PiFBA released - Final Burn Alpha arcade emulator

[welshy]

cornpie
Appologies, I forgot PiFBA is different to PiMAME4ALL/PiSNES! Here is a list of the controls -

'up arrow' Up direction
'down arrow' Down direction
'left arrow' Left direction
'right arrow' Right direction
'control' Button 1 (starts a game in the frontend)
'alt' Button 2
'space' Button 3
'shift' Button 4
'z' Button 5
'x' Button 6
'return' Start button (opens config menu in the frontend)
'tab' Select button (quits in the frontend)
'escape' Quit
'L+R+SELECT' Service Mode

The GUI shows ALL the ROMS FBA can emulate, the ones available to run (i.e. ROMS you put in the 'roms' folder) are highlighted in Yellow Text

[cornpie]

Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!' I found my mistake I'll go try it out now

[welshy]

cornpie
No Probs! Enjoy!

[cornpie]

Help! I select my rom, it looks like its about to boot up then goes back to the menu. My rom files are .zip. What am I doing wrong?

[delosnervios]

We have a little problem with the pifba controls.

The fba2x.cfg shows the controls for the Player1 Keys, BUT not for the player 2.
I need to know how to configure this file.

Actually, this file has this entries:

...
START_1=13
SELECT_1=9
LEFT_1=276
RIGHT_1=275
...

Is exist any way to include player 2?
Something like 'START_2=22' o 'SELECT_2=33'

Thanks and best regards

[tinkernaut]

So, I see that there was an update a while back that got 2-player joystick support working. Is it possible to map keyboard keys for a second player?

[delosnervios]

Hi, all.
Is it possible to include something to fba2x.cfg to map keyboard keys to player 2?
Like:
LEFT_2=22
RIGHT_2=35
...
(I try this option, but no works)
Do you have any idea about this?

Thanks a lot!

[berighteous]

is there a way to change the roms dir? I have all my other game roms on a usb drive and I'd like to use that.

[welshy]

berighteous
I'm not sure if you can change the directory in the config file (there doesn't seem to be an option) but like most emulators you can add to the command line to indicate the location of roms (this also has the benefit of avoiding the GUI if so required).

so
./fba2x /'rom path'/'rom' (with extension)

e.g ./fba2x /home/pi/fbaroms/mslug.zip (where the roms are located at /home/pi DIR in a fbaroms folder for instance)

In conjunction with a Front End such as AdvanceMENU the terminal typing can be avoided by use of a script in the advmenu.rc and it will list ONLY the ROMS available.

[kalehrl]

You can put a symlink in pifba folder to point to the rom collection on your USB.

[berighteous]

how would I do that?

[kalehrl]

ln -s /path/to/your/rom/folder/onUSB /home/pi/PiFBA/roms
You may need to erase the roms folder in your PiFBA folder first before running the command.
This assumes you unzipped PiFBA in your home folder.

[pudding]

New version released:
* Joystick SELECT+START now quits the frontend. Joystick SELECT now opens the menu and START will start a game.
* 2nd player controls now configurable for joystick and keyboard.

[derus]

I am trying to get PiFBA working which comes with the latest RetroPie-Image. So far it doesnt play any of my Neo Geo-Roms (which all work with gngeo). I probably need a Neo Geo-Bios, right? But where i have to put that? And which files are exactly needed? And is it useful to update PiFBA over the Retropie-binaries-installation?

[welshy]

derus
I'm not sure about the Retro Pie version of FBA but generally put the Neo-Geo Bios in the folder where the ROMS go (If GnGeo works it must already contain the Bios files in a folder somewhere as ALL emulators require them?). For most Neo-Geo emulators the MINIMUM files you are looking for are: 000-lo.lo and sfix.sfx then one of the following: sp-s2.sp1 (Europe), sp-j2.rom (Japan), or sp-e.sp1 (USA), but generally you can use a Bios Zip from any site as they will include these plus other such as the unibios etc. The unibios was specifically built/sold by a hacker for owners of the original AES Hardware as to swap between the MVS/AES and region so they could use MVS Carts on the console due to the price difference e.g. Metal Slug MVS $40, AES $1000+! Or as was the case with Samurai Showdown 5, playing the JAP version unlocks the 'Blood' which was missing in the EUR/USA releases (but the data is on the Cart). Not all emulators offer the facility to use the unibios though.

[derus]

First it didnt worked withe bios in the ROM-folder. I updated the RetroPie-binaries then after that GnGeo shows me only a black screen but FBA plays the Neo Geo-Roms now! Thanks a lot! I can play in fullscreen now and exit the emulator with Start & Select which is a big improvement for me!

But not all of the games seems to work correctly. Just tested quickly some ROMs and Metal Slug 2 par example doesnt have sound, which worked with GnGeo before. It showed something about MVS-Error at the beginnig of the game.

And the worst thing is that the 2 Player doesnt work. I think that because its not the latest version of PiFBA. You know how can i update this?

[welshy]

derus
I cant help with Retro Pie as I don't use it myself. The ROMS in FBA may require different revisions to the ones that you used in GnGeo which is why they now work incorrectly, just try another revision and/or ROM download site.

[miawtthias]

Thanks a lot pudding ! Beeing able to play neogeo an cps games on the RPi is really amazing.

I'm having the same problem as someone on the google code page with D-Pad inputs, but its not only with xbox 360 controllers. I'm using various controllers :
- an official xbox 360 wired controller
- a mayflash arcade stick (ps3/pc)
- a qanba q4raf arcade stick (with xbox 360 and ps3/pc mode)

I'm using them with an usb powered hub. All button inputs are perfectly detected by pifba the problem only concern the directional inputs.

Here's the results I'm getting :

• official xbox 360 wired controller
  • left analog joystick : working
    right analog joystick : working
    D-pad : not working
  mayflash arcade stick :
  • working (directional inputs sent as left analog stick inputs)
  qanba q4raf in xbox 360 mode :
  • not working (directional inputs sent as D-pad inputs)
  qanba q4raf in ps3/pc mode :
  • not working (directional inputs sent as right analog stick inputs)

I'm wanting to use my RPi with pifba for fighting games tournaments and sessions (in France) and its quite a big problem for me because most players are using xbox 360 arcade stick (e.g. sending directional inputs as D-pad inputs).

If I can be of any help finding the solution to this problem making various tests with various controllers feel free to ask me.

[pudding]

There's already an issue logged for this on the PiFBA site. I had a look but had problems with the HAT on the XBOX360 controller. I'll be having another look at it sometime.

[bidinou]

Hi Pudding ! Thanks for this great port !!

May I share a couple of remarks ? BTW I mentioned some of them in the mame4all thread before, sorry for the duplicates.

1) I noticed that the sound of some NeoGeo games didn't work properly : for instance Pulstar.

2) Other little bug I noticed : if you only display the available games, if there are not enough games to fill the screen, and if you hit the "right" key, you won't be able to move in the list anymore until you've kit the left key.

3) I would absolutely LOVE if there was a way to get scanlines to work properly at the same time as the bilinear filtering (or if a PNG mask can be specified. It can improve the rendering a lot !)

4) I noticed that some games seem to have a bad picture ratio : for instance Strider should use more vertical space. (I checked on sdlmame on my PC)

Sorry for all those requests Hope this helps ! & thanks again a lot.

Cheers !

[Vanfanel]

Hi Pudding,

I've desperately tried entering service mode in Neo Geo games (or any game in fact), and, even if readme.txt says "L+R+Select", it doesn't work at all.
Could you please take a look?
Service mode is very important to configure a lot of settings in the games.

[pudding]

Vanfanel, not many games appear to support it in this version of FBA. I've got it working only in the CPS2 games. Don't think it's an issue with PiFBA as it does send service mode request to the FBA engine when the keys are pressed.

bidinou, the aspect ratio should be correct for the games. MAME and FBA are different engines. As far as I know CPS games are widescreen ratio. The PNG mask support would mean a rewrite of the graphics engine and I'm not even sure the performance would be acceptable.

[Vanfanel]

@pudding: the problem here is that SELECT is mapped as "coin1", wich is fine, but then service mode can't be entered. I can't enter service mode in CPS2 games because, when I push "L+R+SELECT", I get a credit

So, could you try to map the "service mode" enter combo to a single keyboard keypress? Something like F12 would be fine I guess.

[bidinou]

Hi !

One more thing I noticed : when reaching by mistake the "color help" menu, even though it's written "hit any key to escape" (or sth like that), I cannot exit the menu.

Also, are highscores supposed to be saved ? Doesn't seem to work with NeoGeo titles at least.

Cheers !

[smshiera]

i cant run orlegend and kov, ,after loading,,it returns " Segmentation fault"
what's wrong??? Does pifba support these 2 games now?i see them in the gamelist...anyone knows?

another question, how to set 2 keys to be the same,,,
e.g.
how to set UP_1= '↑' and UP_1='w' ?

the third question~~~
how can i change 'L+R+SELECT' Service Mode to 'x+y+SELECT' ,,,my old snk-joystick only have a.d.c.d and select start