FBA with AM on a CRT Cabinet

[YellowBirdAZ]

Is there anyone out there who's successfully integrated Final Burn Alpha with AttractMode and a CRT? If so, I would love to hear how you have everything configured.

The problem I am having is that I can run Final Burn Alpha in full screen with proper resolution if I launch from the FBA GUI, but when I try to launch from AttractMode I inevitably get an error. A pop-up up error message appears reading "Couldn't initialize [NAME OF BLITTER] module'. When you acknowledge that message, FBA continues to load the chosen ROM in a window (not full screen). This happens whatever blitter you choose --even DirectX9 Alternate, which is the one that is supposed to work in full screen without issues.

This also happens whether I go straight into FBA and rely on it to change my resolution, or if I run a batch file where the monitor resolution is correctly pre-set before FBA is even run.

My set-up is as follows:

Windows 10
AttractMode 2.2.1
Final Burn Alpha 2.97.40 (among other emulators)
ArcadeVGA 5000 video card connected to Wells Gardner arcade CRT

I re-pointed all my arcade roms to MAME for now, but FBA does better with a few of them. Metal Slug 2, to pick an extreme example, runs much better on FBA. So I would eventually like to get all my NeoGeo and Capcom stuff pointed back to FBA if I can get it to work properly.

I know this is sort of related to this thread
http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=466
but in my case I think the ArcadeVGA card with CRT may be presenting me with unique issues. (That is, I suspect my set-up would be working fine if I was using an LCD.)

[YellowBirdAZ]

OK, I "solved" this. Just updating in case anyone else runs into similar issue.

I ended up just sidestepping the issue by going with Retroarch. Now all my games not driven by some version of MAME (basically NeoGeo and Capcom arcade games, and console games) are relying on Retroarch "cores" rather than stand-alone emulators.

I recommend Retroarch... as far as I can tell the Final Burn Alpha core performs perfectly with AttractMode, while the latest stand-alone was giving me problems. The Mednafen Sega Saturn core is impressive too.

It also reduced the clutter of having a dozen one-off emulators to maintain. Cleaned things up nicely.

I'm pretty sure I could run everything through Retroarch if I used its MAME cores to run my other games, but they are performing fine as is so I'm not going to bother right now.


PS: For anyone else using a CRT in their cabinet, check out keilmillerjr's Flavors layout. If you are trying to avoid interlacing at 640x480 on a CRT, it's a layout that looks good at 320x240.

[RottenToTheGore]

PS: For anyone else using a CRT in their cabinet, check out keilmillerjr's Flavors layout. If you are trying to avoid interlacing at 640x480 on a CRT, it's a layout that looks good at 320x240.

Nice, I'll have to try out that layout soon.

[YellowBirdAZ]

I am having to tweak it a bit, especially the font sizes. Just remember you can change the values of the .charsize attribute to adjust the size of on-screen type. At low-res there isn't much room for large type.

Also check this out... I may switch if this will work in lo-res...
http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=1500.0

[keilmillerjr]

OK, I "solved" this. Just updating in case anyone else runs into similar issue.

I ended up just sidestepping the issue by going with Retroarch. Now all my games not driven by some version of MAME (basically NeoGeo and Capcom arcade games, and console games) are relying on Retroarch "cores" rather than stand-alone emulators.

I recommend Retroarch... as far as I can tell the Final Burn Alpha core performs perfectly with AttractMode, while the latest stand-alone was giving me problems. The Mednafen Sega Saturn core is impressive too.

It also reduced the clutter of having a dozen one-off emulators to maintain. Cleaned things up nicely.

I'm pretty sure I could run everything through Retroarch if I used its MAME cores to run my other games, but they are performing fine as is so I'm not going to bother right now.


PS: For anyone else using a CRT in their cabinet, check out keilmillerjr's Flavors layout. If you are trying to avoid interlacing at 640x480 on a CRT, it's a layout that looks good at 320x240.

It's wonderful to hear this feedback! My mvs runs attractmode in 480i, and my rpi connected 240p composite to tv has lakka installed without attractmode. I'm glad to hear that it still looks good at 240p! That was the intention.

[YellowBirdAZ]

No problem, it's a great layout.

While I have your attention... I asked this in another post. But if I wanted the snap vids in this layout to be horizontally-centered, is there a method you'd recommend? That's really the last piece of the puzzle for me in terms of implementing this on my cabinet.

[YellowBirdAZ]

Here is what it looks like in action. Slight modifications, but it's pretty much straight Flavors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQh6EWomnxI&feature=youtu.be

[keilmillerjr]

Here is what it looks like in action. Slight modifications, but it's pretty much straight Flavors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQh6EWomnxI&feature=youtu.be

It looks good! I'll get back to you on the horizontal center in a few days. I just moved this weekend and have nothing at all set up. Maybe preserve aspect ratio on the snap?

[YellowBirdAZ]

preserve_aspect_ratio = true

Exactly what someone else suggested, and it works great.

I also went back to your original font choice (Alegre Sans Bold). I thought it wouldn't work well in low-resolution, but it's actually better. I can get away with bigger charsize (more readable) because the font is more horizontally compact.