[Guide] Play Killer Instinct games using FBNeo

General Guides
#1

How To: Play Killer Instinct games using FBNeo

This guide describes how to setup game files to play Killer Instinct / Killer Instinct 2 using FBNeo.

I noted in github, that support for HDDs was recently added, which allows you to play these games using FBNeo! Note that emulation for this game isn’t perfect yet… These are currently the only image based games I’m aware of that FBNeo supports.

Setup

1) Get the latest FBNeo core

Download the latest “Arcade (FB Neo)” core from the Retroarch Online Updater

2) Ensure you have the right Game Files

You’ll need kinst.zip and/or kinst2.zip romset files as well as the HDD img files kinst.img and/or kinst2.img that FBNeo is looking for. The crc of the romset files can be found in the dat file here. The image files go in a folder of the same name of the rom. The img files can be created using the chd files from the latest MAME romset and the chdman tool. Your directory would then look like:

...path_to_your_game_files (folder)
     kinst.zip (game file)
     kinst2.zip (game file)
     kinst (folder)
          kinst.img (hdd file)
     kinst2 (folder)
          kinst2.img (hdd file)

3a) Play from Retroarch

From the Retroarch GUI, select Load Core, then choose Arcade (FBNeo)

Now back in the Retroarch GUI, select Load Content, then choose the game file (kinst.zip or kinst2.zip)

3b) Play from the Command Line

You can load the game from the command line as follows:

(Windows Command for kinst)
"...\path_to_program\retroarch.exe" -L "...\path_to_cores\cores\fbneo_libretro.dll" "...\path_to_retroarch_game_directory\kinst.zip"

(OSX Command for kinst2)
/Applications/RetroArch.app/Contents/MacOS/RetroArch -L "/Applications/RetroArch.app/Contents/Resources/cores/fbneo_libretro.dylib" "...\path_to_retroarch_game_directory\kinst2.zip"

Happy Gaming!

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#2

That’s awesome! I didn’t know this was working yet :open_mouth:

#3

The games actually play surprisingly well. The audio is a bit choppy, but very playable.

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#4

Idk what’s your computer, but it’s running half speed on my i7 2600k. And yeah midway emulation is far from being perfect in fbalpha (it seems the cpu interpreters need a complete rewrite).

#6

Do you think your android device is more powerful than a core i7 @ 3.4Ghz ?

#7

Hmm. I’m getting 58 fps while in game (but bogs during intro) on an i5. Granted I didn’t do any exhaustive test, just played a few rounds.

#9

Some good news, the mips3 dynarec is now working properly and enabled in windows x64 build (i"m not sure the buildbot updated it yet though), it should allow kinst to run full speed on a lot more computers (around 5 times faster than previously).

The fix for the linux x64 version is coming too, i spent my afternoon trying to figure out what was wrong, it needs a bit more tests but it seems to be working, thanks to @flyinghead for his help.

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#10

For anyone not sure about creating the .img file from CHD this is what I did.

  1. Grab the chdman.exe file from the matching version of mame emulator of your romset chd.
  2. Place it in the same folder as your kinst or kinst2.chd
  3. Open command prompt in that folder (Shift right click->Open command window here)
  4. Tell chdman to extract the HD image by typing this
  5. chdman extracthd -i kinst.chd -0 kinst.img
  6. Repeat for kinst2.chd
#11

is this still working. Tried this morning and got this “[libretro ERROR] [FBNeo] This romset is known but marked as not working, aborting”

RA 1.8.5 FBNeo git 5b88b8d

#12

No, it’s not, kinst emulation on FBNeo had many issues (img corruption, freezes, crashes), and no one in the team wants to work on those titles, so we decided to mark it as non-working.

I recommend using latest MAME which has perfect emulation of those 2 titles.

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