FBA vs. MAME

cosmo0

I have tested my list under FBA and MAME 2003. I haven't tested under Advance MAME, because I don't have a keyboard, so I can't setup the controls.

I have updated my lists accordingly. I used FBA as "best" as long as it didn't have obvious problems (slowdowns or crashes). I'm assuming the games that don't work properly (or at all) in either FBA or MAME2003 probably work on AdvanceMAME.

name	fba	mame2003
1943kai	ok	-
720	-	ok
airwolf	ok	ok
arknoid2	way too sensitive	a bit too sensitive, not quite playable
bionicc	ok	ok
bublbobl	ok	ok
fantzn2	-	black screen at launch
gng	ok	ok
gt2k	-	-
gradius4	-	-
offroad	-	ok
jojoba	ok	-
marble	-	ok
mshu	ok	ok
mk4	-	so slow it makes the system unresponsive
nbapbp	-	-
orunners	-	broken display, screen stuck on top left
polepos	-	ok
polepos2	-	ok
pbobble4	parent crashes - pbobble4u is slow	ok
rtype	ok	ok
rampart	-	ok
ramprt2p	-	ok
roadblst	-	ok
invadpt2	-	ok
sf2	ok	ok
sf2ce	ok	ok
rbtapper	-	stuck on system check, makes the sytem unresponsive
tron	-	no control is set up, not even credit
turbo	-	ok
vanguard	-	ok
wbml	ok	ok
xevious	-	ok

grant2258

tron and rbtapper work on mame2003 you need to update to a later version the was an issue with bally and input on some other games. That has been addressed already.

One side effect is the dip switch setting from the buged games that were started arent set right the easiest solution is to delete everything in the cfg dir accept for default.cfg or delete the rbtapper.cfg and tron.cfg these games do work. I dont have a list of them all but rbtapper can be fixed from the tab menu if you want to do it the hard way

Loggahead

I noticed last night that fba is playing green beret / rush'n attack extremely fast. I know it was running at normal speed for me at one point. The only thing I know of changing was upgrading to retropie 4.4 and I've upgraded fba from source. Can anyone else test those games and see if it's doing the same for you?

grant2258

@loggahead said in FBA vs. MAME:

d for me at one point. The only thing I know of changing was upgrading to retropie 4.4 and I've upgraded fba from source. Can anyone else test those games and see if it's doing the

maybe there timing setup wasnt setup right for retroach and the update knocked it off or a regression of some sort in the code. Mame2003+ is running that games
perfect if you want to play it. Mame2003 should be fine to just use the binary atm there a pull request in for mame2003 for a few fixes

Loggahead

@grant2258 Maybe I'll give 2003+ a shot. I remember that Rush'n Attack / Green Beret didn't work properly in Mame2003. When the game would boot it was just bringing up a volume slider on the screen. Similar to Spy Hunter and Rampage.

markwkidd

@loggahead said in FBA vs. MAME:

@grant2258 Maybe I'll give 2003+ a shot. I remember that Rush'n Attack / Green Beret didn't work properly in Mame2003. When the game would boot it was just bringing up a volume slider on the screen. Similar to Spy Hunter and Rampage.

That is all fixed now in mame2003-plus. Eventually the fixes may go back to mame2003

Loggahead

@markwkidd said in FBA vs. MAME:

@loggahead said in FBA vs. MAME:

@grant2258 Maybe I'll give 2003+ a shot. I remember that Rush'n Attack / Green Beret didn't work properly in Mame2003. When the game would boot it was just bringing up a volume slider on the screen. Similar to Spy Hunter and Rampage.

That is all fixed now in mame2003-plus. Eventually the fixes may go back to mame2003

Excellent! So I noticed that mame2003+ is an experimental package, should I only look to use this on roms I can't get to run in mame2003 or is it safe to consider using + as a replacement to mame2003?

markwkidd

mame2003-plus is still in testing, but it's getting fairly polished at this point IMO. arcadez has been working on it for almost a year, and a few other of us have put in weeks to months.

It works better than mame2003 most of the time, and has more than 150 more working games, but every once in a while we have a regression or other new bug.

You seem to be very thorough in your approach to arcade emulation -- you would be very welcome as a user/tester. Games that haven't ever worked right in mame2003 are getting fixed, and new ones added.

Loggahead

@markwkidd This all sounds awesome! I will install the package tonight and start testing roms.

Is it ok to do from binary or do I need to do it from source? Where is the best place to report any issues I find?

barbudreadmon

@loggahead Well, i'm not extremely happy with the current fix, but Rush'n Attack / Green Beret are working properly in fba with the latest commits.

grant2258

@barbudreadmon said in FBA vs. MAME:

@loggahead Well, i'm not extremely happy with the current fix, but Rush'n Attack / Green Beret are working properly in fba with the latest commits.

we had this problem on mame2003+ we did a different work around for mame2003 as well a general soultion for this would be to set the sample rate timing to to something sensible that can handle the 30fps ie 60.fps and 48k sample means the lowest framerate you can achive is 48 fps if fps is below sample rate change sample rate timing in the core

barbudreadmon

@grant2258 Thanks for the explanation

Loggahead

@markwkidd said in FBA vs. MAME:

mame2003-plus is still in testing, but it's getting fairly polished at this point IMO. arcadez has been working on it for almost a year, and a few other of us have put in weeks to months.

It works better than mame2003 most of the time, and has more than 150 more working games, but every once in a while we have a regression or other new bug.

You seem to be very thorough in your approach to arcade emulation -- you would be very welcome as a user/tester. Games that haven't ever worked right in mame2003 are getting fixed, and new ones added.

Every time I try and install lr-mame2003-plus under experimental packages it eventually comes back with an error saying that it "Could not successfully build lr-mame2003-plus. I've tried multiple times and keep getting that same message. Any thoughts?

markwkidd

@loggahead said in FBA vs. MAME:

@markwkidd said in FBA vs. MAME:

mame2003-plus is still in testing, but it's getting fairly polished at this point IMO. arcadez has been working on it for almost a year, and a few other of us have put in weeks to months.

It works better than mame2003 most of the time, and has more than 150 more working games, but every once in a while we have a regression or other new bug.

You seem to be very thorough in your approach to arcade emulation -- you would be very welcome as a user/tester. Games that haven't ever worked right in mame2003 are getting fixed, and new ones added.

Every time I try and install lr-mame2003-plus under experimental packages it eventually comes back with an error saying that it "Could not successfully build lr-mame2003-plus. I've tried multiple times and keep getting that same message. Any thoughts?

Could you update RetroPie-Setup and then try to build mame2003-plus again? The build script that is part of RetroPie-Setup was updated a week or so ago.

Loggahead

@markwkidd That's probably it. Will try that now.

Loggahead

Got a question on Golden Axe II (ga2.zip). It doesn't appear to be available for fba so I've been running it in mame2003. Mame says that video emulation isn't 100% correct and the main thing I notice is that the shadows are all messed up. Is there a better emulator for Golden Axe II?

markwkidd

@loggahead said in FBA vs. MAME:

Got a question on Golden Axe II (ga2.zip). It doesn't appear to be available for fba so I've been running it in mame2003. Mame says that video emulation isn't 100% correct and the main thing I notice is that the shadows are all messed up. What's the best emulator option for Golden Axe II?

I don't see anything in the history of the Golden Axe II driver to explain for the glitch you're seeing in mame2003, but sometimes those records are incomplete.

If you can confirm the shadow issue in mame2003-plus you would be welcome to file an Issue report. It may be fixable.

Loggahead

@markwkidd How do I file an issue report? I have a couple issues I found.

Also, I can't seem to pull up the Tab menu in mame2003+. Is there a different hotkey for the mame menu? I need to change some per game controls in there.

markwkidd

@loggahead said in FBA vs. MAME:

@markwkidd How do I file an issue report? I have a couple issues I found.

Also, I can't seem to pull up the Tab menu in mame2003+. Is there a different hotkey for the mame menu? I need to change some per game controls in there.

Great!

You can file issues in the github repository: https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro

There is also a new forum thread: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/17766/mame2003-plus-250-new-games-new-input-system-new-features-new-bugs

mame2003-plus's default input mode is retropad -- you can get into the MAME menu in retropad mode by pressing Select + X and toggling MAME Menu in the core options.

You can also change your input mode to mame_keyboard to switch to a traditional all-keyboard mode where the Tab will launch the MAME Menu.

finally, you can set the core option to simultaneous mode which will read inputs form the keyboard and from the retropad simultaneously, as in "classic" mame2003.

Loggahead

@markwkidd Ah! Very cool! I'll play around with the Mame menu inside the retropad menu and see if I can do what I need to do there. Very cool! If I have to do the all-keyboard mode, will that mess with my controller mappings at all? I basically keep a keyboard behind my cabinet's coin door that I use when needed but my IPAC2 is programmed as 2 separate controllers instead of keyboard keys.

I'll get a couple of the issue submitted. Thanks for all of the help! I like where this 2003+ is going!