What's the story behind neogeo games? Help a noob out!

[rcdriver434]

I just building my first arcade cab (converting an old one, but anyways), and have downloaded 9.5/11gbs of the complete rom set over the past 2 days, so I am almost set.  What I am curious about are neogeo games:

1) What are they?  Is neogeo just a company name, or does it designate some special hardware

2) Can MAME emulate the games?  I see special versions of MAME just to emulate them (neomame, etc).  What's up with that?

3) Do the games come in the standard rom set?  I always liked metal slug, so when my d/l finishes, will I be able to play it?

4) Why is there so much controversy surrunding games like metal slug 5 and king of fighters 03/04?  Why are people looking for hacked versions?  Are these games not included in MAME or do they just not work unless they've been hacked?

5) What NeoGeo games are there other than KOF/MS? Is there a list somewhere?

Thanks for any clarification you can give me.

PLEASE, for God's sake, don't tell me to try to search.  I did.  I didn't find answers to these questains.

Matt Austin

[Veinman]

I can give you some quick answers, but others could surely provide more detail.

1. Don't talk about downloading ROMs on this site.
2. NeoGeo is an arcade system built to run many games within the same cabinet. I'm pretty sure the parent company is SNK.
3. There are a LOT of Neogeo games, and Mame should run most of them with no problems. Some games are newer so Mame won't run them. Not a technical issue, more of a moral one.

As for a master list, I'm sure there is one, but you'd have to...search.

[crashwg]

1) Both!  Well sorta.  It is kinda like a department in a company and special hardware.  In the arcade world it's known as MVS and it's like a console inside an arcade machine.  The games come on cartridges which plug into the "console".

2) Mame infact does emulate MOST of NeoGeo roms you need nothing more to do so

3) If you mean every game available for mame when you say "rom set", yes they're included

4) The controversy comes from the fact that those games still make alot of money in the eyes of the developers.  Whether or not they do is often debated but it doesn't realy matter because it's up to the mame devs to include them if they feel like doing so and they don't!
Yes they can be hacked into mame because the MVS system is already in place it's just a matter of having the roms and knowing what you're doing.

5) I'll leave this one to someone who knows... 

Some of this information is repeated because while I was typing it Veinman beat me to it!

[etumor]

1) What are they?

[IntruderAlert]

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6089278/

[rcdriver434]

Thanks to all who replied - that really cleared things up.  Do most of the bios files come with MAME, or is there somewhere I should go to download them?

[etumor]

I'll repeat something that was said earlier, since you didn't take the hint.  Downloading rom (and bios) files is illegal and cannot be discussed here.

That having been said, bios files are just like rom files.  They are not embedded in MAME, you need to have them to run the game in question.  They go in your rom directory.  If you have a source for a rom files, then you should use the same source for bios files.

-Jeff "etumor"

[IntruderAlert]

I think NeoRAGEx is supposed to be the best neo-geo emulator right now

[rcdriver434]

eTutor - Calm down.  I had never even heard of BIOS files in a arcade application until the post a few minutes ago.  I had no idea that they fell into the same legal boat as ROM files, i assumed that they were similar to mame in that since they didn't emulate a game, they were free and legal.  Please don't get worked up when I am just asking for help getting my project done and adding to my knowledge.

[etumor]

You mis-understood my tone (easy to do on the Internet).  I'm not getting worked up, merely answering your question while doing my best to follow "the rules."  For the record, bios files fall into exactly the same category as rom files.  Think of them as a chunk of software that is used by many games, but is every bit as much a part of the game program as the rom files.

If I was getting worked up, I wouldn't have given you the answer to your question (cryptic though it might have been).  I am genuinely trying to help and keep you from getting flamed in the future.

-Jeff "etumor"

[IntruderAlert]

by the way..
as far as flaming goes, there's not much of that around here
you'd be hard pressed to find a more friendly board anywhere on the planet

BYOACMF RULES!!!!

[JB]

You mis-understood my tone (easy to do on the Internet).  I'm not getting worked up, merely answering your question while doing my best to follow "the rules."  For the record, bios files fall into exactly the same category as rom files.  Think of them as a chunk of software that is used by many games, but is every bit as much a part of the game program as the rom files.

If I was getting worked up, I wouldn't have given you the answer to your question (cryptic though it might have been).  I am genuinely trying to help and keep you from getting flamed in the future.

-Jeff "etumor"

In fact, teh proper term would be "BIOS ROM images," which I think makes things a little clearer. They ARE ROM images, they just contain system-specific code instead of game-specific code.


And the legal status isn't based on whether they came from a game, or are useful bythemselves, or anything else. It's based on whether they're copyrighted or not. Everything is copyrighted by default when it's created.

To over-simplify things, unless the creator of a piece of software specifically releases it for such distribution(mame.net has a few such ROM images there), it is illegal to download it, regardless of whether it does anything or not..

[romeo11523]

I will answer question number 5. Go to www.neo-geo.com for a master list,screenshots, and a very welcoming community of people.

Romeo

[rcdriver434]

Thanks to all who replied here - you really cleared things up.  Sorry for misinterpeting your message, eTutor.  I have found that this is accualy one of the nicer, more helpful forums on the net, as everybody seems willing to help eachother get thier project done.  Apparently the bioses do come w/ mame .97, because metal slug and KOF work fine.  Thanks for the help!

[paigeoliver]

The one thing Mame DOESN'T do is emulate a multi-slot board.

For example, I have a six slot board. It has six cartridges in it. I can go into the service mode and see all six that are installed, I can change settings on them individually, and after putting in a credit I can press a select button to cycle through the games. While no one is playing the machine will cycle through the attract modes of all six games in order from one to the next.

Mame does not do that.

The bios files don't come with Mame, but they are considered separate roms on their own, and tend to be right there on every rom site, every rom newsgroup, and every rom CD right along with all the rest of them. So you probably downloaded them without even realizing it.

[Tiger-Heli]

List of Neo-Geo games that are in MAME - http://www.mameworld.net/maws/romset/neogeo

[IntruderAlert]

nebula emulates multi-slot

http://nebula.emulatronia.com/

[SirPoonga]

nebula emulates multi-slot

http://nebula.emulatronia.com/

So does kawaks.

[SirPoonga]

PLEASE, for God's sake, don't tell me to try to search.  I did.  I didn't find answers to these questains.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=neo+geo

pay particular attention to http://www.neo-geo.com/ and the glossary there.