Removing redundant ROMS in a FBN ROMsets

George Spiggott

I've downloaded a ROMset and have decided to incorporate it in as complete a form as possible in EmulationStation. However there is clearly lot of duplication. Is there a simple way to cut down on ROMS I will never use, like removing foreign language ROMs for example?

lostless

@George-Spiggott
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/libretro/FBNeo/master/gamelist.txt
Here is a list of rom file names to actual game names. Install the games you want. The whole collection is just too much. Just note some roms are children and require a parent (main rom) rom to work. You can usually see the parent by it being a bigger files size and a child rom only has the changes.
This is how I handle arcade roms. I’m sure someone else will has a better way. and I’m sure there’s apps out there that help with this.

George Spiggott

@lostless Thanks that looks really useful. I do hope there's an app, that's looks like a big job. I never thought to use FBN for spectrum emulation before, I wonder how it compares to Fuze.

lostless

@George-Spiggott FBNeo is slowly becoming an all in one emulator that will play several home console and computers, but Anything outside of arcade roms, you'll find better emulator options outside of FBneo. (my opinion)

barbudreadmon

@lostless said in Removing redundant ROMS in a FBN ROMsets:

Anything outside of arcade roms, you'll find better emulator options outside of FBneo. (my opinion)

You are probably wrong about that, it was discussed multiple times on this forum, FBNeo is apparently the best coleco emulator available as far as compatibility is concerned, with several games that couldn't run on any other coleco emulator.

@George-Spiggott our zx spectrum emulation is extremely accurate with a twist, the sound of the buzzer is oversampled to sound better than the original, i made a video of that some time ago :

Iirc our zx spectrum emulation is too demanding for the likes of a pi.

WeirdH

@George-Spiggott Maybe this is what you're looking for?

Floob

@George-Spiggott
This may also help

George Spiggott

Thanks guys. I tried Retrocrisis' video that @WeirdH linked to. Romcentre has me on the right track. I think I need a better .dat file for the latest FBN (I'm not sure how legit asking for the .dat file is).

@barbudreadmon That Spectrum video sure does look cool. I'm not using my Pi so having enough power probably won't be an issue. I can't seem to get my Spectrum games to load in FBN, maybe they're in the wrong format (.z80 and .tap). I love that it has beefier sound. Does it have other tweaks? I'd love a spectrum emulator that offered 'overclocking' and/or colour clash correction. An all in one emulator that ran Spectrum/C64/CPC would also be a great thing. I'll look into this further.

barbudreadmon

@George-Spiggott
https://docs.libretro.com/library/fbneo/#emulating-consoles-and-computers
https://github.com/libretro/FBNeo/tree/master/dats/

ecto

@George-Spiggott I just want to chime in, too. I was using the All Killer, No Filler list(s). This list tries to filter out all the games, which have a very similar gameplay, so you end up with only original and good games. I even have my Arcade folder sorted into the different categories the list suggests (SMUPS, PLATFORM, etc.)

I just found out, that the list was merged into the Arcade Manager. I have not used it, but it looks really nice!

George Spiggott

@barbudreadmon Thanks. Are those .dat files compatible with Romcentre? I can't seem to get them to work. Should I use them with something else?

barbudreadmon

@George-Spiggott said in Removing redundant ROMS in a FBN ROMsets:

Are those .dat files compatible with Romcentre?

I wouldn't be able to tell, i only use clrmamepro, however they are standard dat files so they are supposed to work with any dat software.
Maybe you downloaded the html page containing the dat file instead of the actual dat file ? This is a common mistake.

mitu

@barbudreadmon said in Removing redundant ROMS in a FBN ROMsets:

Maybe you downloaded the html page containing the dat file instead of the actual dat file ? This is a common mistake.

Most likely. The fbneo arcade dat loads ok in RomCenter 4.1.1, the format is read fine.

George Spiggott

I came back to this after a break. Right clicking on the file produces a small .dat file that is incomplete. Going to download and saving the .dat.txt, then renaming it, works. Perhaps a quirk of my browser or a schoolboy error on my part. It all works perfectly now. Thanks @barbudreadmon and everyone else who replied.

[edit] I also got Spectrum games working in FBN. Is there an onscreen keyboard?

barbudreadmon

@George-Spiggott said in Removing redundant ROMS in a FBN ROMsets:

I also got Spectrum games working in FBN. Is there an onscreen keyboard?

I don't know if retroarch has such a feature. FBNeo itself expects keyboard inputs.

George Spiggott

@barbudreadmon I think Fuze's onscreen keyboard is built into the core.

barbudreadmon

@George-Spiggott ok, that's not something we have

George Spiggott

@barbudreadmon It is kind of odd that RA doesn't have something. A lot of cores must be duplicating a very similar thing.

barbudreadmon

@George-Spiggott Indeed, that kind of feature definitely makes a lot more sense in the frontend than built-in inside the core.
With most people using a real keyboard when emulating computers, i suppose that's a low-priority feature, and afaik no dev wants to work on retroarch's input code.

George Spiggott

@barbudreadmon This has got me thinking. My main setup is on a projector (as a second screen), fairly far from my PC. Maybe I should invest in one of those Xbox controller keyboards. I've already assigned my mouse functions to the controller with JoytoKey for this very purpose.

What I really need is an AI that works out which button is needed to select Kempston joystick and automatically presses it for me and then assigns the start game key to the start button. #notreally