FBA vs. MAME

AndersHP

@dudleydes will this line do the same job, but provide extra lists to the emulators.cfg file, without overwriting previous inputs, and is the name of the emulator correct?

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

?

UDb23

@andershp said in FBA vs. MAME:

roughrac.zip

Emulated in mame since .95; would expect it to run both in advmame (.106) and lr-mame2010 (.139). Haven't tried yet .

caver01

@andershp said in FBA vs. MAME:

Though, I cannot find the game roughrac.zip. It doesn't seem to be part of MAME2003 or FBA 0.2.97.42? MAME 0.106 perhaps? Never tried this romset...

Yes, I see in the .106 that roughrac.zip is Rough Racer (Japan, FD1094 317-0058-06b).

Also: is it true that the best way to get ADVMAME running on a fresh setup would be a MAME 0.106 romset and the latest ADVMAME 3.x version?

Yes. However, some folks have reported better performance with 1.4 (same 106 romset) but I have had the opposite experience. I have found games like Golden Tee variants work better in the 3.x versions. Video bugs have apparently been corrected in version 3.x that were present in 1.4 and earlier, and you can always swap between them with runcommand if you want to try 1.4 since the ROM is the same. I have never seen any benefit/reason to use AdvanceMAME .94.

I see four main reasons besides the romset that you might want to use AdvanceMAME. First, it was build to support custom video situations, arcade monitors etc. where you can specify the modeline and define the exact timing of the video scanlines. Of course, this requires the support of hardware and is not as useful for those of us on a Pi using HDMI. But if you were trying to configure a CRT, this might be really handy, and it is essential on other hardware using an arcade monitor.

Second, AdvanceMAME has a superior control mapping scheme that allows you to matrix just about any combination of controls. For example, if your goal is a three trackball Rampart cabinet, you can do that. You want to run four spinners and pay Warlords? No problem. The configuration is very flexible Although great strides have been made recently in RetroArch too with respect to analog indexing and lightgun support, AdvanceMAME has always been ahead of others in that regard.

Third, the rendering of vector games is the best of all of the arcade emulators we have. It draws lines at native resolution. You can also control the quality of the vector in terms of brightness, flicker, line thickness, etc. Check out this post for some ideas and images.

Finally, AdvanceMAME includes AdvanceMESS. There may be other system-specific emulators that do a better job, but MESS is a nice tool to have. You need to jump through some hoops to get it running the way you want but it is possible (I have 3.x running as my Apple II emulator).

dudleydes

@andershp Yes that command should do it.

You can check the string to be used in the command by checking in opt/retropie/configs/all/emulators.cfg

AndersHP

I just want to let people know, that following the above mentioned lists and commandlines, I have succesfully merged MAME2003 (0.78)/FBA 0.2.97.42/ADVMAME 0.106 in my Arcade folder, and the best core are chosen for the best versions of games.

I don't know how much maintenance it will demand on longer sight (probably manually editing a game at a time if something doesn't work), but for now, it's really great that everything is centralized and optimized for best core. Recommendations!

mitu

@andershp said in FBA vs. MAME:

Recommendations!

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs !

strangeruk

Wow, this thread has been most useful in sorting out my arcade section! Big thanks to @dudleydes, @AndersHP and @Pussyfoot for their contributions.

Being a Windows user I did a slightly different approach in copying out the roms from my set via the text file list and did it with PowerShell. For what it's worth, here's the command I used:

$Files = Get-Content filename.txt
$Dest = "PathTo:\Desired\Rom\Folder"

foreach ($File in $Files) {
  Copy-Item $File $Dest
}

Once again thanks to everyone who contributed in this thread.

PS. I'd also recommend Knuckle Bash for comedy value.

robotronman

Hi All,

I totally agree with @strangeruk here. This thread has been super helpful. Big thanks to @dudleydes, @AndersHP and @Pussyfoot for their contributions.

I too use windows to administer my Retropie systems and have a tip for using @dudleydes UNIX commands directly from Windows.

First download and install Gow found here: https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow/releases/

Gow (Gnu On Windows) is the lightweight alternative to Cygwin. It uses a convenient NSIS installer that installs over 100 extremely useful open source UNIX applications compiled as native win32 binaries. It is designed to be as small as possible, about 18 MB, as opposed to Cygwin which can run well over 100 MB depending upon options.

This tool is unbelievably awesome, and lets you run xargs and cp and many other UNIX commands right on your Windows machine. I've successfully used @dudleydes process above on Windows to filter my lists and files quickly and efficiently.

Bravo guys, awesome work!
robotronman

pjft

@robotronman said in FBA vs. MAME:

First download and install Gow found here: https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow/releases/

Thank you for the tip! Had been looking for something like this for a while - I had something similar in the past, but I completely forgot the name of what I was using then, so this comes in handy!

johnodon

Just wanted to say that this thread is awesome and exactly what I was looking for. Replying so I don't lose it again! :)

Thank you all for the hard work!

AndersHP

I'm really enjoying my new arcade folder also.

To tidy things up completely, it could have been nice to base the lists on the non-mahjong and non-adult DAT files, but I guess that's just personal taste.

johnodon

What do you guys think about adding the Neogeo set under FBA?

AndersHP

@johnodon if anyone has a NeoGeo gamelist with zip files listed, I can make an FBA list with these included.

Personally, I like to have NeoGeo games listed under the NeoGeo system folder.

johnodon

@andershp said in FBA vs. MAME:

@johnodon if anyone has a NeoGeo gamelist with zip files listed, I can make an FBA list with these included.

Personally, I like to have NeoGeo games listed under the NeoGeo system folder.

I think this is close to all of them (bios file removed from list):

2020bb.zip
3countb.zip
alpham2.zip
androdun.zip
aodk.zip
aof.zip
aof2.zip
aof3.zip
bangbead.zip
bjourney.zip
blazstar.zip
breakrev.zip
bstars.zip
bstars2.zip
burningf.zip
crsword.zip
ctomaday.zip
cyberlip.zip
doubledr.zip
eightman.zip
fatfursp.zip
fatfury1.zip
fatfury2.zip
fatfury3.zip
fbfrenzy.zip
fightfev.zip
flipshot.zip
galaxyfg.zip
ganryu.zip
garou.zip
ghostlop.zip
goalx3.zip
gowcaizr.zip
gpilots.zip
gururin.zip
irrmaze.zip
joyjoy.zip
kabukikl.zip
karnovr.zip
kizuna.zip
kof2000.zip
kof2001.zip
kof2002.zip
kof2003.zip
kof94.zip
kof95.zip
kof96.zip
kof97.zip
kof98.zip
kof99.zip
kotm.zip
kotm2.zip
lastblad.zip
lastbld2.zip
lbowling.zip
legendos.zip
lresort.zip
magdrop2.zip
magdrop3.zip
maglord.zip
matrim.zip
miexchng.zip
mslug.zip
mslug2.zip
mslug3.zip
mslug4.zip
mslug5.zip
mslugx.zip
mutnat.zip
nam1975.zip
ncombat.zip
ncommand.zip
neobombe.zip
neocup98.zip
neodrift.zip
neomrdo.zip
ninjamas.zip
nitd.zip
overtop.zip
panicbom.zip
pbobbl2n.zip
pbobblen.zip
pgoal.zip
pnyaa.zip
popbounc.zip
preisle2.zip
pspikes2.zip
pulstar.zip
puzzledp.zip
rbff1.zip
rbff2.zip
rbffspec.zip
ridhero.zip
roboarmy.zip
rotd.zip
s1945p.zip
samsh5sp.zip
samsho.zip
samsho2.zip
samsho3.zip
samsho4.zip
samsho5.zip
savagere.zip
sdodgeb.zip
sengoku.zip
sengoku2.zip
sengoku3.zip
shocktr2.zip
shocktro.zip
socbrawl.zip
sonicwi2.zip
sonicwi3.zip
spinmast.zip
ssideki.zip
ssideki2.zip
ssideki3.zip
ssideki4.zip
stakwin.zip
stakwin2.zip
strhoop.zip
superspy.zip
tophuntr.zip
tpgolf.zip
turfmast.zip
twinspri.zip
tws96.zip
viewpoin.zip
wakuwak7.zip
wh1.zip
wh2.zip
wh2j.zip
whp.zip
wjammers.zip
zedblade.zip
zupapa.zip

AndersHP

@johnodon I've added an lr-fbalpha list including NeoGeo games here. Hope this is helpful.

johnodon

If anyone wants a shortcut to all of this, here is a link to my emulators.cfg. If you see anything wrong, let me know.

https://pastebin.com/NJNcqmH5

2278 games total
43 advmame
1613 lr-fbalpha
640 lr-mame2003
2 lr-mame2010

John

barbudreadmon

@andershp You mention "sound glitches" in rtype and gyruss, could you be a little more precise ? Also, those glitches happen with any sound setting (samplerate, sample interpolation & fm interpolation) in the core options ?
Those games should run flawlessly considering their cpu usage, so perhaps there is some glitch which needs to be reported to the fbalpha team.

tashman

I'm not sure if anyone is keeping a definitive list but in addition - footchmp.zip, euroch92.zip and hattrick.zip all have poor sound in the intros and for the in game "voice over" in lr-fbalpha. No issues in lr-mame2003/2010 and mame4all (Rpi 3 stock settings). It may improve with tweaks but it's better to choose an emulator that works right away.

Is it worth reporting these to the FBA alpha team?

Also a massive thanks to everyone involved in putting all this together. It has kept me busy this weekend!

barbudreadmon

@tashman said in FBA vs. MAME:

Is it worth reporting these to the FBA alpha team?

If this is bad enough to make people choose another emulator, i think it is.
Btw, hattrick can't have poor sound in fba since it is not emulated at all.

tashman

@barbudreadmon to be honest I made the assumption about hattrick as it's the same game.