Question about bios and drivers

[Artimus]

I understand that neogeo emulators require a bios before you start playing your roms.

I downloaded a pile of roms and NeoRagex 5.x, with bios all packed up nicely. I gave it a quick try and any game that i tried to play just worked without any problems.

 

So on my ancient computer (running gentoo), I installed GnGeo. I gave it the bios, and roms, and it does not want to play anything.

 

So far I have learned that the actual file name of the rom needs to match some config file, and that most of the games that I downloaded just need to be renamed.

 

I also unpacked the bios (uni-bios-some-version) from neoragex , and it gave me neo-geo.rom. I found a few other files like NG-lo.lo etc., and moved those over also. GnGeo is complaining that it needs more files such as 000-lo.lo. I'm don't have access to that computer right now or i would provide the exact file names. I'm going off of memory here.

 

So why is it that neoragex can play those games, while GnGeo complains that it wants more files?

 

I know I shouldn't ask for any links, but can someone explain to me what it is that I should be looking for?

 

I may be having the same problem as this guy:

http://www.1emulation.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=20566

[Agozer]

For one, NeoRAGEx is seriously outdated. While it was without peer in its day. Things aren't the same nowadays. The last official version was released some 7 or so years ago, IIRC. Due to this, NRX doesn't conform to the "romset rules" later set in stone by MAME, which dictate how the ROMs inside romset must be named, what their required size must be + other validity checks in the form of CRCs and hashes. Not to mention that games created in 1999 and later used protection mechanisms which NRX doesn't emulate, and needs specific hacked ROM to be able to boot these games without issues.

 

Having said that, all other emulator conform to the aforementioned rules, including gnGeo. To be more specific, your romsets and Neo-Geo BIOS files are as outdated as NeoRAGEx itself and will not be recognized by newer emulators. What you need are the Neo-Geo BIOS fileset and romsets used by MAME, and those sets are used by all other emulators as well. Trying to rename existing files will only end up with you climbing the walls and tearing your hair out, so it's a fool's errand.

 

For Linux, your only choice is pretty much gnGeo. For Windows, FBA (former Final Burn Alpha), Kawaks, or MAME are good choices.