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FM Towns Computer in Lauchbox with Mess


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The FM Towns is the big brother computer to the FM Towns Marty console. While most games are on CD you will find some on floppy. The Towns Marty Rom is literally nothing but a FM Towns computer stripped down with less ram and less compatibility.

There are some original games and a lot of ports (some enhanced) found on other Japanese computers like the NEC PC-9801 and Sharp X68000, like other Jcomputers expect some Eroge/Hentai.

ROMS: The roms and Bios can be found all over the internet but adding Neo Kobe to your search might help give a 91GB treat on archive.

Emulators:

UNZ: The Main emulator for the FM Towns is UNZ, it is even supplied in the per-configured Neo Kobe Emulator Pack. It was the most compatibility but it also requires you to mount the disc image to a virtual drive with a program that supports ASPI drivers like Daemon Tools. It's a process to get working and will not work in Launchbox through a commandline. I assume a bat file would work? I would add it as a secondary backup to your folder for the games that do not work with mess.

Mess will Emulate the FM Towns with the correct Bios, for compatibility I used the FM Towns II UX rom pack (like used in the Neo Kobe Emulator Pack). 

Add your FM Towns UX rom pack (Bios) zip to the rom folder in Mess with the name "fmtownsux.zip".

Default Command-Line Parameters

CD: fmtownsux -cdrm

Disk: fmtownsux -flop1

A warming message stating "This Machine Doesn't work" comes up but games load and work anyways. Not perfect by any  means but the only way to get the FM Towns to work with launchbox that I could figure out.

If you have anything else to add especially regarding settings or Command-Line Parameters please comment.  There are also games that require a system disc along with a CD-Rom, if someone has a salutation for loading both upon opening I would love to know how.

LINKS

Neo Kobe Emulator Pack Lite: http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1614

Easy how to on the UNZ Emulator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi1-oqPnE7g

Mess: http://www.emucr.com

Attached is what I used for a Clear platform logo and the Platform Video

Clear Logo.png

Fujitsu FM Towns.mp4

Edited by GuroDragon
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  • 1 month later...

The FM Towns Marty is considered a Computer system by Mame so it defaults the keyboard to "Full Emulation Mode" and the Escape key is used by the emulator rather than let it be the escape key. You can toggle this using the Scroll Lock key on your keyboard which can be mapped to a controller button under Input )General) > User Interface.5a86048cd774f_2018-02-1517_06_01-MAME_FM-Townsfmtowns.thumb.png.4fe677ce0bc40e2dfd428f5b7944503d.png

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Now, its working fine for most of the games.

In my case, all my files (chd, bin+cue, img, etc...) were not working through Mame.

But when I added MameUI64 to Mame, all the files worked. Dont know why

Anyway, I just have a problem with Prince of Persia. It boots, but ask a floppy Disk I think. I think I have the file (its a bin file) but Im unable to mount it in the disk

Thanks

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  • 2 months later...

I have UNZ working fine with CD images using Daemon Tools Lite (loading each disk manually to play), but how about .HDM files? What is the command line for those? EXAMPLE Brandish is .HDM files 1 to 3, I know with Sharp X6800 you can use %romfile% path (to second or later disk), but it doesn't work here...

Any help appreciated!

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  • 9 months later...

Hi, sorry to necropost, but how compatible is the MAME/MESS FM Towns driver for you guys?

I am trying to run the Shadow of the Beast 1 and 2 games on it, and the results are, well, a mess.

If I try MESS:

Beast 1 starts up fine, but the game screen is glitchy and flickery, and the attack collision doesn't seem to work at all. There doesn't seem to be any redbook audio.

Beast 2 just freezes on a black screen.

If I try MAME:

Beast 1 starts up, but the graphics are entirely garbled, and everything freezes once you gain control.

Beast 2 same results as with MESS - black screen: (

I would really like to get these games running for a project I'm doing. Any suggestions?

 

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I still use Unz, I didn't find MAME to be all that good for FM Towns. Main problem with Unz is poor fullscreen support, I run it in a Window.

The way I use it with Launchbox is have daemon tools as the "emulator" and get that to mount the isos when a game is launched, i then set Unz as an additional app to run after the main application

There may be more elegant ways but this works for me.

This will only work with games that boot from the CD, for games that boot from floppy it's a bit more complicated.

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UNZ Still has problems running Shadow of the Beast 1. Half of the background is missing in-game. With some tweaks MESS was able to do considerably better, albeit sans the redbook audio.

Unexpectedly, UNZ was able to start Beast 2, all I had to do was reduce the amount of available RAM to 2 MB, and the game just loaded right up. Unfortunately the same trick didn't work on MESS, so I guess I'll have to set up multiple emulators to run these games.

 

Any way to get UNZ to work properly in full screen?

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If you use fmtowns driver instead of fmtownsux, Beast 1 runs perfectly under the newest MAME. No graphical corruption whatsoever, and the redbook audio is all there. This appears to be the preferred way of running that game.

With the same settings Beast 2 does start, but the graphics appear to be corrupted in small but annoying ways, and only some of the audio tracks play properly.

Still, I'm impressed these games run as well as they do, even if multiple emulators have to be used, as there is next to no information about them anywhere online.

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  • 2 months later...

Does anyone have a more detailed version or link of how to get fm towns running through mame? kuz i've been trying all night and cant get it working and cant find any info on the internet about how to get it working. I heard it works in Retroarch also using the mame core but had no luck figuring that out either.

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