FBA new core option

[paradadf]

@barbudreadmon still nothing :S

paradadf@paradadf-pc:~/fbalpha$ gcc --version
gcc (Ubuntu 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.2) 5.4.0 20160609
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

paradadf@paradadf-pc:~/fbalpha$ g++ --version
g++ (Ubuntu 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.2) 5.4.0 20160609
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

paradadf@paradadf-pc:~/fbalpha$ CC="gcc-5.4" CXX="g++-5.4" make -f makefile.libretro platform=rpi2
gcc-5.4 -DARM -O2 -DNDEBUG -fPIC -Wno-write-strings -D__LIBRETRO__ -DLSB_FIRST -marm -mcpu=cortex-a7 -mfpu=neon-vfpv4 -mfloat-abi=hard -ffast-math -DINLINE="static inline" -DSH2_INLINE="static inline" -D__LIBRETRO_OPTIMIZATIONS__ -DUSE_SPEEDHACKS -DFRONTEND_SUPPORTS_RGB565 -Isrc/burner/win32 -Isrc/burner/libretro -Isrc/burner/libretro/tchar -Isrc/burn -Isrc/cpu -Isrc/burn/snd -Isrc/burn/devices -Isrc/intf -Isrc/intf/input -Isrc/intf/cd -Isrc/intf/audio -Isrc/burner -Isrc/cpu -Isrc/cpu/i8039 -Isrc/cpu/i8051 -Isrc/dep/libs/zlib -Isrc/burn/drv/capcom -Isrc/burn/drv/konami -Isrc/burn/drv/dataeast -Isrc/burn/drv/cave -Isrc/burn/drv/neogeo -Isrc/burn/drv/psikyo -Isrc/burn/drv/sega -Isrc/burn/drv/toaplan -Isrc/burn/drv/taito -Isrc/dep/generated -Isrc/dep/libs -c src/burner/unzip.c -o src/burner/unzip.o
/bin/sh: 1: gcc-5.4: not found
makefile.libretro:585: recipe for target 'src/burner/unzip.o' failed
make: *** [src/burner/unzip.o] Error 127

[barbudreadmon]

@paradadf Hmmm try with :
CC="gcc" CXX="g++" make -f makefile.libretro platform=rpi2

[paradadf]

@barbudreadmon I get the first error again. But don't worry, I'll wait until recalbox gets updated to finish the list. Thank you!

[Substring]

@paradadf you can't compile the core without using buildroot. You'd just need to update the commit id of the .mk then make libretro-fba-dirclean && make libretro-fba from the root of the recalbox-buildroot repo

And we still need to improve the handling of some specific platforms, as said on one of your PR

[gkralicek2]

@barbudreadmon said in FBA new core option:

@gkralicek2 what about v0.2.97.36 ? "The killing blade Plus" performs around 57-60fps for me with v0.2.97.36, and my OC is lower. What's more, unlike porting v0.2.97.30/34 code to current fba, porting v0.2.97.36 code to current fba is something within my skills.

0.2.97.36 is indeed a tad better on "Killing Blade Plus" than 0.2.97.37 or 0.2.97.38 but still slower on "Spectral vs Generations" than 0.2.97.34 or .30 (the latter being the quickest of all).
Something has been changed to the FBA code after version 0.2.97.34 that has impacted the performances of PGM support in a negative way, but i don't know what exactly :=(
Could it be that early versions of FBA with PGM support were using some kind of "performance mode" vs "conservative mode" in the most recent releases (a bit like it is the case with SH2 support and the Fast vs Accurate mode) ?

[Substring]

well ... i'll have to investigate much closer on the platform we specify to the makefile because ... ashamed ... for now ... we just specify amrvX and eventually cortexaN ... which means we never reach the rpi2 and even rpi3 platform ... which means no neon optimization ... sob

[rockaddicted]

@subs the fba cores that I give to @acris for testing are already built with rpi3 platform. I reworked the package. I didn't see any significant boost.

[barbudreadmon]

@subs said in FBA new core option:

well ... i'll have to investigate much closer on the platform we specify to the makefile because ... ashamed ... for now ... we just specify amrvX and eventually cortexaN ... which means we never reach the rpi2 and even rpi3 platform ... which means no neon optimization ... sob

There is no neon optimization in fba, this is a windows program written for x86, adding neon optimization would probably help with performance, but is beyond my skill.

@gkralicek2 said in FBA new core option:

@barbudreadmon said in FBA new core option:

@gkralicek2 what about v0.2.97.36 ? "The killing blade Plus" performs around 57-60fps for me with v0.2.97.36, and my OC is lower. What's more, unlike porting v0.2.97.30/34 code to current fba, porting v0.2.97.36 code to current fba is something within my skills.

0.2.97.36 is indeed a tad better on "Killing Blade Plus" than 0.2.97.37 or 0.2.97.38 but still slower on "Spectral vs Generations" than 0.2.97.34 or .30 (the latter being the quickest of all).
Something has been changed to the FBA code after version 0.2.97.34 that has impacted the performances of PGM support in a negative way, but i don't know what exactly :=(
Could it be that early versions of FBA with PGM support were using some kind of "performance mode" vs "conservative mode" in the most recent releases (a bit like it is the case with SH2 support and the Fast vs Accurate mode) ?

That's just the result of fixing issues and adding new games to the pgm driver every few releases, emulation become more accurate, so more resources is needed. I'll give a try to porting v0.2.97.30-34 code to current fba when i have some time, but don't expect too much

[barbudreadmon]

My latest commit seems to increase fps in m68k games, it's still not enough to run Killing Blade Plus and Spectral vs Generation at full speed for me, but i still gained around 10 fps.

[Substring]

@barbudreadmon compiled for pi3 :

• in SVG, can't quit the training mode with the START + A or B. Runs between 45 and 54 fps during combat
• Killing blande plus : even the PGM logo stutters, but the average ingame fps is higher than 50, say around 54

[barbudreadmon]

Also, there are still some games with bad/missing input (i'm not talking about analog issues), those have exotic input setup (seems to be mostly twin stick games). It would be nice to report any you find there : https://github.com/libretro/fbalpha/issues/102

[barbudreadmon]

@subs said in FBA new core option:

@barbudreadmon compiled for pi3 :

• in SVG, can't quit the training mode with the START + A or B.

Works fine with A as the right button, and B as the bottom button .
Sounds to me like you are using "start" as the hotkey for retroarch, you don't want to do that, it mess up with game controls.
NB : you don't "leave" training with those shortcut, you return to character select with start+a, and you restart match with start+b

[gkralicek2]

@barbudreadmon Do you think you might have time to implement a button mapping in FBA core in order to handle gun rotation in games like Midnight Resistance (in the real arcade game there was a rotative paddle to allow changing the angle of the gun while shooting which is not mapped on the current version of FBA Libretro).
Thanks very much for your time and effort to improve the FBA Core anyway !

[paradadf]

@gkralicek2 you can press A + D-pad to rotate on Midnight Resistance (assuming you are using fba 0.2.97.39, which will be used in recalbox v4.1)

[gkralicek2]

@paradadf Wow thanks a lot ! I was still running 0.2.97.38 but i just compiled the latest 0.2.97.39 and midnight resistance gun rotation works when pressing the A button (with previous versions of FBA, the A button wasn't mapped to anything in that game)

[lolo]

New version for FBA 0.2.97.40 with many fixes and new features

www.fbalpha.com/view/236/

[acris]

Hello
recalbox use fba libretro : https://github.com/libretro/fbalpha

[lolo]

Hi,
Yes I know, but the libreto will follow soon.

[PaBLoNeKeN]

Port of Final Burn Alpha to Libretro (v0.2.97.40).

https://github.com/libretro/fbalpha

[gkralicek2]

@PaBLoNeKeN FBA Libretro 0.2.97.40 works fine under Recalbox 4.0.2.
Psikyo / Jaleco games are still running fullspeed thanks to @barbudreadmon SH2 fix and i haven't noticed any particular problems with the other games i'm using. Colour bugs and slowdowns that plagued Irem Games (R-type, R-type 2, R-Type Leo) in previous releases are gone and those titles are really playable now using FBA as they have always been with Mame 2003. All Sega system 16/18 games (Outrun, Shinobi, Altered Beast, Moonwalker...) got proper drivers rebuilt and work better than with Mame.
Metro Games (dharma dojo, gunmaster, pururun...) are now supported but to run them full speed an overclocked Pi3 with a minimum of 1350 Mhz is required (1400 Mhz prefered). Any clock frequency Under 1350 Mhz will bring up sound glitches and slowdowns.
That's a very nice addition to FBA as far as, until now, only Mame 2010 had been able to run those games with a poor performance though even when using a high overclock frequency (75% game speed only @ 1500).
According to some posts i have read on various forums, it seems people are reporting colour problems with some of the Konami Games. But so far, all the ones i've tried with FBA worked fine (Turtles, Turtles in time) so i don't really know if the issue is real or not.

All in all i cannot complain about this new release of FBA performance-Wise at least on Pi3. I'll try to run further tests using my old Pi2 in the coming weeks and see if there are significant improvements too with this core on older platforms.