Topic: dink's FBN Development & Fixes thread

[dink]

2 things RA has disadvantages over the fbn ui:
1: RA's ui.
2: Explaining to a non-technical friend how to get the complete game listings by importing the dat files is something I never, ever, ever want to re-live.

best regards,
- dink

[barbudreadmon]

The trick about RA's UI is to not use it , there are plenty of external launchers doing a better job at managing game listings (emulationstation, launchbox, ...).

I think using an emulator inside an emulator on pi5 might lock you out of playing more demanding games (segas32, cv1k, ...).

[fprietog]

I think using an emulator inside an emulator on pi5 might lock you out of playing more demanding games (segas32, cv1k, ...).

I agree with you but I will elaborate what I meant when I said that "making it run in Raspberry Pi Ubuntu was a bit complicated".

The main point here is that the Raspberry Pi 5 processor architecture family is Arm-v8 (arm 64 bits).

The Retroarch version at Ubuntu 25.04 arm64 repo is 1.20.0+dfsg-2build1

After installing it you need to download an install the FBNeo emulation core from within and the problem is that there aren't available cores to download or install. I suspect that is because in the libretro repo for that Retroarch version there are only cores for x86 and x86_64 architectures as you can see here:
https://buildbot.libretro.com/stable/1.20.0/linux/

So, at this point you either use an emulator for x86 or x86_64, try to find a suitable emulation core elsewhere or try to find another Retroarch version that supports arm-v8.

Ok, let's try to find another Retroarch version. The one in Ubuntu next repo and in Debian repos is the same than Ubuntu current branch so no way. But libretro offers it's own PPA with newer versions for my Ubuntu branch, here:
https://launchpad.net/~libretro/+archive/ubuntu/testing

The current offered version is: 1.21.1+r202505032004~2a225a20dc-197~ubuntu25.04.1

But this version has the same problem than previous version: there are only cores for x86 and x86_64 architectures as you can see here:
https://buildbot.libretro.com/stable/1.21.0/linux/

At this point you can also try the Retroarch version from the libretro nightly repo here:
https://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/linux/

As you can see it not only offers x86 and x86_64 architecture cores but also armhf and armv7-neon-hf... So no arm 64 bits, only 32 bits.

Can the Raspberry Pi 5 run 32 bits programs? Yes, but you need to enable multiarch and it causes having a shitload of 32 bits libraries installed just to use an emulator...

Ok, you do it. And finally you can install the FBNeo core at https://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/linux/armv7-neon-hf/latest/fbneo_libretro.so.zip

FBNeo core whose file date is 18/11/2020... so probably and old version that cannot run my favorite game "Tehkan World Cup"...

So I can be wrong in any point and be really more simple, but afaik is so complicated and doesn't fit my expectations.

In the other hand I can just install wine-hangover packages from here:
https://github.com/AndreRH/hangover

And I don't need anything else: just double click on the fbneo exe (32 or 64 bits) and it runs out of the box. It can be tuned for better performance but it's not even needed to run it.

Sorry for the long post

[fprietog]

Just a note: in the previous post I tried to follow the most official path. For the brave ones there are alternatives like using arm64 cores from (trustable?) third parties like https://github.com/christianhaitian/retroarch-cores

[barbudreadmon]

FWIW, ubuntu probably comes with git/make/gcc installed by default, so building your own arm64 core should just be a matter of running this :

Code: [Select]

git clone https://github.com/libretro/FBNeo.git
cd FBNeo
make -j5 -C src/burner/libretro
cp src/burner/libretro/fbneo_libretro.so path/to/your/libretro/cores/

where "path/to/your/libretro/cores/" is wherever "libretro_directory" is pointing to in your retroarch.cfg

Edit: for better optimization, you could add "platform=rpi5_64" to the make command

[fprietog]

Ok, I've done it. I'm trying to find how to load a game...

Thk!

[dink]

Well, another problem with ra, launchbox, emulationstation is that the game list is not even close to as nice and straight to the point as fbneo's.

[fprietog]

Well, another problem with ra, launchbox, emulationstation is that the game list is not even close to as nice and straight to the point as fbneo's.  Too gen-z..

In fact I don't find a games list yet... I can run a rom if a navigate to it's file from "Load Content"... but just windowed and I don't know what keys to use :/

Hmmm. It got an own keyset not the regular FBNeo one... It will take me a bit to make it work as I want to.

Thanks for helping me , btw.

[dink]

In fact I don't find a games list yet... I can run a rom if a navigate to it's file from "Load Content"... but just windowed and I don't know what keys to use :/

Hmmm. It got an own keyset not the regular FBNeo one... It will take me a bit to make it work as I want to.

Thanks for helping me , btw.

Trust me, I'm equally as confused as you are with RA.  Once I nearly broke a keyboard it got me so angry.  I'm usually kinda mellow

[barbudreadmon]

In fact I don't find a games list yet... I can run a rom if a navigate to it's file from "Load Content"... but just windowed and I don't know what keys to use :/

Hmmm. It got an own keyset not the regular FBNeo one... It will take me a bit to make it work as I want to.

Thanks for helping me , btw.

There is a tutorial for creating retroarch game lists at https://neo-source.com/index.php?topic=3725.0, but i personally prefer external frontends.
You can toggle fullscreen with the F key.

Well, another problem with ra, launchbox, emulationstation is that the game list is not even close to as nice and straight to the point as fbneo's.

RA is awful to navigate, emulationstation is nicer (it has a search function and you can fully customize the look, it's still lacking some QoL stuff like filtering by genre/family though), not too sure about launchbox but i think it's kind of like emulationstation.

[dink]

I miss my crt, too!  It's been many years.  The 17" Viewsonic 4:3 is really nice, think I had the same one! (it lasted 10 years, and several re-caps)

I'm curious, what's these png scanline files you are talking about?  And how to enable them in MAME?
Also can you post some of the files (your favorite pngs) so I can try it?
The D3D7 (Enhanced) Blitter might be able to do something like that, if I am thinking about the same thing. 

best regards,
- dink

Great, I used to play on a 14" crt pc, but it died. And since it is practically difficult to get one in my country, I bought a 17" lcd monitor (4:3) "Viewsonic" brand with a price of 19,800 pesos (about 20 dollars) and the truth is that it looks pretty good.

With a configuration of 640x480/linear filter/SuperScale (75% scanlines) plus some adjustments of the monitor itself such as brightness, contrast and sharpness, it looks pretty good playing at a distance of at least 1 meter.

So it's always welcome to try new imaging options.

Too bad FBN doesn't support scanlines through PNG files like mame... in the latter I can play at higher resolution (1280x1024) with some scanlines created in a png file for that resolution.

But as it is it looks good and is enjoyable. 

[fprietog]

@dink @barbudreadmon

One thing I noticed while trying standalone FBNeo and Retroarch with FBNeo core is that standalone don't save hi-scores for most games despite the fact that it says in the game info that hi-scores are supported but Retroarch do... after downloading a complementary file from (I believe) here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/libretro/FBNeo/refs/heads/master/metadata/hiscore.dat

Copying that hiscores.dat file to support/hiscores folder of standalone FBNeo make hi-scores working in standalone.

My question, as I personally think that hi-scores support is a must-have feature, is; shouldn't that file be shipped with standalone FBNeo installs?

For lazy people like me it can be useful to have that feature working out of the box but I don't know if there is some kind of issue that prevent that file to be redistributed from it's original place.

Thanks and best regards.

[barbudreadmon]

@dink @barbudreadmon

One thing I noticed while trying standalone FBNeo and Retroarch with FBNeo core is that standalone don't save hi-scores for most games despite the fact that it says in the game info that hi-scores are supported but Retroarch do... after downloading a complementary file from (I believe) here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/libretro/FBNeo/refs/heads/master/metadata/hiscore.dat

Copying that hiscores.dat file to support/hiscores folder of standalone FBNeo make hi-scores working in standalone.

My question, as I personally think that hi-scores support is a must-have feature, is; shouldn't that file be shipped with standalone FBNeo installs?

For lazy people like me it can be useful to have that feature working out of the box but I don't know if there is some kind of issue that prevent that file to be redistributed from it's original place.

Thanks and best regards.

Well, i started mirroring hiscore.dat on the libretro repo a few years ago because the retropie guys asked me to (to include it in their installation script). Normally you'd want to download it from the official hiscore.dat website.

[Pelucon8]

I miss my crt, too!  It's been many years.  The 17" Viewsonic 4:3 is really nice, think I had the same one! (it lasted 10 years, and several re-caps)

I'm curious, what's these png scanline files you are talking about?  And how to enable them in MAME?
Also can you post some of the files (your favorite pngs) so I can try it?
The D3D7 (Enhanced) Blitter might be able to do something like that, if I am thinking about the same thing. 

best regards,
- dink

Hello dink 

They are those files that you put in the "artwork" folder of mame. There are several by default I think: "aperture", "aperture1x2rb", etc.

The good thing is that you can also create your own pngs and adapt them to your monitor or download one with your resolution already created and edit it with photoshop type programs. The default ones in mame looked bad on my monitor, maybe because they were created for other resolutions.

And well, as you probably know, they are activated in: Options/Default game options/Advanced/Select effect and then select the "png". You can also do it individually in each game by right clicking on the game itself.



I downloaded one ready with my resolution but I had to edit it in photoshop as it looked super dark by default. With photoshop I played with brightness, contrast and that sort of thing, actually playing with the options until it looked better to me. Although I know it can be fixed and look better.

It may not look good on any monitor since I also played with my own monitor settings, fixing sharpness, contrast, colors, etc.

I'll leave attached the png and I'll also leave some pictures of how it looks on my monitor. It's not a crt but it's enjoyable anyway.









I forgot to mention that I use this type of files for the simple reason that it does not demand performance in the gpu or in the game as the "hlsl" does.

In short it does not affect performance.

Saludos!

 PS: Yes, it is true, it looks a bit blurry but that is because I always activate the "bilinear filtering". It looks much sharper if you deactivate this option, but I don't like the way it looks.

[dink]

Pelucon8, Thanks for the info's.  I can't promise anything will come of this, but, I'll try

best regards,
- dink