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Darksoft Neo Multi Help thread

I've tested this on a MV-1F as mentioned, Pascal has a MV-1FT which is slightly different but has a VRAM issue at the moment.

I don't have another motherboard to test with, but this has always been working fine for me. I still have a handful original carts, which all work as they are supposed to.

I appreciate you didn't run into any of the aforementioned issues, just don't understand why I'm having this many issues at the moment.

Just completely wiped my sd again (with diskpart), still same issues. Just to clear things up, this is a brand new Sandisk Ultra card, Pascal's also a brand new card but by Kingston (sold by Aldo), both have the same issues.

What can you, or anyone else for that matter, suggest we do?

@Darksoft: sure, we can check if his cart shows the same issue in our setup if he agrees to ship it over to us.

@K405 @waiwainl: if you want, we can try your multi here, let me know.
 
First thing I would try is to go to the service menu and clean the backup memory. That could be the source of the problems you are having.
 
Thanks DS, tried that first by holding A+B+C in the hardware test menu, no change. Now flipped all dips to on and let it sit for a minute. Boots straight through now without issues, let's see how that goes :)

Still have the issue that only a very small amount of games show up though (like about 30 out of 200+), maybe it doesn't like my Sandisk card?

EDIT: flashed 3 games, played 1 for a bit, went back to menu, freezes at "Initializing filesystem..." again... I'm gonna call it a day, way past midnight now and need to get up early..

Which micro sd card should I buy now if both Kingston and Sandisk won't work properly? @jassin000 which one do you use?
 
Sp33dFr34k said:
Thanks DS, tried that first by holding A+B+C in the hardware test menu, no change. Now flipped all dips to on and let it sit for a minute. Boots straight through now without issues, let's see how that goes :)

Still have the issue that only a very small amount of games show up though (like about 30 out of 200+), maybe it doesn't like my Sandisk card?
Click to expand...
I recently had a Sandisk only show the first 15 or so games of the ST-V pack. Replaced it and everything was normal.

As handy as SDs are, they seem undependable and as cheap as they are now, I keep an assortment on hand.
 
Good testing guys!! Now we can get some good feedback to work with for fixes.

Can I suggest one thing for reporting errors? Please post in the first line of your error report ONLY the model of the mvs pcb.

It will be easier for us to keep track of if we need to go back to it.

And don't worry. Any issues will be fixed eventually. :)

@Sp33dFr34k Is the freeze at initializing screen only after recalling the menu from within a game?
 
As mentioned before my setup is a MV-1FZS (CMVS) and I use a brand new SanDisk 16GB Ultra Class 10 microSD card and I've made quite the same experiences as @jassin000...
Sp33dFr34k said:
  1. "Error - no game found on memory card" shows up randomly. Rebooting the system helps, most of the times it will boot through to the menu.
  2. Start + stick to the right to return to the menu doesn't always work, sometimes freezes, system needs a reboot.
  3. Start + stick to the right to return to the menu sometimes works within 3 seconds, sometimes it works but after about 10-12 seconds. Wants to reboot to menu but freezes at the "Please wait" screen.
  4. After reboot the games which are saved to the 3 slots are sometimes lost and needs a reflash.
  5. Sometimes after a hard reset (meaning switching PSU off and on) system freezes at "Filesystem initializing".
  6. Random games do not appear, yesterday I'm playing Mutation Nation, the next day (nothing has changed in the setup), the game doesn't show up anymore.
  7. After rebooting, the system boots to game 1, instead of the menu (while this is selected in the settings).
  8. Sometimes a game goes into error handling (unibios 3.1), particular game is Garou Mark of the Wolves.
  9. After doing a soft reset with the unibios (A+B+C+Start) some games are not loaded and some are, this appears to be random.
  10. Going back to the menu (Start + stick to the right) does not always work, sometimes just doesn't respond.
  11. Windjammers cannot be found on both SD cards (SM's beta image has been used).
Click to expand...
1. Never seen this message, not even once
2. Never had this happen, not even once
3. see below*
4. Never had this happen, not even once
5. Never had this happen, not even once
6. Never had this happen, not even once
7. Not tested so far
8. Never had this happen (atm I'm only using Unibios 3.2; attract mode of Shock Troopres not tested so far, too)
9. Not tested so far
10. see below*
11. Never had this happen, not even once

For the issues #3 and #10 I assume (please correct me if I'm wrong because I'm not an NG expert) that the button combination only works if the game "allows" a controller input. For a example: When an intro/cut scene etc. is running and the particular game doesn't detect inputs from the joystick at that moment the button combination will not work. But ingame the combination should always work (at least this is what I've experienced).
 
The cart sniffs for the button inputs to return to the menu, switch slots, etc. So it's not dependent on the game looking for controls. I had noticed that it works differently with some games or not at all with two or three. It's going to take some tweaking. Our cart does a lot of fancy things other than just emulating a regular cart.

We'd I'm have a lot less to worry about if the only thing we had to worry about is if the games play correctly. But hey, it's what we got ourselves into. We don't always tend to take the easy path. :P
 
Are you guys formatting your cards using the built-in Windows formatting tool? I know that sounds lame, but I have helped countless CPS2 owners by having them use it to format their cards. Also, try as many SD cards as you can get your hands on. So many CPS2 problems were resolved early on by having people give up using OSX, Linux, and special tools to format.
 
Also, I don't know if it was mentioned anywhere, but do you need to format your SD card with FAT32 or exFAT or does it not matter?
 
SmokeMonster said:
Are you guys formatting your cards using the built-in Windows formatting tool? I know that sounds lame, but I have helped countless CPS2 owners by having them use it to format their cards. Also, try as many SD cards as you can get your hands on. So many CPS2 problems were resolved early on by having people give up using OSX, Linux, and special tools to format.
Click to expand...
My Kingston card (sold by Aldo with the multi) was formatted as FAT32 with default cluster size with the default Windows 7 tool.
@Sp33dFr34k did a format (twice) with diskpart, not sure which settings.

I would test further at home if my MV-1FT didn't have the video ram error at the moment, but luckily neither of our boards showed the weird pixel issues from the other guys :)

Some issues seem SD card related I think, for example we did test a combination of both multi's with both SD cards and there was a difference in the shown games in the game list.
We did use SM's beta rom pack + the updated menu from DS, don't know about the different torrents floating around the forum how they are different from SM's pack but I honestly don't want to bother...
Also the MVS was running at a comfortable 5.00v-5.05v at the Jamma edge.

I can try another (brand new) Sandisk Ultra and Samsung EVO after my MVS motherboard has been fixed, but this will likely take some time while I wait for parts.... :(
 
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Ey! Take it easy, first you laugh at me and @waiwainl for having 'static dead pixels' and then you diss my torrent (which is in fact just an exact copy of the source on archive.org) ;)

Go fix your Neo Geo mobo, you probably were rubbing your socks over the carpet, so you ESD'd it. :P ;)
 
K405 said:
Ey! Take it easy, first you laugh at me and @waiwainl for having 'static dead pixels' and then you diss my torrent (which is in fact just an exact copy of the source on archive.org) ;)

Go fix your Neo Geo mobo, you probably were rubbing your socks over the carpet, so you ESD'd it. :P ;)
Click to expand...
hehehe :P

Did your new SD card arrive to test?
 
Yes, unfortunately no change, same result.
 
I'm always confused when it comes down to SD compatibility as users reported the same micro SD as me successful, as well as the Kingston. I've tried formatting via the inbuilt Windows formatter SM, however when I did that no games showed up anymore.

@Mitsurugi-w: yes, more often when returning to menu, but it happens while booting as well.

I will check if I have a Samsung card lying around somewhere, I know I should have some of them orange/white colored ones somewhere :)
 
It's very possible the issues need a fw or menu fix. Like you said it's just weird that some have issues while others don't with the same motherboards even. As more people get their hands on them we will have more direction as to where to look.
 
SmokeMonster said:
Are you guys formatting your cards using the built-in Windows formatting tool? I know that sounds lame, but I have helped countless CPS2 owners by having them use it to format their cards. Also, try as many SD cards as you can get your hands on. So many CPS2 problems were resolved early on by having people give up using OSX, Linux, and special tools to format.
Click to expand...
I always format on my Mac with the Disk Utility using "MS-DOS (FAT)", which includes FAT32 for larger disks; works on all (including DS) Multi's so far.

One thing that strikes me, if a specific SD card is not 100% functional (for whatever reason), why does the execution and audio have no issues? It's a bit strange that 'only gfx' is affected by SD-issues.
Also here the exact same SD card I use, is reported working just fine.
 
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Just received my unit. Cart looks and feels great, love the finish!

I installed the SD card and fired it up. However, i get garbled graphics in the navigation menu. The text looks fine and once i load the games to the slots, they work as they should (as far as i can tell). My contacts are clean and the cart is firmly in the slot.

I'm on a Analogue CMVS Slim with UniBios 3.2.
 

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the corrupted Unibios logo on boot is 'standard', we experienced that as well yesterday.
Can you test with an original bios?
 
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