FinalBurn Neo adds NeoGeo CD cheat file support in June 14 update

FinalBurn Neo’s June 14 update delivers a very specific win: NeoGeo CD cheat files now work, so players who rely on game-specific tweaks can finally bring those fixes into a build that already covers a huge spread of arcade and console hardware. For anyone testing stubborn Neo Geo CD titles, that means fewer workarounds and a cleaner path to the kind of quality-of-life changes FBNeo users already expect from its cheat system.

That matters because FinalBurn Neo is not a narrow one-machine emulator. The project’s own documentation places it in the arcade-emulation lane first, but it also supports select home systems and computers, with drivers spanning Neo-Geo, CPS-1, CPS-2, CPS-3, Sega System 16, Taito F2, F3, X and Z, plus Mega Drive/Genesis, SG-1000, Master System/Game Gear, MSX-1, ZX Spectrum, and PC-Engine, TurboGrafx 16 and SuperGrafx. In practice, that makes small feature drops like this especially useful for people who keep a source build around for cabinets, frontends and test setups.

The NeoGeo CD cheat addition plugs into a system FBNeo already documents well. Cheat files belong in the cheats support folder and are normally named after the game’s short name with an .INI extension, while the project also keeps a dedicated FBNeo-cheats repository and documents both a cheat format page and a cheat dialog. FBNeo can also look for the older cheat.dat format, so the new NeoGeo CD support fits neatly into an existing workflow rather than forcing users into something new.

The update also removes a bit of friction for people building from source on Windows. An optional Perl path has been added to the MSVC project presets, and the changelog calls out fixes for build errors in makefile.mingw and Microsoft Visual C++. Those are not flashy runtime features, but they are the sort of details that decide whether a nightly build goes smoothly or stalls at compile time.

There was one gameplay-facing addition beyond cheats: Xevious (HB, alpha-0.02) landed in d_megadrive.cpp. Combined with the NeoGeo CD work, it underlines the same point the opening hook makes clear. This is a small update, but for the exact people who run Neo Geo CD games with cheats or compile FBNeo by hand, it cuts real annoyance out of the routine.