Unibios, NeoSaveMasta, & Battery-free questions

mmsadda

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Trying to get my Neo cab where I want it to be. Looking at a Unibios from Raz so I can run in AES mode. Is it true that running a UniBios w/ NTM's memory card will allow me to save high scores?

With this combination, will my mobo save settings without a battery? Or do I still need to reinstall a battery?

Thanks in advance! :vik:
 

aha2940

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Trying to get my Neo cab where I want it to be. Looking at a Unibios from Raz so I can run in AES mode. Is it true that running a UniBios w/ NTM's memory card will allow me to save high scores?

With this combination, will my mobo save settings without a battery? Or do I still need to reinstall a battery?

Thanks in advance! :vik:

It is true, high scores will be saved in the memory card, and restored when you play again the game. It is a very nice feature.
 

gusmoney

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Some ppl shit on using memory cards but I love having saved high scores. It makes Money Puzzle that much more fun.
 

Doom

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Does this apply to the virtual memory cards as well?
 

Niko

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Trying to get my Neo cab where I want it to be. Looking at a Unibios from Raz so I can run in AES mode. Is it true that running a UniBios w/ NTM's memory card will allow me to save high scores?

With this combination, will my mobo save settings without a battery? Or do I still need to reinstall a battery?

Thanks in advance! :vik:

You will still need a battery on the motherboard to retain Unibios settings and the calendar.

Does this apply to the virtual memory cards as well?

Yep
 

mmsadda

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You will still need a battery on the motherboard to retain Unibios settings and the calendar.
Yep
Perfect, that's exactly what I needed. Thanks for clarifying!
 

Doom

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Amazing. From time to time I visit the unibios site and I think I've browsed through every page, I'm not sure how I missed this.


Just checked with the search function and on the "What is it" page I found this:
"High score saving support on AES hardware by smkdan (memory card required)."


Does this mean scores on the MVS side still go to the internal battery?
 
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Niko

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Amazing. From time to time I visit the unibios site and I think I've browsed through every page, I'm not sure how I missed this.


Just checked with the search function and on the "What is it" page I found this:
"High score saving support on AES hardware by smkdan (memory card required)."


Does this mean scores on the MVS side still go to the internal battery?

If I'm not mistaken on the MVS side of things, high scores are kept in backup ram ( what the battery is powering ) and also on the memory card when you choose to save. If you choose not to save after your game, high scores will only be retained in the backup ram on the MVS.
 

Razoola

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yup thats correct.

Raz
 

Doom

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Thanks for the reply Raz.


So if I'm understanding this correctly:

On the AES side all top scores get saved to the memory card *but not the backup ram(?).

On the MVS side only the latest score in play and only if one chooses to save to the memory card? Or do all high scores get saved when the user chooses to save to the memory card?


This is a pretty amazing feature though.
 
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Niko

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Thanks for the reply Raz.


So if I'm understanding this correctly:

On the AES side all top scores get saved to the memory card *but not the backup ram(?).

On the MVS side only the latest score in play and only if one chooses to save to the memory card? Or do all high scores get saved when the user chooses to save to the memory card?


This is a pretty amazing feature though.

On the AES side, top scores will get saved to a memory card if you have UniBios. Otherwise top scores are only retained while the console is powered on since the AES doesnt have backup ram.

On the MVS side, Only the high scores for the last "game" ( from coin insert to game over ) are saved to the memory card.
 

aha2940

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On the MVS side, Only the high scores for the last "game" ( from coin insert to game over ) are saved to the memory card.

I think this needs some clarification: on MVS the high score table for most games that you play is saved to teh Memory card, and restored automatically when you play the game again. It does not have the limit of 8 games that the regular backup memory has, you can save high scores for all your carts and all will be saved/restored automatically by the unibios. Homebrew games (NGDev and Knight's Chance, at least) are not compatible with this feature.

Regards.
 

Niko

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I think this needs some clarification: on MVS the high score table for most games that you play is saved to teh Memory card, and restored automatically when you play the game again. It does not have the limit of 8 games that the regular backup memory has, you can save high scores for all your carts and all will be saved/restored automatically by the unibios. Homebrew games (NGDev and Knight's Chance, at least) are not compatible with this feature.

Regards.

Is it the whole high score table or just the entry from the recent game?
 

mmsadda

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I think this needs some clarification: on MVS the high score table for most games that you play is saved to teh Memory card, and restored automatically when you play the game again. It does not have the limit of 8 games that the regular backup memory has, you can save high scores for all your carts and all will be saved/restored automatically by the unibios. Homebrew games (NGDev and Knight's Chance, at least) are not compatible with this feature.

Regards.
Awesome, that's really helpful info! Thanks!
 

Doom

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I think this needs some clarification: on MVS the high score table for most games that you play is saved to teh Memory card, and restored automatically when you play the game again. It does not have the limit of 8 games that the regular backup memory has, you can save high scores for all your carts and all will be saved/restored automatically by the unibios. Homebrew games (NGDev and Knight's Chance, at least) are not compatible with this feature.

Regards.

That's amazing. Then does the backup ram even save data anymore beyond the calendar, daily mvs use and unibios settings? If one were to disable the virtual memory card and launch with just the backup ram would all scores disappear or does the backup ram save them as well?
 

Neo Alec

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How do I know if it's working or not? Is there a save file I should look for?
 

aha2940

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How do I know if it's working or not? Is there a save file I should look for?

Start the game with the unibios configured and the memory card on. If it's working, in attract mode, when the game shows the score table, you should see your scores instead of the ones the game has by default. Of course, you should make some high scores first :)
 

Neo Alec

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But on the MVS that could just be the battery backed scores from the memory on the board.
 

aha2940

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But on the MVS that could just be the battery backed scores from the memory on the board.

I think you are correct. The same scores table that is saved to MVS' backup memory, is also saved to the memory card by the unibios. The difference is that when you start a game, the score table is loaded by the unibios from the memory card for the game to use. It also works on the AES, so backup memory does not seem to be a requirement for this to work.
 

Razoola

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Highscore loading and saving to memory card is not a feature of the origional NeoGeo MVS or AES. The unibios gives highscore saving to memory card on both AES and MVS and this is seperate to highscore saving to backupRAM on MVS.

On MVS using a memory card gives the advantage bypassing the limits of backupRAM (scores saved from 8 different games only). Given how the system works, when the highscore table is loaded, scores on the memory card take priority over scores in backupRAM. However some games (ADK) use a daily highscrore reset and this can result in scores on the memory card also being reset. This however will be fixed in the next unibios version.

That said, on a MVS, region and mode setting are not loaded from memory card if they are not found in backupRAM. So with that in mind I would advise you have the battery working on the MVS.
 

famicommander

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Highscore loading and saving to memory card is not a feature of the origional NeoGeo MVS or AES. The unibios gives highscore saving to memory card on both AES and MVS and this is seperate to highscore saving to backupRAM on MVS.

On MVS using a memory card gives the advantage bypassing the limits of backupRAM (scores saved from 8 different games only). Given how the system works, when the highscore table is loaded, scores on the memory card take priority over scores in backupRAM. However some games (ADK) use a daily highscrore reset and this can result in scores on the memory card also being reset. This however will be fixed in the next unibios version.

That said, on a MVS, region and mode setting are not loaded from memory card if they are not found in backupRAM. So with that in mind I would advise you have the battery working on the MVS.

What about the Neo Geo CD?
 

Doom

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Thanks for the explanation Raz. That's a remarkable feat, I feel this should get a paragraph on the unibios site dedicated to describing this feature because it's rad and probably one of the least well known aspects of the Unibios.

So in other words really the two most amazing aspects of this is the ability to retain more than 8 games worth of high scores, and equally important imo the ability to not lose high scores when the backup ram battery dies.

So one last question that wasn't really cleared up was how can one identify which games have high scores saved to the memory card? Since the memory card manager accessed from the splash screen doesn't show any separate files from the regular stage level saves for each game, I'm going to have to guess that it's not possible? Therefor also not possible to delete those high scores I'm guessing?
 
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Razoola

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Thanks for the explanation Raz. That's a remarkable feat, I feel this should get a paragraph on the unibios site dedicated to describing this feature because it's rad and probably one of the least well known aspects of the Unibios.

So in other words really the two most amazing aspects of this is the ability to retain more than 8 games worth of high scores, and equally important imo the ability to not lose high scores when the backup ram battery dies.

So one last question that wasn't really cleared up was how can one identify which games have high scores saved to the memory card? Since the memory card manager accessed from the splash screen doesn't show any separate files from the regular stage level saves for each game, I'm going to have to guess that it's not possible? Therefor also not possible to delete those high scores I'm guessing?

I should have mentioned before that the actual code in the unibios is based on the highscore saving routines by SMKDAN. he gave permission for it to be used in the unibios and I have since improoved on it but in the end he deserves the credit for it.

When a highscore is saved you can see it in the memory card manager, it will be the game name with 'HS' following it. You can then delete the score table using the memorycard manager if you wish.
 
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