Geolith vs NeoCD/SDL

Geolith is a free emulator for the Neo Geo AES, MVS, CD, and CDZ. It supports commercially released AES, MVS, and CD games, and runs on Linux, macOS, BSD, and Windows. Cartridge systems accept TerraOnion .NEO files; CD systems use .bin/.cue and can optionally use .chd images. BIOS files from a recent MAME set are required, with the needed archives varying by system. Geolith synchronizes its CPUs with the video and sound systems, though video event timing is best effort and cycle-accurate rendering remains a longer-term goal. Settings include system and BIOS mode, region, free play, memory card options, palette, and aspect ratio. Supported inputs range from Neo Geo joysticks to a Mahjong Controller, four-player extension board, V-Liner, and the Irritating Maze trackball. The project was written for The Jolly Good API and can be used in multi-emulator frameworks or standalone binaries. It does not support dedicated JAMMA PCB systems or PAL mode; an early Stakes Winner prototype is also unsupported because required data is missing.

NeoCD/SDL is a port of the NeoCD NeoGeo CD emulator to the SDL library. It can run many original NeoGeo CD games and is listed for Windows, Linux, BeOS, and Dreamcast; the project also lists ports for Xbox and PlayStation 2. Each of two players can use a keyboard or a separate joystick. Keyboard shortcuts control fullscreen display, video effects, frameskip, sound, screenshots, and quitting. To run the emulator, users need an uncompressed 512kb system ROM named neocd.bin. The documentation says users are not entitled to a copy of the copyrighted BIOS unless they own an original NeoGeo CD console. The emulator and its source code are free, but selling is not allowed, and the emulator cannot be provided on the same physical medium as NeoGeo game software. Source code and technical knowledge may be reused only for non-commercial purposes. Downloads include source and binary files. Windows builds require MinGW, MSYS, SDL development libraries, and NASM; Linux builds require SDL source and NASM. The program is distributed without warranty.