Topic: [TOOL] FB Neo compile script for Windows 10 x64

[BisonSAS]

Thank you so much! After many years, I once again compiled FB in an extremely simple way.

[weeBob]

Don't use FightCade, they are illegally using our work, thanks.

How are they using it illegally?  Can you hire a lawyer to shut it down?

[barbudreadmon]

How are they using it illegally?  Can you hire a lawyer to shut it down?

A fork must respect the license of the original project. Our license forbid redistribution within a commercial activity (this was inherited from the mame non-commercial code we use), which is exactly what fightcade is : a free2play with a subscription fee to unlock features. Strictly speaking, they are also receiving donations for their work of FBNeo, which is breaking another term of our license.
Sadly it's unrealistic to hire a lawyer and shut down the project.

[weeBob]

OK, thanks for explaining. 

I guess it is kind of a grey area since they are *technically* charging for the online service and not the actual emulator, but I see what you mean about seeking donations, that is pretty obviously in the red.

Basically, if they didn't accept donations for their online services they would be in the clear?

[barbudreadmon]

Hmmm nothing grey about that, by charging their users to unlock features, they are a commercial activity, just like any other software whose business model is what they call a "free2play". Our license clearly forbid redistribution in commercial activities.

If there was no paywall to unlock features and they were just accepting donations, it'd be a grey area, since they'd stop being a commercial activity by definition. Some people say you are a commercial activity just by receiving donations, i personally disagree with that, but i can agree that it's a grey area.
They'd still need to address the fact that the people receiving donations are the same people modifying our source code for their needs, which is clearly breaking this other term.

[weeBob]

I see what you mean, and I think we are on the same page. 
Personally it ticks me off that they make the interface for Fightcade so awful on purpose and want a subscription to make it even slightly user friendly.

Anyway, thanks for explaining all of this to me, I appreciate it.

[barbudreadmon]

Personally it ticks me off that they make the interface for Fightcade so awful on purpose and want a subscription to make it even slightly user friendly.

Well, they clearly seek to gain monetary profit, which is breaking another term of our license. Just imagine : they have 9000 members on their patreon, each paying from 2$ to 100$ per month, while their server cost is probably lower than 200$ (rollback netplay is serverless, they only need some storage for their homepage and replays).
The crazy thing is that i encounter a lot of FBNeo users on discord who seem to think they are a necessary evil because there would be no netplay without them, while there are actually several good alternatives, with either non-rollback netplay (kaillera, parsec) or rollback netplay (retroarch).

[weeBob]

I think their big advantage as far as attracting users is that they have the friendliest/most convenient way to get started.  You just download it, run the program, and you are in a lobby where you can find matches.  Just getting a copy of retroarch isn't going to get you all the way there.

Somewhat related, since the license says that nobody can accept donations, I assume that includes the FBNeo project as well?

[barbudreadmon]

Indeed, the FBNeo team can't accept donations either.

[Mucci]

Since my "old" environment failed to compile ("makefile.mamemingw:574: recipe for target 'vid_directx9.o' failed, make.exe[1]: *** [vid_directx9.o] Error 1, makefile:106: recipe for target 'mamemingw' failed") I have tried to use the package from https://www.winlibs.com. Those are updated, maybe worth a try ;-)
At the moment I'm still testing it on Win11 with x64. UCRT runtime library does fail but MSVCRT seems ok.
I have no idea how many are using my script but if someone is interested to test it please contact me on discord or send me a PM here.

And if you don't want to compile it yourself -> download the nightly build (also perfect ;-) )

[dink]

Hi Mucci,
To help me figure out and fix hte problem, could you get me the full log from make?

from the command prompt (cmd.exe), run make like this:
make mamemingw > makelog.txt 2>&1

If your make command is different, just write it, but add this to the end:
 > makelog.txt 2>&1

And after some time, it'll return to the command prompt and have created makelog.txt, please attach this log file and I'll try to figure out what is wrong

best regards,
- dink

[dink]

Mucci,
TIP: adding this parameter to the make.exe commandline in your script will speed up the build by many times.
-j8
Also, I removed depend by default in makefile.mingw.  Deprecated, because one can rebuild from clean quicker than
make will make & check the depend files.  This also speeds the build up considerably.
Also.. fixed a string problem with newer compilers

edit:NOTE: ideally, you'd want to query the number of cores the processor has and pass this to make with -j.  Maybe this will work?  I didn't try it:
make -j%NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS%
This way, if a cpu has more than 8 cores, it won't be limited to only using 8 cores if you only use -j8

best regards,
- dink

[Mucci]

Used it in my MAME compile-Script, can't remember why I have removed it in the FBNEO script ;-)

set /a THREADS=%NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS% + 1
set Compilecpu=j%THREADS%

"make.exe -%Compilecpu% "   (not the complete command ;-))

ok added it.
Compile today was also fine, will do some more testing and update the docu. In a couple of days I will upload it as V2 (V1 and V2 scripts are not 100% identical)

@dink: Sure I can create this compile error log. But I don't want to spend too much time with it as the new compile environment does work. Old package was created/received from JacKc 4 years ago. Maybe it is better to have an updated one.

[Mucci]

Not much information there ....but yeah as I have already mentioned, don't waste too much time. Maybe something is missing or outdated in my first package....

[barbudreadmon]

@dink In my experience, the -jX parameter randomly fails on FBNeo, i think it has to do with make sometimes starting to build cpp/c files before header generation finished.
I actually had to remove that parameter from the buildbot some months ago because it was a regular cause of failure : https://github.com/finalburnneo/FBNeo/commit/fa2f4c953caa4939faf82cab2734ef7834e632c5