Tutorial: Fujitsu FM Towns Marty with Lr-Mess

bbilford83

OK, actually, this should work. Here is a google drive link with 37 .opt files. If they go in retropie\configs\all\retroarch\config\MAME, that should make them automatically work for games installed to fmtmarty. And you can see the list of 37 games I have working on my system there, with the underclock for each one that I'm using in the opt file. Note though, these are only the games I think are playable in English without losing much at all, and also that you can play with a gamepad. For example, Lemmings plays great if you manually change the input to be a mouse, but I don't want to keep anything that requires that so it's not in there. A bunch of the games require a keyboard :(. I get that people did use keyboards and mice with the Marty but I really want to keep my build only as "consoles" do I don't have those on mine.

Alltynex and SSF2 require the 4mb install to load, and a few of the games require you to manually load either the disk or the CD and then sometimes restart the emulator. I am hoping when you are done with your vacation, @Folly, you might still give me a push in the right direction in figuring out a way to make that autoload.

Also, some of the games do boot into the FMT desktop and you have to double-click an icon. Not sure if there's any way to avoid that.

Cheers!

Folly

@bbilford83

Here is a google drive link with 37 .opt files.

I think your link with opt files gives a good list of games that can work with lr-mess.
Also, it's probably something that can be shared :-)

you might still give me a push in the right direction in figuring out a way to make that autoload.

I tried a few things, sadly I could not make it work like I hoped.
I am running into boundaries.

The solution/idea, of me, was to make the disk filename like this :
<gamename.cue>.mfi

In that way I could use the variable %ROM% in the loader line twice because we can only select one file in emulationstation and we need the whole path of the files in the loader line, it would become something like this :
-flop %ROM%.mfi -cdrm %ROM%
Resulting in :
-flop /<PATH>/<gamename.cue>.mfi -cdrm /<PATH>/<gamename.cue>

Though this solution doesn't work for lr-mess because when the info inside the %ROM% variable is inserted in the loader line it will add double-quotes around the path/filename that is loaded to make sure filenames with spaces can be loaded, like this :
-cdrm "/<PATH>/<gamename.cue>"

Obviously, when I use it also for the disk filename, one double-quote becomes before .mfi :
-flop "/<PATH>/<gamename.cue>".mfi -cdrm "/<PATH>/<gamename.cue>"

Sadly, the result is a non working loader for lr-mess.
So basically we are stuck for now.

bbilford83

@Folly Thank you very much for trying! I have been trying to dig around because I saw some people trying to get the games that boot into the marty menu to boot directly into the game, but so far I haven't found anything useful. At least they are working with a few extra steps, and it's only for a few games.

I also realized probably it's possible to "cheat" and use the fmtowns 6mb emulator to run some games that aren't working even in the 4mb marty, like Mahou Daisakusen or Samurai Spirits. For now I am leaving them off because I'd rather have it actually be a "Marty" system but if someone else isn't so picky they might want to try that.

Folly

@bbilford83

Can you put your opt files in a directory structure, so I can downloadd all in one zip file ?
Then I can add them to my repository here :
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/tree/main/00-retroarch-00/config

Folly

@bbilford83 said in Tutorial: Fujitsu FM Towns Marty with Lr-Mess:

you might still give me a push in the right direction

If you want you can open a new thread in "general-discussion-and-gaming" so we can discuss the basics of :

bash
retropie
mame
github
add-mamedev-systems

If so you might want to reserve the first 6 - 10 posts for some summaries.

bbilford83

@Folly Done! Though FYI I think you can download a bunch of files as a zip on google drive if you just highlight them all and then click download. But I agree this is easier.

bbilford83

@Folly Hah I confess that sounds a bit advanced for me but I will probably give it a shot after I dig around a bit more :). Thanks!

Folly

@bbilford83 said in Tutorial: Fujitsu FM Towns Marty with Lr-Mess:

@Folly Done! Though FYI I think you can download a bunch of files as a zip on google drive if you just highlight them all and then click download. But I agree this is easier.

I pasted them here :
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/tree/main/00-retroarch-00/config/MAME

Folly

@bbilford83 said in Tutorial: Fujitsu FM Towns Marty with Lr-Mess:

@Folly Hah I confess that sounds a bit advanced for me but I will probably give it a shot after I dig around a bit more :). Thanks!

Take your time :-)

duglor

@bbilford83 Does Bubble Bobble or TDF Kaijuu Daikussen work with FMTowns?

duglor

@bbilford83 Is there a complete list of games that work with lr-mess-fmtowns?

Folly

@duglor

Here you will find the mame hash tables (software lists) :
https://github.com/mamedev/mame/tree/master/hash

Look for the files fmtowns_xxxxxxx.xml.
In there you can find the supported and the non-supported software.

Remember lr-mess is the retroarch libretro core of mame running non-arcade systems.
Therefor the hash tables also apply to lr-mess.

testudo

@duglor said in Tutorial: Fujitsu FM Towns Marty with Lr-Mess:

@bbilford83 Does Bubble Bobble or TDF Kaijuu Daikussen work with FMTowns?

Both are working for me. I have them converted to .chd files.

duglor

@testudo I'm still working on this. I'll let you know when i figure it all out. I don't wish for help yet. :D

Retro Arcade Fan

@DTEAM @Folly Hello. I have decided to take a stab at this one and unfortunately like others, can't get these to launch. It returns to ES every time.

I have followed the instructions at the start of this post (even though it is a few years old). I have a RP4 with my own custom image.

I have galaxy force ii (japan).chd in the roms/fmtmarty folder.
I have gforce2.zip in the roms/fmtmarty folder
Inside the gforce2.zip is a blank text file named gforce2.
Inside the bios folder is fmtmarty.7z and is 1,162,579 bytes size and 1,163,264 bytes on disk. (It's not 1,163,004 bytes. I can't seem to find one that is).
I have fmtowns_cd.xml in the bios/mame/hash folder
In the fmtowns_cd.xml, the software name is gforce2 and the disk name is galaxy force ii (japan)
I made the changes to the es_system.cfg, emulators.cfg and retroarch.cfg in the configs/fmtmarty folder

Below is my runcommand.log

Parameters:
Executing: /opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mess/mess_libretro.so --config /opt/retropie/configs/fmtmarty/retroarch.cfg "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/fmtmarty/gforce2.zip" --verbose --appendconfig /dev/shm/retroarch.cfg
[INFO] [Config]: Loading config from: "/opt/retropie/configs/fmtmarty/retroarch.cfg".
[INFO] [Config]: Appending config "/dev/shm/retroarch.cfg".
[WARN] [GameMode]: GameMode cannot be enabled on this system ("dlopen failed - libgamemode.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.") https://github.com/FeralInteractive/gamemode needs to be installed.
[WARN] [Config]: GameMode unsupported - disabling...
[WARN] --libretro argument "/opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mess/mess_libretro.so" is not a file, core name or directory. Ignoring.
[INFO] RetroArch 1.10.0 (Git e9e85f3)
[INFO] === Build =======================================
[INFO] Capabilities: NEON VFPv3 VFPv4
[INFO] Built: Jan 30 2022
[INFO] Version: 1.10.0
[INFO] Git: e9e85f3
[INFO] =================================================
[INFO] [Input]: Found input driver: "x".
[ERROR] [Core]: Frontend is built for dynamic libretro cores, but path is not set. Cannot continue.
[ERROR] Fatal error received in: "init_libretro_symbols()"
[INFO] [Core]: Content ran for a total of: 00 hours, 00 minutes, 00 seconds.
[INFO] [Core]: Unloading core symbols..

I appreciate any help possible. Thank you.

mitu

@Retro-Arcade-Fan You have an old version of the launcher, the name of the core is no longer mess_libretro.so, but mamemess_libretro.so.

Folly

@Retro-Arcade-Fan said in Tutorial: Fujitsu FM Towns Marty with Lr-Mess:

I have galaxy force ii (japan).chd in the roms/fmtmarty folder.

You are using a plain lr-mess runcommand and therefor the rom you added is not loaded.
Instead it will use the rom filename as "basename" for checking the hash tables (the softlist files).
This procedure is called solftlist loading or basename loading.
lr-mess probably expects the .chd rom file to be placed in the folder :
roms/fmtmarty/gforce2
The .chd file placed in above folder has to match the filename of the file in the hash table.
The blank .zip file can then be selected in emulationstation and the softlist loading procedure will then ultimately find the file if your configuration files are compatible for softlist loading.

mess_libretro.so

I see that you are using the old named mess_libretro.so.
This core name isn't used anymore for quite a while.
If you updated lr-mess lately retroarch can't load the core as it's now called mamemess_libretro.so.
It seems to be the case as your log file isn't that long and I don't see any loading procedures in there.

Of-course you can try above methode and it's really a good way of understanding how both mame and retroarch works.
However running a .chd with a runcommand not using softlist loading loading is in this case much easier so you don't have the need for suggested folders and blank files.
It then will require a media component (-cdrm) for example.
Although adding a media component sounds simpler it's not really the case.
Configurations have to match this type of loading too.
Therefor I made this project which will do all of this for you :
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/29682/development-of-module-script-generator-for-lr-mess-lr-mame-and-mame-standalone

Retro Arcade Fan

@Folly Thank you. I will follow the instructions to update and respond back with questions/results. I appreciate it!

duglor

@Folly I have it working fine now. Whew! :D

Only trouble is that it is slow. Do you have any suggestions to speed it up? Thanks Folly!

Folly

@duglor

Great job !
What method did you use to get it working ?
I would like to know and it might be interesting for others too.

Do you use a pi4 ?
Check with F11 how fast it's going in percentage.
With F9 you can alter frameskipping to speed it up a bit.