Neo Geo loading very slowly

[Anonymous]

I installed a fresh 3.0 image onto my Pi1 B yesterday, and most everything looks good. I especially love that GBA works more like the other emulators by default!

However, NeoGeo seems to be having issues loading, and I can’t figure out why. The same game I always test with (Garou: MotW) will load right up to the last few files at the yellow loading bar, and then it will stall. I think it’s the fourth audio file that it stalls on, and the rest go very slowly. If you wait several minutes, it will actually load the game, and it’s as playable as ever.

On previous installs, the whole thing loaded quickly, provided I had a medium overclock going, my gpu_mem at 128, and had set the video mode argument to 2 in the es_systems.cfg. If any one of those were missing, things went a little wonky.

With the new install, I set all that up, but it didn’t fix the problem. The es_systems config has changed a little bit, so I tried using the RetroPie menu to set the video mode instead. I tried the 640×480 and 720×480 modes, but it still stalls. I discovered the “2” video mode argument a long time ago, and I forget which mode it corresponds to exactly.

Has anyone else had this problem? Any pro tips?

[Anonymous]

This is still occurring on Raspberry Pi 1 Version 3.0 BETA 2. This is driving me nuts, but everything else is running so beautifully in this version that I’m hesitant to revert to 2.x just to get NeoGeo working.

Has anyone else had any trouble with slow Neo Geo loading times after the update?

Does anyone know exactly what the ‘2’ in this line would have done in v2.X? This is the only step in my old, working procedure that I can’t be sure I’m replicating accurately in v3.0, since the es_systems.cfg has changed a little.
<command>/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 2 "/opt/retropie/emulators/pifba/fba2x %ROM%" "pifba"</command>

[kitchuk]

Did you figure this one out?

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, no. Are you having this problem too?

What I’ve found is that the loading speed varies – anywhere from about 40 seconds to almost 15 MINUTES for the same rom! If there’s a trigger condition for the slow loads, I haven’t been able to figure it out. Predictably, it’s most noticeable on larger roms like G:MotW and SVC:Chaos.

I would greatly appreciate any ideas at this point, or even just some confirmation so I know I’m not completely nuts. :P

[Floob]

No, youre nuts. :)

Or maybe not.

To start with, what emulator are you running neogeo with? FBA or gnGEO?

Have you checked your romsets with the details on this page?
https://github.com/retropie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Managing-ROMs

[Anonymous]

Hah, I knew I was nuts!

I’m using the default, PiFBA, with the neogeo rom folder. I tried gnGEO and it seems to choke up on loading as well. I haven’t tested gnGEO as thoroughly though, as I hate the branded loading screen and desperately want PiFBA to work again. :P

I ran my romset through clrmame, as described on the wiki. I actually seem to have GAINED roms somehow, but the affected roms came through clean. With the post-clrmame versions, loads are still borked. :(

[Floob]

Is your neogeo.zip file passed as valid by clrmamepro and it exists in your rom folder?

Is the dat file you used this one?
http://smartretro.co.uk/forums/download/file.php?id=17

I quite like GnGeo as its pretty fast and uses a newer romset.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, that’s the dat I used.

The neogeo.zip that clrmamepro creates actually doesn’t work for me. It loads roms to a black screen. I do have a working bios that I’ve been using since retropie 2.4 or so. I tried that both with and without the uni bios, but saw no difference. I don’t think the problem is the bios though, since it’s occurring before that’s even loaded?

I tried gnGEO again just now, from a cold boot, and got a load time of a little over 14 minutes for G:MotW, including two minutes of “decrypting…”. :\

So, I tried a new experiment. I dropped my gpu_mem down to 64. Loading time for G:MotW was down to a consistent 23 seconds over 5 attempts using PiFBA. Gameplay was very slow, however, and I had to hide all my other romsets so that EmulationStation would display at all. This is roughly how fast it loaded on previous installs, with a 128 split and playable gameplay speed. Not sure why this would have changed.

In light of this, I’m tempted to toy with CMA (dynamic memory split), but that seems quite the potential rabbit hole, and quite silly if it’s working as-is for everyone else.

[Floob]

Has your B got 256MB or 512MB?

Why might a RetroPie image not work on a Raspberry Pi?

GnGeo works pretty well on my B 256 though, so it shouldnt be an issue.

I’ve posted details about the neogeo bios file here for gngeo:
http://smartretro.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=44

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, it’s a wee 256mb model. That didn’t stop it from handling NeoGeo flawlessly before, but seems to have caught up with it now. :(

I’ve more or less given up on this for the moment. I’ll try again if anyone has any suggestions, or with the next RPi update. (Or when I can pick up an RPi2!)

[Floob]

Is it worth spinning up a 2.6.0 version to see if it plays better with that?
That way you could rule out the hardware being the issue?

[Anonymous]

I might give that a shot when the next update comes out, since I’ll be backing up everything for the update anyway. Part of me is hoping I’ll just pick up a 2 by then and be done with it. :P

[Author]

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