Advice on neogeo games in Arcade folder

pjft

Hi all.

I recently decided to merge my FBA folder into my arcade folder. I did a lot of planning, figuring out which ROMs were duplicated, what emulator I used for each, and set the right emulators for each ROM. This all worked according to plan. Yay.

Now the problem came today when I wanted to play a NeoGeo ROM and it didn't run. From inspecting the logs, it seems I have some playing on MAME and others on FBA, which I didn't think would be a problem, but the issue is that - of all things - the NeoGeo BIOS ROM is different between the ROM sets of FBA and MAME, so I can't have both BIOS files... Or can I, without too much trouble? Maybe I could remap the BIOS folder for FBA or MAME?

Edit: can I even put the NeoGeo ROM in the BIOS folder, or does it need to be in the ROMs folder?

Alternatively I could stick to FBA for all NeoGeo games. Any concerns with that approach - any NeoGeo games that don't work well on FBA?

Thanks and sorry for the long post.

dankcushions

@pjft said in Advice on neogeo games in Arcade folder:

the NeoGeo BIOS ROM is different between the ROM sets of FBA and MAME, so I can't have both BIOS files... Or can I, without too much trouble?

not in the same folder, no.

Edit: can I even put the NeoGeo ROM in the BIOS folder, or does it need to be in the ROMs folder?

no

Alternatively I could stick to FBA for all NeoGeo games. Any concerns with that approach - any NeoGeo games that don't work well on FBA?

no concerns - lr-fbalpha is the default and recommended emulator for the neogeo games (if you had them in the neogeo folder - for arcade you will have to make the association yourself)

jell

I had a similar issue in merging everything into the arcade folder with the neogeo bios. My solution was to leave the FBA neogeo.zip in the arcade folder. I then created folders on my pi (like ~/mame2003-neogeo) in which I unzipped the corresponding neogeo.zip file.

For MAME, neogeo roms, I went to the mame2003-neogeo folder then typed the following:

zip -u -j <path to rom> *

You may have to do a "sudo apt-get install zip". I'm not sure, as it was awhile ago.

Hope this helps, good luck!

cyperghost

@pjft lr-fbalpha supports 7z... You may generate a BIOS-ROMSet with just a 7zipped neogeo-BIOS. How about mixing upper/lower cases of filename suffix to make neogeo-ROM disappear? This works for me for FBA and ARCADE system but somehow not for NEOGEO (maybe a bug in ES itself?) therefore in es_systems.cfg the filemask is *.ZIP *.zip *.FBA *.fba so neogeo.ZiP won't be selectable in list. But as I write this works (somehow) not for NEOGEO

dudleydes

@pjft I have also been looking at running my NeoGeo games in lr-fbalpha rather than MAME. Here are my observations which I have tested:

lr-fbalpha will run NeoGeo games with the FBA NeoGeo BIOS rom in the BIOS folder (source).
FBA NeoGeo roms in the arcade folder will not run if there is a MAME NeoGeo BIOS rom in the same folder.

What I have done is to run all NeoGeo games in lr-fbalpha with the NeoGeo BIOS in the BIOS folder as it's not possible to run some NeoGeo games in MAME and some in lr-fbalpha.

Before moving the roms from the fba folder to the arcade folder, I ran the following command to auto-generate entries in /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulators.cfg, making sure to (re)move any .fs save files from the fba folder, so the roms will run in lr-fbalpha rather than the default lr-mame2003 once they are in the arcade folder:

ls -1 RetroPie/roms/fba | sed -e 's/\.zip$//' -e 's/_//g' -e 's/^/arcade_/' -e 's/$/ = "lr-fbalpha"/' >> /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulators.cfg

(I put this command together using google-fu so suggestions appreciated if it can be cleaned up)

Then I moved the FBA roms to the arcade folder and restarted ES. There is no neogeo rom in the gamelist and the NeoGeo games launch in lr-fbalpha without further configuration.

pjft

Hi all, and thanks for the pointers and clarification.

I'll settle for running all NeoGeo games in FBA then - I'll get the list of all ROMs that require the NeoGeo BIOS from the FBA ROM list to determine which ones are effectively the NeoGeo games in question, and then use that to generate the emulators.cfglist.

Have a great day!

Riverstorm

A quick question using the Arcade folder and was wondering what people are doing with the neogeo.zip BIOS files or the same still if using FBA and mame2003 in Arcade together. It seems to prefer whatever is in Arcade folder directly over the BIOS folder. I was hoping to have the FBA BIOS in the BIOS folder and mame2003 BIOS in the Arcade folder but that doesn't work.

If you add the FBA BIOS to the BIOS folder and the mame2003 BIOS to the Arcade folder then mame2003 games work but not FBA.

If add the FBA BIOS to the Arcade folder then the FBA games work but not mame2003. You can't combine them as one zip due to equal names but different versions of files.

Also is there a way to override the lr-flalpha input? I couldn't figure it out. I was looking to change only the input for the FBA emulator but wanted to leave the other emulators as is. I tried adding it to the fba/retroarch.cfg but that doesn't seems to change anything. The only way I could get it to work was going down to the game rom overrides via <gamename>.zip.cfg but that leaves a lot of entries to correct.

I am using RetroPie 4.3 patched current on a Pi 3.

mitu

@riverstorm lr-fbalpha should pick up the neogeo.zip file from the BIOS folder, only fbalpha (non-lr emulator) needs it in the same folder as the ROMs. In fact this is my current setup - I have neogeo.zip in the BIOS folder only and lr-fbalpha is the default emulator for the arcade folder.
Are you sure it's not some other configuration that gets in the way ?

dankcushions

re: neogeo.zip and arcade folder

what's the use case of wanting to play some neogeo games via mame2003, and some via fbalpha, though? fbalpha is the better neogeo emulator.

Riverstorm

@mitu said in Advice on neogeo games in Arcade folder:

Are you sure it's not some other configuration that gets in the way ?

Thanks Mitu, sorry I wasn't clear on my setup. I mainly use lr-mame2003 (275 games roughly) so that's my default for Arcade. Second is AdvMAME for vector games and lastly is lr-fbalpha.

Some of my lr-mame2003 games are NeoGeo so it conflicts with the lr-fbalpha BIOS due to different files (same filenames but different versions).

If I add the lr-mame2003 neogeo.zip to the Arcade folder then lr-mame2003 games work. If I add the lr-fbalpha neogeo.zip to the folder then lr-fbalpha games work.

Whatever is in the Arcade folder directly is preferred.

Locating the neogeo.zip in the BIOS folder and removing it from the Arcade folder allows lr-fbalpha to work but then lr-mame2003 doesn't work.

Basically it looks like you can't run Neogeo games in two emulators in the Arcade folder. You're forced to use lr-fbalpha. Not a big deal but more of preference. I was wondering if anyone had addressed it or if it's the same still.

I don't have a problem converting NeoGeo games over to lr-fbalpha if that's what it takes. I think NeoGeo does sacrifice some emulation accuracy for speed which isn't a big deal and it definitely is clone and bootleg heavy. Does lr-fbalpha cover 100% of the NeoGeo library?

Riverstorm

@dankcushions said in Advice on neogeo games in Arcade folder:

what's the use case of wanting to play some neogeo games via mame2003, and some via fbalpha, though? fbalpha is the better neogeo emulator.

Nothing in stone and I didn't want to create 0.2.97.42 set to pull a handful of ROMs out. :) It seems like an easy tweak to allow it but I will convert it over.

@dankcushions I have lr-mame2003 as my default for Arcade and my keys setup the way I like but I was looking to swap a few keys in lr-fbalpha. Is it possible to do it at the system level? It's working fine at the ROM level but I was hoping not to be so granular and tweaking every game when using Arcade.

markwkidd

You can add your mame2003 BIOS files directly to the game romset zip to create a "Full Non-Merged" romset. In fact this is what the most current "MAME 2003 Reference Set" does -- in the past, the MAME 2003 Reference Set used "Non-Merged ROMs" which still had the BIOS separate.

Riverstorm

@markwkidd said in Advice on neogeo games in Arcade folder:

In fact this is what the most current "MAME 2003 Reference Set" does

Thanks Mark that's a great idea! It would allow the option of mixing NeoGeo roms from different emulators if a person chooses or has a need. There's a definite performance improvement to some games. Double Dragon is great example that visibly just runs smoother in FBA by just watching the intro you can see it. If you take the exact same ROM set it works fine in lr-mame2003 but it stutters and runs slower. Same ROM tweaked code.

Would there happen to be a DAT file for the "MAME 2003 Reference Set"?

Also I noticed on the FBA docs page. "Both the FB Alpha v0.2.97.42 DAT File: FB Alpha v0.2.97.42 (Arcade Only)" and "FB Alpha v0.2.97.42 DAT File: FB Alpha v0.2.97.42 (NeoGeo Only)" dat show "FB Alpha - Arcade Games" when loaded into ClrMamePro. It looks to be the DAT's where copied from "upstream" as the FBA source page has the same errors in their DAT's. I think just the header tags need tweaked to reflect the proper set type.

markwkidd

This is the DAT to use: https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-libretro/raw/master/metadata/MAME 0.78 XML.dat

You can find instructions for how to set ClrMamePro to rebuild "Full Non-Merged" romsets here, under "Crash Course in Arcade ROM terminology": https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Validating,-Rebuilding,-and-Filtering-ROM-Collections/

Riverstorm

@markwkidd said in Advice on neogeo games in Arcade folder:

You can find instructions for how to set ClrMamePro to rebuild "Full Non-Merged" romsets here, under "Crash Course in Arcade ROM terminology": https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Validating,-Rebuilding,-and-Filtering-ROM-Collections/

Thanks for all the information and links. I'm pretty comfortable with ClrMamePro after 100's of runs. I can almost do it with my eyes closed...almost. ;) I just never thought of merging the BIOS into the ROM in this scenario until you mentioned it which really is a brilliant idea that allows for some nice flexibility.

Riverstorm

@caver01 since you do a lot of advanced configuring or anyone that could verify if it can be done or if it's a limitation of using the Arcade folder.

I have lr-mame2003 as my default using the Arcade folder. My keys are setup the way I like but I was looking to swap a few keys in lr-fbalpha. Is it possible to do it at the system level? It's working fine to change keys at the ROM level but I was hoping not to be so granular and tweaking every game when using the Arcade folder.

Basically the keys are setup for lr-mame2003 and AdvMAME but I prefer lr-fbalpha to be slightly different. I tried altering fba/retroarch.cfg but that doesn't work so I am doing it at the ROM level which works fine but it requires a config file per game.

caver01

@riverstorm Nope. As far as I know you are basically stuck with a global default setup in configs/all, then a system config in configs/arcade (which is the problem--it applies to every libretro emulator used), and then you are down to per-ROM configs. No way to sort it out by emulator while still using ROMs combined in the Arcade roms folder.

Riverstorm

@caver01 said in Advice on neogeo games in Arcade folder:

Nope. As far as I know you are basically stuck with a global default setup in configs/all

Ah ok, thanks, maybe down the road. I mainly use lr-mame2003 but as I move more over to lr-fbalpha it would be nice to have a system config vs. one for each game. Or if you mainly use lr-fbalpha there's a many only supported in lr-mame2000. It would be nice to not be forced to comprise a global config for all MAME emulators.

dankcushions

if you created your arcade/retroarch.cfg with lr-fbalpha in mind,
with mame(2003) you could then override that with an 'ALL' input config set via the mame menu (TAB/R2).

i'd like to change mame2003 so that its default inputs for CPS2, neogeo, etc, are in line with lr-fbalpha which make a little more sense, but it's one of those things that is tough to justify changing at this stage, now that so many have config'd their systems around the current defaults.

dankcushions

@dankcushions said in Advice on neogeo games in Arcade folder:

if you created your arcade/retroarch.cfg with lr-fbalpha in mind,
with mame(2003) you could then override that with an 'ALL' input config set via the mame menu (TAB/R2).

or... even better, just use a core override. for example - in fbalpha, set the controls via the RGUI to the way you want, and then save it via quick menu as a 'core override'. that will mean that fbalpha will load that override no matter what folder you launch from, and mame2003 could have its own, independent core override (or having nothing and fall back to the /arcade/retroarch.cfg settings)