syncing to MAME across the board and changing some sets. Since dumping-procedure is pretty well documented and practiced, "corrected sets" aren't really a likelihood anymore.

 

6/ Am I a frickin' idiot?

 

Nope, you're just doing your research. You're new at this, no worries. Of course, you *could* have found everything out on your own... but that's what we're here for.

[Last Exile]

My humble thanks to all for your prompt replies. I'm starting to grasp the complex nature of NeoGeo emulation (well, compared to most other formats anyway) little by little.

 

Basically, to get the full "correct" encrypted sets one must simply be patient and wait for encrypted romsets to trickle out, meanwhile decrypted hacked roms and hacked emus are the only viable option. I remember reading somewhere that the general gap between the games release and the rom release is about 3 years... which means we won't be enjoying a slice of encrypted kof2003 in Kawaks well until 2006/2007 maybe!?!

 

Just one more thing though; since the official Kawaks is now supporting both kof 2001 and 2002 (also Martimeele and rotd), why is it I cannot find the encryted versions anywhere, all the sites only list up to 2000. May I just ask whether they exist or not? Or am I again just jumping ahead of myself...

 

Looks like I'll have to make do with the black-bordered goodness of NRX or try fixing Kawaks'.DAT files for now.

 

Thank you all.

[Wizard]

2008 i think.

[Robert]

Just one more thing though; since the official Kawaks is now supporting both kof 2001 and 2002 (also Martimeele and rotd), why is it I cannot find the encryted versions anywhere, all the sites only list up to 2000. May I just ask whether they exist or not? Or am I again just jumping ahead of myself...

They do exist.... I can verify that.

 

This board has a very strict policy of mentioning rom sites, or even

places that link to them (which means google is out). So keep looking;

I assure you the files are out there.

[Swithin]

Basically, to get the full "correct" encrypted sets one must simply be patient and wait for encrypted romsets to trickle out, meanwhile decrypted hacked roms and hacked emus are the only viable option. I remember reading somewhere that the general gap between the games release and the rom release is about 3 years... which means we won't be enjoying a slice of encrypted kof2003 in Kawaks well until 2006/2007 maybe!?!

 

Not exactly. To emulate the rom, the emulator basically decrypts it on the fly. So basically the difference between encrypted roms and decrypted roms is that the encrypted roms are the original "off the board" set (which by necessity are dumped before the roms are decrypted,) and the decrypted roms are what the emulator uses anyway (they're smaller, too.) In short, all emulators use decrypted roms - the only difference is whether they decrypt the roms every time they load them or whether you've saved the decrypted results and run the game from that.

 

[edit: oh, non-encrypted roms are obviously roms which were never encrypted to begin with (older sets), and there are cases of decrypted roms coming out first - bootlegs. The bootleggers can decrypt roms before flashing them to a bootleg cart, so if someone dumps a bootleg they've got the decrypted set and not the encrypted set.]

 

About the 2/3 year thing: that's a voluntary measure added into emus so that the authors make clear they're not trying to harm the original developer of the game. At this point, all neo games are dumped, emulated, and pretty much available. Some games might not be officially supported by Kawaks/Nebula, but that's why people use loaders. The general gap between game release and rom release is between week of commercial release to six months after commercial release. With no more neo games coming out, however, this is sort of moot since there won't be any more releases. As of December 2005 KoF2003 will be officially supported, and there will be no neo games left off any lists except for any rare prototype games dumpers might get their hands on.

 

Just one more thing though; since the official Kawaks is now supporting both kof 2001 and 2002 (also Martimeele and rotd), why is it I cannot find the encryted versions anywhere, all the sites only list up to 2000. May I just ask whether they exist or not? Or am I again just jumping ahead of myself...

 

I don't know about that. As you've heard, all the neo games have been dumped and are emulated. They're all out there, but we can't tell you where.

Edited January 28, 2005 by Swithin

[Last Exile]

That is why I'm making a special effort not to ask for any... But can someone please point me towards a program that will allow me to check rom info, so that I could copy & paste them into asr.dat in kawaks loader?

[Gryph]

Well to do that you'll have to use two programs, RomCenter (which I can't link to you here, use Google) to check the ROMs and RomDataMaker to make the DAT: http://up2.fastuploads.com/94043866_romdatamaker.zip

 

But first you'll need a DAT file (a different kind) to use to check your ROMs with. To do this, open up Kawaks and go to Tools. Click on Generate RomCenter DAT. You can use ClrMAMEPro if you want but you'll have to get that instead. That will create a DAT file in your Kawaks folder. Now open RomCenter (or Clr) and then load this new DAT you made and then open up the folder where you ROMs are. If they are OK, you can proceed to the next section.

 

Actually, first check the stickied thread in this section for DATs for most of the new games. If we don't have it, then you can use RomDataMaker (which I provided a link above). RomDataMaker is pretty easy to use but if you need help don't hesitate to ask.

[James]

While I don't know the specifics, most likely because the files are different. The previous answer should give an idea how precise your information needs to be to get an emu to run a game. If even one file is different inside the archive (or something more obvious like *all* files are different or the archive has a different name) between what the dat in the loader says and what Kawaks 1.53 wants, no dice. Check this manually, you might have the same rom but under a different naming scheme. As always, check the CRCs to see if the files are actually the same (because nomenclature is fairly universal, so the files will have the same name even if, say, the m1 required to play on 1.53 is a newer version.)

 

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Thats because his mlsug4 set is decrypted while the kawaks 1.53 is encrypted. Offically kawaks and nebula use encrpted sets only the laoders tend to use the decrypted sets.

 

I mosty use Encrypted sets in my build of Mame since there are meant to be the correct dump unlike the decrypted sets which are not

 

True emulation is also emulateing the protection and hardware as well as running the game

 

These days there are 200 gig+ hard drive so size is no longer an issue for most.

 

 

True emulation and true rom dunps get my vote.

 

 

 

 

Last Exile Send me a PM I can help you find the sets you are looking for

Edited January 28, 2005 by James

[Lucandrake]

When you get high and your parents ask you why you so happey, just give them two thumbs up and say "I got layed!"

 

Sorry..didn't know were else to put this...lol...I don't know how o help because I know jack crap about emulation...

[Gryph]

When you get high and your parents ask you why you so happey, just give them two thumbs up and say "I got layed!"

 

Sorry..didn't know were else to put this...lol...I don't know how o help because I know jack crap about emulation...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

...warning raised. Don't spam here again, ever, understand?

Edited January 28, 2005 by GryphonKlaw