Neo Geo Arcade Core Dip Switch Saving

[neogeo81]

Has anyone tried the arcade version of the Neo Geo core with rbf and mras?
It works great but the only thing that buggers me is that when i change the soft dips it does not save. You have to change things like difficulty, time, lives and blood every time you start a game. Is there a fix or trick to save the soft dips?
BTW the soft dip saving works with the AES console core.

[Toya]

Have you tried the Save Configuration option in the OSD after changing the soft dips?

[neogeo81]

Have you tried the Save Configuration option in the OSD after changing the soft dips?

Yes, does not help.

[Flandango]

Ok, from my experience this is what I had to do to get some games to save their soft-dips (or unibios settings).
First, after you configure the unibios and/or soft switches...you have to get the core to Save to the Memory Card, which is of course on a game by game basis.
I found that I can never get the "Save Memory Card" option to enable so it is always greyed out.
Make sure Memory Card is set to Plugged in and Autosave is set to ON.
Then press the OSD button. It should momentarily tell you that it is saving before going to the menu.
If it DOES NOT do that...that means that it hasn't detected a need to save and it won't (bios/dip settings don't count). Good example, is Andro Dunos, it won't save until I have either played enough for it to register (i.e. score) or let it run through it's attract mode. Then it will save.

If you have a successful save with all your settings, they will persist through reboots and what not.

[jca]

@Flandango
Are you referring to the console core or to the unofficial Arcade core developed by BlackWine?

@ neogeo81
I think that you want to do is impossible.
From the UniBios manual:
Because the AES system has no backup SRAM the system will use the memory card to
store the systems region and operation mode settings. This info is then read once
at power on, it’s not read again after using the system reset button or soft reset
option. If a memory card is not present the system will default to EURO region and
CONSOLE operation mode on power up, you can then change this as required once you
reach the splash screen.

Game SoftDIP Settings (AES only)

---

Here you can change game settings like the amount of lives given per game, amount of
time rounds lasts or enable blood for example. Note that Soft DIP’s are reset on
changing the country region so always select your region setup before editing any
soft DIP’s.

[Flandango]

@jca
Yeah I was referring to the console core. I haven't tried any other neo geo core. I should have paid more attention to the original question.

[jca]

No problem, the original post should have been made in the Arcade sub-forum to avoid this kind of confusion.
You said that the Save Memory Card option was grayed out. As the memory card is only used in AES mode you may have been in MVS mode but I cannot check it as I got some trouble and need help:
I wanted to make some experiment to see if something was possible
I started the condole core, started 2020 Super Baseball, activated the UniBios menu, changed the region from Europe to US in AES mode and saved to memory card (not grayed out).
Next I started the mra for the same game to double check that the memory card was not used and the UniBios said Europe Arcade which is normal.
I wanted to go into the UniBios menu but it did not work although the mapping ABC was correct.
Back to the console core and same thing I cannot activate the Unibios Menu.
Both in the arcade rbf and the console rbf I can activate the in game menu (Start+Select).
I deleted config/NEOGEO.CFG, config/2020bb.CFG, saves/NEOGEO/<name of the save> and even inputs/NEOGEO_input_046d_c21d_v3.map.
I remapped the buttons but I still cannot activate the UniBios menu.
I wanted to see where the UniBios settings are stored in MVS mode (may be nvram) but cannot do it as I cannot activate the menu.
If anyone knows how to restore this feature it would be greatly appreciated.
In any case the soft DIPs cannot be used in MVS mode.

[Flandango]

OK...activating the UniBios menu...is a pain in my ***.
Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn't.
What I have found works most of the time is, I activate the in-game menu (Start+Select), go to the Soft Reboot option on the bottom...and i press the A button to select it and while holding it down, I immediately press and hold the B and C buttons.
You may also be able to hit all three buttons at once when the Soft Reboot option is selected.

[jca]

I see that I am not alone with this problem. Thanks for the suggestion of going into the in-game menu first. For me the ABC combo is easy as I mapped ABC to the right trigger of my controller.

[HerrBerzerk]

I get the settings saved when I use Arcade in the home menu and change the dip switch settings in the "actual machine", with "Dipswitch settings" to ON in the home menu. Not the softdip settings in the unibios.

My guess is, you can not mix up the System-Settings in the home menu and in the unibios. If you want to use arcade, then arcade has should be selected in home menu and vice versa. Also I have the autosave always to auto. Not sure if that is necessary. Not sure if that is 100% true, but it is working for me this way.

[jca]

All the settings for this core are a mess and it is difficult to figure out what is what.
On a real machine using UniBios it says that saving the settings in AES mode saves them on a memory card and in MVS mode to NVRAM.
On MISTer you can also change settings in the OSD, some overlapping UniBios settings. When you choose Save Settings I am not sure of what is saved in NEOGEO.CFG, you can also choose save to memory card which create a per game save in saves/NEOGEO and you can do it both in AES mode and MVS mode. At no point in time did I see a NVRAM file anywhere on MISTer.
You can also set conflicting options like AES in the OSD and MVS in UniBios and vice-versa.
To avoid these problems I have the core set to AES both in the OSD and UniBios.
For MVS I use the unofficial arcade core from BlackWine. It does not use Save to memory card as expected and Save settings in the OSD creates a config file in the config directory <Game Name>.CFG. By doing so it does not overwrite NEOGEO.CFG or the Saves.
I was making some tests when I learned that the core I was using was not the latest. I was using the core from his Patreon but the core from his Github is more recent and supports a lot more mras. As I am using symlinks from games/mame to games/NEOGEO I had to create these new symlinks and there are a lot. While doing it I found out that some mras have the wrong zip name, for example burningfh.zip when it should be brningfh.zip. Right now I am sorting out these problems and some. When done I will resume my tests.

Edit:
I figured out the problem with some zip names and comes from the romsets.xml where some zips have alternatives names
<romset name="burningfh,brningfh"
It looks like the DarkSoft zips always use the second name may be to respect 8.3 names while the arcade mras always use the first name, may be by using an automated system.
I spoke too fast, before looking at the mra. The roms must be merged and I cannot find a DarkSoft pack with merged roms.