Final Fight AE CPS2 Beta Starts February 1st!

[Solid One]

I had the same problem that Cédric V reported. The patcher can extract the files from "ffight.zip", apply the IPS patches individually and then recreate the new rom "ffightae.zip". However, the Mame fork with Final Fight AE support keeps accusing wrong CRC32 in some files inside "ffightae.zip".

Grego, could you provide us the CRC32 checksums from the original files in the "ffight.zip" rom you used? That would make it easier to find the right rom to apply the patches.

[ListoMefisto]

Grego,
the 3rd button is used so you can dodge Andores and some bosses like Edi. E policeman, Rolento and Abigail. That 3rd button was enabled on the PCB board but the original cabinet only had 2 buttons. If you take a look at this video :

https://youtu.be/_qsrL83qAnk?t=1608

You can see Haggar dodging Abigail when he grabs him.

[Pleiades7]

I.....can't get this to work. Tried everything and all the suggestions here. Could one of you please send me a PM to the link of a proper ffight rom, or the hacked rom itself please?

[Grego]

Solid One - You can find the CRCs for the mod in the repository for the mame changes.

https://github.com/originalgrego/mame/commit/103f28994f7e893ea9b79ba8adb01a900b5f677b

The crcs of the original ffight.zip are available in mame\drivers\cps1.cpp under the ffight configuration.

If mame is giving you crc/missing file errors for any of the pal files just ignore them and start mame from the command line as so:

mame64 ffightae

This will ignore crc issues. Make a batch file with that command in it in your FFAE mame directory and you won't need to open a command line.

Listo - That seems like a debugging feature and not something intended to be used by players.  But if you want it, change the input configuration of FFAE in mame to this and recompile mame:

Code Select Expand


static INPUT_PORTS_START( ffightae )
PORT_INCLUDE( cps1_3players )

PORT_MODIFY("IN1")
PORT_BIT( 0x0040, IP_ACTIVE_LOW, IPT_BUTTON3 ) PORT_PLAYER(1) PORT_NAME ("P1 Button 3 (Cheat)")
PORT_BIT( 0x4000, IP_ACTIVE_LOW, IPT_BUTTON3 ) PORT_PLAYER(2) PORT_NAME ("P2 Button 3 (Cheat)")


That will give player 1 and 2 the third button, for p3 his coin button is his button 3, we used these buttons during development for our own debugging features.

Pleiades - If you can give me more information I could possibly help, were you able to patch the rom?  Was mame complaining about crcs?

[Pleiades7]

Got in working....turns out it just needs the right rom.

However....the game itself is....well....picky?

I'm a retroarch guy and can't get it to boot with the cores I've used so far.
If anyone else here uses retroarch, then help me please figure out which core works?

Also....I'm mixed on this project. On one hand, three players with same character picks and different colors IS a welcome change. However, for us mame enthusiasts, I can play the original with the SEGA CD music as a hack (since the original OST doesn't even compare) and use XBRz filters to give the whole game an nice HD make over.

However, if I use this game as is I lose the amazing music AND I have to settle for inferior pixeled graphics, etc.

I'm glad this game is made and it is definitely a must needed upgrade. But having played Streets of Rage and many knocks off of Final Fight for years, I wish this game had even MORE changes. I don't know how hard it would be to give the characters an extra move for instance. Even a second special move like Streets of Rage where you have to push forward or press twice forward and attack would be a welcome relief. Also, if Cody gets a special power with the knife, then how about Guy gets something special with the sword and Haggar with the pipe? Yeah, yeah....I know ALL that probably would require more reprogramming that it is even worth. And I'm impressed by the effort that went into this, period! Capcom should hire you guys, haha. But, one could always dream, amirite? Thanks again for the free fun game!

[Solid One]

I'm a retroarch guy and can't get it to boot with the cores I've used so far.
If anyone else here uses retroarch, then help me please figure out which core works?

As far as I know, most RetroArch cores for arcade emulation are based on MAME, and right now there's no core that supports FFAE, since it was released just a few days ago.

However, I guess there's a core that's going to work in the next weeks (maybe even now, although only in development builds), and that is the "Final Burn Neo" one. This is a core that initially emulates only CPS1 and CPS2 games, but recently they added other platforms such as CPS3, Neogeo and so on. And two days ago, I've created a issue on their github repo, asking for adding support for FFAE. And the developers there are very quick, since they already commited a change that supposedly adds support for FFAE on FBNeo core.

If you can compile lr-fbneo from latest commits of their source, then probably you can already use FFAE on it.

[barbudreadmon]

As far as I know, most RetroArch cores for arcade emulation are based on MAME, and right now there's no core that supports FFAE, since it was released just a few days ago.

Most likely ffightae will never be added in mainstream MAME since it's a hack (HBMAME will probably add it though), and i think all MAME libretro cores have a policy to stay 1:1 with the corresponding standalone version, except MAME2003+ (whose author said it would be hard to add this hack).

[Grego]

Barbudreadmon - Thanks for adding ffae to fbn! I believe ffae will eventually see mainline mame integration as it will most likely end up in an arcade or two, which is the criteria for mame. I have no idea why the mame2003+ dev said that, if it supports other three player cps1 games it should be a five minute code change.

[arcadez]

Barbudreadmon - Thanks for adding ffae to fbn! I believe ffae will eventually see mainline mame integration as it will most likely end up in an arcade or two, which is the criteria for mame. I have no idea why the mame2003+ dev said that, if it supports other three player cps1 games it should be a five minute code change.

Well i never said it would be difficult, just that due to the graphical mapping, input and rom diffs between the older MAME2003+
core and current MAME builds there might be some trial and error until i suss out the correct ones to use, in the end i guessed
right and the game worked on the first attempt which funnily enough surprised me here as that,s not often the case

https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/commit/7d422450bb9cad9fb890231cd64010dd44fd42a6       

https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/commit/4de97ad0b74175d7886d57966186ad886c9be707

Just need to ask you a quick question in the MAME2003+ and FBN cores when we attempt to add a coin for player 3 slot
nothing happens so player 1 or 2 has to have added a coin before we can start with the third player, is this a known
issue or a bug on our side.???

[barbudreadmon]

Barbudreadmon - Thanks for adding ffae to fbn! I believe ffae will eventually see mainline mame integration as it will most likely end up in an arcade or two, which is the criteria for mame.

That's nice to hear, i'm glad you'll get proper recognition for your wonderful work.

I have no idea why the mame2003+ dev said that, if it supports other three player cps1 games it should be a five minute code change.

I think the main concern was the very old cps emulation code (especially the mapper stuff), however it seems it was actually way easier than he thought at first and he managed to add it in https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/commit/7d422450bb9cad9fb890231cd64010dd44fd42a6#commitcomment-36275427 , though it will use the ffight from 2003 as parent for everything besides the patched maincpu & gfx stuff (idk if it's gonna have an impact on your work)

[Grego]

Arcadez - Thank you for supporting ffae! P3 coin doing nothing is not a bug, it's technically p3's button 3. For various reasons we decided not to implement p3's coin button, primarily because on a real arcade cabinet you'd likely have two coin mechanisms and coins are shared in final fight. It was assumed users would just double map one of the other coin buttons to p3s select button.

Barbudreadmon - Got ya, ffae isn't doing anything elaborate with the cps1 hardware yet. I assume it should be compatible with even the oldest of cps1 emus.

[alien nose job]

Thanks a lot for this guys !
It's really looking incredible. 
I use Retroarch and it worked right away after updating FBNeo.

Now I just have to figure out how to make the inputs work as it always crashes my other sticks when I plug a third one in...  .

Small question, I've been editing extensively palettes in a few games, characters and backgrounds(Street Fighter III 3rd strike, Bare Knuckles 3, MVC2), but I am no code wizard, and always used dedicated programs made by others...
Does someone know of such a program with a graphic interface for Final Fight ?
I would be glad to make my own or contribute some alts.

[Zipper]

Thank you so much for the superb work on this. You've made a great game even greater. Got it in my 3p cabinet and loving it 

[Solid One]

Grego - I was able to make it work. After grabbing a more updated "ffight.zip" rom and applying the patches on it, the Mame fork stopped complaining about wrong CRCs and now it worked. Guess the same should happen on Final Burn Neo, after compiling it from source on my Raspberry Pi.

Barbudreadmon - Talking about FBNeo, can you guys please release a new WIP build on here? It'll make it easier for Windows users to run FFAE on FBNeo, since they won't have to compile it by themselves. The latest WIP is from october.

[Goros Lair]

Grego, thank you Very, Very, Very much for sharing this treasure with us (I Also give thanks to Rotwang).

It's no only a game, but a dream coming true. Perfect is the word for the project.

But, one question: Will It be part of your Future plans to enable the 3rd Button (cheat) on next updates?

Once again, thank you and congrats for this master piece.

C ya,
Goro.

[Pleiades7]

Well i never said it would be difficult, just that due to the graphical mapping, input and rom diffs between the older MAME2003+
core and current MAME builds there might be some trial and error until i suss out the correct ones to use, in the end i guessed
right and the game worked on the first attempt which funnily enough surprised me here as that,s not often the case

https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/commit/7d422450bb9cad9fb890231cd64010dd44fd42a6       

https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/commit/4de97ad0b74175d7886d57966186ad886c9be707

Just need to ask you a quick question in the MAME2003+ and FBN cores when we attempt to add a coin for player 3 slot
nothing happens so player 1 or 2 has to have added a coin before we can start with the third player, is this a known
issue or a bug on our side.???

Arcadez....not sure if you are the one who maintains the mame2003plus core. But if you take requests, my hope is that in addition to allowing this hack, can they ALSO allow us to use the SEGA CD music with it? Mame2003plus core allows for SEGA CD music. If we could also have this option with the new 3 player hack, then this becomes the perfect upgrade!

[Solid One]

Gave a try on FFAE this weekend. It worked just fine at most of the time. However, I got a small bug on the continue screen:


upload pic

The tiles of the face of Haggar blowing the dynamites are wrongly positioned by one tile to the left, as you can see in the image above.

It only happened on Haggar. The continue screen works fine for the other characters.

Tested on two emulators: The Mame fork, and Final Burn Neo (latest commits, compiled from source on Linux).

[Grego]

alien nose job - Thanks, Rotwang has a program called "gecko grabber" he wrote that allows for cps1 graphics editing.  Not sure how it handles palettes but that is the program he used to do all the graphical edits in the game. He is currently working on enhancements to it to make it a full blown Final Fight level editor.

Zipper - Thanks, it's awesome seeing it running on someone else's cabinet!

Goros Lair - Thanks! The third button can be enabled now with a custom emu build. If the emu devs want to enable the third button I'm fine with that.

Solid One - Yes we found that bug in the last days of development, it was low priority and only occurs for player 1 in single player so it was neglected for the release.  It will be addressed in a future update.

[MetalGod]

Hi
First of all, thank you for this great work !  A dream can true for arcade lovers!

My suggestion:
Please, Could anybody upload a version of the patch without unlocked characters. I would love to see this the way it would have been made officially. I mean, without having more than 1 cody/guy/haggar onscreen.
The rest is perfect for me.

[Grego]

MetalGod - Just select different characters.