FinalBurn Alpha

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FinalBurn Alpha

Platform(s):	Dingoo-Linux
Download(s):	Openhandhelds archive
Developer(s):	Slaanesh
Version:	1.0
Status:	Released and functional
Homepage:	FinalBurn Alpha release thread

FinalBurn Alpha is an emulator specializing in emulating arcade video game machines based on M68000 and Z80 CPUs. A large number of well known arcade machines fall under this category including the famous Neo Geo, CPS1/2, Cave, Toaplan and PGM hardware. The Dingoo's FBA320 port is a combination of the GP2X and PSP ports of Final Burn Alpha - think of it as part Linux (GP2X heritage) and part MIPS (PSP/Dingoo CPU). Final Burn Alpha is available for many other handhelds including but not limited to the GP2X, Wiz, PSP, Windows Mobile and even Mobile Phones.

Official web page for news, additional information and donations:

slaanesh.net

[edit] Installation

Simply copy the FinalBurn Alpha directory somewhere on your filesystem in the local folder and run the executable.

To launch it with dmenu use this in your dmenu.cfg (adjust your folders accordingly):

    MenuItem fba320
    {
        Icon = "res/blank.png"
        Name = "Final Burn Alpha"
        Executable = "./fba320.dge"
        WorkDir = "/usr/local/emulators/fba320_v1.0"
    }

FBA320 can be installed in any directory under the "local" directory of your SD card.

A typical installation may go in /local/fba320 or /local/games/fba320 of your SD card.

The following files and directories may exist in the fba directory. Optional entries are noted with [*].

fba320.dge -> Frontend game selector.
fba320.png -> [*] 128x78 sized frontend game icon for use with DinguXMB.
fba320_small.png-> [*] 32x32 alternative sized frontend game icon.
fba -> Core FBA emulator.
main -> [*] Auto launch FBA320 without using application launcher.
frontend/ -> FBA320 configuration files.
roms/ -> ROM and Cache directory.
skins/ -> [*] Frontend skins directory

To auto launch FBA320 (ie. not using an application launcher) copy the "main" script in the following location of your SD card:

sd:/local/sbin

[edit] Controls

Standard in-game FBA320 controls. For the sake of consistency, these are similar to that of MAME4ALL Dingoo.

[edit] Horizonal games:

	Movement
	FIRE 1
	FIRE 2
	FIRE 3
	FIRE 4
	FIRE 5
	FIRE 6
+	COIN
	START
+	Volume Down
+	Volume Up
+	Show FPS
++	Exits from emulator (default back to fba320.dge)
++	Enter Service mode (for some games)

[edit] Vertical games

(as for horizontal with the following changes)

	LEFT
	RIGHT
	DOWN
	UP
	FIRE 1
	FIRE 2

[edit] Game Selector

FBA320 can be run directly from the 'fba' executable by using command line options. However, a far easier way of running FBA320 is using the 'fba320.dge' Game Selector. This will launch 'fba' with the options chosen.

The Game Selector will automatically save specific options for each game.

The Game Selector will search for FBA ROMs (either .zip or .fba) found in the ./roms directory. Games found will be displayed in the game list.

Use UP and DOWN to select a game.
Use LEFT and RIGHT to page up and page down.
Press A to select the game to play.
Press SELECT+L+R to exit.

After selecting a game, configuration options are available:

Use UP and DOWN to select the option you want to change.
Use LEFT and RIGHT to change the option.
Press A to start the game (and save the configured options).
Press B to go back to the game list.
Press START to start the game and display profiling data at the end. Note in this mode, the original fba320.dge is not run again. Normally to play a game use press A.

[edit] Configuration options

[edit] Dingoo Clock

300 - 420 MHz options are available. 336 MHz is the standard value. Use greater values at your own risk!.

[edit] Video Scale/Aspect

The video aspect is configured with the following combination of options:

Normal: Nominal video resolution (320x240). Games with a resolution less than this have a black border. Games with a resolution higher are cropped.

Scale Horizontal: Useful for CPS1/CPS2 games like Knights of the Round and Dungeon and Dragons: Tower of Doom, etc.

Scale Fast: This is a specific MIPS assembler scaler which currently is only working for CPS1/CPS2 games. Highly recommended for all CPS games.

[edit] Sound

The sound options are the following ones: ON: The sound is activated. 8, 16, 24, 32 KHz sound mixing rates are available. OFF: The sound is disabled. Unlike MAME, there is often no speed advantage to switching off sound. Some game drivers may even crash.

[edit] Volume

Set the starting volume of the game. Most games start very loudly! Use this to save your ears. Max: Full volume (DEFAULT). Medium: Volume reduced a bit. Low: Volume reduced more. Quiet: Most likely barely audible but depends on the game.

[edit] Zip or Cache

This is only useable if you have both a .zip and .fba version in the ./roms directory.

[edit] Brightness

Set the screen brightness in increments of 10%. 100% is maximum. 80% is the default.

[edit] Supported Games

The Win32 version of FBA supports over 1000 romsets. The Dingoo version suppports around 740 games, however not all will work (yet!). For more details, see "gamelist.txt" file. As a rough guide, CPS1, CPS2, Neo Geo, Cave and Toaplan games should work. There are many exceptions however and most games that require a cache to work needs specific Dingoo source code changes. As of v1.0:

CPS1 games do not need cache. CPS2 games generally do need cache. Neo Geo games almost always need cache. Other cache games have not yet been tested - some will work - some will not. Specifically, WWF Wrestle Fest and Guwange are supported.

Games must be copied into the <installdir>/roms/ folder on the SD card. For example if fba320.dge and fba are installed in /usr/local/fba then the roms dir would be /usr/local/fba/roms.

[edit] Rom Names

Games are listed in "gamelist.txt" file. Games should either be <rom>.zip or a specially created cache file <rom>.fba

[edit] FBA320 Cache

Included is a FBA cache creation program called fbacache.exe. This will NOT run on the A320 Dingoo - currently it runs as a command line Win32 program - either under a CMD prompt or a cygwin shell. fbacache.exe can be used to generate the necessary cache files required to run the largest ROMS.

The easiest way of running fbacache.exe is to connect your Dingoo A320 to your computer using the original firmware's USB mode. This will map the internal memory and SD card to drives. My SD card happens to be mapped to "l:" drive in the example below.

Here is an sample run converting kof94 under cygwin. Annotations are below:

(1). /home> cd /l/local/fba /l/local/fba> ./fbacache.exe FinalBurn Alpha Dingoo v1.0 [cache dump tools] Usage: ./fbacache [-d] <rom.zip> (2). /l/local/fba> ls -l ./roms/kof94.* -rw-r--r-- 1 anthony None 12771667 Aug 16 08:44 ./roms/kof94.zip (3). /l/local/fba> ./fbacache -d kof94.zip dumping rom cache file ... roms/kof94.zip roms/neogeo.zip Loading 055-c1.bin ... 2048Kb graphics (OK) Loading 055-c2.bin ... 2048Kb graphics (OK) Loading 055-c3.bin ... 2048Kb graphics (OK) Loading 055-c4.bin ... 2048Kb graphics (OK) Loading 055-c5.bin ... 2048Kb graphics (OK) Loading 055-c6.bin ... 2048Kb graphics (OK) Loading 055-c7.bin ... 2048Kb graphics (OK) Loading 055-c8.bin ... 2048Kb graphics (OK) Loading sfix.sfx ... 128Kb BIOS graphics (OK) Loading 055-s1.bin ... 128Kb graphics (OK) Loading 055-p1.bin ... 2048Kb program (OK) Loading 055-m1.bin ... 128Kb program (OK) Loading 055-v1.bin ... 2048Kb sound (OK) Loading 055-v2.bin ... 2048Kb sound (OK) Loading 055-v3.bin ... 2048Kb sound (OK) Loading asia-s3.rom ... 128Kb BIOS program (OK) Loading sm1.sm1 ... 128Kb BIOS program (OK) Loading 000-lo.lo ... 64Kb BIOS (OK) Dump Cache Code ... 3265KB Dump Cache Sprite ... 16384KB Dump Cache Text ... 256KB Dump Cache PCM A ... 6144KB Dump Cache PCM B ... 0KB Dump Cache Sprite Attr... 128KB Dump Cache Text Attr ... 8KB dump OK! (4). /l/local/fba> ls -l ./roms/kof94.* -rw-r--r-- 1 anthony None 26813696 Aug 27 10:22 ./roms/kof94.fba -rw-r--r-- 1 anthony None 12771667 Aug 16 08:44 ./roms/kof94.zip

Annotations:

(1). Just typing the fbacache.exe without arguments will display the usage msg. (2). Check that the desired game to convert is in the ./roms directory. (3). Run the conversion. Note that you just specify the name of the ROM.

   The path name is automatically added by fbacache.exe.

   !!!NOTE!!!

   It is VITAL that each line beginning with "Loading <romname> ..." indicates
   that it has loaded successfully (OK).
   Anything other than (OK) is NOT good and the cache file will fail.
   The main reason for not saying (OK) is an absent or bad .zip file.

(4). Conversion takes a few seconds and you should be left with both the

   original .zip file and the newly created .fba cache file.

[edit] Original Credits

Barry Harris, Jan_Klaassen, KEV, LoopMaster, Mike Haggar, Hyper Yagami and Ayeye. FB Alpha is based on the original FinalBurn by Dave.

See http://www.barryharris.me.uk/fba_history1.php for full details.

[edit] Port Credits

- FBA320 by Slaanesh based on source code from the GP2X and PSP ports of FBA.

[edit] Development

August 31, 2009 - Version 1.0. First version.

Developed with: - Cygwin. - Custom mipsel-linux-g++ v4.3.3 toolchain. - GpBinConv by Aquafish (www.multimania.com/illusionstudio/aquafish/). - Image manipulation with Paint Shop Pro 7.

[edit] To-Do

In order of priority

Improve support for cache games.
Speed optimizations.
Add Sega games?
Have roms directory anywhere on filesystem.

[edit] Thanks To

Squidge: Originally porting FBA to GP2X.
HeadoverHeels: Continuing work on FBA2X.
Libyciene: Work on the PSP version of FBA.
Booboo: For the amazing "Dingux" Linux for Dingoo (http://www.dingux.com/).

[edit] Skins

The graphic skin used in the fronted can be changed by adding two new files: skins/fbasplash.bmp -> Game selector intro screen. skins/fbamenu.bmp -> Game selector background screen.

Bitmaps MUST be 320x240 pixels x 256 colors (8 bit). The resulting file should be exactly 77878 bytes in size. If it is not, then it's not in the right format. Paint Shop Pro saves BMPs in the correct format.