Sanity check - Whats your Arcade Preference?

GreenHawk84

OK, so after updating Retropie (never did a clean install over again) consistently over the past 2 years, I wonder if I am still doing things right.

Which emulator do you prefer for Arcade games mostly? I use FBAlpha to play games like Street Fighter series, Capcom beat em ups, etc. Which settings do you use? I cannot recall if Vsync should be enabled. It does appear smoother.

Please tell me what you like to use and what performs best on a 1080p monitor for Arcade.

mediamogul

@greenhawk84

I use AdvanceMAME 3.x almost exclusively for it's larger library, advanced control options and beautiful HD vector rendering. However, I do use FBA for 'Donkey Kong II: Jumpman Returns', lr-mame2010 for 'Gorf' and lr-mame2003 for 'Cosmo Gang: The Puzzle', as well as the 'Mortal Kombat' titles. I believe vsync is on by default for all libretro cores, but needs to be enabled in AdvanceMAME.

sirhenrythe5th

Also using AdvanceMame, top of the pops imo.
Great features, great performance, great project.
But i use fba for NEOGEO.
Just because to have an own section for it in the emulationstation menue

GreenHawk84

Thank you for the replies. I am trying to find the optimal performers for systems and what (if any) settings are used to make further gains (i.e: no stuttering, great framerate).

I notice some hiccups for Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike on FBA. Maybe it's just me, but I noticed Vsync was OFF. I turned it on and it became pretty smooth in motion with a hiccup here and there. I recall earlier builds having no hiccups, but not sure because it's not like I play every day. I'm pretty anal about performance so maybe a Raspberry Pi isn't the place to start lol. Always considering a full blown motherboard with Hyperspin, but that could also be a 2nd project along side of Retropie.

mediamogul

@greenhawk84 said in Sanity check - Whats your Arcade Preference?:

I notice some hiccups for Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike on FBA. Maybe it's just me, but I noticed Vsync was OFF. I turned it on and it became pretty smooth in motion with a hiccup here and there.

Vsync doesn't really help with performance, but rather screen tearing from the image not being in sync with the display. That said, I'm sure that's what you were noticing in the visuals. The display settings I altered in advancemame.rc for improved quality, performance and authenticity are:

display_beam 1.2
display_expand 1
display_flicker 15
display_magnify 2
display_vsync yes

chizzer

AdvanceMAME here too. It seems to be the best option for input lag

GreenHawk84

@mediamogul when I enabled Vsync I noticed the sprites and scrolling images were much smoother. It was extremely jittery without Vsync. I'm pretty sensitive to crappy motion.

mediamogul

@greenhawk84

I hear you. I always turn vsync on. It's very distracting to me otherwise.

Neo-Rio

On X86 I prefer mame2010. Bigger set than AdvanceMAME plus the libretro controls to exit out again.

I would like to try the more recent arcade sets (e.g. 2016) but I can't find the set for love nor money.

mediamogul

@neo-rio said in Sanity check - Whats your Arcade Preference?:

I can't find the set for love nor money.

You could always build it yourself using clrmamepro, a later ROM set, the corresponding rollback set and a DAT file for 0.174. The easiest way to bring all these together is to get the most recent set and rollback set, as they are the most widely available.

pjft

@mediamogul so, I do need to ask: where could I find the canonical list of AdvMame games? And any in particular that you'd recommend that aren't present in the others?

I default to lr-FBA and Mame 2003 for the most part because of scanlines, and AdvMame for games that run slow on these.

mediamogul

@pjft said in Sanity check - Whats your Arcade Preference?:

where could I find the canonical list of AdvMame games? And any in particular that you'd recommend that aren't present in the others?

For myself, I just use it to run the vanilla 0.106 ROM set. I've heard the developer mention that there are exclusive ROMs that it'll run, but I've never personally seen them listed anywhere. Knowing that I wanted the full 0.106 ROM set, but wanting to save as much space as possible, I used clrmamepro to convert my downloaded merged set into a non-merged set. Since I wasn't changing the set version, I was able to do it without a rollback set. It worked out really well, reducing the size by almost half.

pjft

@mediamogul Thanks. I'll have to check what games are there in that set, to see if there are any I'm missing out on.

Btw, out of curiosity, what's your 128GB Thumb Drive make and model? I have a Lexar 128GB one but even after replacing the first one it's still fairly unreliable. My Sandisk 64GB one that I use on the other Pi has always worked like a charm.

mediamogul

@pjft said in Sanity check - Whats your Arcade Preference?:

what's your 128GB Thumb Drive make and model?

I've heard of people having a lot of problems with 128GB thumb drives. I was very fortunate to find a reliable option on my second try. The one I use currently is a Samsung, model MUF-128BB/AM. It's going into its second year of use with no issues so far. My original SanDisk Ultra Fit SDCZ43-128G-GAM46 got so hot, I had to let it cool down before removing it and it even raised the reported operating temperature of my Pi considerably. It burnt out after about three months and I started going over user reviews with a fine-toothed comb before I found the Samsung. Of course there might even be a better option now. I haven't looked in a while.