AcceptableGhost
Member
I don't know why people were so quick to assume DotEmu was doing this stuff illegally. Their stuff is kind of shoddy yeah, but they are a legitimate company.
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Humble SNK NeoGeo 25th Anniversary bundle, including several PC debut games
- Thread starter Corpekata
- Start date
I don't know why people were so quick to assume DotEmu was doing this stuff illegally. Their stuff is kind of shoddy yeah, but they are a legitimate company.
Exactly. This whole debate is ludicrous. It's amazing that people can now have all these ROMs legally. It's an amazing deal, and with all the theft of their games over the years, I have no problem with this -- especially with the knowledge they purchased the rights to the emulator legally.
Their answer about how they're doing it legally actually raises more questions. How did they buy rights to Nebula from Gametap when Gametap never owned it?
Azure Dream
Member
Because GameTap logos and references to Capcom's CPS formats inside of their Neo-Geo software is super-suspicious, and companies have made an unfortunate habit of stealing emulation software to include in their products on the market? The ROMs being torrented doesn't help.
Like I said at the bottom of the last page, it's good if this is true. But given the situation, some kind of proof would be nice.
BronsonLee
Member
The real question is why does it matter
They don't owe proof, or anything of that ilk. They say they licensed it legally, that's not a claim you just hurl out there. If Nebula wants to make it a thing, then they will.
And fucking lol at caring about the ROMs being torrented, I'm sure they care
They don't owe proof, or anything of that ilk. They say they licensed it legally, that's not a claim you just hurl out there. If Nebula wants to make it a thing, then they will.
And fucking lol at caring about the ROMs being torrented, I'm sure they care
Azure Dream
Member
Because if they don't have the rights to the emulator, by buying this package you could be, ironically, supporting software piracy.
BronsonLee
Member
Something that nobody will ever actually push me on or push SNK on. They say they got it legally. If you want more proof, get a court to make them give it.
I'll live. The world will spin on. They don't owe us shit. This is a complete waste of time when we should be supporting SNK for doing the balls out weird ass move of literally going 'hey, these ROMs are cool for you to use, you bought them'
There was a surgence? lol
The Elite
BOSS
OmegaDL50
Member
This doesn't make sense.
Humblebundle had to first hash an agreement with SNK Playmore to get the licenses to sell these games in the first place.
In regards to Emulation itself. The emulator alone is not an act of piracy since most emulators don't even use copyrighted code from the original hardware and are reverse engineered to simulate the hardware it's emulating.
The copyrighted portions are the BIOS and Games themselves.
Now the questionable thing is if the Emulator authors usually frown upon their emulators being bundled with illegal software. However in this case Humble getting the proper licenses through SNK, then wouldn't that effectively mean said game software bundled with the emulator is legal since it went directly through the copyright holder of the games.
The biggest issue is if GameTAP had the proper permissions to distribute Nebula in the first place.
I seriously doubt SNK would allow people to sell their IPs unchecked without some sort of license agreement in the first place.
With that said the ROMs themselves are legal in this sense. The Emulator not so much, but the ROMs themselves being the most important thing in this case. So if buying the ROMs grants you a license for their use, then using an alternative emulator would get around this issue, no?
OmegaDL50
Member
As I said in my previous post. The Roms themselves are probably legal because Humble had to get some kind of agreement from SNK Playmore to sell them in the first place.
The emulator however might be a different issue entirely.
The best workaround this issue is to use your legal roms on an alternative emulator like Retroarch.
It's probably will run the games better then whatever old version of Nebula that DotEmu is using anyways.
Thank you, that was my point.
Copyrighted and illegal software being bundled with an emulator. This is a No No.
Legally obtained and licensed software (Roms) through the original IP holder with an emulator, Not illegal.
The biggest thing though is if DotEmu is giving a cut of any sales to author of Nebula or whatever codebase they are using. If they even got permissions to use it in the first place.
Tizoc
Member
AcceptableGhost
Member
sörine;188536649 said:
They are saying that Gametaps emulator is just a repackaged/modified version of Nebula. Which back in the day was licensed by Gametap for their personal use. A quick glance at the Nebula site - it doesn't even look like the emulator is open source. Thus the only way to get the source code in the first place was to talk with the people making it.
Gametaps logos are there because DotEmu was too lazy to remove them, and they didn't have to. References to CPS and such in the binary are there because the emulator in question is a multi hardware emulator, it emulates more than just NeoGeo. Some shady companies have a history of using software illegally yes but also paying for licensed software solutions has happened for decades.
Them using torrented ROMS is probably for the best - I am not sure I really trust DotEmu to dump the ROMS themselves and they are in legal right to use them anyway. I am not sure what the "situation" is here. Do you require seeing the written contract for every game you play with some sort of middleware solution involved? I am pretty sure DotEmu has been doing stuff like this for about a decade.
I am going to go with innocent until proven guilty (by whoever owns the emulator) on this one.
Last Blade 1 > Last Blade 2
Unawakened Kaede <3
Kaede's stage from LB1 is so beautiful.
Pity I didn't see it that much, since I was only playing as Kaede...
I mean...
I don't even disagree with you, I just want Hibiki Takane.
Also, I like the LB2 backgrounds better.
IIRC there's way to use unawakened Kaede in LB2 - I'm not sure if it's specific to any given version through.
Azure Dream
Member
I already stated as such. I think most people had initially assumed DotEmu had their own emulation software, until digging was done. Hence the alarm bells at such odd things appearing in an emulator for Neo-Geo games.
That's a weird vote of confidence. You don't trust them to dump the ROMs?
Wow, way to muddy up the point, with a vague attack in there. Emulation software is ripped off quite often, and I think people were surprised DotEmu purchased the legal rights from the now-defunct GameTap (which I admit I didn't know was French until just now) instead of having their own emulator. There's nothing wrong with healthy suspicion when it comes to this market. Companies have lied to people's faces about using emulators before; it's something to be suspicious about. And they're usually the first ones to threaten legal action at anyone who suggests otherwise, hence why the open letter didn't relieve my concerns.
After reading GameTap was French, that puts a missing piece of the puzzle in there, I can probably put my personal suspicions to rest. I was only reacting to the information other people put out there, after all, not to mention the apparent surprise and confusion by the community.
Yeah, I figured this out by trial error, like everything else I know about Retroarch. There seem to be very few good tutorials. To load shaders I go to the shaders option, then I believe the option is "load preset" or something like that, and then you get various folders that aren't always helpfully named. But in this case, it is - you want the CRT folder, then there are several options you can choose.
Here's what I did with Retroarch to set up the thing a few months ago (when I got a Kazzo for my NES games and a Retrode2 for the rest):
1. I unzipped Retroarch to my downloads folder and left it there. I could probably move it somewhere, but why bother. I have never moved any files - ROMs or otherwise - into Retroarch's file structure.
2. The directory I use for my ROMs is in a totally separate place, at top level C: drive. I have subfolders for various consoles.
3. After downloading everything from the bundle yesterday, my subfolder for NeoGeo (C:/ROM/Neogeo) has 1 copy of neogeo.zip and then all the GameName.zip files (e.g., garou.zip, etc. (note that King of the Fighters 02 has two zip files and you run the game from the first one)).
4. I boot up Retroarch - and even though you've already got it, I'll add this step for anyone new to Retroarch: go to Online Updater, then select the option to download cores (it's near the top). I use the Final Burn Alpha core called "Arcade (FB Alpha)". The core will download and then you'll be ready to roll.
5. Go back to RA's main menu, select Load Core and pick the Arcade core you downloaded.
6. Select Load Content from the main menu, this should show you all your drive options on your PC, navigate to your rom folder (this is why I use C:/$1ROM for mine, so it's very easy to get to). Go to your NeoGeo subfolder and pick the game you want to run (not the neogeo bios zip). For me, everything I tried (I tried about half the ROMs last night) worked fine. If not, you'll need help beyond my noob knowledge. :/
7. Select shaders, configure controls, etc. as desired. Note that RetroArch (a) assume the pad layout is a nintendo style B/A layout, not Xbox A/B, and (b) analog sticks do not send out dpad by default and you'll need to configure that in Input options.
8. F1 is the magic key to take you to the quick menu where you can save and load states, reset the game, take screenshots, etc. I have F1, the screenshot key, and save state key all bound to my steam controller for ease of use. (I prefer to have RA take screenshots then move them to the steam screenshot folder.)
Hope this helps in some way. I know there are probably better ways to set up Retroarch - like I know it can auto scan for ROMs and put them into a content directory so that you don't have to do the load core, load content thing that I describe, but I've never really bothered to figure that out. Hopefully someone with real knowledge (rather than my trial and error suggestions) can give a real detailed tutorial on the best way to set things up.
BronsonLee
Member
Yaaaaay
This was a stupid scenario that got started by some gob on Twitter who was bored
OmegaDL50
Member
I am not sure if these codes can be used on both the MVS or AES setting, but you can play some of the hidden characters in Last Blade 2 by entering a code on the character select screen
http://www.ign.com/cheats/games/last-blade-2-heart-of-the-samurai-ng-10985
Man...fucking Irem...I really would've loved for Undercover Cop to be added but I doubt anyone even owns the rights to that game anymore ToT
You just mentioned the 2 games I actually want them to add
Incidentally, Undercover Cops was in one of the first classic arcade bundles DotEmu ever put out, Irem Arcade Hits. That one was a real garbage emulator, with no joystick support, or graphics options. I never managed to extract uccops.zip from the program files, but after this I'll give it another go with a ROM manager.
Azure Dream
Member
No, it's good people check this sort of thing, and if they hadn't, someone else probably would've found it and had the same questions raised.
I know you don't care about it, you've said as much, but others do.
BronsonLee
Member
I would absolutely care if something of actual substance was there, but like always, its Much Ado About Nothing
So instead of supporting SNK for actually giving us legal ROMS for once, you decided to steer the conversation towards them using torrented ROMS (the irony is astounding) on an emulator that they possibly don't have a license for (which they have unequivocally said they do). If that isn't enough for you, then whatever.
Yeah I can't find the "shaders" option at all. I've looked everywhere in RetroArch for it. The shader files are there when I look in the system files, I just can't find out how to apply them within RetroArch.
Yeah my setup is kinda different. For one thing none if it is on the C: Drive. RetroArch and all my ROMs are on a separate drive together, but I still don't get how RetroArch knows the BIOS file is where you put it. There's no step in the process where you actually tell it to load the BIOS file. I have my BIOS file in the same folder where all my NeoGeo ROMs are, but for some reason Garou didn't work until I put a BIOS file in another folder inside the RetroArch directory.
I will.
You have to start up a game and go back into the menu to apply shaders.
Azure Dream
Member
No, you said:
That's you NOT caring. Again, companies have lied about this sort of thing before. It was super suspicious. Don't act like it's so obvious in hindsight that they purchased an emulator from GameTap of all places.
Seriously, I haven't bought this bundle, does it actually give you uncompressed ROM files? Because if you do any work to remove them from an obfuscated format, I would guess that that disqualifies it from being "legal ROMs", as you've stated twice now. It becomes the same as any packaged emulation product.
How is that irony? You don't actually know what you're saying, do you? And I wasn't even the first person to bring it up, by far. Here's an entire thread on it.
Suspicion is healthy when it comes to this shit. End of story.
BronsonLee
Member
You really nailed it. Congratulations! They'll rue the day that you got them good!
Azure Dream
Member
cool shakey head gif bro, you put me down so hard
Edit: Jesus, that's like the third time you've stealth-edited your posts significantly in this thread alone. And you're not reading what I wrote, so onto the Ignore list you go.
BronsonLee
Member
Anyways back onto the bundle since that's what actually matters:
Do we have a general idea of the four secret games, or are we just spitballing
Do we have a general idea of the four secret games, or are we just spitballing
You can easily eliminate the slowdown in the Metal Slug games if you run them through the lbr-fba-next core in RetroArch, go to the Core Settings, and then set the CPU overclock to 200. This simulates the Neo-Geo itself having an overclocked CPU, which eliminates even the slowdown that the games had running on the original hardware. Metal Slug 1, 2, X, 3... etc. all run like butter with the overclock nudged up a bit.
Tizoc
Member
Ooooh than ks for this. will test it out in time.
Woah cool, i think I have one of those Irem collections, once you figure out how to find the ROM of it RetroArch should do the rest
I can confirm that normal Kaede is indeed in Last Blade 2. He is however one of the weakest characters in the game :V
Sorry man, no idea. I wish there was a better guide. Garou was even the first game I started with. Everything has just worked for me.
Well, except retroarch sometimes forgets that I want my left stick on the steam controller to emulate the d-pad by default, heh.
BronsonLee
Member
Coreda
Member
If Last Blade 2 was added I'd be so in. Those are the only two I'm interested in.
Absolutely. This is what we've always wanted and now people are complaining? How many people actually have bought Neo-Geo copies of the games they've played, I mean really.
Absolutely. This is what we've always wanted and now people are complaining? How many people actually have bought Neo-Geo copies of the games they've played, I mean really.
BronsonLee
Member
I'd be surprised if we get that, considering it's getting console and Steam ports on the strength of the title itself.
That being said..
AcceptableGhost
Member
You would hope that they would get Code Mystics (they did the KOF2002UM and KOF98UM Steam ports and Metal Slug 3 PS4/Vita) to port their version of The Last Blade 2 PS4 to PC instead of a DotEmu version.
OmegaDL50
Member
For those who want to use Steam as a frontend for their NeoGeo Rom library. Here is simple configuration for it.
Download your desired Emulator of choice. For the sake of this tutorial I will be using RetroArch latest stable release v1.2.2
Then you want to download Ice - http://scottrice.xyz/Ice/
It does not matter where you put Ice but for the convenience I will be setting up everything at C:\Games
After you downloaded RetroArch and Ice and have them unpacked at your directory of choice (C:\games)
Inside the Ice Folder there will be two text files. consoles.txt and emulators.txt
Open up emulators.txt and paste this into the text file at the bottom
[Neo Geo]
location=C:\Games\Retroarch\retroarch.exe
command=%l -f -L C:\Games\RetroArch\cores\fb_alpha_libretro.dll %r
Open up consoles.txt and paste this into the txt file at the bottom
[Neo Geo]
nickname=Neo Geo
emulator=Neo Geo
extensions=zip
In the Ice folder there is also a text file named config.txt, open this up.
Storage]
# The path to place your ROMs Directory. This can be in any drive or anywhere,
# as long as the full path is specified. Use ~ to represent your home folder
# (for example, C:\Users\Scott\)
#
# Set a directory where the ROMs are stored.
# If no directory is provided, "~/ROMs" is used.
# Example:
# ~\ROMs => C:\Users\<YOUR USERNAME>\ROMs
ROMs Directory=PUT YOUR ROM DIRECTORY HERE
Don't forget to save any changes made.
Now run Ice.exe from the Ice folder (C:\games\ice\ice,exe)
Ice will automatically create the necessary folders if you have not made them.
In this case it would be C:\Games\Roms\Neo Geo
Inside the Neo Geo folder make sure the Bios (neogeo.zip usually) and all of your games are in this folder inside their respective zip files.
Make sure Steam is closed and re-run Ice.exe with your roms in their proper directories.
Ice will detect each game and add them to your Steam library.
Open Steam and in your library right click on NeoGeo and remove the shortcut.
Each game will not have their proper names so you can at this point right click on each game go to properties and give them their proper names.
Also if you want to setup custom image banners you can go to http://consolegrid.com/ or http://steambanners.booru.org/ enter the name of the game and download them. You can also get banners from another website or create your own.
By simply clicking on the game in your library the game will bypass retroarch and load immediately with any properly configured settings such as Region, Shaders, Etc.
Of course the game settings themselves would naturally need to be configured in Retroarch before hand and saved to get the desired selection.
Download your desired Emulator of choice. For the sake of this tutorial I will be using RetroArch latest stable release v1.2.2
Then you want to download Ice - http://scottrice.xyz/Ice/
It does not matter where you put Ice but for the convenience I will be setting up everything at C:\Games
After you downloaded RetroArch and Ice and have them unpacked at your directory of choice (C:\games)
Inside the Ice Folder there will be two text files. consoles.txt and emulators.txt
Open up emulators.txt and paste this into the text file at the bottom
[Neo Geo]
location=C:\Games\Retroarch\retroarch.exe
command=%l -f -L C:\Games\RetroArch\cores\fb_alpha_libretro.dll %r
Open up consoles.txt and paste this into the txt file at the bottom
[Neo Geo]
nickname=Neo Geo
emulator=Neo Geo
extensions=zip
In the Ice folder there is also a text file named config.txt, open this up.
Storage]
# The path to place your ROMs Directory. This can be in any drive or anywhere,
# as long as the full path is specified. Use ~ to represent your home folder
# (for example, C:\Users\Scott\)
#
# Set a directory where the ROMs are stored.
# If no directory is provided, "~/ROMs" is used.
# Example:
# ~\ROMs => C:\Users\<YOUR USERNAME>\ROMs
ROMs Directory=PUT YOUR ROM DIRECTORY HERE
Don't forget to save any changes made.
Now run Ice.exe from the Ice folder (C:\games\ice\ice,exe)
Ice will automatically create the necessary folders if you have not made them.
In this case it would be C:\Games\Roms\Neo Geo
Inside the Neo Geo folder make sure the Bios (neogeo.zip usually) and all of your games are in this folder inside their respective zip files.
Make sure Steam is closed and re-run Ice.exe with your roms in their proper directories.
Ice will detect each game and add them to your Steam library.
Open Steam and in your library right click on NeoGeo and remove the shortcut.
Each game will not have their proper names so you can at this point right click on each game go to properties and give them their proper names.
Also if you want to setup custom image banners you can go to http://consolegrid.com/ or http://steambanners.booru.org/ enter the name of the game and download them. You can also get banners from another website or create your own.
By simply clicking on the game in your library the game will bypass retroarch and load immediately with any properly configured settings such as Region, Shaders, Etc.
Of course the game settings themselves would naturally need to be configured in Retroarch before hand and saved to get the desired selection.
This is pretty great, thank you.
GalacticSushiman
Member
EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND GO PLAY SHOCK TROOPERS 2!!!
Top down shooter 'mercs-like'... except it's much better than Mercs.
(also, what a dream to replay PULSTAR, I remembered it was hard, but not THAT hard).
Top down shooter 'mercs-like'... except it's much better than Mercs.
(also, what a dream to replay PULSTAR, I remembered it was hard, but not THAT hard).