FBA vs. MAME

Pussyfoot

In the cases I'm listing, it's critical problems that affect all users. If the game doesn't run or is missing sound, then it's a slam dunk.

caver01

@pussyfoot that’s true. Looking back at your list these have problems in one but might work in another. It’s when it works in multiple that it becomes subjective.

Pussyfoot

Here are some more ones that work in mame vs. FBA:

aso
bioship
blkheart (Use MAME 2010)
cupfinal
hachamf (still doesn't work in MAME, but loads)
nbahangt
sbm
tdfever (Works better in MAME 2010, but screen is stretched)
touchgo
umk3
wwfmania

dankcushions

@pussyfoot the list is 1000s long. mame aims to support every known arcade board (with later mames closer to that then earlier ones), whereas fba is only a tiny subset (but with a goal of speed rather than preservation).

sirhenrythe5th

Not to forget that FBA was once meant to emulate one single game: Afterburner from SEGA.
So we should be thankful for every game that was added.
Petsonally i love and use MAME.
MAME32FX on PC, AdvanceMame on the Pi + FBA for NeoGeo to have an own section in ES.

UDb23

@sirhenrythe5th said in FBA vs. MAME:

FBA was once meant to emulate one single game: Afterburner from SEGA.

Interesting ! Was not aware of that.

Pussyfoot

I remember when FBA was needed to emulate CPS1, CPS2, and NEOGEO because they weren't playable under MAME. MAME was more accurate, but FBA was usually faster. Of course, this was over a decade ago...

I was a little surprised to see games that work fine in FBA on Windows may not even work on the Raspberry Pi.

dankcushions

@pussyfoot said in FBA vs. MAME:

I was a little surprised to see games that work fine in FBA on Windows may not even work on the Raspberry Pi.

can you give an example please?

pjft

@sirhenrythe5th I remember using it indeed for Galaxy Force. I didn't know it had started with After Burner.

I also remember using Raine to play Taito games such as Space Gun on my PC... Indeed, grateful for all the progress on MAME and FBA, as well as the amazing things the Pi can accomplish on such a small chip.

Pussyfoot

@dankcushions galpani4

dankcushions

@pussyfoot said in FBA vs. MAME:

@dankcushions galpani4

according to the compatibility list this works but has slowdown, is that correct? because that kind of thing is expected on a raspberry pi - they are far slower than any PC or laptop from the last 15+ years.

pjft

@pussyfoot I'd try AdvMame for games that exhibit slowdowns on FBA or MAME 2003. It will usually work surprisingly faster.

Pussyfoot

@dankcushions It doesn't even start up on the Pi.

@pjft I experimented with Advancemame for vector games. It works much nicer. I'm disappointed that Advancemame is separate from the other MAME options. I don't like having two MAME menus on RetroPie.

pjft

@pussyfoot you can merge all FBA, Mame and AdvMame in the arcade folder, and configure different ROMs to use different emulators.

dankcushions

@pussyfoot said in FBA vs. MAME:

@dankcushions It doesn't even start up on the Pi.

not according to our compatibility sheets - it works. i can't test myself at the moment but i can't see why someone would say it starts if it doesn't. are you sure you have the right romset for your version of lr-fbalpha?

Pussyfoot

@dankcushions

I have a verified Non-Merged set using CLRMAME Pro.

The zip file has the following files:

gp4j1.u10
gp4j1.u8
gp4-101-00.u20
gp4-100-00.u24
gp4-200-00.u16
gp4-201-00.u18
gp4-300-00.u4

It's possible that I'm missing the Super Kaneko Nova System BIOS files elsewhere in the roms. I'll check it out.

Pussyfoot

Yep. That was it. I didn't have the skns.zip file!

Pussyfoot

Mea culpa on bioship, blkheart, and hachamf . They work fine in FBA.

GreenHawk84

This is great, I really want to know the nuances of the arcade emulators; which games run best, etc.

Are you saying the CPS games (Street Fighter II) are not accurate in FBA? So many games run so amazingly well in FBA. I may consider changing some games back to Mame2003 according to this thread. Someday I hope there is a single arcade emulator which is geared for Raspberry Pi.

Pussyfoot

@greenhawk84 Historically speaking, FBA ran CPS 1, CPS 2, and NEOGEO games faster with less CPU overhead. MAME is about hardware accuracy. It wants to emulate every aspect of the hardware environment. It's more concerned with accuracy on HOW the game is run vs. the overall performance. In general, my advice was if the same game is available in both MAME and FBA, use FBA.

However, I've noticed that there are a lot of games (usually older classic games) that are just plain buggy in FBA. Galaxian and Galga have text glitches in FBA. MAME, which is using a baseline that's 7 years old, runs them great. Gauntlet 1 is buggy in FBA. I get multiple exits on the into level. Burger Time works well in FBA, but the sound is a little off when compared to it running in MAME.

I'm building a RetroPie on a PI3 for a friend, but I don't know if I'd use this hardware again. The performance issues and lack of using the current MAME makes me wonder if it would be worthwhile to build a small x86 unit instead. You can't beat the price of the Pi, but the time I'm putting in to figure out which variant of MAME works best for different games is also costly.

Currently, I just installed the latest AdvanceMAME and moved all the vector games to it. Now, I can play Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back using a mouse. I'll post up my rom lists for FBA, MAME and AdvanceMAME soon. I went through the trouble of filtering out all the FBA games BY HAND so that they contain all the working variants (when explicitly mentioned in the DAT file) and USA versions. That list has shrunk now that I've transitioned a lot of titles from FBA to MAME.