Unibios, NeoSaveMasta, & Battery-free questions

massimiliano

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Is there a way to read the memcard file system on a PC with PCMCIA reader? Or maybe dump the highscores via PC-2-Neo?
 

Razoola

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Yes, they can be read and dumped with PC2NEO already. At some point in the future it might also be possible to use a neoSD to read / restore data on a memory card data to the neoSDs micro SDcard.
 

Doom

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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.

I checked my saves via the "memory card manager" and going into "display stored memory", and none of the have HS following the names, they all have the letters TEM at the end instead.

Does that mean the VMC has not been saving the high scores? I have Unibios 3.3 and NTF's virtual memory card, both neatly installed by JNX. I play both in arcade and home modes.
 
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Razoola

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Have you set the 8th character of the memory cards user name to '!'? If not memory card highscore saving is not enabled.
 

massimiliano

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Yes, they can be read and dumped with PC2NEO already. At some point in the future it might also be possible to use a neoSD to read / restore data on a memory card data to the neoSDs micro SDcard.

cool thanks, looking forward to it!!
 

Doom

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Have you set the 8th character of the memory cards user name to '!'? If not memory card highscore saving is not enabled.

No I have not. Thanks for letting me know! So in order to backup existing scores I just play through again and do the stage save next time asked?
 
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Razoola

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Once enabled highscore saving/loading is automatic.
 

Doom

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Once enabled highscore saving/loading is automatic.

I put in an exclamation mark as the 8th character in the memory card's name. Tried playing some KoF99, saved when asked after finishing the arcade mode, and yet the save file still says TEM at the end instead of HS after the name. I tried deleting and starting from scratch but didn't make a difference. It has to say HS at the end to indicate a high score was saved?

Is it not compatible with the virtual memory card maybe?
 

Razoola

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Can you please post a picture. Like I said highscore saving is automatic, you need o let the game over sequence finish and back to attract mode before the score will save automatically. dont use cheats either as that will disable hs score saving to memory card.

Raz
 
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Doom

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Can you please post a picture. Like I said highscore saving is automatic, you need o let the game over sequence finish and back to attract mode before the score will save automatically. dont use cheats either as that will disable hs score saving to memory card.

Raz

Thanks for the reply Raz. I had the unlock hidden characters cheat enabled so that might have been the problem. When I get back home today I'll try what you described and come back with the results.
 

Neo Alec

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Have you set the 8th character of the memory cards user name to '!'? If not memory card highscore saving is not enabled.

Damn, that explains everything. Sorry if I missed reading that somewhere.

Thank you!

Is this going to take a lot of memory, or will I still have space on my NeoSaveMasta for a save from every game?
 

Doom

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High score saving worked for me following Raz's instructions. Thanks a bunch to Raz and SMKDAN for being so rad as to implement such a fantastic feature.

Seems like there's no need to even select "save", so long as:
-memory card user name has an "!" as the 8th character.
-no cheats are enable.

After a gameover screen the scores get saved, after choosing whether to save the stage the screen flashes and goes back to the attract mode instead of showing the usual "memory card is still inserted" blinking message before returning to the attract mode.

Is this going to take a lot of memory, or will I still have space on my NeoSaveMasta for a save from every game?

That's a great question. I'd be curious to know as well. I would have to assume that high score saving takes up more data since there's more information than just what stage you last played at, but I could be wrong.

I'm also curious to know if high scores obtained using cheats are skipped or whether the entire chart gets saved. I tend to enable blood and or character unlock cheats so if those prevented the scores from being legit I might not have a lot of actual scores in my HS saves.
 
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Razoola

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If I remember right there is space for all highscores to be saved for everygame on a savemasta. A 2k memory card is not enough though because a couple of games have massive highscore tables.
 

Tanooki

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This got me wondering, when it comes to like the 161in1 or even a legit cart, if you decide to go in to update a game specific softdip setting and set a specific difficulty level (since the 161 most games stupidly are set to LV7 or 8 on default), will that setting be retained once you roll through the last 8 games limit of the MVS? Bugs the crap out of me having to continually reset the default of 4 again due to that 161in1.

I've been meaning to get the unibios and still have yet to get around to it. I probably should pop now as I've not seen anything about another update.
 

ggallegos1

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This got me wondering, when it comes to like the 161in1 or even a legit cart, if you decide to go in to update a game specific softdip setting and set a specific difficulty level (since the 161 most games stupidly are set to LV7 or 8 on default), will that setting be retained once you roll through the last 8 games limit of the MVS? Bugs the crap out of me having to continually reset the default of 4 again due to that 161in1.

I've been meaning to get the unibios and still have yet to get around to it. I probably should pop now as I've not seen anything about another update.

If the selected game falls past the 8th game limit, the softdip settings will not save. If you go into softdip settings, the games you've played will pop up as though they were seperate MVS carts, so if it comes off the list you'll have to reset the difficulty again.
 

Doom

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Reviving this thread cause I have encountered a new oddity and was wondering if this was a bug in the VMC. It seems like Metal Slug 4 will only save up to 7 hi score saves, and anything recorded after that no longer gets saved. This is with no cheats enabled and waiting past credits even started a new game before powering off. Anyone else encounter this before? Not sure how to get the game to register new hi scores now.

EDIT: Ok I got it sorted out. Was just a settings problem.
 
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Bay78

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WOW this is cool. I can't wait to get my Unibios 4.0 and start playing around with this. I probably missed this somewhere but what are all the differences between the original Neo Geo memory card and the new savemasta?
 

gamerwhat

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Reviving this thread cause I have encountered a new oddity and was wondering if this was a bug in the VMC. It seems like Metal Slug 4 will only save up to 7 hi score saves, and anything recorded after that no longer gets saved. This is with no cheats enabled and waiting past credits even started a new game before powering off. Anyone else encounter this before? Not sure how to get the game to register new hi scores now.

EDIT: Ok I got it sorted out. Was just a settings problem.

Just curious, what setting caused this?
 

Bay78

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So what do I need to use the PC-2-Neo feature ?
 

tcdev

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Is there any code/information on how a program should load/save high scores to/from backup memory should it be required to be done manually/explicitly? Not (only) for UniBIOS but stock BIOS? I ask because I'm writing some homebrew that takes over the machine in demo mode and thus needs to load/save itself... but I want it to be compatible with the BIOS functions that do the same... TIA
 
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