Neptune Evolution RAM board problems

[RetroRepair]

So I've got the HDD working which is great, but now I am having trouble with my RAM expansion.

I bought a Neptune Evolution kit which is a LAN board really but you can also use it as a RAM expansion and mine came with 16mb installed (10mb available). Trouble is, I don't know if it's working as several LHES games don't work.

One issue I had is that since I have a compact and the Neptune board pokes out the back quite a way. If I have the two 8mb RAM sticks installed one covers the RGB output. I tried slot 2 but it doesn't work in that slot it seems, so I took out one of the SIMMs (to clear the RGB port) and LHES does see it now as 9mb Actually, it was 900k, missed a digit! (though I have an 8mb installed and 2mb onboard, I guess it has to be in twos) the games still won't run. I tried telling switch.x I had 10mb installed but no change. I get this message:

LHES: (japanese text in blue)

I did get a manual with jumper settings but I have no idea what it all means and I've got no chance figuring it out since it's all in Japanese (I know right? Shocker  ).

Here's a link to the auction I won: http://page18.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/w99911808#enlargeimg

Here is a page which seems to indicate it only works in slot 1: http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dneptune%2Bevolution%2Bx68000%26es_sm%3D119%26biw%3D1629%26bih%3D985&rurl=translate.google.co.uk&sl=ja&u=http://www2j.biglobe.ne.jp/~iritani/neptune/nepinfo21.html&usg=ALkJrhhwmEo5foAmERsplHCWUSRfFwJBJQ

So does anyone know anything about these? I guess it's because both RAM slots need to be populated and maybe a jumper isn't set up for that (if it's even possible to just run one).

Failing that I'd be happy to trade for an XSIM10 if a collector on here would like a weird LAN card thingy for their X68000?

I can scan in the manual for the wiki if needed too.

[RetroRepair]

Ok well it seems like it's actually working to an extent, because I can run Super Street Fighter 2, but none of the images in the game4 directory work (the .xdf games). They just error out.

LHES still only thinks I have 2mb of RAM too 

[BlueBMW]

Hmm that is a very strange board.  Id almost be tempted to trade an xsim10 for it just for its oddity.  Some of these other folks probably know a lot more about that thing and can probably advise you what to do with it.

[Neshek]

Do not trust the hard drive too fast
Had corrupted files on an image transfer once.

This is what i would do...

Type Memfree.
Should be close to 10MB minus resident programs. If something more like 8mb, 6 or 4... Maybe it's a good idea to check the bios (switch.x)

If your whole memory is here, i think you could also try a memory test program.

Saw this thread once.
http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=4810.0

Just to be sure whole ram is ok.

[RetroRepair]

Thanks for the help again Neshek 

I'm sure the HDD is ok as now I've been through the list a bit, most games actually run ok. It's those xdf games which doesn't seem to.

I tried memcheck, it reports 1434992 bytes free, so 1.3mb which can't be true or else SSF2 wouldn't run!  What other games need lots of RAM?

I found this page and set my jumpers like he did: http://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=frogboy73&logNo=90101418752&viewDate=&currentPage=1&listtype=0#

Still the same problem, though I have no idea what size that SIMM he is using is.

Pretty confused!

[Neshek]

Most of the large games needing floppy emulator won't run. Need memory amount equal to each floppy size plus ram requirement for the game.

But...
x68k Memory is not autoconfig! (Autoconfig.. Good old Amiga. Please don't hurt!)
This is a wonderful but complicated machine.

You need to adjust it in the bios manually.
Type switch and then move it to 10mb
It must be set to 2mb

Hope you wrote down initial jumper config because my guess is that if you did not set memory in bios, it was the correct jumper config as the seller tested memory as mentioned in the auction description.

[Neshek]

Just checked this page.
http://ht-deko.minim.ne.jp/neptune.html

Check these mages.
Neptune Evo jumpers:


You'll probably need to assign Jumper 4, like the last line for your 2*8mb so you can get 10mb:


And for jumper 7, memory assign after the internal 2mb of the computer identically for the first line... I guess


But don't forget to setup 10mb in bios with switch command

[RetroRepair]

Thanks again for the help 

I tried setting the jumpers as above (set 2mb internal, 8mb simm since only using one of them) and setup 10mb in switch bios but still LHES doesn't see more than 2mb RAM and Games4 don't work at all.

I'm really confused 

[RetroRepair]

OK! So I removed JP6 (no idea what it does but is marked 16/32??) and still nothing changed BUT then I went back into switch.x and changed it to 10mb, saved and exited and reset the machine without doing anything else.. it worked! I now have 9mb free in LHES and memfree!

But the games in the Games4 directory still won't run. 

This is the actual message that comes up when I load Gradius Arcade xdf for example:

システムを起動できませんでした。 リセットしてください

Which says "It was not possible to start the system. Please reset"

Could it be possible that the system will report more RAM than is really available? To be honest though I cannot replicate this issue in an emulator, it gives a different error when I set the RAM to 2mb.

[RetroRepair]

Right, I've now verified up and down that the Neptune is working fine as Cotton, SSF2 and all the Capcom games work great. It's only XDF games which don't, they all come up with that error message I posted above. I'll start a new thread to see if someone wants to swap it for a XSIMM10 so I don't have this beast poking out the back of my poor little compact