New Review - Neo2 SD

[mthrnite]

@melloncollie

Creative Cropping to the RESCUE!!!

 

[enarky]

And guys keep in mind that their project to make it compatible with SNES, N64 etc. is bound to fail because on the original carts(expecially the Snes ones) there where special chips that are required in order to play certain games(a lot of them). Just dragging a rom in there won't do much, because it's not like we are using an emulator, that can emulate all those different chips, we are talking of the real hardware.
Most ROMs simply won't work.

There's a quite complete list of SNES games with special chips at the Pocketheaven Wiki, that's not what I would call "most roms", considering there were about 900 unique SNES games (and a complete GoodSNES set, with language dupes and bad dumps, has 11337 ROMs, last time I checked). Back in the days there *were* a lot of problems with N64 games having different chips in them - but they were all emulated by copiers by the end of the N64 era, IIRC (never was really interested in N64 stuff), so it shouldn't be a problem to emulate them in a Microcontroller or a FPGA today.

N64, Megadrive and SNES are all fairly well documented, I expect the Neo2 compatibility to be quite high with these consoles... if it's not they have a serious problem with their engineering team.

 

[Konamix02]

And to think...I was | | this close to getting an MK3...good thing I got SCSD

 

[pbjorge12]

Wait...
It has Nintendo 64 support? As in I could play Ocarina of Time on my DS? Or am I reading it wrong?

 

[jumpman17]

Wait...
It has Nintendo 64 support? As in I could play Ocarina of Time on my DS? Or am I reading it wrong?

Yes, you are reading very wrong. The Neo team is making an N64 flash card that for some reason or another you put the N64 roms on this card (Neo2 SD) and then plug it into the N64 card and play on your N64. Why they don't just make an SD slot on the N64 card, I don't know. Oh wait, yes I do, this way they can sell twice as many products.

 

[pbjorge12]

Thanks for clearing that up...
I thought How the are they going to manage pulling that off...N64 should be impossible to emulate on the ds...

 

[doodad]

Why they don't just make an SD slot on the N64 card, I don't know. Oh wait, yes I do, this way they can sell twice as many products.

This way you're not forced to pay for the expensive and necessary NOR flash memory for every console's adapter you wish to purchase.

 

[Arm73]

And guys keep in mind that their project to make it compatible with SNES, N64 etc. is bound to fail because on the original carts(expecially the Snes ones) there where special chips that are required in order to play certain games(a lot of them). Just dragging a rom in there won't do much, because it's not like we are using an emulator, that can emulate all those different chips, we are talking of the real hardware.
Most ROMs simply won't work.
There's a quite complete list of SNES games with special chips at the Pocketheaven Wiki, that's not what I would call "most roms", considering there were about 900 unique SNES games (and a complete GoodSNES set, with language dupes and bad dumps, has 11337 ROMs, last time I checked). Back in the days there *were* a lot of problems with N64 games having different chips in them - but they were all emulated by copiers by the end of the N64 era, IIRC (never was really interested in N64 stuff), so it shouldn't be a problem to emulate them in a Microcontroller or a FPGA today.

N64, Megadrive and SNES are all fairly well documented, I expect the Neo2 compatibility to be quite high with these consoles... if it's not they have a serious problem with their engineering team.

Believe me, they have a lot of bigger problems to overcome, let alone the SNES and Megadrive documentations.
I've been an avid reader of their forums for months, waiting in vain for some software update, that's when I came across some discussion regarding the well documented but hard to implement chips for those adapters.
Dr. Neo himself stated that he wasn't concerned about those 'odd' games not working, and that probably they will not support those chips in their cards but there will be a pass-trough option to have a real game connected at the same time with the Neo Myth to take advantage of the on board chips.
Problem is that out of those 'odd' 900 or so title that you mention, (some of them being first class games like Starfox or Yoshi's island) not all of them share the same chips, I believe they where called DPI or something (I am probably wrong but you got my point) therefore an average user would still need 3 or 4 actual games cartridge in order to be able to play any of those games.
There you have it, the Neo2 is just as good as a paper weight.

 

[jumpman17]

Why they don't just make an SD slot on the N64 card, I don't know. Oh wait, yes I do, this way they can sell twice as many products.
This way you're not forced to pay for the expensive and necessary NOR flash memory for every console's adapter you wish to purchase.

How much is this saving us by having us buy the Neo2 in addition to the flash card for the N64 or whatever? If it's less then $60 then it's cheaper to include the chip and leave out the Neo2.

 

[enarky]

Dr. Neo himself stated that he wasn't concerned about those 'odd' games not working, and that probably they will not support those chips in their cards but there will be a pass-trough option to have a real game connected at the same time with the Neo Myth to take advantage of the on board chips.
Problem is that out of those 'odd' 900 or so title that you mention, (some of them being first class games like Starfox or Yoshi's island) not all of them share the same chips, I believe they where called DPI or something (I am probably wrong but you got my point) therefore an average user would still need 3 or 4 actual games cartridge in order to be able to play any of those games.
There you have it, the Neo2 is just as good as a paper weight.

Instead of being happy that you get to play most of your favourite games you critizise that you can't play all of them? Which you could *never* play with *any* other copier, too, btw. I also seriously doubt that these special chip games will ever work with Neo2, but where's the big deal? I repeat, no other copier supports them.

I still have my old ProFighter standing around here, it's quite nice for the occasional retro feeling... but it doesn't play StarFox - and believe me, this copier cost me quite a lot more than a Neo2. No problem, I went to Ebay and bought it for 2 EUR a month ago (like I sold my other copy for ~2 EUR about four years ago). The two games you mentioned were sold in the millions, they are no rare items. Here are two other cheap-o auctions: Yoshi's Island, StarFox.

To get things straight, I honestly don't like the company behind Neo. But that's related to how they behaved early in the NDS days and before. Anyone else remembers the first XG cards (XG == Neo, before NDS) being a cheap clones of the first EZ cards, 'cause XG was supposed to manufacture these cards but only stole the design? And how low the build quality was?

Not supporting special chip games with a SNES copier is not a big issue in my opinion.

 

[retrohead]

The NEO2-TF was reviewed here if anyone is interested. There are 3 types of flash card that work with the 3-in-1 Genesis / N64 / SNES (NEO2-SD TF and Lite). Actually I think that has now grown to 5 with the recent announcement of NEO3. To put the cat amongst the pidgeons, I wonder what you're all going to say now you know they've created a new version of this range of cards that isn't compatible with GBA.

Enjoy!

 

[jumpman17]

NOTE: Don't let the name Neo3 fool you, it's just a watered down Neo2 that is a cheaper price.

Although I'm not sure what's left to water down...