NeoMythMenu Deluxe v2.4

[Chilly Willy]

The Neo Myth for MD allows you to run MD/32X games from flash rom, or from SD(HC) cards if you have the Neo2-SD or Neo2-Pro. You can also run SMS games from the flash on any version hardware, or from SD if you have the V5 hardware. The MD Myth has the SMS FM sound chip on it so that SMS games that support the FM chip will sound better.

So what's new?

- Faster loading from SD cards.
- Fix for the issue where the menu couldn't open a file to load when it opened just fine to read the rom header.
- Improved SMS detection when the SMS rom image doesn't have a header.
- Fix for the Sega CD backup ram issue (the bram size was reported as twice the size it was supposed to report).
- Changed from ".menu" for the special folder to "menu" to make it easier on Windows users. If you have an existing ".menu" folder, rename it to "menu". This also matches the N64 Myth menu name for the special folder.

The archive has all the source, the MDBIOS.BIN file you would burn to the menu flash, and the MDEBIOS.BIN you would put on the SD card if you use SD-loaded BIOS. Since the special folder name changed from ".menu" to "menu", if you use an older MDBIOS.BIN in the menu flash to boot the new menu, there will be a name conflict. You'll either need to update the menu flash bios to the new BIOS, or settle for two special folders with both the old and new names. I recommend just updating the menu flash.

You can get the archive from the NeoFlash thread, or from the google code page.

http://www.neoflash.com/forum/index....ic,6403.0.html
http://code.google.com/p/neo-myth-menu/

[NeoVamp]

Awesome an update! thanks Chilly.

oh btw, do you happen to know who at the NEO team i should contact for that newer hardware trade in we spoke about a while ago?
(because my Neo won't run SMS roms from SD)

[Chilly Willy]

You should PM Dr.neo over at the NeoForums.

[PHANTOM2040]

Is this flashcart like the everdrive where there is only 64 megs of playable games at a time?

[Chilly Willy]

Is this flashcart like the everdrive where there is only 64 megs of playable games at a time?

It's an adapter that allows you to use GBA flash carts... specifically, the NeoFlash brand of flash carts. It comes with one GBA flash cart with 256 Mbits of flash, but there are other GBA flash carts available from NeoFlash up to 1 Gbit. There are also two GBA flash carts that also have a built in SD card interface - the Neo2-SD, which has 512 Mbits of flash + the SD interface, and the Neo2-Pro, which has 1 Gbit of flash + the SD interface.

So until you also get the Neo2-SD or Neo2-Pro, it is limited to what flash you have (32 MBytes if all you have is the initial flash that comes with the cart). Once you have the Neo2-SD/Neo2-Pro, then you can load games from SD instead of flash, meaning you are only limited by the space on the SD card. I've tested SDHC cards up to 8 GBytes, and the theoretical limit on SDHC is 32 GB due to the file system the menu uses.

[mugenmidget]

Thanks for the great update, ChillyWilly! Any tips on how we should handle our SD cards to get the best benefit of the speed updates? I can't seem to tell much of a difference, but I'm also using an older 2 GB SD card. Does it work a lot faster with SDHC, should I pick up a class 6 card?

[Chilly Willy]

The class won't make much difference, but fragmentation would. Make sure the card isn't fragmented... that was an issue with FAT/FAT32 formatted disks. The MD isn't fast enough for the class to matter - there's one speed that all cards read at... plus or minus a few seconds for synchronization delays that vary from card to card. You should be getting about 90KB/sec with v2.4. Note that if you were using on of the 2.3 test builds, you won't see a speed up since the speed up was introduced in 2.3. The speed up is compared against 2.2, which only got a little better than 50KB/sec.

[mugenmidget]

Oh, okay, sorry about that I was using the 2.3 test builds. And thanks for the SD card information. Still great speed (and amazing features) all around, good work!

[Chilly Willy]

Oh, okay, sorry about that I was using the 2.3 test builds.

I thought you might have. There was the notion to call this release the 2.3 Official, but I decided that it had a few more changes, and it had been long enough since the beta 2.3 changes that it should be bumped up a rev to 2.4.

And thanks for the SD card information. Still great speed (and amazing features) all around, good work!

I didn't even have to slow down the SD card init... that's how slow the Genny is. You need to init SD cards slow, then speed up after the init. Part of the init gets the features register so you can see how fast the card is. The MD runs at one speed... which is as fast as it can. By comparison, the N64 runs at a slow speed for the start, then a faster speed after the init. The N64 is capable of going faster than the init can take.

Looking at the 32X, it should be similar - you can adjust the speed at which the rom space is read, and it's faster than a rom cycle on the MD by default. So I expect I could get better speeds from a 32X menu than from the MD menu. Some day, I'll work on that.

[Yoder]

OK, so if I were to buy this, I could use the GBA flash drive in my GBA or my DS? Does the GBA flash drive come with it or is that separate?

[sg1000]

Can you get this in the U.K?

[Chilly Willy]

OK, so if I were to buy this, I could use the GBA flash drive in my GBA or my DS? Does the GBA flash drive come with it or is that separate?

Yes, you can use the GBA cart in a GBA or NDS. I've done that myself. The Neo Myth comes with one flash cart already plugged in, but it can be removed from the Neo Myth... it's not like it's soldered into place or anything. Look at the pictures over at ic2005.com... you can clearly see how the GBA cart plugs into the Neo Myth.

Can you get this in the U.K?

Well, they're mainly sold from ic2005.com, which is in Hong Kong. Given recent problems with Nintendo over NDS cards in the UK, I'm not 100% sure if you would have a problem or not. I don't THINK so... I think the problem was dealers trying to get large shipments of NDS flash cards, not individuals trying to get a single item that is similar but unrelated.