Author Topic: Issues with classic arcade roms like Galaga, Frogger, Centipede, Galaxian  (Read 8508 times)

Offline Alturis

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Hey guys,

I am new to the whole MAME emulation scene. Just got a RetroPie setup and found some roms of classic arcade games which were my primary interest in setting the system up.

There seems to be a consistent issue with older roms like Galaxian, Galaga, Frogger, Centipede, Pac-Man and the like when running on fba.

I see two primary problems

1) The high score display is garbled both at the top of the screen as well as in the score list display.

2) Issues with audio occur such as the lack of sound mixing or missing sounds. e.g. the Galaga death explosion just never plays.

I was wondering if others have experienced similar issues or had any suggestions for solves?

Update: Trying the exact same rom on my PC with mame64.exe does work correctly though. So its an issue with the Raspberry Pi version only it seems.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2018, 08:27:51 AM by Alturis »

Offline dink

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For Galaga, you'll need the samples.   Grab them here: http://samples.mameworld.info/Older%20Samples.htm
and put them into the samples folder.

bye for now,
- dink

Offline Alturis

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Cool thanks! Is the samples folder something that already exists?

Any thoughts on the garbled hi score displays?

Offline dink

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I'm really not sure about the samples folder, it should be in the same place the roms folder is at.
That's really strange, if there is an option to enable/disable high score saving, turn that off.  It might be somehow related.

Offline Alturis

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I discovered some new information about the high score issue. I think what is happening is that something is wrong with the way the high score file is saved out when I quit from the game. In the .../bios/fba folder there is the samples folder. Figured that out and the new sounds works great thanks!

There is also a file called hiscore.dat which seems to spell out where the high score data is read/written to for each game by byte offsets and lengths.

But as an experiment I deleted the galaga.hi file (which appears to be the file that keeps the high scores per game)

When I booted up galaga the next time the high score display worked correctly and I was able to enter a new high score and my initials and everything was displaying correctly.

However when I exited out of the game and started it back up again the high score was all garbled again. So there appears to be an issue with how the .hi file is being saved out.

As a related note: When I exit from any game I am always hitting A and X together to bring up the RetoAarch menu and going back to the primary menu and selecting Quit Retroarch. Is there a better or more proper way to exit out of the games?

Offline dink

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oops, now I remember! this problem was fixed a few weeks ago with the hiscore.  You'll need to have RetroPie update to the latest "fba core".  and it should be OK :)

I'm not very familiar with RetroPie, but I hope someone else might be able to answer the rest of your questions.

bye for now,
- dink

Offline barbudreadmon

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As a related note: When I exit from any game I am always hitting A and X together to bring up the RetoAarch menu and going back to the primary menu and selecting Quit Retroarch. Is there a better or more proper way to exit out of the games?
It depends on your setup, i generally use controllers with a PS button so i map the retroarch menu to it.

dink gave the right answer about the hiscore issue : i fixed it in late december, you need to update your core.

For specifics, ask the proper forum.

Offline Alturis

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I had actually done a core update of all installed packages before attempting to get any roms running. I will try it again though. It appears I have fba v0.2.97.42 as of the current info while it was updating everything.

Yep after updating to the latest 0.2.97.42 I still get the same issue.

I even tried updating the hiscore.dat to the post 0.174 version found here http://highscore.mameworld.info/download.htm and the same issue occurs.

Garbled high score in galaga and other classic arcades.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2018, 10:27:16 AM by Alturis »

Offline barbudreadmon

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I had actually done a core update of all installed packages before attempting to get any roms running. I will try it again though. It appears I have fba v0.2.97.42 as of the current info while it was updating everything.

Yep after updating to the latest 0.2.97.42 I still get the same issue.
Updating from binaries won't do, you need to update from sources.

Offline Alturis

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Ah ok. Is that recommended typically? It sounded like often the latest sources might have new bugs and such.

Do people generally update from sources as standard practice?

Offline barbudreadmon

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Re: Issues with classic arcade roms like Galaga, Frogger, Centipede, Galaxian
« Reply #10 on: January 28, 2018, 10:50:37 AM »
Ah ok. Is that recommended typically? It sounded like often the latest sources might have new bugs and such.

Do people generally update from sources as standard practice?
Why not ask the right people why they don't update the binaries they provide ? I have no clue myself but i know answering several times a week about this same issue because of this is starting to get annoying.
This is not a support forum for retropie or whatever you are using. This is not the right place to report issues about libretro-fbalpha either (https://github.com/libretro/fbalpha is the right place).

Also, after updating from sources, don't forget to remove the corrupted .hi files.

Offline Alturis

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Re: Issues with classic arcade roms like Galaga, Frogger, Centipede, Galaxian
« Reply #11 on: January 28, 2018, 10:54:38 AM »
Cool thanks for the link I will check on there. Thanks for your time guys.

And yep I have been deleting the .hi file with each test.

Offline Alturis

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Re: Issues with classic arcade roms like Galaga, Frogger, Centipede, Galaxian
« Reply #12 on: January 28, 2018, 11:04:23 AM »
If I had to guess I would say that the libretro fba guys only port over official releases of fba. Looks like the last one was in July of 2017 at v0.2.97.42

Offline barbudreadmon

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Re: Issues with classic arcade roms like Galaga, Frogger, Centipede, Galaxian
« Reply #13 on: January 28, 2018, 11:09:59 AM »
If I had to guess I would say that the libretro fba guys only port over official releases of fba. Looks like the last one was in July of 2017 at v0.2.97.42
As i said, i fixed libretro-fba in late december (see https://github.com/libretro/fbalpha/issues/162), the issue is with the binaries provided by retropie, recalbox or whatever you are using. You should ask them.

Offline dink

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Re: Issues with classic arcade roms like Galaga, Frogger, Centipede, Galaxian
« Reply #14 on: January 28, 2018, 06:20:16 PM »
If I had to guess I would say that the libretro fba guys only port over official releases of fba. Looks like the last one was in July of 2017 at v0.2.97.42

fyi: I do FBAlpha core/driver dev on Windows and don't know much about the Pie versions, so bear with me :)

Of course, only release versions get ported over, but when nasty bugs pop up they usually get fixed asap and re-released.
Once someone figures out how to upgrade the RetroPie fbalpha core to the latest with the hiscore fix, I'd appreciate if they would respond here with how they did it to help future people with the problem.

thanks,
- dink