Problem with huge games

I have written this message to developers of WinKawaks.


************************************************** *******
I have one problem. I am using Kawaks 1.53, and i enjoy playing emulated games. But my problem is that i cant play games that are huge in size. For example i can play metal slug 2-it has 17MB, but i cant play metal slug 3 that is much more bigger in size, it has 77MB. I have noticed some differences between mslug2.zip file and mslug3.zip file. In mslug2.zip file there are roms with .rom extension while in mslug3.zip file there are roms with .bin extension. Does it any difference? In mslug3.zip file are almost all .bin files 8192kb in size, while e.g. in mslug2.zip there are only a few in such a size.

When i load metal slug 2 game, its make some processes, it loads data files and then decrunching GFX roms. On contrary metal slug 3 loads data files and then decrypting GFX data, while doing this my computer get frozen.

I really dont know why this is so. I have red all your faqs and make WinKawaks go faster as you wrote in your faqs section.

Its not just this game that make me worried, its going on with other such a big games, for example garou: Mark of the wolves.

My computer is Pentium II, 350Mz, 128 RAM, 4 MB graphic card, Win 98.

Thank you very much in advance, and sorry for my grammar, English is not my native language.
************************************************** *******

But i am a lot impatient and wondering when the message comes back with response.

So I ask you for an advice on how to run games huger in size on WinKawaks or whatever else emulator. Just to make it run.

I cannot make run games like metal slug 3 or Garou: Mark of the wolves on WinKawaks because of freezing my computer. Although e.g. metal slug 2 and other games smaller in size maximum 20MB in size can be played. Its takes a little more time to load metal slug 3 than metal slug 2, but it takes too much time with decrypting GFX data and program freezes. I really dont know what to do, so I please you, help me somebody.

Thank you very much.

Your PC is enough to play almost every NeoGeo game without raster effects.

The roms' name doesn't matter, in fact every NeoGeo rom have the bin extension since some time in Mame, then Kawaks and everything. That emus search first the roms' name, then the crc, so if crc it's correct and there'nt name missmatrch it will work.

The fact is that mslug2 doesn't have any encryption, so it load pretty fast. Mslug3, the *parent* set it's encrypted, at least gfx roms are encrypted afaik, which are the one that matter you. Beacuse of that, they didn't compress well so the mlsug3 set size is much bigger zipped than mslug2, but unzipped it's a bit bigger than mslug2.

Actually your system doesn't hang, the problem is that needs to decrypt the big encrypted roms in memory, and as you have 128 Mb, it's not enough so have to use a lot of file swapping.

You can make a workaround checking the Kawaks option "Save decrypted roms after loading". Then don't quit Kawaks and load mslug3. It will take a while, so please be patient. When finished, you'll got in the Kawaks.exe folder some files, probably 8 mb each one. Now zip then in either mslug3.zip or on a new mslug3nd.zip and place it on the folder as mslug3.zip. Now, resscan your roms with kawaks, and you'll find a new set, mslug3nd, which has decrypted gfx (Cs') roms. It will load much faster and make sure you fully enjoy your game. Good luck :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hagbard

Actually your system doesn't hang, the problem is that needs to decrypt the big encrypted roms in memory, and as you have 128 Mb, it's not enough so have to use a lot of file swapping.

---

As he said, Kawaks needs a lot of memory in order to read and load the encrypted files. In other words, you should need a big memory RAM. :cool:

The more ram the better. My pc
Processor = AMD K6-2 @ 500mhz, RAM = 256mb, 4mb graphics card, Win95

Winkawaks run perfectly and all games run at what appears to be full speed

Just get some more ram and unless there is a weird problem, it should run fine.
At 350mhz you may experience some slowdowns.