What's new
By:
Filters

NEOGEO + AES Multigame cartridge - NEW POLL INCLUDED. PLEASE VOTE!

Status
Not open for further replies.
The CRC checks Raz is talking about are only for the P-ROMs, not for the rest. They don't care for S1/M1/Vx/Cx protection done in real time.
It's only important to pass the Unibios CRC check and no it's not needed for the cheat engine or anything to work.

Passing the CRC is a good sign for proper emulation though.
 
pulstarx said:
Passing the CRC is a good sign for proper emulation though.
Click to expand...
Precisely. This is why it was such a big deal when Raz did his testing of the NeoSD.

Regardless: if what @Darksoft says is true regarding the NeoSD's tool decrypting roms, then certainly a "win" for him would be to not only create a tool that does the same thing, but to make one that is much more user friendly.
 
The arcade snob in me only cares to be able to play on original hardware. CPS2 multi I believe uses decrypted roms? I could be mistaken. My CPS3 Darksoft repro cart, it plays with the encryption removed, I believe. Either way, over the Thanksgiving Holiday in the US two weeks back, some friends and a lot of cousins enjoyed over 100 games of HSF2A while continuing the feast and chugging down about 50 beers. I can honestly say, not once did we discuss "Man, love the way how the decryption routines just work flawlessly on this arcade machine." We mixed in some 3rd Strike action, but we were all to drunk to play that game well. And if recollection is correct, we didn't discuss decryption while pulling off supers then either.

Either way Darksoft, if NeoSD has this, I think your market could care less. Purist will buy the OG carts. And I think the only people that will knock you for it are your friends in the NG forums that have it out for you and assholes. I know you don't want your work to be less than the competition, but purity is not what we are asking for. Gaming authenticity, user experience, and ongoing support is. If we want purity, we would be using the OG carts.

fandangos said:
I see no reason to care if the set is encrypted or decrypted.
It doesn't matter where the decryption happens.

If you are a purist get the original cartridge.
Click to expand...
Eloquently put.
 
IMHO The only thing that might mess with any of these multi/flash carts reputation is if the gameplay timing is in any way effected, when compared to the 'purist' original carts. Any staggering, slowdown, framebreaking or stuttering that is not on the original cart will fuel the purist fire.

Is encryption purely a copy protection thing, that only effects the storage contents pre-game execution in all cases?

I like to go the pepsi challenge with a real cart, the NeoSD and the DSNG, and actually use the 3 devices, instead of having 3 glasses of pepsi like they did in the 80's..

Wait, we need to make an important call here - WHICH NG FLASH CART IS PEPSI?!??
 
Beeker said:
Did you guys read that review on the neosd conversion process done by Razoola? I think there is beef between you guys so I won't link to it but he clearly says ROMs are decrypted during the conversion process (and makers have never said differently have they?). Decryption of data and patching after decryption are different levels of protection.
Click to expand...
Well if you patch data then it won't pass the CRC Check.

To be honest that CRC thing is *AGAIN* some stupid thing raised up by Rass to make sure everybody talks about him. It's something that doesn't stop the games from running, or stops the cheats or alters in any manner the way the game plays, it's just to satisfy his enormeous ego.

Btw I haven't seen any review on how NeoSD power drainage may alter the gameplay for purists....which is something he was trying to do for my CPS2 kit to discredit it....

Let's get back to topic.
 
pah... we should relativize all reviews and must-have requirements coming from other interested parties. In the beginning it was a *MUST HAVE* that every multi-cart had to work with untouched MAME romsets, everything else was shit. Then it was said that decompressing sets was ok, but decrypting not, and that everything else was shit.. now uncompressing, decrypting and header-hacking the ROM sets with esoteric tools is ok, and everything else is shit.

I don't give a shit about CRC checks in pirated BIOSes from interested parties as well.. why should I care? Those BIOSes will probably ("""coincidentally""") inject artificial issues in future multi-carts, and then those future multi-cart will be shit. To check the CRCs in the SD-card is all we need. Why the hell do I need to check the CRCs somewhere else?

I honestly don't give a shit about what interested parties consider shit. Why? because the point about interested parties is that they have an interest to defend their own interests.
 
My take on this "crappola":

CPS2Multi use decrypted ROMs for the simple reason it's how that it was made possible to load games when it was made available. Now, it is still simpler to swap the data at will if the ROMs are decrypted.

Anyway, decrypted CPS2 games may have bugs (I always put maximum effort on fixing the games when people report bugs) and roll-up packs which got mentioned before are meant to fix that. The nature of the encryption on NEO GEO carts is completely different. As the data has to be presented fully decrypted at the cart edge connector (NEO GEO was not originally designed with encryption in mind) so the encryption protection only protects the cart MASK ROMS against being read on a EPROM programmer. It doesn't protect against reads through the cart edge.

Decrypting such a protection is easy, because it's only possible to encrypt all or encrypt nothing. On CPS2, the encryption hardware can watch where the CPU is reading instructions or data and based on that decide if it has to decrypt or not.

Since the NEO GEO encryption can't enforce different treatment per type of data, we can simply apply the decryption code through the whole data. Unlike CPS2 a decrypt, decrypted NEO GEO games will play the exact same as a encrypted game would.

Again, due to hardware protections, CPS2 decrypts require analysis of encryption ranges, manual work of patching video register writes and memory test range patching.

By the way, Universe BIOS P ROM CRCs original purpose was helping users detect bootleg or faulty cartridges. Complain about games failing CRC checks in a flash cart is a little silly.
But of course if the flash cart implements all the hardware the game requires, it won't need any patching to run and will pass any CRC checks.
 
l_oliveira said:
By the way, Universe BIOS P ROM CRCs original purpose was helping users detect bootleg or faulty cartridges. Complain about games failing CRC checks in a flash cart is a little silly.
Click to expand...
Absolutely agree. No doubt that many of those people that would complain about a failed CRC check on a flash cart, happily play on a Chinese multi with bad dumps and injected code. It's just a way to create drama.

Also: I feel like I opened a can of worms with the 'purist' word. I don't even know if those people exist at this point. Well, outside of those that turn their noses up at software emulation...

So all that being said, I'm still just happy that there are actually going to be TWO flash carts for a system that was considered 'impossible'. It's why I'm here. I don't own any arcade boards or cabinets. Actually running an arcade in the early-to-mid 90s cured me of wanting one of the cursed things in my home. ;)
 
Last edited:
Funny enough CPS2 was much harder to put out a flash kit for, due to the "absolutely alien" bed of pins concept it requires for interconnection. The fact that DS has no competition on the CPS2 proves the point. The closest thing that exists is a hacky Chinese contraption full of ROMs stolen from Razoola and that you can't change the games it came with...
 
Can't teh cart just support both encrypted and decrypted romsets, so both parties can be happy? I like the unibios CRC because is a test I can use to be "sure" the game code is exactly as it should, therefore the game should play fine (gamewise, graphics and sound can still have issues).

Regards.
 
aha2940 said:
Can't teh cart just support both encrypted and decrypted romsets, so both parties can be happy? I like the unibios CRC because is a test I can use to be "sure" the game code is exactly as it should, therefore the game should play fine (gamewise, graphics and sound can still have issues).

Regards.
Click to expand...
Nope. That would complicate things unnecessarily. We'll used pre-decrypted romsets.
 
aha2940 said:
Can't teh cart just support both encrypted and decrypted romsets, so both parties can be happy? I like the unibios CRC because is a test I can use to be "sure" the game code is exactly as it should, therefore the game should play fine (gamewise, graphics and sound can still have issues).
Click to expand...
Why can't you use a simple computer CRC check tool on the images saved in the sd-card?

Actually that's the only way YOU can check that the game code is fine. If you do the check in the bios you have to trust that the hardcoded CRCs in the bios are the right ones, and that's a big leap of faith actually....
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top