Help with Final Burn Alpha

[finagle69]

I'm adding some arcade games to my LB. I've gotten MAMEUI setup easily enough, just a simple emulator add and it just works. FBA is not cooperating, though. I notice the default args are: 'fba64.exe "FULL\PATH\TO\ROM\FILE"' The FBA help file states the command line should be used like: 'fba [-listinfo|-w|-a|-r xx]' EDIT: The example given in FBA help is: 'fba sfa3 -r 800x600x32' I then found a thread here that showed the args should be '%name -r 640x480x32' for use with LB. But if I put that into the manage emulator area, I see it show as: 'fba64.exe %name -r 640x480x32 "FULL\PATH\TO\ROM\FILE"' which does not work. I hope I'm stating my problem well enough. If you guys need more info, please let me know. All the games I have loaded into FBA work just fine through FBA directly, same for MAMEUI.

[bd00]

Try it without the %name bit. So: fba64.exe "FULL\PATH\TO\ROM\FILE" -r 640x480x32

[finagle69]

What it does then is this: 'fba64.exe -r 640x480x32 "FULL\PATH\TO\ROM\FILE"', which is not the correct order. Using no additional args also throws an error regarding the file path. FBA expects to see the name of the file ONLY it appears. Similar to the example given here: 'fba sfa3 -r 800x600x32'

[bd00]

Use a batch file in place of the emulator in LB. In the batch file, strip the name from the path and then launch the emulator using just the name.

C:\PATH\TO\EMULATOR\fba64.exe %~n1 -r 800x600x32

Your ROM's will need to be named correctly though. Example: Street Fighter Alpha 3 = sfa3

[finagle69]

Okay, I'll play around with that. Thanks for the help here!

[bd00]

OK, good luck. Give me a shout if you need any help.

[spycat]

Final Burn Alpha seems to be like virtually all Arcade emulators, Mame excepted, that work fine in their own GUIs, but have issues with external frontends like LaunchBox. I can get FBA to work with LaunchBox (launches the game) when it's used as an application with the game as a parameter (image 1). But be prepared for several seconds of intense flashing before the game screen appears. It reports an invalid path when used in Emulation mode (image 2). There was an issue with WinKawaks some time ago where the Emulator GUI opened but no game loaded, and the solution was to either go with the application route or use bd000's great little script. I'm not too sure if we're looking at a similar issue here. But why not check out this script and see if it is suitable or can be modified to work, but remember that FBA can handle way more systems than the 3 supported by WinKawaks. At the moment. This works. http://i.imgur.com/jiHaV1T.png This doesn't. http://i.imgur.com/k5HsVha.png Note: Image paths are just examples for my computer and are relative to the folder where LaunchBox app is.

[finagle69]

Gotcha. That's pretty much what I'm experiencing. I've actually just removed FBA from the emulators area and am just using MAME instead. The pack I got is v0.139 I believe. It's older, but it has all the games I actually care about. LB launches them all perfectly in MAME, so I'll just use that instead. :) Thanks again for your help, guys. :) Interestingly, I tried getting the same games from the 0.161 set, but some of them just don't want to work with the 161 MAMEUI. So I'm sticking with 139.

[bd00]

FBA should work fine. I use it. Try this. First, go to your rom directory and create a folder for each game (next to the zip file, this is important). Like this: Then in the folders create a .bat file and name it like the short-names FBA uses. Like this: Then in the batch file put this:

@echo off cd .. set emu="PATH\TO\EUMLATOR\fba.exe" set game=%~n0 start /wait "Emulator" %emu% %game%

Remember the quotes in the emulator path. Also, create the batch first and use it as a template (copy, paste, rename) If you have a lot of ROMs, I have a script floating around somewhere that should speed up the process. Now, when you add the games to LB, don't add an emulator, this will not work. You need to launch each individual script as if it was a game.exe NOTE: You can import all the ROM's using the ROM wizard and they will be named correctly if you check to use the folder name and don't use an emulator in LB. Sorry I didn't give you the correct method first time round. I forgot how FBA was tricky to set up.

[graf]

why do u need the bat file ? does this has to be done in the version 6.7 ?

[TheRealCraigAC]

Hello,

 

Just purchased the premium version!

 

Could I get the script for setting up FBA roms? I'm using it for Capcom Play Systems 1,2,and 3 if it matters.

[Lordmonkus]

What kind of script ? No script needed for FBA to work in Launchbox.

Setup FBA as an emulator in LB, import your roms like you would for Mame and make sure your settings in FBA itself are setup correctly. Make sure all the platforms you wish to use FBA for are in the Associated Platforms tab and named correctly. Turn on switch to full screen and set your full screen resolution to match your displays resolution. Here are some pics of the settings I used to get it working. I also do not use stand alone FBA at all, I prefer Mame or the Retraorch FBA core.

[TheRealCraigAC]

Big thanks for that quick response. That got it working and fixed my display issue too!

[Lordmonkus]

Good to hear.

[ghochman]

you had mentioned that you prefer the Mame emu or FBA core in retro arch I am ?  Is it wise then to amuse to use mame, then use Retorach's core for FBA? or can one add both mame and FBA as stand alone with out conflict when adding roms?

 

[Lordmonkus]

Yeah you can add both the stand alone emulators if you want, you will just pick which one you want during the import but of course you can change all your games or individual games after if you want.

[ghochman]

so to be clear. as long as one does not have duplicate roms on Mame & FBA one should be fine other wise addition steps would have to be made when cleaning up metadata> example/ I Have games specific form MAME and Games specific for FBA. when loading each sets will Lauchbox" in the end " seporate them if I load both systems as MAME games, even though I will be loading one set of roms under MAME and designating it as so (MAME) then loading another set of roms and setting it as meme but using FBA as the emulator?

 

[Lordmonkus]

If you are going to import 2 different sets then I would setup 2 platforms for them to keep them separate, like 2 different game systems. One for Mame and one for FBA.

[Zombeaver]

8 hours ago, ghochman said:

so to be clear. as long as one does not have duplicate roms on Mame & FBA one should be fine other wise addition steps would have to be made when cleaning up metadata> example/ I Have games specific form MAME and Games specific for FBA. when loading each sets will Lauchbox" in the end " seporate them if I load both systems as MAME games, even though I will be loading one set of roms under MAME and designating it as so (MAME) then loading another set of roms and setting it as meme but using FBA as the emulator?

 

It won't automatically use different emulators within the same platform - it'll use, by default, whatever you have assigned as the default emulator (Manage Emulator -> Associated Platforms -> default emulator checkbox). You can, however, assign different emulators on a per-game basis (and that can be done in bulk) within the same platform. One way to do that quickly would be to import everything that you want to use the non-default emulator for that platform - let's assume FBA - and assign FBA as the emulator either during the import wizard or after the import by selecting them all (either CTRL + A to select all or CTRL/SHIFT + click to select several at a time) and then right-clicking and doing a bulk-edit to change the emulator to FBA; you could then import the remainder (MAME) and let it use the emulator you have assigned as the default for the platform - let's assume MAME.

You could also just do them as separate platforms like Monkus mentioned. My point is simply that, while it's not going to automatically assign different emulators within one platform, you're not restricted to one emulator per platform. My own "Arcade" platform is a mix of RA MAME, RA FBA, and MAMEUI.

[jeffza1987]

Hi there i know this might be a old thread games work in retroarch final burn alpha but not launchbox i have the right associated platform.... Arcade then fbalpha_libretro but no command line i think thats what im doing wrong but cant seem to get it working any help thanx