- Thread starter totoroslayer
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totoroslayer
Beginner
HOly crap. 
I had no intention of this becoming a thread to advocate this product or anything. I just found this at work the other day on my lunch break and wanted to make sure this wasn't an early preorder page for DS's board or anything like that (the similar price is what had me thinking it might be).
I'm the happy owner of the DS CPS2 board and having been burned by sketchy arcade products before, am more than willing to pay the price and time premium for a proper product with proper support (and I'd suggest anyone else to do so as well).
I had no intention of this becoming a thread to advocate this product or anything. I just found this at work the other day on my lunch break and wanted to make sure this wasn't an early preorder page for DS's board or anything like that (the similar price is what had me thinking it might be).I'm the happy owner of the DS CPS2 board and having been burned by sketchy arcade products before, am more than willing to pay the price and time premium for a proper product with proper support (and I'd suggest anyone else to do so as well).
I have made some numbers and such a cartridge produced in Europe will have a cost of about $160. His selling price is 380 EUR (about $417).
Now look at the size of the PCB in my cart, the difference on the speed and type of FPGA, flash types (custom batch), DDR, ARM, CPLD, extra security buffers to avoid damage..... If it was a 3 month work, it'd be long ago for sale...
Now look at the size of the PCB in my cart, the difference on the speed and type of FPGA, flash types (custom batch), DDR, ARM, CPLD, extra security buffers to avoid damage..... If it was a 3 month work, it'd be long ago for sale...
I think you did a service for the folks out there that are awaiting Darksoft's Neo Geo Multi by bringing this up. We all just have too much respect for Darksoft and Mitsurugi-w's work to not be irked by it. In any case, it is not an elitist attitude or anything. We all know of the quality of support we get with Darksoft products. Look at the how things like auto-reset and audio fixes were incorporated into later revisions. I am sure you would expect the same from if you purchase the NeoSD, but is there a proven track record showing you will get it?HOly crap.
I'm the happy owner of the DS CPS2 board and having been burned by sketchy arcade products before, am more than willing to pay the price and time premium for a proper product with proper support (and I'd suggest anyone else to do so as well).
It doesn't even have to be better. My money is going to Darksoft for the Neo Geo multi regardless. I don't want to sound like an Apple-fanboy. But I respect your work and support Darksoft's genius and passion. The sacrifices you guys have made are insane. 45 minutes of testing each full batch of CPS3 SIMM's? Releasing the Darksoft CPS3 BIOS free to the public? Who does that without having dollar signs in their eyes. Nuff said.
Guys be aware, support for the product is just as important as the privilege of having the product. Because Poland doesn't really have tracking to the US, I bugged Darksoft a few times about my CPS2 (It took a long time). He got back to me right away and was patient. I received my product. He has shown his honesty and integrity to me as his customer and I will be purchasing his product.
drama aside... maybe we can discuss what the technical differences between both carts are..
The (obvious?) one is that the NeoSD uses flash and the DS Cart uses DDR, we have discussed before long time about it. I guess it's a matter of personal preference.. for one side you have longer load times in flash, but on the other side flash has a shorter lifespan.. I'm more biased to DDR but I could also live with flash, so for me there's a tie here..
The multi-slot functionality of the DS cart is a clear advantage (if it's confirmed)
There's also the "original MAME Roms" compatibility part.. the other cart claims to be able to work with encypted MAME Romsets, decryption is "emulated" in the cart. But ROMsets have to be "converted" (header added to each ROM). If I understood right, DS Cart works only with unencrypted sets right? do the ROMs need to be patched out additionally? (protections?)
By looking at the other cart, there's quite a difference in components complexity. If that a good thing is or not i cannot say..
Post-sales support is of course very important.. here I have no doubt that DS has a clear advantage, I remember my CPS2Multi being damaged during transport, DS contacted me some minutes after I reported it. I sent the Multi Back and two days after receiving the first cart I got a working replacement. I just prefer to know the name of the person behind the product and not just have a generic website support mailbox.
The (obvious?) one is that the NeoSD uses flash and the DS Cart uses DDR, we have discussed before long time about it. I guess it's a matter of personal preference.. for one side you have longer load times in flash, but on the other side flash has a shorter lifespan.. I'm more biased to DDR but I could also live with flash, so for me there's a tie here..
The multi-slot functionality of the DS cart is a clear advantage (if it's confirmed)
There's also the "original MAME Roms" compatibility part.. the other cart claims to be able to work with encypted MAME Romsets, decryption is "emulated" in the cart. But ROMsets have to be "converted" (header added to each ROM). If I understood right, DS Cart works only with unencrypted sets right? do the ROMs need to be patched out additionally? (protections?)
By looking at the other cart, there's quite a difference in components complexity. If that a good thing is or not i cannot say..
Post-sales support is of course very important.. here I have no doubt that DS has a clear advantage, I remember my CPS2Multi being damaged during transport, DS contacted me some minutes after I reported it. I sent the Multi Back and two days after receiving the first cart I got a working replacement. I just prefer to know the name of the person behind the product and not just have a generic website support mailbox.
Well, There are a lot of differences...and that's the reason why besides doing all previous cart flash based, I decided to go for Flash + DDR this time.
From the technical point of view:
A) Loading time is 21 times faster (4min 20 secs vs 12 secs).
B) You can have 4 slots with 4 different games at a time.
C) You decide which ones you want to load and if you want them available on bootup.
D) Extra security elements and buffers for protection.
E) EU production quality.
...
And that's only the technical part of it. If we look at the support/service/ customer experience and past projects,I do stand for my cart's quality.
From the technical point of view:
A) Loading time is 21 times faster (4min 20 secs vs 12 secs).
B) You can have 4 slots with 4 different games at a time.
C) You decide which ones you want to load and if you want them available on bootup.
D) Extra security elements and buffers for protection.
E) EU production quality.
...
And that's only the technical part of it. If we look at the support/service/ customer experience and past projects,I do stand for my cart's quality.
What's that for?
And you can add a continuosly improved menu as another advantage. I'll see if it's possible to make it open source so that everyone can customize it as they want even with your own background picture, etc.
The support for the encrypted romset would be nice IMHO. I, for one, prefer to use them as originally produced. I know it should make no difference, but my brain just works that way
. Glad to know with your hardware design it's possible to add that feature, I am confident in time it will be.Thanks!
I spotted one of those NeoSD's on YAJ for 200,000 YEN - that's a whole load of $$$.
My money's on Darksoft's MVS solution & hopefully the F3-multi will follow.
But it's like buses, you wait 20 years and then three turn up at the same time. (DS, Raz & this one).
My money's on Darksoft's MVS solution & hopefully the F3-multi will follow.
But it's like buses, you wait 20 years and then three turn up at the same time. (DS, Raz & this one).
If I'm going to spend $400 on a SD cart, I'm going to wait for Darksofts SD NeoGeo cart, I know he'll will make a quality product worth spending the money on. I've enjoyed these forums quite a bit, I don't post much and I read a lot, judging by just how well run these forums are and the exceptional feedback from the CPS2 multi cart, I can't imagine why you'd want to purchase anything else.
Just another clarification to make sure this is not mistaken as a hardware limitation. Do you think that I can't add support for ngdevteam games? That I don't have the knowledge?
Of course I can, but if the people of ngdevtem see their games pirated, they will stop making games and we will all lose, only Serantes the maker of NeoSD will win.
Of course I can, but if the people of ngdevtem see their games pirated, they will stop making games and we will all lose, only Serantes the maker of NeoSD will win.
I do not think anybody here doubts your technical knowledge. That has been proven already. I support your decision of the multicart not working with new Neo Geo releases. They are protected anyway, and making them work would require and explicit desire to do so (adding more memory to fit the 1560Mb games, circumventing the protections, etc.). Same goes for the neosd guys. It seems their cart does not play any of the new games, except for Last Hope, which was never protected in the first place, therefore it has been bootlegged and is even on MAME.
Regards.
Milspex
Professional
I signed up for this forum a long time ago, in the very early stages of Neo Geo multicart development amongst all his other tried and tested products and releases. I met a lot of people here, everyone's constantly helping each other out. Darksoft and Mitsurugi-W and others have been on this like a hawk answering questions, posting information and being very clear about a lot of things.
This makes me ask this very important question : Where's his support forum?
Answer: Nowhere..
Never heard of him, will not buy.
This makes me ask this very important question : Where's his support forum?
Answer: Nowhere..
Never heard of him, will not buy.
Apparently NeoSD is not going to support NGDev games either. They claim LH is on there because it's a conversion in Mame. There may be size/space limitations as well but I don't know the details of their solution well enough to comment on that.
That said... looking forward to the DS cart!!! I hope I can get in on the preorder
