User Interface, Options and Usage.
It is a little hard to give proper review of the user interface as the version I have is incomplete and some of the features are still missing or not working. Overall I would say the outlook is minimal and easily understandable. Given that it is incomplete it is a little rough around the edges which is to be expected at this point. Everything is displayed in an easily understandable way however and that's a big plus. The small title page screenshots is a nice touch.
Flashing a game is done by simply selecting it in the game list and then pressing the button A. Button B takes you the options page, button C will filter the games list based on genre (feature not included yet). Button D will add or remove the selected game to a favourites list (feature not included yet either).
Flashing a game.
This is a very simple process. You just hit Button A after selecting a game and the erase / flash process will start. This twostep process is shown in the UI via a progress bar in the middle of the screen. During the erase step the green LED on the NeoSD PCB flashes quickly, during flashing it flashes more slowly. With the SDcard I am using (fast but not the fastest) this process takes between 0:25 seconds and 4:30 minutes depending on the size of the game. This is the total time taken to erase and flash the NeoSD to new game. It is a onetime wait period, once a game is flashed there is no other loading required each time the system is powered on or reset. This aspect is identical to how an original Neo Geo game cartridges operate which use ROM.
Once a game flashed onto the NeoSD the system will reset itself. The next time you bring up the NeoSD UI you will see the new option 'Launch Current Game' in the game menu. Choose this option to exit the UI if you do not wish to flash a new game.
Options menu.
The following options are present in the current UI version I am testing. Player 1 Joystick up and down are used to select options with left and right to alter them. Button B is used to exit the menu and return to the games list. A quick breakdown of the current options I see are;
Boot Mode - Determines what happens at power on, Game or Menu.
In-Game Trigger - Can be set to either AD+START, BC+START, ABC+START or None.
System Mode - Can be set to either Bios, MVS or AES.
Region - Can be set to either Bios, Europe, USA or Japan.
Save/Restore Back RAM - Can be set to Yes or No.
UI Sounds - Can be set to Yes or No.
Help - This currently does nothing.
Version - Displays information about the NeoSD, version numbers etc.
Let's look at a couple of these options more closely given I know these will be of interest.
System Mode and Region setting.
Both these settings work as much as they can taking the bios environment into account. The MVS/AES mode switch works pretty much as it does in arcade emulators that have the option (WinKawaks for example). It should be noted however that this does not give the same experience as setting AES mode via a UniBios or the stock AES bios on AES. The Bios does some things beyond the control of NeoSD. For example, when using a stock MVS bios those with a keen eye will notice the Neo Geo jingle will display according to the MVS specification even when NeoSD is in AES mode. On true AES hardware with stock bios (or UniBios on MVS in AES mode) the jingle will always appears once before the first attract mode cycle and then never again.
This is only a minor thing but worth a mention given UniBios users will get a true AES experience using the UniBios to control system type over the settings in NeoSD. I have suggested to neosd that it may be wise to disable or force these settings to BIOS when a UniBios is detected in the host system (easy to do). This would give the user the best possible AES experience. These options in NeoSD will be a welcome addition however for those without a UniBios installed as they get you most of the way there.
Save and restore back RAM.
This feature will need some testing before being able to say how well it works but from my short testing so far it does not work properly although I can see the expected files saved on the SD card. On speaking the neosd about it I know the cause is known and now fixed. I just need to wait for a new firmware (that has other fixes also) so I can try it out.
From how I'm told it is implemented I feel it cannot be taken as a full proof way to save data but it is much better than nothing at all! It works by saving BackupRAM for the currently flashed game onto SD card at the point you choose a new game to flash. It is then reloaded when you flash that game back to the NeoSD.
While this system in theory will work, it is quite dependent on the backupRAM battery being able to hold the data in backupRAM on the MVS. If the MVS backupRAM is reset any good data on the SDcard will be overwritten with that data when the game is changed. A temporary solution to this dilemma would be an option in the UI to load or store back RAM of the currently selected game which the user can force if they know the backupRAM system on the MVS is not preforming well. Ideally though this process should be automatic.
Conclusion
As I have said at the start the user interface is not yet complete so it's hard to critique something when you know beforehand it's just going to get better anyway. The UI does what it needs to do in a very controllable way without leaving the user frustrated due to it being non responsive. I feel it could be graphically improved but at the same time others will like its minimal nature.
Here are some changes I feel would be beneficial to the user going forward over the version I'm testing (which is not the final version). These have already been passed on;
- Being able to wrap around when navigating the game list.
- NeoSD should automatically detect presence of UniBios and disable its System and Region options if found.
- Back RAM loading/Saving may need some refinement to help protect against data loss.
- Hiding rogue tiles that sometimes appear momentarily sometimes before title page draws etc.
- Instead of fading out the title page, fade it in only before running the main UI.
- Some screenshots need altering to remove vertical strips / non-straight edges. Can be done by stretching them out horizontally before the shot is shrunk and converted.
- Replace the '?' screenshot with one showing the NeoSD title page or Neo Geo logo jingle?
