Mame and FBNeo: how to make them live together

[Pamput]

This might be a super noob question, but this is puzzling me to no end.

What I'd like to achieve is a "complete" Arcade collection in LB, and have games work interchangeably in FBNeo and Mame, possibly via Retroarch.

Is this possible? Is there a better way?

What I'm trying to achieve is:

- No duplicates (I don't want to have the same rom twice, but different romset versions)

- 1G1R (I know I can achieve this with clrmamepro)

- The ability to switch between fbneo and mame on demand (to min/max performances and compatibility)

- Use retroarch for both mame and fbneo (which is complicated, since to my understanding is you don't get cores in RA for each version of mame out there)

Is this possible? How are you guys handling your rom sets? I'm only interested in Arcades (no consoles, etc.).

Thanks in advance.

Ps. I'm not married to FBNeo, so maybe it's not worth keeping it? I'm not sure, don't have much experience in arcade emulation tbh. LB is running on a decent machine (i7 7700k, 980gtx, plenty ram)

Edited July 6, 2020 by Pamput

[DOS76]

I don't use FBNeo but from last I had read the ROMs it uses are not the same as the ones that MAME uses as in the files inside of the archives are different. I don't know if that has changed at anytime but if not then it would not be possible to use them interchangeably for any games that consisted of differing files.

[Pamput]

I see, this makes sense. By investigating a bit further I see there is an understanding that mame is meant for accuracy and fbneo for performance (a lot of people seem to use it as a fallback in case mame doesn't go).

I'm considering ditching fbneo for the arcade section of my rig (I'll keep it only for neogeo). What's the best practice for mame as of today? RA or standalone? I see the RA core supports 0.220 romset and standalone support 0.222. Not too much of a difference, but RA's core seems to not be super alive? If you check github there is a huge jump in releases:

What do people tend to do? Because of the above screenshot I'm keen to go with standalone (the RA core doesn't come across as having the happiest of development cycles). Any opinions from the experts?

Ps. I assume this is probably a topic asked regularly, sorry in advance if this has been addressed somewhere elase.

Edited July 7, 2020 by Pamput

[neil9000]

For clarification the MAME romset does contain the neogeo roms, so you dont need to keep the FBA roms if you dont want to.

Personally i would use standalone MAME, but the retroarch core is a decent enough alternative (but with quirks of its own due to the UI). The Retroarch core just called MAME is updated every month inline with the official emulator. Of course you would want to match your core version with your romset version, so if your romset is already older than 0.222, then  you would be assured of compatability by simply downloading the matching version of the standalone emulator, you cant go back in versions via retroarch, the MAME core just changes version when updated but keeps the same name.

[Pamput]

Hey @neil9000, thanks for your quick reply!

Quote

the MAME romset does contain the neogeo roms

Yeah, I'm aware of it. It's more of a psychological thing for me. I like my neogeo to be in the console section under their name (instead of a playlist in arcade... I know it's odd... don't judge me )

I have currently a 222 complete romset... I assume it would take a stupid amount of time to convert it to match RA's core on 220. I think I'll give the standalone version a spin and see how I feel. Unless the same romset would work on RA's 220 core (which I don't think is the case for the complete romset... maybe for most of it?).

[neil9000]

5 minutes ago, Pamput said:

Hey @neil9000, thanks for your quick reply!

Yeah, I'm aware of it. It's more of a psychological thing for me. I like my neogeo to be in the console section under their name (instead of a playlist in arcade... I know it's odd... don't judge me )

I have currently a 222 complete romset... I assume it would take a stupid amount of time to convert it to match RA's core on 220. I think I'll give the standalone version a spin and see how I feel. Unless the same romset would work on RA's 220 core (which I don't think is the case for the complete romset... maybe for most of it?).

As far as i know RA is on 0.222, if its not it will be on 0.221, so shouldnt matter for your romset. Id still recommend the standalone regardless though.

[Pamput]

Quote

As far as i know RA is on 0.222

Ha! What do you know!? You are actually right. Strange, I'm sure I downloaded the MAME core only a couple of days ago (one week top) and it was showing as 220. Oh well, I've updated the core to 222, which makes things very simple for me now!

Thanks for your support!

I'll give the standalone version a go first. I'm importing the full romset into LB now... wish me luck! This is going to take A LOOOOOOONG TIME.

Cheers

Edited July 7, 2020 by Pamput

[cheguewara]

I have them both setup in Launchbox.

I imported the mame romset as "arcade", using the mame binary (as told by launchbox)

I imported the fbneo (arcade only) romset as "finalburnneo" scraping as arcade of course. Using the fbneo core in retroarch.

 

now, here's the problem

All the mame games show achievments ((including the achievment badge) well, all those game that support achievements). and the fbneo games don't show the badge nor the achievement tab in detail view.

and it should be reversed right? the mame game should not show achievments and fbneo games should...

[cannonwillow]

did you ever solve the achievements not showing up in fbneo, but instead showing up in the mame games? I currently use mame standalone through launchbox. was planning on importing fbneo as a separate platform "FBNEO", scrap as arcade, and  use the RA fbneo-lib core. wanting to do this for the achievements abilities of FBneo. while use mame for the launchbox community highscores, and mame's superior ability to map across multiple controllers on my emulator cab.

[cheguewara]

14 hours ago, cannonwillow said:

did you ever solve the achievements not showing up in fbneo, but instead showing up in the mame games? I currently use mame standalone through launchbox. was planning on importing fbneo as a separate platform "FBNEO", scrap as arcade, and  use the RA fbneo-lib core. wanting to do this for the achievements abilities of FBneo. while use mame for the launchbox community highscores, and mame's superior ability to map across multiple controllers on my emulator cab.

No solution found yet. sorry

[JoeViking245]

On 5/16/2022 at 3:05 AM, cannonwillow said:

achievements not showing up in fbneo

After you do your import, double check that your Scrape As setting for your "FBNEO/finalburnneo" platform is indeed set to Arcade.   @cheguewara

My test:

• Imported (drag and drop) 3 games that are known to have achievements
• Imported to a [new] Platform called "FBNEO"
• Set Scrape As to Arcade
• Set the emulator to RetroArch (and the respective core)
• Checked Search for game info...
• Checked Force importing Duplicates (because they were already in Arcade)
• Checked Force using MAME metadata
• Finish

 

(Badge and Achievements)

I changed the Scrape As to SNK Neo Geo AES and no Badges or Achievements appeared.  Changed back to Arcade, and there they were again.

The Badge(s) and Achievements are going to show in Arcade Platform as well.

If seeing the badges and Achievements in Arcade really, really bothers you, you could always; after getting all your metadata and media up-to-date and complete to your liking, change Arcade platforms Scrape As to something different.  But you'll want to change it something obscure.  Example, if you change it to Nintendo Entertainment System, "Mario Bros." is going to show as having achievements.  

[cheguewara]

7 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

After you do your import, double check that your Scrape As setting for your "FBNEO/finalburnneo" platform is indeed set to Arcade.   @cheguewara

My test:

• Imported (drag and drop) 3 games that are known to have achievements
• Imported to a [new] Platform called "FBNEO"
• Set Scrape As to Arcade
• Set the emulator to RetroArch (and the respective core)
• Checked Search for game info...
• Checked Force importing Duplicates (because they were already in Arcade)
• Checked Force using MAME metadata
• Finish

 

(Badge and Achievements)

I changed the Scrape As to SNK Neo Geo AES and no Badges or Achievements appeared.  Changed back to Arcade, and there they were again.

The Badge(s) and Achievements are going to show in Arcade Platform as well.

If seeing the badges and Achievements in Arcade really, really bothers you, you could always; after getting all your metadata and media up-to-date and complete to your liking, change Arcade platforms Scrape As to something different.  But you'll want to change it something obscure.  Example, if you change it to Nintendo Entertainment System, "Mario Bros." is going to show as having achievements.  

Seems like i have to reimport both mame and fbneo...

Thanks, JoeViking245!

[Alumriel]

It was my understanding that FBNeo uses the same romset as current MAME. At least, that's what I thought I saw a developer say in a post somewhere a while back, on reddit.

I use both FBNeo and MAME and just use the current MAME rom set (from Pleasuredome). I have MAME set as my default emulator, but switch to FBNeo on a per-game basis, if MAME doesn't run the game well.

[neil9000]

9 hours ago, Alumriel said:

It was my understanding that FBNeo uses the same romset as current MAME

Not true, a Final Burn romset is a subset of a mame romset there are tons of games that work in mame with a mame romset that do not work at all in Final Burn. that emulator is really for low specced hardware that cant run mame, which to be hones is basically nothing these days, even very cheap laptops can run most of the mame games, with the exception of some of the newer 3D games, of which Final Burn doesnt have those in it's romset at all anyway.

[Alumriel]

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I meant the versions of the rom dumps, not the entire set being playable. Meaning that, if you use the latest MAME rom set with FBNeo, you shouldn’t get any errors that the checksum of the rom is wrong, due to the rom dump being newer than what FBNeo expects.

[cannonwillow]

thanks guys for all the advice, I got it working now. I am just new Launchbox

 

[cannonwillow]

I have the platform named Arcade - FBNEO for fbneo through retroarch. I just went in and renamed the system from "Arcade" to "Arcade - FBNEO". in the AllGames.xml in the plugins.