FBNeo vs MAME?

Hey folks,

I see that FBNeo supports achievements… so I am thinking of using it as the main Arcade core, I heard it’s actually better that MAME in many games -> Is this accurate?

If I wanted to get a new updated romset for FBNeo, and play the rest of the games with MAME, is there an easy way to remove all FBNeo compatible roms from a MAME romset? (just to avoid duplicates…).

Maybe an extra question, has anyone got some good recommendations for dat files that are up to date similar to “All Killer No Filler” trims?

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I personally use Fbneo 99% of the time, it works well and “plays” well with retroarch.

Also you can have a look at this:

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The way I use it personally is basically playing 2D classics with FBNeo and a few 3D of the era I go with mame, as obviously, FBN never intended to emulate 3D graphics as far as I know, but there are still a few obscure 2D games that FBNeo doesn’t run, these are less known games, though.

Reasons being, FBN feels lighter on the resources and starts faster, it aims to emulate only 2D arcade games (albeit it also emulates consoles, but I wouldn’t use it for this goal if I can opt for dedicated cores).

It supports runahead and similar input delay features, among other retroarch options that feel better integrated.

For vertical games, I have better luck with mame, it just doesn’t behave right with me when I set vertical mode in FBN for some reason.

Mame is great but it’s goal is way too big for the average player. While I feel that FBN could also benefit from having a FBN Pure variant that would emulate only arcade games.

It’s true that many devices can handle the extra load with relative ease, but the lighter, more focused variants would provide a better experience overall.

All in all, I was never disappointed with either and we can only be grateful for having two great choices to play with.

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I found FBNeo’s audio to seem higher quality sounding compared to the MAME Current core. Dodonpachi DaiOuJou was the first game I noticed that when comparing. It might be because FBNeo has “4-point 3rd order” sample and FM interpolation enabled by default. It also has a low pass filter you can enable if certain games sound too tinny.

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Mame is more accurate, FBneo has better Performance and somewhat better playability. Also mame Supports much more Games.

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As i keep saying, this is not exactly right. Most games are equally accurate in both emulators, and while some games are more accurate in MAME, the opposite is also true.

Well, write a proper report explaining your issue and i’ll be able to help.

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FinalBurn used to have better ics2115 (pgm’s sound board) emulation than MAME. Several years ago they wanted to backport our driver but couldn’t get the authorization to re-license it from its author. I heard they rewrote their driver some time ago so i’m not sure how much of this is still true.

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On FBN, vertical mode to ON

Using MAME, setting in Quick Options/Video the screen rotation from “libretro” to “internal”, displays the correct vertical mode.

On both cores, FBN or MAME, not setting to vertical mode just stretches the image across the 16:9 display.

Retroarch version - 1.20.0 FBN version - v1.0.0.03 Game tested Dodonpachi (Japan) Windows 10/10GB/GTX 1660ti Shader used - /border/ambient-glow-crt.slang

What are you trying to achieve by enabling vertical mode ? Is your screen vertical ? That core option is meant for users with a vertical screen.

Also, i think you are forcing an aspect ratio instead of using the one provided by the core. Or maybe you disabled core rotation in retroarch settings (that might also explain why you set rotation mode to internal in mame) and things are going bonkers as a result, apparently someone changed the behavior of that retroarch setting without a care about the consequences for cores…

More information at https://docs.libretro.com/library/fbneo/#why-are-vertical-games-not-working-properly.

Edit: i pushed a fix for the disabled core rotation : https://github.com/libretro/FBNeo/commit/eb3a2f5a5767ce9edc74ad6e3d3f139777cab58b

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