For some time now I've noticed how most neo geo roms found out there seem to be imperfect in some way. Like how some roms run with an emulator and give errors with others. (kawaks and MAME for instance)... It's become retardely annoying... I can't make a neo geo rom collection because I'm always doubting my roms will work or not in the future. This has never been the case with CPS1/2 games for instance. It's so flocked up and tiresome... Recently I downloaded a kof that works fine with kawaks and doesn't run on my PSP emulator...
god... wtf... Anyone have any idea if there's "perfect"ish roms out there that will work with any emulators, like CPS1/2 roms work? And if so how do I identify them? How do I create a perfectish rom that will work with any and all emulators (like both neoragex and kawaks and mame and nebula and ngepsp).

No, I'm not asking for rom links... just clarifications.

The "perfect" romsets are largely those used by MAME.

The only way you are going to get yourself romset(s) that work with every emulator is to first get a sets that work in NeoRAGEx, then use Loaders for Kawaks/Nebula and make your custom DATs for the sets. Then you compile your own MAME build so that it accepts the NeoRAGEx sets you have. Same with FBA and whatever Neo-Geo emulator you use on your PSP.

Yes. Easier said than done.

Man, I need more info on this stuff. How exactly are neo geo roms composed? Why are there different versions for different emulators? Why can't they be dumped like CPS1/2 games? Where would I find the truest dump, for MAME or w/e, that would work on any MAME version and Kawaks at the same time, since I know Kawaks adopted MAME sets since vesion 1.50...

recently I discovered that my nge psp emulator has this converter that creates an archived cache file of about 30 megs (for garou and kof2k2 anyway) which is needed if I wanna run the game... wtf?! jesus christ that's like adding 20% more dead weight memory so it can run a game PC emulators have no trouble running... wtf is this...

Well, first and foremost, the differences came into play when SNK started to deivse protectons for their Neo-Geo arcade boards so that they would be harder to pirate (this started with KOF99 and Garou).

So the emulators at that time only had sets that didn't have any kind of protection. They couldn't run the newer games because they couldn't emulate the protection. Eventually, people circumvented the protections (or knew how to make code the emulators such a way that the protections would also be emulated - on the fly decryption). The emulators that were actively being worked on (Nebula, Kawaks MAME) quickly implemented the decryption routines into their respective code, but emulators like NeoRAGEx that didn't have virtually any development going on had to resort to hacking individual files in the romset. A further problem for NRX was that it could only handle files up to a certain size per file and it could anly work with romsets that had their filesnames follow a different pattern.

Other emulators had strict rules of how they handle the files inside a romset (decrypting encrypted data, perfectly matching CRC values, size in hex, etc.), and could work with files of all sizes as long as the code was adjusted accordingly. NRX had to result in hacking Neo-Geo program code to remove
the encryption but also keep all the filesizes between their size boundaries. As the files started to change, they had to be treated as completely different romsets.

which emulator doesn't actively hack into or modify the rom sets?

No emulator hacks the romsets in any way. The only real hacking they do is if they happen to have a memory address editor for cheats. For emulators that support decrypting encrypted romsets on the fly, do it in memory. Emulators do not alter the contents of the files thmselves.

Are Neo Geo MVS roms supposed to contain the AES version too?

Yes. That's one of the reasons Neo-Geo was/is so popular.

Do not forget about FBA .
I only use mame roms sets for neogeo . Neo rage X tends to use hacked up roms

True, We should not overlook FBA. Is it still being worke on, btw? By the FBA team I mean.

I just checked the forums, its still in development but its at the slow stage, simular to the one a while back that mame had, remember?

Not on all games, Even though the game might work on AES mode there might be misseng text etc .Same with AES working as MVS .

But what I really mean is, since MVS romsets contain AES mode that means they're not perfect MVS dumps, right? I read somewhere a long time ago that MVS romsets should not contain AES mode.

No it does not mean there not perfect roms, Most of the code depends on the bios ( MVS bios, AES bios )
If I put a AES bios in my MVS unit the game should run in AES mide .
Some people have the uni-bios in there MVS and it makes the games work in AES mode on there real hardware .

Ok so what you're telling me is that all the MVS games out there have an AES mode encrypted in them? And technically I could change the bios of the machine and play AES mode on a cabinet?

Yes. PCB dumps don't have an AES mode though.

what do you mean PCB dumps? games ripped from the cabinet board?

Games ripped from arcade boards that weren't Neo-Geo MVS boards. I know that at least SNK Vs. Capcom: Chaos, King of Fighters 2003 and samurai Shodown V Special have PCB dumps. They are always in japanese, and you can't change the region like you can with the MVS games.

AFAIK anyway.

How can you rip a game from a system it doesn't work on? I don't get it.

Normal MVS games are on carts like NES or N64, but some more recent (Metal Slug 5, SVC, and KOF2003 only afaik) are on single pcb boards. They're basically the MVS machine + cartridge on one board.


Dumped is the word, not ripped.


Nope. MVS, AES, AES revision.


Also no. You can certainly change the region as easily as the mvs (replace the bios).
It's much easier to just go into the setup menu (of the bios) and change the language.
And every game I know of for Neo-Geo has AES mode code in them. Some of them need a small hack of the program to enable it. Some games have an incomplete/buggy AES mode kof2001 (set 1) and Riding Hero, for example.

Please excuse my tactlessness. You sure took a while to answer.

Nice to know about that region thing though.