I had some time to play around with my SGX and NeoFlash cart the other day, so I tried out a bunch of stuff, especially things reported not to work. The first thing I noticed was most PCE rom images come with a header. Second, from mic's work on Neutopia, 3Mbit games need to be mirrored via software because the NeoFlash doesn't handle the mirroring for that size correctly (well, not good enough for Neutopia at least). Third, most rom sources have scads of bad rom images. Let's deal with the third issue first since bad roms won't work regardless of what else you do... find a set of GoodPCE roms. I'm currently using a set of GoodPCE v1.09a roms. There are still a few bad roms in the set... they don't work on real hardware, they don't work in emulators, and a look at the reset vector shows it not going to the right place. Ones I've found so far include: "Cadash (U).pce" - use "Cadash (J).pce" instead "Final Lap Twin (U).pce" - use "Final Lap Twin (U) [h1].pce" instead "Legend of Hero Tonma (U).pce" - use "Legend of Hero Tonma (J).pce" instead. Next, you can deal with both the headers and mirroring at the same time using this utility I did based on mic's mirroring utility: neopceproc.zip The archive includes the source and a 32-bit linux binary. You CD to the directory where your roms are, then run the utility. It goes through the directory looking for all roms ending in ".pce", strips any header, mirrors 3Mbit games properly, then writes the data using the same filename to the PARENT DIRECTORY. That can be changed by changing the string in line 66 if you're a programmer. Finally, I made one change to mic's menu that could make a difference to some games, depending on the reset vector - this bios clears all the mapping page registers to zero except for page 1, which is mapped to ram to run the launch code: pcebios-111b1.zip Doing all of the above, I have not (yet) found one rom that doesn't work that is not bad. If you find one, let me know and I'll look into it.
I don't have goodsets roms anymore but maybe you can try some of the No-Intro roms (for the bad one in goodpce).
My main problem with mine is that it doesn't flash reliably. Sometimes it takes a few tries even with a working ROM, and that always leaves me with the feeling that just because it's booted ok doesn't mean the entire ROM was correctly flashed and it might break an hour or so down the line. I'm not sure if it's caused by the shit software or by shoddy hardware, but either way it's irritating. In fairness though the only ROM that I couldn't get working at all was Street Fighter, but I've got the cart now so don't really care. Thanks for the auto header tool, that sounds really useful.
ElBarto: Next time I have the chance, I'll try to get a set of the NoIntro roms to see if they're better. At least maybe find replacements for the bad roms. Alchy: From comments by people on the NF Forums and my own experience, it seems that problems burning are mostly related to the computer and OS. 64-bit Windows 7 seems to be a major problem for the NF client. Most people find it far more reliable on an older PC using Windows XP. I use an old laptop with XP on it for my burning. I use it for my Tototek stuff as well since it has an EPP parallel port on it. Remember that the power for running the cart comes from the USB port, so make sure it's connected to a port on the motherboard, or a powered hub to be sure it gets enough juice. My laptop has two USB devices: a mouse and the NF SLIV.
I know, I'm on XP32 though. It wouldn't ever work properly through a USB hub so it has its own USB port. There's no excuse either way, really. This stuff should just work.
I don't think there's a flash cart out that has a client that "just works" on newer versions of Windows. The Tototek software has at least as many problems, plus it requires an EPP parallel port that's getting harder to find. At least the NeoFlash uses USB. I think that's why KRIKzz's carts use the console to burn the flash instead of using a PC client - he doesn't want to deal with Windows any more than the others. Anywho, I do realize this is a problem for many people, so when I get the chance I plan to work on madmonkey's open source client.
