Final Burn Neo > FBN Discussion

INFO: How to play Power Drift in FBAlpha

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phozz:
Hey dink, when driving the keys are both a little slow to respond and a little slow to center - and in a game like this where timing is critical, that's the difference between going for #1 and crashing into a Victory Furniture billboard. On the other hand, in FB I can easily choose any of the 5 courses at the startup page while in FBA it seems to much more quickly jump to the extreme (A or E) selections so it's hard to pick B or D. So the wheel seems both too slow and too fast to respond, depending on the case! Now I've spent hours trying to tweak the settings (in Mame there are lots of them) looking for a combination that would replicate FB's behavior but failed. For example, if I set it to center quickly like it should then in some cases the car would not actually center but instead start drifting to one side rather than drive straight.

I really can't explain what "secret sauce" FB used, I guess a peek at the code is the only way to find out - though I don't have a copy of it. I hope it can be found somewhere.

I'm sending you a copy of the emulator. I'm including the ROM because there are slight differences in how FB preferred to have the data packed and named (try to use a current ROM file and it'll complain that something is missing. Still playable and behaves the same though). Remember in the Input menu to select Player 1, Kbd Centering Slider.

Another thing I'd like to mention is the High/Low gear setting indicator. In FB it's at the lower left corner (next to the speed indicator) and is very clear and readable. The characters are even styled to make it look like part of the original game. In FBA it's at the opposite corner and hardly visible - a handicap when playing. Perhaps this could be made more user configurable?

(For anyone else who wants to try: the emulator can be found at http://doperoms.com/files/emulators/mame/finalburn.zip . Use your current ROM file but rename it to pwrdrift.zip . Some sounds will be missing but the game will work.)

Thank you!

dink:
Thanks for all the info and stuff, it helped me to replicate the behavior of the original FB.  With this setting and running FBA and FB side-by-side, both the car and the selection screen seem exactly the same with this input setting:
input  "Steering"         slider 0xcb 0xcd speed 0x900 center 10

For the next version I'll move the low/hi gear indicator to the lower left side of the screen.

best regards,
- dink

phozz:
Wow, this is definitely much better! I hope you agree the game is a lot more playable now - and if you do, why not make this the default for everyone?

It still isn't an exact replica of FB's behavior however - it feels just a little bit different, and in the game's diagnostics > Input test > Handle right/left, the numbers are different. But I guess going for the exact behavior would require looking into the sources, and would take a lot more time and effort. I wouldn't mind doing it myself - do you have any idea where the old FB source code can be found? The original website is long gone. I can see a very old version of FBA (0.137) on the website - would that code likely be the same as the old FB?

Update: I've compared the sources. The FB source is found here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20040614184019fw_/http://www.finalburn.com:80/fb/source.html
The relevant function is InputTick(), found at burner/input.cpp. In the current FBA source it's in src\intf\input\inp_interface.cpp. There are some API differences but functionally they look identical. Oh well. Any tips on where else to look?

Thanks a lot!

dink:
I did some testing and found:
0x800 will get the same values in the diagnostics as FB
0x890 though, is closer to the timing in FB, and the values in the diagnostics are a little different, but the game responds exactly the same IMO.  Try both and see which one you like better :)

best regards,
- dink

phozz:
I've just played under the two options and it looks like 0x800 nails it - I felt no control issues and got a #1 streak for the first time under FBA! Yay :biggrin:

I strongly recommend making this the default value for the keyboard slider under this game, or at least mention it in the Game Notes (where the current string is "Select Auto-Center preset in Input Configuration").

Thanks again for your help!

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