What is the best Neo Geo emulator?

[arcadecab]

I originally thought/heard that NeoRageX was by far the best Neo Geo emulator.  But I am wondering if that is still true or if Nebula or others have bypassed NeoRageX with compatibility or performance?  Any suggestions?
I tried NeoRageX, but I could not get any of the roms to be recognized in the gamelist to launch the game.  I copied the Neo Geo game roms from my MAME collection and placed them in the roms folder with NeoRageX, but they are not being recognized at all.  
I also tried Nebula, and several more roms were recognized, but many weren't.  Is there something additional I have to do to get the roms recognized by a Neo geo emulator?  I have download the Neo Geo Bios files and placed them in the directory and the roms folder.  For some reason, the roms are not compatible with the emulators in all cases.  Any reason for this and what can I do?
Thanks for any help and/or suggestions.

[SirPoonga]

grab nebula, mame, kawaks, neoragex and try them out.  A good test is super dodge ball's attract screen.

[MameMaster!]

I originally thought/heard that NeoRageX was by far the best Neo Geo emulator.  But I am wondering if that is still true or if Nebula or others have bypassed NeoRageX with compatibility or performance?  Any suggestions?
I tried NeoRageX, but I could not get any of the roms to be recognized in the gamelist to launch the game.  I copied the Neo Geo game roms from my MAME collection and placed them in the roms folder with NeoRageX, but they are not being recognized at all.  
I also tried Nebula, and several more roms were recognized, but many weren't.  Is there something additional I have to do to get the roms recognized by a Neo geo emulator?  I have download the Neo Geo Bios files and placed them in the directory and the roms folder.  For some reason, the roms are not compatible with the emulators in all cases.  Any reason for this and what can I do?
Thanks for any help and/or suggestions.

....why not simply use mame? Except for Metal Slug 4 and King of the Fighters 2002....they all seem to work perfectly (I'm pretty sure I've played them all).

The MameMaster  

[SirPoonga]

depends on the computer you are running.  On my computer kawaks runs neogeo better.  And witha  PIII 500 in mame there is frameskipping in many neogeo games.

[MameMaster!]

depends on the computer you are running.  On my computer kawaks runs neogeo better.  And witha  PIII 500 in mame there is frameskipping in many neogeo games.

....hmmm, I hadn't considered that.

The MameMaster

[arcadecab]

I have tried NeoRageX and Nebula, but the problem is that I cant get the emulators to recognize all the roms.  I copied the roms from my MAME folder and put them into the NeoRageX roms folder and the nebula roms folder.  With NeoRageX, it only detects three games.  Nebula detects more, but still several roms are said to be corrupt or missing something.  All these roms work great with MAME, is there something special you need to do with the roms for these other emulators?  I guess the main question is, is there any downfall to just using MAME for Neo Geo console roms instead of one of these emulators.  I imagine the options are more in the specific emulators, but any performance differences or otherwise.  It is extremely easy to just use MAME, anyone see anything negative at it.  What is the case for using a specific emulator?
Thanks.

[SirPoonga]

For neogeo mame is limiting.  1) no memory card support 2) no transparency support.

Use clrmame and a dat file for that emulator, they will determine how your roms are.

[Terry]

I just tried out NeoRageXP .8c and it seems to work great with the neogeo roms.  I have about 135 games out of the 143 it supports and they are all recognized.

One thing I noticed is that the sound quality on some of the games is not perfect.  It sounds as if there is static in the sound as if you were to get bad reception from a weak signal on a radio.

Is this normal?

[Howard_Casto]

That's because neoragexp is a pitiful hack of the original neorage x, which i believe has been dead for 5 YEARS now.  Some of the newer games use special chips that aren't emulated in the old neorageX so they "half work".  

People neorage is dead, deal with it.  Nebula or kawaks both do a great job.  I personally reccomend nebula because it actually has command line support, which is very nice.  

[JoeB]

I have a 2.4Ghz CPU and MAME flies fast with any and all Neo Geo games..

what benefits will I get from switching to something like Nebula? I don't think this point is very clear.

[Terry]

Metal Slug 4?  That is really the only reason I have it.  I agree, mame does and excellent job with most all the games.  I'll try nebula.  Maybe I can use a command line wrapper to get it to work in DK.

[SirPoonga]

I have a 2.4Ghz CPU and MAME flies fast with any and all Neo Geo games..

what benefits will I get from switching to something like Nebula? I don't think this point is very clear.

Read what I said
1) mame doesn't have memory card support.  I like memory card support instead of using cheats.
2) Mame does not do transparencies.
Also kawaks or nebula ( I can't remember which) can support a 4 or 6 slot emulation.  You'd need a beefy computer for that because all the games would get loaded.  But it's cool.

[Terry]

Hmmm.. Metal Slug 4 is not available in Nebula.  Maybe kawaks.

[SirPoonga]

Yes it is.  You need the right files.

[Terry]

I downloaded 2.23c intead of 2.23d.  It shows up now.  But only about half of the NeoRage roms that I have show up in Nebula.  It looks as if the roms for NeoRage are slightly different than Nebula.  Does that make sense?  Anyway, I'll play with it some more.

[arcadecab]

Yes, I have the same problem.  All the roms worked perfect in MAME, but a little over half show up as working with Nebula.  I have the same question.  Do you have to do something with the roms for them to work with Nebula? I thought that roms were roms and that if they worked in MAME, they should work with anything else.  What other support files are needed and where would you find these files to get these roms to all work with Nebula?

[Terry]

I don't know to much about this, but am slowly learning.  I know there is a complete ROM set out there just for Nebula 2.23c.   So either some of the ROMS in the mame set are exactly the same as in the Nebula set, or they might just be compatible.

I have been trying to figure out what the DAT files are and how do you know when you need one, and how many per game.

[jdsony]

Most if not all the MAME Neogeo games should be fine in Nebula. Some of of the sets for NeorageX are different however, especially the newer games. Have you used CLRMAME to check to make sure your roms sets are accurate? Nebula has a bunch of benefits over using MAME. Other than the ones mentioned.

Much more configuration options. Sound filtering as well as other stuff. Can play a handful of newer games that Mame doesn't support yet. Much more intuitive control setup. More video filters (for those of you using PC monitors). Lot's more...

Generally I just use MAME since it encompases most of my emulation needs but  I sometimes use Nebula when I want any of the features not available to me in MAME.