FBA vs. MAME

GreenHawk84

This is great, I really want to know the nuances of the arcade emulators; which games run best, etc.

Are you saying the CPS games (Street Fighter II) are not accurate in FBA? So many games run so amazingly well in FBA. I may consider changing some games back to Mame2003 according to this thread. Someday I hope there is a single arcade emulator which is geared for Raspberry Pi.

Pussyfoot

@greenhawk84 Historically speaking, FBA ran CPS 1, CPS 2, and NEOGEO games faster with less CPU overhead. MAME is about hardware accuracy. It wants to emulate every aspect of the hardware environment. It's more concerned with accuracy on HOW the game is run vs. the overall performance. In general, my advice was if the same game is available in both MAME and FBA, use FBA.

However, I've noticed that there are a lot of games (usually older classic games) that are just plain buggy in FBA. Galaxian and Galga have text glitches in FBA. MAME, which is using a baseline that's 7 years old, runs them great. Gauntlet 1 is buggy in FBA. I get multiple exits on the into level. Burger Time works well in FBA, but the sound is a little off when compared to it running in MAME.

I'm building a RetroPie on a PI3 for a friend, but I don't know if I'd use this hardware again. The performance issues and lack of using the current MAME makes me wonder if it would be worthwhile to build a small x86 unit instead. You can't beat the price of the Pi, but the time I'm putting in to figure out which variant of MAME works best for different games is also costly.

Currently, I just installed the latest AdvanceMAME and moved all the vector games to it. Now, I can play Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back using a mouse. I'll post up my rom lists for FBA, MAME and AdvanceMAME soon. I went through the trouble of filtering out all the FBA games BY HAND so that they contain all the working variants (when explicitly mentioned in the DAT file) and USA versions. That list has shrunk now that I've transitioned a lot of titles from FBA to MAME.

sirhenrythe5th

@pussyfoot im into mame since the late 90s (34b7) and love this project!
I managed to get 600 roms running well under AdvanceMame on the Pi3 (not including 140 NeoGeo Games, i seperated this great System using FBA for it).

Yes, there are some that are not playable because of the lack of needed power.
In example all the CHD-Games, Sega Titan and a few more.
But most of my beloved Evergreens run well.
And i really mean well: as soon as there are lags, sound errors or other issues i remove the roms from my rom folder.

CPS2 + 3, Taito F3, Kaneko Supernova System, Polygon Master System....they all run absolutely perfect.
Ok, im not using Vsync, but those great Scanlines from AdvanceMame (Horizontal 2) and am very very satisfied with the performance of MAME on the Pi.
Speaking as a die hard Mame Fan 😊

Last but not least: historical speaking IMO the best performance concerning CPS1 was Raine and concerning NeoGeo its NeoRageX.
I used them on a Pentium2 with 400MHz and it was awesome, did run those games like we are used today by the current emulators.

Pussyfoot

Here is my list of arcade roms folders (except neogeo):

fba: https://pastebin.com/gQ1XndkY

mame-advmame: https://pastebin.com/mbNPABzG

mame-libretro: https://pastebin.com/HCwY0V2N

BIOS: https://pastebin.com/XK65phrP

I put the samples for both MAME and AdvancedMAME in the BIOS folder. I had to edit the advmame.rc file to add that path to the sample path. I did that so the samples folder doesn't show up on the list of games. I also put all the FBA BIOS zip files in the BIOS folder except for NEOGEO.zip, which is in the neogeo folder.

No, I don't use the arcade folder. It's easy to see at a glance which emulator uses which rom by storing the roms in the separate folders. If I ever had to do a new install, I can upload all my files and everything will be in the correct place. There's no overlap except for Afterburn II because I'm testing out controls in MAME as well as FBA. There's only a handful of games where I use MAME 2010 (Moon Patrol), but I don't know how to get a list of which ones I already configured to use it.

Anyone have any recommendations for which games work better in AdvancedMAME (other than vector games, which I already moved)?

pjft

@pussyfoot I can share the small list of games I have that run better in AdvMame (basically anything that lags on Mame or FBA I try it there) when I have the chance to retrieve them from my Pi but the SEGA System 24 like Bonanza Bros, Crack Down and Gain Ground run flawlessly there, as well as Bubble Symphony, Bubble Memories, Darius 1 (3 screens), Darius 2 and... Gaiden, was it? RayForce. Sly Spy and Midnight Resistance don't have audio issues later in the game. Arabian Fight. Puzzle Bobble 2, 3 and 4 (I think). Nitro Ball.

I'll need to checking as I might be mistaken on some of those and I'm surely forgetting some.

Oh, I also use it for Outrun and Turbo Outrun as well because of the analog controls and no noticeable lag.

It's a really nice emulator - I just don't use it by default because I find the scanlines to be too thick for my liking when compared to RetroArch shaders or overlays.

UDb23

@pjft said in FBA vs. MAME:

RayForce

Does it run nice in advmame? I did try it with lr-mame and fba and was impossibly slow to play.(pi3)

pjft

@udb23 buttery smooth on AdvMame on the pi 3, no overclock. I believe RayStorm, the sequel, also ran smooth but had some graphical glitches on level 2 when the 3d backgrounds started to come up. For that one I got the psx one.

UDb23

@pjft Precious info! Will try asap, thanks.

pjft

@udb23 By all means! For the sake of correctness, I am playing Gunlock, which is the EU version of the game, I think.

I'm not quite sure what romset AdvMame relies on, though, but I do have it working and tested it out yesterday before replying, going to the first stage's boss.

RedBatman

Isn't FBA much better for CPS3 and Neo Geo games?

AndersHP

I believe FBA is better for NeoGeo, yes. I'm running NeoGeo in FBA only.

Anyone tried DoDonPachi DaiOuJou? It's supposed to be the best 'Pachi-game out there, but it's very glitchy in FBA.

Also, I wondered if these lists are based on trial and error for every single game?

dankcushions

@andershp said in FBA vs. MAME:

Anyone tried DoDonPachi DaiOuJou? It's supposed to be the best 'Pachi-game out there, but it's very glitchy in FBA.

see our compatibility lists: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GaqIIoiWbzKHwZ52S2xCSDQXILo81Ls1mHK6czKGAtM/edit#gid=1671511927

i played it quite a bit. it has a lot of slowdown, but that's probably hardware accurate.

pjft

@andershp I had played it in the past, and it seemed to run well. I've just left it on demonstration mode for a while and it seems to consistently it 59.x-60fps.

I expect that if I play it it'll be the same.

What do you mean by "glitchy"? Also, are you referring to Master, or Black Label (and, maybe @dankcushions knows - what's the difference?)?

Pussyfoot

@pjft said in FBA vs. MAME:

@pussyfoot I can share the small list of games I have that run better in AdvMame (basically anything that lags on Mame or FBA I try it there) when I have the chance to retrieve them from my Pi but the SEGA System 24 like Bonanza Bros, Crack Down and Gain Ground run flawlessly there, as well as Bubble Symphony, Bubble Memories, Darius 1 (3 screens), Darius 2 and... Gaiden, was it? RayForce. Sly Spy and Midnight Resistance don't have audio issues later in the game. Arabian Fight. Puzzle Bobble 2, 3 and 4 (I think). Nitro Ball.

I added the SEGA System 24 games. Super Masters (golf) won't start and I assume the controls on Rough Racer need analog or a spinner to work...

Let me know if those other games are worth moving over or adding.

Oh, I also use it for Outrun and Turbo Outrun as well because of the analog controls and no noticeable lag.

Yeah, and PunchOut works great, too!

Do you know how to prevent it from stretching the output to 16x9? I'd like to keep the original aspect ratio of the game.

pjft

@pussyfoot I checked and I didn't find any glaring omission there. I also have the Sega Virtual Cup (?) soccer games there, but other than that you have pretty much the majority of the games I have on AdvMame.

Alas, I am not that much of an expert in AdvMame - I'm still struggling to configure Dip Switches for OutRunners, for instance.

I too have noticed that the aspect ratio is a bit different to the one in MAME 2003. @caver01 any thoughts on this?

UDb23

@pjft great, thanks. I think I have the right rom.
Will check tomorrow and let you know.

caver01

@pjft said in FBA vs. MAME:

@pussyfoot I checked and I didn't find any glaring omission there. I also have the Sega Virtual Cup (?) soccer games there, but other than that you have pretty much the majority of the games I have on AdvMame.

Alas, I am not that much of an expert in AdvMame - I'm still struggling to configure Dip Switches for OutRunners, for instance.

I too have noticed that the aspect ratio is a bit different to the one in MAME 2003. @caver01 any thoughts on this?

I do. My thought is that you need to be mindful of what you mean when describing "the orignal AR of the game". For example, Street Fighter II is programmed to a very wide AR, almost like a 16:9 widescreen. However, anyone who has played the actual game knows it was displayed at 4:3. So. . . this is a game where the original resolution, as designed, is NOT how it should look when played. It should be stretched to 4:3 to make the characters and scenery not look distorted. Preserving the game's AR is not an accurate way to go in some cases.

Now, the challenge is getting AdvanceMAME to bend to your will in these cases. How do you get it to force a certain AR?? I would need to dive into the docs to find the answer, and even then, we would need to test. Sometimes, the settings in the .rc don't work like expected, although recent updates have improved this somewhat.

Have you told Advmame that you are using a widescreen with display_aspect 16/9? It might make a difference. Also, I am thinking of configs like display_expand in combination with display_magnifysize on a per-rom basis. This is going to be tricky, and we might need to ask the developer for advice here. The example being something like: "How do I force Street Fighter 2 to display 4:3 on a widescreen TV?" Now, I can't even test this since my system runs on an old LCD, but maybe AdvanceMAME already knows to add a black border if you setup your AR properly with display_aspect 16/9? You tell me?

caver01

I think I need to start working on my TV-connected project sooner than later, if for no other reason than to help folks in this situation!

pjft

@caver01 thanks for the thorough reply! I was mostly asking as you might have crossed that in the past. I get what you mean in terms of resolution vs aspect ratio, as truth be told for the most part I'm not one to be excessively picky about that.

Still I'm always keen on learning from everyone else's experiences, hence the question. Thank you!

caver01

@pjft Yeah, I have been around and around with AdvanceMAME using earlier versions like 1.2 and 1.3 on the Pi before I started using RetroPie. I spent a lot of time configuring it with custom modelines to get the display resolution right for vector games to look great, but a lot of that is unnecessary now with more recent updates. I still wish we had more direct control over the viewport like we do with RetroArch.