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    Please do not post a support request without first reading and following the advice in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

    Neogeo games looks shaded in PiFBA (+ lr-fbalpha talks)

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    • B
      barbudreadmon @AndersHP
      last edited by

      @AndersHP said in Neogeo games looks shaded/antialiased?:

      But when I look through the compatibility list from the latest 0.2.97.39, I cannot really see the big benefits, everything seems to be untested, compared to the GNGEO list, where everything is marked with a green OK! To me it seems more risky to start resaddling, and running newer versions of everything, since I originally learned that the Retropie wasn't able to run the newest versions. What I'm trying to ask; if it works, should I fix it?

      Yes, bugfixes and more games, "untested" in the compatibility list generally means the game is a clone and is supposed to work because the parent works, if it's about neogeo games, i can guarantee you there is no neogeo games who won't run with fbalpha-libretro to my knowledge. I don't think you should replace mame2003, both emulators complement each other (some examples : mortal kombat is not on fba, street fighter III is not on mame2003). But i would discard gngeo for any libretro core who runs neogeo games (mame2003, mame2010, fbalpha2012, fbalpha, ... even mame2000 i think), because retroarch have some nice features like shaders, and is not discontinued.

      You are totally right, if it works, don't fix it, but i thought you opened this topic because you actually had issues.

      FBNeo developer - github - forum

      AndersHPA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • AndersHPA
        AndersHP @barbudreadmon
        last edited by

        @barbudreadmon said in Neogeo games looks shaded/antialiased?:

        @AndersHP said in Neogeo games looks shaded/antialiased?:

        But when I look through the compatibility list from the latest 0.2.97.39, I cannot really see the big benefits, everything seems to be untested, compared to the GNGEO list, where everything is marked with a green OK! To me it seems more risky to start resaddling, and running newer versions of everything, since I originally learned that the Retropie wasn't able to run the newest versions. What I'm trying to ask; if it works, should I fix it?

        Yes, bugfixes and more games, "untested" in the compatibility list generally means the game is a clone and is supposed to work because the parent works, if it's about neogeo games, i can guarantee you there is no neogeo games who won't run with fbalpha-libretro to my knowledge. I don't think you should replace mame2003, both emulators complement each other (some examples : mortal kombat is not on fba, street fighter III is not on mame2003). But i would discard gngeo for any libretro core who runs neogeo games (mame2003, mame2010, fbalpha2012, fbalpha, ... even mame2000 i think), because retroarch have some nice features like shaders, and is not discontinued.

        You are totally right, if it works, don't fix it, but i thought you opened this topic because you actually had issues.

        OK, so basically: I'm currently adding a few games at the time (hasn't got a pc, so clrmamepro is not an option I guess), but from now on, I should rather try finding the newest romset and add roms from that, and set the default emulator to be lr-fbalpha, right?

        You're right about the issue I have, although it's a small issue, compared to a complete rebuild of my catalogue. I have gotten the impression of MAME on Retropie, that you're most likely to find a lot of games that doesn't work, and it's a bit of a hassle to set things up, so I considered myself a bit lucky that I haven't had more issues than shaders ;-)

        I haven't experienced bugs either, but I guess a lot of the discontinued romsets and emulators could crash on you or something like that? Which would make the newest MAME romsets a better starting point?

        And again; why have I heard everywhere that Retropie can't run the newest MAME roms, if it totally can do this with the fbalpha?

        My "Bubble Bobble" Themed Bartop Arcade
        My Gameboy

        dankcushionsD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • AndersHPA
          AndersHP
          last edited by

          Oh, and another question. lr-fbalpha 0.2.97.39 is based on the MAME 0.175 romset right? But if you say it's totally up to date, why is it that there's also a MAME 0.179 ?

          My "Bubble Bobble" Themed Bartop Arcade
          My Gameboy

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          • B
            barbudreadmon
            last edited by

            Unlike mame, fbalpha don't include game for the purpose of "preliminary support", everything just works, there can be a few bugs (upstream, in the libretro port itself or from running on arm), but they generally get fixed if you report them on https://github.com/libretro/fbalpha/issues .
            Latest mame emulator won't run very well on arm, because there is a lot of x86 specific code, because it is really heavy (there is preliminary emulation for pretty much anything that existed and played games), because his goal is to be 100% accurate whatever the cost for speed. I think the guys who said "Retropie can't run the newest MAME roms" just meant retropie can't run the latest mame emulator, and can't run mame roms which only run on it (some examples would be stv games, naomi games, cave 3rd generation games, ...)

            FBNeo developer - github - forum

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            • B
              barbudreadmon
              last edited by

              I said "almost in sync with current mame", because mame 0.175 set is from a few months ago, i don't think there is that much difference between a mame 0.175 rom and a mame 0.179 rom in the arcade boards emulated by fba, it should be ok for 99% of them, perhaps 100%.

              FBNeo developer - github - forum

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              • dankcushionsD
                dankcushions Global Moderator @AndersHP
                last edited by

                @AndersHP said in Neogeo games looks shaded/antialiased?:

                You're right about the issue I have, although it's a small issue, compared to a complete rebuild of my catalogue. I have gotten the impression of MAME on Retropie, that you're most likely to find a lot of games that doesn't work,

                that impression is generally got from people who don't understand how mame works, trying to to get some random arcade rom they've downloaded from online to work with a random emulator.

                eg, you shouldn't have to rebuild anything - just download the correct romset that you need. clrmamepro is totally unnecessary in my experience.

                btw, for lr-fbalpha i wouldn't bother getting mame 0.175 romset, get the fba 0.2.97.39 romset. full mame romsets are 100s of GBs and most of that will be useless for FBA. plus there's a bunch of stuff like romhacks that i presume aren't in mame romsets.

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                • dankcushionsD
                  dankcushions Global Moderator
                  last edited by

                  @AndersHP

                  And again; why have I heard everywhere that Retropie can't run the newest MAME roms, if it totally can do this with the fbalpha?

                  the pi can actually run current mame. see http://choccyhobnob.com/mame-benchmarks-on-raspberry-pi-123/

                  however, if you read into those benchmarks you'll see it super struggling with games that run fullspeed on our older mame emulators (and fbalpha!), so there's little point in it for me. almost everything 2d that you'll want to play has been in mame and/or fba for 10-15 years.

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                  • AndersHPA
                    AndersHP
                    last edited by

                    Hm.
                    So I tried the lr-fbalpha. Updated to latest version via Retropie-Setup and tried a few test-games from the newest 0.2.97.39 romset, both MAME and NEOGEO. But not with much luck.

                    NEOGEO:
                    Breakers - doesn't start even though it's marked with a Green OK! Works on PiFBA...?
                    Garou - same as the above. Works on PiFBA bot not lr-fbalpha.

                    MAME:
                    1944: The loop master - doesn't start even though it's marked with a Green OK! Works with PiFBA.
                    Aero Fighters - only one of my test games that actually works on lr-fbalpha.

                    Also tried some of my Neogeo games that ran fine on PiFBA, but they don't work on fbalpha either (but I guess that could be roms related, since they're not from the latest romset?)

                    What's wrong with my lr-fbalpha...??

                    My "Bubble Bobble" Themed Bartop Arcade
                    My Gameboy

                    B 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • B
                      barbudreadmon @AndersHP
                      last edited by

                      @AndersHP All those games work, obviously either you don't have the right roms, or you don't have the right bioses. Do you have neogeo.zip from the same romset in the same folder ? Can you confirm me you have a "1944.key" file in "1944.zip" file ? Could you give me the full list of files in "1944.zip" ?

                      FBNeo developer - github - forum

                      AndersHPA 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • AndersHPA
                        AndersHP @barbudreadmon
                        last edited by

                        @barbudreadmon
                        Beat me to it, I was just about to edit my post. I forgot about getting the Neogeo.zip from the Romset, that fixed the Neogeo games, and I tried a few other MAME's, that also worked.

                        And no, the 1944 doesn't have a "key" file. Does that mean the romset is bad or something? I don't think it was easy to find the romset actually.

                        Anyways, I still have a few questions regarding the lr-fbalpha emulating Neogeo games compared to PiFBA though:
                        When I start the games via lr-fbalpha, I first get a green graphical glitchy eerie screen for about 3 seconds, before the game starts.
                        Then, every time I press the coin button, the screen and sound blacks out for a split second. And also, I think there's a bit of other artifacts in the graphics in-game. PiFBA didn't have any of these. If I remove the shaders from the PiFBA (which I haven't tried yet), I would feel that this still does a much better job! Ain't that a bit weird?

                        My "Bubble Bobble" Themed Bartop Arcade
                        My Gameboy

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                        • AndersHPA
                          AndersHP @barbudreadmon
                          last edited by

                          @barbudreadmon said in Neogeo games looks shaded/antialiased?:

                          Could you give me the full list of files in "1944.zip" ?

                          Yes, it's:
                          nff.01
                          nff.04
                          nff.11m
                          nff.12m
                          nff.13m
                          nff.14m
                          nff.15m
                          nff.16m
                          nff.17m
                          nff.18m
                          nff.19m
                          nff.20m
                          nffu.03
                          nffu.05

                          My "Bubble Bobble" Themed Bartop Arcade
                          My Gameboy

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                          • B
                            barbudreadmon @AndersHP
                            last edited by

                            @AndersHP You'll get the "green graphical glitchy eerie screen for about 3 seconds" on every game, i never put much thought about it, i'll check if standalone fba have this later to know if it's normal or not, same thing about "the screen and sound blacks out for a split second", i'm not sure it's in every game, and i never checked standalone to compare since it's not really game-breaking either. About the "artifacts in the graphics in-game", could you post a screenshot ? I never noticed that.

                            About 1944, you only miss the key file, it should be present in any fba rom tagged 0.2.97.39 and any mame rom tagged 0.175+ . It's actually a small file of 20 bytes which contain the decryption key of the cps2 game, and it wasn't needed before those releases because it was hardcoded in the emulator, but they removed that.

                            FBNeo developer - github - forum

                            dankcushionsD AndersHPA 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • dankcushionsD
                              dankcushions Global Moderator @barbudreadmon
                              last edited by

                              @barbudreadmon said in Neogeo games looks shaded in PiFBA (+ lr-fbalpha talks):

                              @AndersHP You'll get the "green graphical glitchy eerie screen for about 3 seconds" on every game, i never put much thought about it, i'll check if standalone fba have this later to know if it's normal or not

                              looks like it's the HW self-test for neogeo: http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1563.nfo (look for v1.12)

                              however i dunno if normal FBA has any options to turn it off

                              B 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • B
                                barbudreadmon @dankcushions
                                last edited by

                                @dankcushions said in Neogeo games looks shaded in PiFBA (+ lr-fbalpha talks):

                                @barbudreadmon said in Neogeo games looks shaded in PiFBA (+ lr-fbalpha talks):

                                @AndersHP You'll get the "green graphical glitchy eerie screen for about 3 seconds" on every game, i never put much thought about it, i'll check if standalone fba have this later to know if it's normal or not

                                looks like it's the HW self-test for neogeo: http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1563.nfo (look for v1.12)

                                however i dunno if normal FBA has any options to turn it off

                                That's basically what i thought. I suppose standalone has something to suppress it then, because "iq_132" is one of their main developper. I'll look into it if i find some free time.

                                FBNeo developer - github - forum

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                                • B
                                  barbudreadmon @AndersHP
                                  last edited by barbudreadmon

                                  @AndersHP said in Neogeo games looks shaded in PiFBA (+ lr-fbalpha talks):

                                  Then, every time I press the coin button, the screen and sound blacks out for a split second

                                  By the way, it only happens on title screen, right ? I never had that while in play. That's why i thought it was the game's normal behavior, actually i kinda remember the cabinet doing the same thing.

                                  FBNeo developer - github - forum

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                                  • AndersHPA
                                    AndersHP @barbudreadmon
                                    last edited by

                                    @barbudreadmon OK, about the key file, I searched through the 1-D part of the romset, and only a handful, say 30 games, have the keyfile in the zips, and they've all god different names starting with 317-xxxx.key. Should I just grab one of those, and why are they not in all the zipped mame roms?

                                    Oh, and yes I believe it's not doing this within the games, but for me the things adds up and while the PiFBA emulator seems to be emulating the games at exactly the same performance, but without these glitches, I think it makes for a better impression of the games in the end, TBH. But maybe that's just me :-)

                                    I have another question for you, when you say the "new version of fba is out", is it the emulator that's got modified, or is it the romset, or both? I thought it was the emulator, but I can see some of the bug fixes is specific games-related, so that suggests that it is the code inside the games that you're updating?

                                    Talking about PiFBA makes me seem very ungrateful here, but I really have a huge amount of respect for guys like you, modding and tweaking these classic games to be even better in your freetime, for us all to enjoy! Also, thanks a bunch for taking the time to reply here!

                                    My "Bubble Bobble" Themed Bartop Arcade
                                    My Gameboy

                                    B 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • B
                                      barbudreadmon @AndersHP
                                      last edited by

                                      @AndersHP said in Neogeo games looks shaded in PiFBA (+ lr-fbalpha talks):

                                      OK, about the key file, I searched through the 1-D part of the romset, and only a handful, say 30 games, have the keyfile in the zips

                                      Yes, the key files i mentioned are only for cps2 games.
                                      You searched "fba 0.2.97.39 romset" on google ? I don't think i can link roms website here but the first result for me seems great.
                                      New version of fba means the emulator is modified : bugfixes, new features, new romset with addition and fixed dump.
                                      We don't update the code inside the games, we update the code which read and emulate the best dump known.
                                      Roms change once in a while, but not that often, cps2 roms didn't change for years (probably 10+), but they changed a few months ago when someone finished retro-engineering the cabinet.

                                      @AndersHP said in Neogeo games looks shaded in PiFBA (+ lr-fbalpha talks):

                                      but without these glitches

                                      Well, i hope you understand those are actually not glitches but original behavior of the cabinet. I suppose we could mask them, like pifba or standalone fba, but this is really low priority for me.

                                      FBNeo developer - github - forum

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                                      • AndersHPA
                                        AndersHP
                                        last edited by

                                        In extension of our Little MAME vs. FBA talk here, I'm trying to build my own romset to be completely compatible with my arcade build.

                                        I wanted to use Romlister, but this needs Controls.xml and Catver.ini files, and these I cannot find for FBA romsets.

                                        Am I missing something, or is Romlister not compatible with FBA romsets?
                                        If not, how do you arrange the romsets in a way that doesn't require you to manually test every game?

                                        My "Bubble Bobble" Themed Bartop Arcade
                                        My Gameboy

                                        dankcushionsD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • dankcushionsD
                                          dankcushions Global Moderator @AndersHP
                                          last edited by

                                          @AndersHP said in Neogeo games looks shaded in PiFBA (+ lr-fbalpha talks):

                                          In extension of our Little MAME vs. FBA talk here, I'm trying to build my own romset to be completely compatible with my arcade build.

                                          I wanted to use Romlister, but this needs Controls.xml and Catver.ini files, and these I cannot find for FBA romsets.

                                          Am I missing something, or is Romlister not compatible with FBA romsets?
                                          If not, how do you arrange the romsets in a way that doesn't require you to manually test every game?

                                          you can just use the mame controls.xml and catver.ini - fba romsets are a subset of mame.

                                          however, http://controls.arcadecontrols.com/ has been down for a while so you have to hunt for old links. catver.ini is current though: http://www.progettosnaps.net/catver/

                                          i'm not sure how it handles all the bootlegs and hacks that are in fba but not in mame... i assume they just don't feature. for this reason i would be careful relying on romlister for anything super-specific. it seemed to be ok splitting out neogeo games and things like that, but i'd be cautious with anything about controls.

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                                          • AndersHPA
                                            AndersHP
                                            last edited by

                                            Thanks...

                                            But what do you suggest then, in order to sort the romsets, to prevent having 5 versions of every game? Going through them manually?

                                            My "Bubble Bobble" Themed Bartop Arcade
                                            My Gameboy

                                            dankcushionsD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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