@hunterk How to use the Geolith database? Scanning can’t detect any of my .neo files. Then, I tried manual scan, but all the files have their zipped names and can’t download any thumbnails. Does it need a dat file? I downloaded one from the database repository, but everytime I try to manual scan using it, RetroArch crashes.
The databases just got merged. All that’s left is needing to add one line to the core’s info file:
database = "SNK - Neo Geo"
I have a PR open to do that, but you can do it on your end with a text editor. At that point, it should scan, get the proper names and get icons and thumbnails (for most games; there are still some stragglers I need to investigate) just like any regular console, e.g. SNES.
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Do you mean that one? If so, still isn’t working for me. Regular scan detects no games, while manual scan just gives out their MAME names, no thumbnail is downloaded. Is there any extra/different step?
you also need the rdb database file. I think it should probably be available from the online updater via “update databases,” but if not, you can get it from here and put it in your rdb database directory: https://github.com/libretro/libretro-database/raw/master/rdb/SNK%20-%20Neo%20Geo.rdb
I did the scan and it all worked, icons for content and playlist. Unfortunately no thumbnails for me, is there a dat to rename the files? my .neo backups are from MiSTer Pack Add-on - NEOGEO 2023-12-08…
can you post a screenshot of your playlist? On mine, it got the proper names from the database. The files themselves are named aof.neo, etc. and show up as “Art of Fighting - Blah Blah Whatever” in the playlist.
Sure, here are some random examples, I didn’t renamed them, this is what was in the “pack” I mentioned above:
Art of Fighting (aof).neo
King of Fighters '99, The (AES) (kof99h).neo
Last Blade 2, The (lastbld2).neo
I have to say that, as I usually do, I did a manual scan and not a “normal” scan.
EDIT: I did a thumbnail playlist update again and now some games do have screenshot and box art but not all of them (less then 50% now have screens & box).
I assume the normal scanner to import games with RetroArch expects the games in their short naming form, like MAME and FB Neo does too, in example lastbld2.neo . I have them in short name too and they are imported correctly (meaning the playlist names are the expanded ones, like the Arcade core has it).
Note: After adding the line database = "SNK - Neo Geo" to the cores info file, as instructed by hunterk, the games were imported with a full auto scan.
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do you have all the screens and boxart in your list?
The weird thing, in my case, is that the thumbnails updater retrives some of them (even with the naming that I showed above). If naming was mandatory then I would expect to have no images at all.
Not every entry has thumbnails on my side either. It’s not perfect, some playlist entry names contain underscore, and its not consistent with the infos (brackets with additional info such as prototype only if there are multiple verions, if there is one version then it won’t have brackets). There is even a game which contains the .neo extension in the playlist and does not have a thumbnail, but game runs fine. I think 192/278 entries have thumbnails.
I will delete playlist and thumbnails to see if it has improved and update this reply. EDIT: Not finished yet, but it looks exactly the same so far. Note, the underscores looks like a replacement character for slash /, in example in Aero Fighters 2 _ Sonic Wings 2 or in various fighting games with different names for each region its known for.
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I made a slimmer selection of games so I don’t have the whole set, my total amount to 139 and 31 of them have screens/title/boxarts:
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I plan on doing the same, to recreate my AES setup, which is currently under FB Neo. BTW I did that long time ago before using RetroArch and it consists of 91 games, which strictly is limited to AES releases only.
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Yeah, I did something similar. At first I planned on doing a set of only AES release (that I think are 117) but then most MSV “only” game do have menu that works in AES system, so I added (in a subfolder) 29 MVS “only” titles.
So the total for me is 110 AES (I excluded mahjong and quiz) + 29 MVS = 139 total
And I also excluded different revision/prototypes and kept (when available) the “h” version (stand for home).
AES
MVS
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Love it! I also was careful with the versions, that never got released as AES. And a few games I was not interested into are also excluded (btw list is 90 games, forgot the one was neogeo.zip). If you are interested into the process how I determined this (years ago when Raspberry Pi 3b was the new hot thing), here is an article by me: https://thingsiplay.game.blog/2020/02/18/why-split-neo-geo-system-from-arcade-in-retropie/ (Edit: Noticed you have linked to the same Wikipedia article I used as my source. Nice.)
The final conclusion with the lists to download for FB Neo is still used by me today in RetroArch. And I just migrated it over to the new core! Here is the list of filenames with .neo extension: https://pastebin.com/T10Dkdiu
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Nice article, very well detailed and explained, well done!
We mostly got to the same “final” set with the same rom versions! 
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Back to your actual question and problem. I noticed a pattern.
The Boxart files (about 170) in my filemanager:
And the playlist in RetroArch:
The entries in my playlist, with a clean name matches your found thumbnails.
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uhm, that’s true. Also I noticed that usually the boxart/screen png files match the filename of the rom, but in this case:
Filename: Bang Bead (bangbead).neo
Playlist entry: Bang Bead (bangbead)
png file: Bang Bead.png
Maybe it is checking the crc and most of my roms don’t match?
EDIT:
I tried to rename the rom filename and it did download the arts from the thumbnails updater
I changed:
Andro Dunos (androdun).neo
to
Andro Dunos (NGM-049) (NGH-049).neo
and it did work! I guess I have some renaming to do… I used the name found in the rdb file, is there a more “user friendly” version of the database?
https://db.libretro.com/ does not have snk -neo geo in it
I think you could just rename those to the shortname androdun.neo too. The rom files are named like that on my set (exactly how its on FB Neo and MAME). This could be achieved with a simple script or command to rename all roms, without the need for any other data. I’m on Linux, so that’s all I can assist with.
For the database question, I don’t have any other way accessing the .db files. But wait, let me upload my Neo Geo playlist (the one with all other Neo Geo roms, not just AES), wait a sec… : https://privatebin.net/?9f59e3a55614e8a2#4ioJwYPUxuZ7WrBii5rzY1VmmKamprpwWE6qUk27GnfA
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I think your play list will do! thanks!
for renaming the neo files without a dat file I don’t think there is a easy way to mass rename them, but I think I will try to rename them using the long name so that I can simply do a manual scan!
Comes probably a little bit late, but I wrote a simple throwaway script to convert the playlist into a simple
-
shortname longnamelist: https://privatebin.net/?0f2b606bf85cec72#8ghqgkYbNeqpMP1f4kjNeVhYcBf8iVaAJUN7KCPK9BTt - Script: https://privatebin.net/?783fd908f962c33a#9e3EyrzPD2FbdQJfAoEsimntGfriRHf6tf618osBFh6q
Not sure if its any helpful, I just find it so much fun to write scripts.
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