Topic: dink's FBN Development & Fixes thread

[geese howard]

Hi,
It allows for running a neocd game from the command-line or drag-n-drop,
for example:
fbneo "e:\isos\Puzzle Bobble ~ Bust-A-Move (Japan) (En,Ja).cue"
.. to start windowed instead of fullscreen, add -w parameter to the end, like:
fbneo "e:\isos\Puzzle Bobble ~ Bust-A-Move (Japan) (En,Ja).cue" -w

or drag-n-drop the .cue file onto your fbneo icon, and it'll start fullscreen.

since its impossible to add a parameter with drag-n-drop, a little batch file can be made to
start windowed, save this as fbneo_windowed.bat, then make an icon for it and place it where you want

Code: [Select]

@echo off
%~dp0fbneo.exe %* -w

best regards,
- dink

Thanks dink!

[dink]

Thanks dink!

You're welcome, happy new year!

I should also mention:
To run the last selected / ran neogeo cd game, use this command:
fbneo neocdz
or for windowed:
fbneo neocdz -w

best regards,
- dink

[dink]

Hi guys,
iq_132 re-wrote the driver for Aero Fighters, Turbo Force, Spinal Breakers, Karate Blazers and Power Spikes (Video System hw)
I spent a lot of time tweaking it to perfection, but, I don't have time (or energy) to play all of the games to the end and look for bugs.

If someone would like to play a game to the end and report on any issues found (if any), that would be awesome!

best regards,
- dink

[dink]

More news:
Added a Fast Loader to Deco Cassette games, it's enabled by default but can be disabled in the game's dips

Loading Times
~
Previous times, without fast-loader:
avg 100 seconds

... with FFWD pressed:
20 seconds

Fastload enabled:
4 - 5 seconds

fds TBA

best regards,
- dink

[ClessxAlghazanth]

More news:
Added a Fast Loader to Deco Cassette games, it's enabled by default but can be disabled in the game's dips

Loading Times
~
Previous times, without fast-loader:
avg 100 seconds

... with FFWD pressed:
20 seconds

Fastload enabled:
4 - 5 seconds

fds TBA

best regards,
- dink

Wow , great news 

There are lots of hidden gems in Deco cassette board , Astro Fantasia and Disco no.1 being some of them , but having to wait for the timer was a turn-off for trying all games

Thanks for this great qol update , dink 

[dink]

Wow , great news 

There are lots of hidden gems in Deco cassette board , Astro Fantasia and Disco no.1 being some of them , but having to wait for the timer was a turn-off for trying all games

Thanks for this great qol update , dink 

If you havn't yet, also try:
Angler Dangler
Manhattan
Skater and
Rootin' Tootin

They're all absolute gems
Manhattan is really interesting, you bounce off a trampoline and try to get as high as possible, then on the way down - bounce off as many of the "points ledges" as possible withouth hitting those red bomb-things.  At the time we emulated it, there wasn't a single gameplay video available on this game.. luckily Gab75 is good at games, he figured out how to play it and told me what to do

best regards,
- dink

[dink]

After spending 3.5 solid days going through the real MCU's disassembly and figuring out how to hook it all up,
it's finally running using 100% non-hacked Taito code
Since Kiki Kaikai runs on the same board, it will be a simple drop-in if/when the MCU is dumped.

Remember this from 4 years ago?  Well, a dump for Kiki Kaikai has finally shown up, hooray!!
The game works great, seems a bit more challenging with the real MCU. 

Edit: Kiki Kaikai is an overhead run 'n gun shooter, similar to Konami's Labyrinth Runner (also known as Trick Trap).
What..?  you don't know Kiki Kaikai or Laby Runner?  Well, now you know 2 great arcade games to play!

Tips...
1: when you encounter what looks like an ancient mailbox with a red dot in it, hit it with your "flag" weapon, and it'll give you something.  Go straight for it before the red dot disappears.

2: when you reach a level that keeps repeating, it's not a bug in the game - you must find something to progress   It's not too hard

best regards,
- dink

[Stifu]

The Deco Cassette quick loading is pretty cool, as the huge load times kept me away from those games. I think some Cave shmups have a first boot logic that lasts 1000 seconds or something. Maybe they could benefit from something similar.

Good news about Kiki Kaikai, too. Interesting that it took so long to properly dump such a classic game. I wonder if the dumping itself was difficult, or if the challenge was to find an actual original board.

[dink]

The Deco Cassette quick loading is pretty cool, as the huge load times kept me away from those games. I think some Cave shmups have a first boot logic that lasts 1000 seconds or something. Maybe they could benefit from something similar.

Good news about Kiki Kaikai, too. Interesting that it took so long to properly dump such a classic game. I wonder if the dumping itself was difficult, or if the challenge was to find an actual original board.

Hi Stifu,
Glad ya dig it!
You might be thinking about the Seibu SPI system, which has some games that need to install the roms into the emulated flash-rom before it can boot.  Since this only needs to happen once and is a high demand system, I'll probably leave this one as-is. 

Kiki Kaikai is a rare board, and costs a lot - unfortunately.  The MCU needs to be decapped before it can be dumped, which destroys the original chip (with a cute image on it), so not a lot of people wanted to do this.  A few years back a board was acquired, but I think the MCU got lost in the mail(?)  Maybe someone knows the full/true story?  The one I heard was:  Sean Riddle dumped Kick 'n Run - which is the same PCB and MCU (but different code), and after successfully dumping Kick 'n Run, the mcu was supposed to be shipped to him for deacap, but it never arrived / got lost in the post.
At the time, I was so excited about the Kick 'n Run and Kiki dump that I immediately started work on emulating the Kick 'n Run MCU - as the same code could be used to run the Kiki MCU as soon as it was made available.  My mcu support code made it into FBN and MAME for this, and the cool thing is - once we got the Kiki MCU, it ran perfectly with my Kick 'n run MCU set-up.

best regards,
- dink

[moon_walker]

Hi.
The Clockwork Aquario roms circulating have no sound, but the roms on Youtube here seem to have sound.
https://youtu.be/rH4IKA1Mdj0

Could you please support this roms as well?

[Stifu]

I believe the one with no sound is the old prototype, and the one with sound is the recently-finished version of the game.

We've had this discussion a few times before, and I'm not sure we have always been consistent, but to support game developers, I believe it makes sense to wait a while before adding support for it. They've invested time and money to retrieve and finalize this game, and adding support for this game now might affect their sales.

[moon_walker]

Thanks for your reply.

That is certainly one aspects.

[dink]

Hi.
The Clockwork Aquario roms circulating have no sound, but the roms on Youtube here seem to have sound.
https://youtu.be/rH4IKA1Mdj0

Could you please support this roms as well?

Yes, of course! The only problem is that we didn't know about this version with sound exists

best regards,
- dink

[moon_walker]

Thank you very much!

I too found out about this roms this year.
I thought it was just a prototype with no sound, so this is a very significant discovery.

I look forward to the day when I can play it on FBNeo.

[dink]

Hi moon_walker,
just grab the update from the WIP builds place and you'll be able to play it (with sound)

https://github.com/finalburnneo/FBNeo/releases/tag/latest

best regards,
- dink