Table of Contents
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Bally Astrocade
The Bally Astrocade (a.k.a. Bally Home Library Computer, Bally Professional Arcade or Bally ABA-1000) is a console developed by Bally Manufacturing. It was released in April 1978 by mail order as the Bally Professional Arcade.
Bally only marketed it for a short time before deciding to exit the market. The rights were later picked up by Astrovision in 1982, who re-released it as the Astrocade and sold it until around 1984.
It was notable for its very powerful graphical capabilities, however it was also complicated to program for and lack certain programming features such as sprites.
This system scrapes metadata for the “astrocde” group and loads the astrocde set from the currently selected theme, if available.
Quick reference
- Emulator: MAME
- Folder:
/userdata/roms/astrocade(/userdata/roms/astrocdeup to Batocera 42) - Accepted ROM formats:
.bin,.zip,.7z
BIOS
No Astrocade emulator in Batocera needs a BIOS file to run.
Requires MAME BIOS file astrocde.zip or .7z in either the roms/astrocde or BIOS folder.
Where? Be specific.
ROMs
Place your Bally Astrocade ROMs in /userdata/roms/astrocade.
Emulators
MAME
MAME, the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, is a multi-purpose emulation framework which facilitates the emulation of vintage hardware and software. Originally targeting vintage arcade machines, MAME has since absorbed the sister-project MESS (Multi Emulator Super System) to support a wide variety of vintage computers, video game consoles and calculators as well. MAME doesn't use an individual “core” for each system like RetroArch does, instead the ROM itself usually contains the necessary information to accurately emulate it, thus making it specific to the version of MAME it was made for. Overall it's a very complicated subject, we have a guide specific to arcade just for it.
MAME configuration
MAME offers a Menu in-game ([HOTKEY] + 
or [Tab] on the keyboard). This can be used to manually adjust inputs or game settings. If you're having issues with a specific game, check the MAMEdev FAQ for that game here. For MESS systems specifically, you might find more information on MESS's wiki. All options can also be edited by opening the mame.ini file.
Standardized features available to all versions of this emulator: astrocde.videomode, astrocde.decoration, astrocde.padtokeyboard
ES setting name batocera.conf_key | Description ⇒ ES option key_value |
|---|---|
| Settings that apply to all versions of this emulator | |
GRAPHICS BACKEND astrocde.video | Choose your graphics rendering ⇒ BGFX bgfx, Accel accel, OpenGL opengl. |
BGFX BACKEND astrocde.bgfxbackend | Choose your graphics API ⇒ MAME Detect automatic, OpenGL opengl, OpenGL ES gles, Vulkan vulkan. |
BGFX VIDEO FILTER astrocde.bgfxshaders | Apply a particular visual effect ⇒ Off None, Bilinear default, CRT Geom crt-geom, CRT Geom Deluxe crt-geom-deluxe, Super Eagle eagle, HLSL hlsl, HQ2X hq2x, HQ3X hq3x, HQ4X hq4x. |
CRT SWITCHRES astrocde.switchres | CRT monitor SwitchRes support ⇒ Off 0, On 1. |
TATE MODE astrocde.rotation | Rotating display to vertical mode rendering ⇒ Off None, Rotate 90 autoror, Rotate 270 autorol. |
ALT DPAD MODE astrocde.altdpad | If the D-Pad does not work properly ⇒ Off (Default) 0, DS3 Orientation 1, X360 Orientation 2. |
Settings specific to astrocde |
|
CUSTOM CONFIG astrocde.pergamecfg | Enable per-game custom configuration via MAME menu ⇒ On 1, Off 0. |
Controls
Here are the default Bally Astrocade's controls shown on a Batocera Retropad:
Troubleshooting
Further troubleshooting
For problems with MAME specifically, there are some tips on the troubleshooting section on MAME's system page.
For further troubleshooting, refer to the generic support pages.