Been interested in making one of these babies into a portable, however the hardware is normally expensive.

Am I right in saying that the NeoGeo MVS (cartridge system) is the same in all ends and purposes to the home console version (AES), just doesn't have a case? Ie you can plug the cart in, wire to the pins on the connector output port (it outputs RGB I notice) and off you go?

What battery voltage does it need? Looking on this site it looks like it needs 12v and 5v. Comments?

I have many systems to portablize, however I have my eye on a couple of NeoGeo items on ebay at the moment.

Comments? Experiences?

Well first of your looking at a pretty large portable, you will also you need like you said 5 and 12 volts for the jamma connector. You will also need buttons wired to the jamma connector. It outputs for arcade monitors which is RGB to my knowledge. Yes its the same as an AES but the aes has smaller carts and less cart pins.
I own an MVS and its not something I would want to make portable.

It's going to be one tank of a portable, judging by the size of the cartridges.

According to Ben, the total draw for the board is "around 600mAh" (running off a 7.2v battery with 2 switching regulators) for the newest 1-slot motherboard. [link]

The MVS only takes MVS cartridges, not AES ones. Also, if you mod the board correctly you won't need the 12 volt line, only 5 volts. Other than that, check this place out for tech info:

http://www.hardmvs.com/

Good luck!

With a converter it can take AES games.

Which is kind of pointless because AES games are a lot more expensive. In fact some people use MVS converters on their AES because the arcade carts are A LOT cheaper, especially on games like Metal Slug, which can go for thousands of dollars for an AES cart but the MVS carts are easily acquired for $50 or so.

Which makes almost no sense. People with an arcade cabinet should have more money than the average joe.

Whoa, super bump. Apparently nobody really posts in here because this was already on the top of the list.

So, you're saying you'd pay $2500 for a game instead of $50?

Well, someone might want to use an AES cartridge because they are ever so slightly smaller. Of course, I have never seen an adapter which converts AES carts to run on the MVS. Never. Maybe the other way around, those I have seen.

One thing to note- if you are wanting to make a portable MVS, I would suggest the MV-1C, because it is the easiest to mod. You can mod it to do stereo output easily, and you can change it so that it will run on 5V only, instead of 5V and 12V.

I have an MVS motherboard which I consolized, and am thinking of doing a second one. It's a fun project. If you want to do a portable I would suggest taking the Benheck route and make it a laptop.

I wouldn't use an MV-1C, because the cart sticks straight out the top and it would be insane to relocate that double-connector slot. An MV-1B is pretty small and the cart is horizontal.

And yes, a laptop with built-in arcade style controls would be awesome.

And again yes, I would LOVE to consolize an MVS, but I can't find a board cheap.

Well, with that many conectors, the cartridge isn't going anywhere. I suppose if you wanted a handheld you could go that route, but the MVS is the wrong unit to be converting to a handheld. Laptop would be more appropriate, because then you could also have a real joystick, which IMO is absolutely critical to playing 99% of the games available for the MVS

A thought with the MV-1B: yes, they are small, but very thick. You'll have to make doubly sure it's not got the Irritating Maze bios onboard, and you'll have to contend with the fact that of all Neo Geo MVS board, the MV-1B is probably one of the hardest to find, most expensive for single slots, and most difficult to repair if anything goes wrong. It's got a very high custom-IC count, none of which can be found anywhere but on MV-1B boards, and one of which, a sound processing chip, tends to go bad on a regular basis.



http://cgi.ebay.com/MVS-Neo-Geo-1-slot- ... 286.c0.m14

http://cgi.ebay.com/MVS-Neo-Geo-1-slot- ... 286.c0.m14

http://cgi.ebay.com/Neo-Geo-MV-1FZ-SIng ... 286.c0.m14

Cheap as they come!

The first two don't ship to Canada, and the last one isn't cheap enough.

Sorry, but only people who know me in person know how cheap I really am.

Well, you have to keep hunting on the old eBay if you want to find 'em. I got mine for $45. If you really want to find something, perhaps you'd like to look into the Neo-geo.com forums. There are plenty of sellers on there, but again, you have to be fairly quick and if you are known there then you'll often get a better deal.