Virtual memory for larger Neo Geo ROMS

RetroArch Nintendo consoles
#1

I was looking at a Youtube video of The Last Blade on the Wii Virtual Console and it got me wondering again how these larger Neo Geo games work with the limited Wii RAM.

You can see when the game is booted up from the Wii menu it extracts the files first, then a message pops up saying it is loading. Are they using virtual memory or some method of only loading what is needed into RAM and loading additional data later? I don’t see any further extracting or loading later during gameplay.

Is there a way to reverse engineer what is happening here and use the same technique in RetroArch? I would love to get the complete Neo Geo romset running on my Wii.

Here is the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYhA58_ … ata_player

#2

How big is the VC wad vs the actual standalone ROM? I ask because they may have a virtual RAMdisk thingie built into the wad that it writes to during the loading screen.

#3

The VC wad is 38.8MB both zipped and extracted and the FBA ROM is 25MB zipped and 61.2MB extracted, so there must be some sort of utility packaged in the VC wad. Interesting.

#4

Just wondering if there is any hope for these games ever working on Wii? Was playing some Neo Geo games this morning and looked teary eyed at the list of non-working ROMs in my Neo Geo folder =(

#5

Any feedback on this?

#6

No progress on this, AFAIK.

#7

Ok, thanks for the reply!

#8

I got wads installed at the weekend for The Last Blade 1 and 2, Real Bout Fatal Fury 2, Shock Troopers 2nd Squad, King of Fighters '97-'99, Metal Slug X-4 and Ironclad, so I guess that’s a few more added to the available Neo Geo games I can play on my Wii :slight_smile:

Not sure if anyone is working on the Wii port of RA specifically these days as there is no sign of Toad King on the forums. I guess I’ll have to give up on the hope of having Garou on Wii some day :frowning: