Author Topic: FBNeo problems and some questions  (Read 6644 times)

Offline Agozer

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FBNeo problems and some questions
« on: August 10, 2020, 07:12:03 AM »
So I found out that FB Alpha was no more and FB Neo had taken its place. So I started testing it on my fairly new laptop. Ran into problems. Windows 10 64-bit with Intel HD Graphics 620 with the latest drivers.

1. When I try to use any of the DirectX9 blitters, the emulator crashes and The Guru starts meditating an access violation, forcing me to use the Direct3D7 blitter.

Exception 0xC0000005 (EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION) thrown.
EIP: 0x00000000
 (attempting to read address 0x00000000)

EAX: 0x000405BC, EBX: 0x00000000, ECX: 0x297B0000, EDX: 0x00000130
ESI: 0x16050BA5, EDI: 0x00000000, ESP: 0x0488957C, EBP: 0x00000001

2. 1980x1080 is not listed in the horizontal fullscreen resolution menu, forcing me to set this resolution manually. This setting isn't properly saved for some reason, forcing me to set the resolution manually every time I want fullscreen, and always seemingly defaulting to 1536x864 at program start, which doesn't work.

3. The setting for automatically detecting the fullscreen aspect ratio and resolution doesn't seem to work. May have someting to do with the above points, maybe not.

4. The gamma correction option screws with the colors in a major way. I don't generally use it regardless, just something I stumbled upon.

5. What does hiscore.dat actually do, code-wise? I know it's needed for certain systems/games to save hiscores properly (like CPS1 et al apparently), but couldn't something like that be implemented in the emulator itself?
« Last Edit: August 10, 2020, 07:15:06 AM by Agozer »

Offline dink

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Re: FBNeo problems and some questions
« Reply #1 on: August 10, 2020, 08:31:49 AM »
Agozer,
First you'll need the directX 9 runtime, I think this is the right place to find it: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109

I'll try to figure out whats going wrong with the resolution (1980x1080) and post back here when I can find a solution (probably later today).

best regards,
- dink

Offline Agozer

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Re: FBNeo problems and some questions
« Reply #2 on: August 10, 2020, 12:43:01 PM »
Sorry, I meant 1920x1080.

That DirectX Runtime library seemed to have done the trick. You'd think that you wouldn't have problems like this on modern OSes, but then again, I guess you can't fault Microsoft for not planning for old SDK dependencies to be an issue.

Everthing seems to work except that the HQx filters seem to break graphics rendering when using the DirectX9 Alt blitter. Oh well, at least there's plenty of alternatives.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2020, 01:04:46 PM by Agozer »

Offline dink

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Re: FBNeo problems and some questions
« Reply #3 on: August 10, 2020, 08:30:36 PM »
That's good to hear :)
All of the blitters have their pros and cons,  I guess it would be nice if some day the dx9 blitters were finished & had the osd/text display like the dx7 blitter.  Unfortunately that's not my area of expertise.

best regards,
- dink

Offline Agozer

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Re: FBNeo problems and some questions
« Reply #4 on: August 11, 2020, 01:24:29 PM »
Any word on whether it's possible to update the resolution menu to actually list common resolutions and if one wants to manually set the resolution through the "Other..." option, FBNeo remembers the setting next time?

Offline dink

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Re: FBNeo problems and some questions
« Reply #5 on: August 11, 2020, 02:27:20 PM »
Sure, I can try.  Can you please let me know the resolutions that you think would be good there?

Offline Agozer

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Re: FBNeo problems and some questions
« Reply #6 on: August 11, 2020, 05:01:35 PM »
Well, considering that FBNeo shouldn't just cater to my tastes, I guess some common 4:3 and 16:9 resolutions should be on that list. That 1536x864 should go at the very least, and replaced with 1280x720 and 1920x1080 for starters, and maybe even 1600x900. Maybe you should talk to other users and devs as well if they have some input on this.

Hm. I just started FBNeo to check the horizontal resolution list, and it actually remembered the 1920x1080 resolution I manually set earlier via "Other...". I wonder why it's been defaulting to that hardcoded 1536x864 so many times before but now suddenly remembered...
« Last Edit: August 12, 2020, 04:52:44 AM by Agozer »

Offline dink

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Re: FBNeo problems and some questions
« Reply #7 on: August 11, 2020, 08:33:01 PM »
Thanks for the input.  I found out, those 4 resolutions it puts there, the first 3 are always 640x480, 1024x768, 1280x960 and the last one is populated with your current desktop resolution.  I wonder if it's somehow getting your desktop resolution (1536x864) wrong.  *after doing a little research* it turns out that its somewhat of a common problem that win10 systems report 1536x864 as the desktop resolution when it's actually 1920x1080.  I'll try to find a fix/work-around for this one.

Several days ago our build robot was producing bad exe's, it wouldn't save the default options properly and had some severely weirdly cut-off looking text - like on the titlebar.  I wonder if perhaps you got one of those bad builds.
On the other hand, besides that issue - It always saved the fullscreen (Other) resolution for me, but you have to set it for both horizontal and vertical games. 

best regards,
- dink

Offline dink

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Re: FBNeo problems and some questions
« Reply #8 on: August 11, 2020, 08:59:30 PM »
Turns out Windows 8-10 sets the screen zoom to 125% by default, and this is why your monitor is being detected as 1536x864.
Found some info here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/screen-resolution-is-lowering/a67543fb-1013-41df-82f3-476a0757627c

I put in a work around to report 1920x1080 if window returns the monitor size is 1536x864.  though this is kinda a hack..

trying to think of something better here...

Offline Agozer

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Re: FBNeo problems and some questions
« Reply #9 on: August 12, 2020, 04:50:56 AM »
Oh wow, I would have never guessed that that's a thing. Yeah, Windows 10 defaults to 125% zoom at 1920x1080 now that I think about it.

Offline Agozer

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Re: FBNeo problems and some questions
« Reply #10 on: August 12, 2020, 07:22:40 AM »
Setting the resolution via Other... seems to work reliably now.

On the topic of things that should be changed, is it feasible to create an option that would automatically set the active Neo-Geo BIOS for every Neo-Geo game (including DIPs)? Or does FBNeo only ever emulate a single game on a single Neo-Geo machine whenever you aren't using the Multi-Slot functionality?

Offline dink

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Re: FBNeo problems and some questions
« Reply #11 on: August 12, 2020, 09:38:16 AM »
There is a way to do that, I just don't remember the proper/through the UI way.  Though, the less-convenient way is not too bad: (the way I do it):
1: set up a neogeo game, like "Alpha Mission 2" or some neogeo game with inputs and the dips / bios how you want it.
2: exit emu and go to config/games subdirectory
3: copy alpham2.ini into config/presets and rename it to neogeo.ini

now any neogeo game that wasn't previously run (aka doesn't have an ini file yet) will take the default settings from neogeo.ini

best regards,
- dink

Offline Agozer

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Re: FBNeo problems and some questions
« Reply #12 on: August 12, 2020, 05:58:14 PM »
That did the trick, thanks. A roundabout way, sure but at least it works.

Offline Agozer

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Re: FBNeo problems and some questions
« Reply #13 on: August 13, 2020, 05:13:42 PM »
Oh yeah, been testing a buch of my shooter games, and saw that Guwange doesn't have DIP settings (Both the Master Ver and later Special Ver). Is this accurate, or have they not been implemented in FBNeo?

Offline iq_132

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Re: FBNeo problems and some questions
« Reply #14 on: August 13, 2020, 05:55:42 PM »
Oh yeah, been testing a buch of my shooter games, and saw that Guwange doesn't have DIP settings (Both the Master Ver and later Special Ver). Is this accurate, or have they not been implemented in FBNeo?
No dips. Use the test button to enter the settings menu. Settings are saved to eeprom.