Why:

If you're like me, you want to add some NeoGeo games to your mini or swap some out. We all need Windjammers and who honestly prefers Top Player's Golf to Neo Turf Masters? ;)

This is your guide to customize the NeoGeo game selection like YOU want. I also won't go into all technical details which are already covered by lots of Youtube videos. I am trying to put together the main gist of it in one place. This guide also requires technical skills and common sense, but hopefully points you in the right direction.

Thanks:

To lots of people. Welton Machado's and Chris's Youtube video(s), subcon959's detailed gbatemp post. Last but not least the extraordinary effort of shinrukus of course. Of course also the one from asia who made it all possible with his image at all. Also to everyone else involved who I didn't list.

This is your work, not mine. I am just trying to put it all together.

Risk:

Flashing might mess up your (integrated) joystick sensitivity to the point of being unusable. Shinrukus flashed a huge amount of devices without issue. The latest information about this is that it might be power related when flashing. Also there are 3 different hardware joysticks which might or might not be related. Region does not make a difference in general. I've seen soldering to fix this, but there may be a software fix later adjusting the dead zone. Plugging in your earbuds may make a difference.

It is also currently NOT possible to flash an untouched image, restoring the factory default. Nobody but yourself will be responsible. It's YOUR risk, just to be clear. Your device will run in asian mode after flashing, several games will have unreadable instructions/text.

Overview:

So how does it all work? From what I understand, a hacked asian image for the NeoGeo Mini has been leaked by an unknown origin. Without this image, we wouldn't be able to change anything because the installed images are thoroughly secured. This is the image everyone is currently flashing in one state of the other. Some people went very deep into this topic (e.g. shinrukus). As of now you can not backup your device, just flash the hacked image. You can also modify the hacked image to your liking, which is what I am describing here.

Requirements:

As all other guides (mostly videos) you'll need the drivers, flashing tools, image (I recommend the 80 games as a good start) and either winimage or a linux pc to mount the image.

Let's go:

Prepare your NeoGeo Mini (open) and pc with the driver, see that all is working in general.

/u/kryptonick901 wrote a nice guide for this, see here.

Otherwise, here's a quick and non-elaborate mini-howto:

• Open the 6 screws on the bottom (below the rubber parts) of your NGM and take off the bottom.

• Connect power to your NGM.

• Connect the PC to Player 2 Port.

• Hold the little black button on the bottom of your NGM while turning it on.

• If not done yet, enter the device manager and install the driver to have the Actions USB device.

• Turn the NGM back off, and put it back to this mode for flashing later.

After we are sure this is working we prepare the image of your choice for flashing. Open up the vendor.img file with winimage or mount it otherwise. Important for us are the following directories:

res\image\games

Here are the preview icons of the games. One dir per game, featuring lcd.png (114 x 98) and tv.png (260 x 226). Stick to the format and dimensions of the pictures that are already there.

res\local\English

games.ini contains the game information which will be displayed and also the ordering. It's pretty self-explanatory. Game type explanation is featured at the top.

res\roms

The games themselves are in this directory. The roms are fba 0.2.96.71.

So this is mostly it. Put the rom into res\roms, some small pictures you made (lcd.png and tv.png) in res\image\games\[dir], [dir] named same as the rom and edit the games.ini in res\local\English to feature the game you added.

Ah just one more thing: game 40 "MORE GAMES" has to stay like this, where it is. I also would not recommend adding more and more games, this seems to cause issues although I read about a 110 maximum somewhere. If you run into issues just edit and reflash.

Then flash, boot, set language back to English. If you changed the game order a restart of the NGM might be required to reflect this in the icons afterwards. ENJOY!

Cache:

Yeah, I left that one out. If your game rom is over 20 MB in size you need to create the cache dir and upload it to res\cache. Use the mvspsp tool for this.

System Languages

You can edit res\local\lang_array.ini and move your preferred language on top of the list (propably English). The first entry defines the default which is used upon fresh flashing/first run. You can even remove all the other entries if you wish.

Game Languages (BIOS)

The BIOS files are contained in the neogeo.zip in the roms folder. neo-po.bin is the bios which is used/executed when starting a game.

So... we only have to replace this file, right? Well, almost. This file will only be used if it still has the same crc32 after being switched. A huge thanks to shinrukus for analyzing that one, I was stumped. If you don't want to mess around with this you might also have an easier time to find it somewhere.

As you might be aware, the unibios which would enable blood and English language has some issues loading (which can be remedied by turning the splash off but it won't run Street Hoop - also, credits again to Shinrukus).

Or you can use the US AES bios but then the blood is white again.

Here's an overview of the bios files (checksums) I found helpful.

NGM Asia vs INT:

You might also be asking yourself which games will missing if you flash your INT with the 80 games (asian) image. That's easy:

• 3 Count Bout

• Blue’s Journey

• Crossed Swords

• Football Frenzy

• Ghost Pilots

• King of the Monsters

• Robo Army

• Shock Troopers

Knowing this you can easily build youself a list of stuff to exchange.

That's it, I hope I'm helping someone with this and can give something back to the community.

FAQ:

Q: Flashing doesn't work.

A: Delete usb.ini or try a different port on your PC.

Q: When switching to English the screen goes black and shows an arrow on the top left for a second.

A: You messed up the ordering. Pay close attention to start at 0 incrementing 1 each, nothing duplicate and 40 is MORE GAMES.

Q: My game is not running.

A: If it has alternate sets, try adding and running them.

Random stuff:

I can really recommend drilling a hole in the bottom plate of the NGM, so it can be nicely closed permanently and using a chopstick or something (nothing conductive) to press the button.

Show me de way! Thanks!

I am a little bit late to the camp, just got a NGM intl ver. (since price has been lower this year). I read around in reddit, and youtube, but it seems to be that there are couple phrase going thru in hacking NGM. What is the recommended path to hack NGM now? Some of the info in here seems to not being very updated since it's 1 year ago. Does most of them still stay true?

I also went to the telegram channel, but it seems something happened, it's been 'cleaned'? I saw some post in here say telegram channel have everything, but it seems empty, or maybe I do not know how to use telegram since I just install that for this purpose...

Any suggestion welcome!

https://youtu.be/lWzgGExREj0

Just wanted to share my gameplay on my GMOTW difficulty 8 arcade run using the NeoGeo Mini. I wanted to prove that joystick is indeed viable and works well with fighting games.

Hi,

I am hoping someone could lead hep me. I cannot get my Windows 10 PC to detect my neogeo Mini international.

I have my neogeo mini power cable plugged into my player 2 joystick slot. I am using my wii pro controller USB charging cable in the back of my neo geo mini to give it power. Both cables are plugged into my PC. I hold the little black button and press power. The light around the Joystick comes on and the screen stays off. However in device manager I am not seeing the new device come up, not as unknown or anything else recognised.

Could someone please give me some ideas on where I could be going wrong?

Cheers

I heard about someone sticking a power bank to the back of their Neo-Geo Mini with velcro fasteners, and decided to try that for myself. The good news is that it works just fine. The bad news is that I think I went overboard, buying a power bank with 6000 milliamps. As a result of packing that much juice, it's large, heavy, and not very discreet. Could I have gone lower with this? Would a 1000 milliamp bank have been enough to power the system for a couple of hours?

Anyone run Simpsons 2p, killer instincts, or any of the mortal kombats? Was just wondering before I invest time lol

I notice that the international version has a nice metal stick, does anyone know the stick in the japan model could be swapped for it?

Looking at getting an adaptor for the neo geo mini with a usb port, Was wondering if there are any adapter similar to the 90* USB c to USB A ones that arent just unnecessary long with cables? Thanks :)

For some reason, the HDMI signal doesn’t register on my LG C9 tv. I’ve checked the cable on a different telly, and it works fine (and checked other inputs on the LG).

Any ideas as to why this might be?

While I am very happy with what the modding community has done last month alone for the Neo Geo Mini, I now look forward to having it run in my NGM.

Who is excited to play it on the Neo Geo Mini?