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Samurai Shodown II
  PCFightingUC  
  opened by paleface at 06:16:08 06/06/17  
  last modified by paleface at 12:27:18 03/05/24  
  paleface [sys=PC; cat=Fighting; reg=NA]
           
This is not new news, but maybe someone else here was like me and didn't know it: although the PC versions of NeoGeo games available from Humble Bundle (they went away for a while I think, but are back now) run in an emulator with reputedly very poor front end and options, and high system requirements (they don't even run in my desktop machine's dear old WinXP, but they do *install*, which is the important part...), when installed, the NeoGeo game's ROM, and a NeoGeo system BIOS, in convenient near-universal .zip f0rmat, can be found in the install directory.

This is handy because you can then take your legally purchased NeoGeo BIOS and ROM file and run them in the better emulator of your choice.

I did have a dickens of a time with this for a while though, because it appears that a good many of the NeoGeo games from Humble--SamSho2 was the one I was particularly testing and dying to get working--come with a version of the NeoGeo BIOS (neogeo.zip) that is incompatible with modern versions of the better emulators--Final Burn Alpha, Fightcade, and MAME are the ones I tried and failed with (old emulators WinKawaks and Nebula were able to run it, but they can't do modern things like run in full-screen HD resolutions, so nyeh).

In despair, I extracted the ROMs from all 23 of the Humble Bundle game installation directories and put them all into my FBA rom directory, just to zip them up and archive them for a future date when some solution might be found. I ran FBA "one last time" just for the hell of it, scanned the ROMs...and suddenly they worked.

It appears that the neogeo.zip that installs with the last game in alphabetical order, and thus the last I copied and pasted over previous versions into my FBA roms folder, Twinkle Star Sprites, is a different version than all the others I looked at (though I didn't look at all 22 of them, so TSS might not be the only one that comes with it)--and it happens to be compatible with the latest version of Final Burn Alpha. So that allows all the game roms to function, and I finally have my legit, working version of Samurai Shodown II. Yay! (Stupid emulators. : P)

So in summary: get Twinkle Star Sprites, whatever other games you want--or get them all in the NeoGeo Classic Complete Collection bundle or whatever--copy the roms from the installation folders of each game into your chosen emulator's roms folder, being sure to copy in the neogeo.zip from the Twinkle Star Sprites folder last, or at least, not to overwrite it once you do copy it in, and the games might work. At least, in Final Burn Alpha--I didn't go back and try them in MAME or Fightcade. Or maybe it was something else, like magical rom leprechauns, in which case uh I just made you waste a tiny bit of money. And I guess I also didn't test all 23 of the roms. But the ones I did check--Samurai Shodown II, KOF 2000, KOF 2002, and Ironclad (an old NeoGeo prototype game dumped after it was released on Wii virtual store or something apparently)--somehow worked out for me after hours of noodling around. : P You could also, I suppose, just get the one game you want, and try that, in case it's one that comes with a compatible neogeo.zip like Twinkly Star Sprites--SS2 is definitely *not* one of those, though--and if it doesn't work, well then you need to get Twinkle Star Sprites and get the neogeo.zip from it.

Uh try at your own risk. : oo
 
(And in case you're wondering just how incompetent the people who put these emulation packages together--DotEmu is their name--that just install straight up NeoGeo rom files into your computer, the fact that they all install into a parent folder named "NeoGeo 25th Anniversery" [sic] may be indicative.)
 
  paleface 14:18:18 06/09/17
           
I've gone and checked, and the neogeo.zip from Humble Bundle's release of Twinkle Star Sprites, while it works in Final Burn Alpha, does *not* work in the latest version of MAME. Haven't tried it in Fightcade, but Fightcade does run on a version of Final Burn Alpha.
 
  paleface 05:56:23 07/30/22
           
The difference is that the DotEmu "Twinkle Star Sprites" neogeo.zip includes additional region ROM files, and Unibios ROM files through Unibios 2.3; I wonder if they were using those for testing it in other emulators and just accidentally left it in?
 
MAME wants Unibios through version 4. : P But it doesn't check that useless stuff if you run from the command line, like
 
mame neogeo [game file name] -nofilter
 
Once in MAME, from the TAB menu you can then select, for instance, Unibios 2.3, then Reset to restart the game under Unibios, and be able to switch to the AES version, for instance.
 
  paleface 06:58:16 07/30/22
           
Oh I forgot, don't have to bother with the Twinkle Star Sprites neogeo.zip since the Unibios author made version 4 free : ): http://unibios.free.fr/
 
  paleface 07:57:43 07/30/22
           
Aha, start right off with the BIOS:
 
mame neogeo [rom] -nofilter -bios unibios40
 
  paleface 17:22:04 07/30/22
           
Don't need to specify the "machine" on these, I suppose as long as the ROM names are unique, which maybe they always are I dunno; so just
 
mame [rom] -nofilter -bios unibios40
 
  paleface 19:49:15 07/30/22
           
OH. Forgot that to get AES settings like POW OFF to save, even on my actual CMVS, first you gotta play through a full credit after setting them, ie let the AI kill you. Then the setting will be kept when you switch over to MVS mode--and this DOES work in MAME. Huzzah! Well I can chuck my CMVS in the bin now. ^ _^
    
references:
· The King of Fighters 2000 (NEO)
· Samurai Shodown Anthology (PS2)
· Samurai Shodown VI (PS4)
· Samurai Spirits: Kenkaku Shinan Pack (PS1)
· Twinkle Star Sprites (PC)

 
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