Fightcade

Bringing the Arcade of yesterday into the brave, new, online world.

Fightcade is a client for playing classic arcade games from companies like Capcom, SNK, Data East, etc online with strangers or friends. It's built using a combination of "Final Burn Alpha", a specialized emulator, and GGPO rollback netcode. It can be played on MacOS, Windows, or Linux with minimum fuss, and most importantly - minimum lag. Though your experience will be much better with a wired connection, one is not necessary to play online.

There's a "beta" 2.0 version of Fightcade that has a much more modern UI, a longer list of supported games, and uses a newer version of FBA, but it is very much a "beta." I have tested it out with a few friends and we were seldom if ever able to get a match to properly sync between us. The last update of that version was in March, 2018, and it seems like the developers had to go on hiatus.

For now, I'd recommend using the 0.42 version as it works like a dream and the games it supports are really all you'll need.

Highlights

Some of the coolest features of Fightcade 0.42 are:

• IRC-based chat lobbies
• Win / Loss tracking
• Awesome alerts sounds for when you get challenged
• Spectate on random people's matches
• Challenge yourself to practice or do a button check
• Customizable frontend that looks like it's from 1998
• Supports most of the best arcade games released in the 90s.

Preliminary Setup

Let's walk through some prerequisite steps for getting all this going. You’ll start with the following:

1. Download the Fightcade client via: http://www.fightcade.com/#download
2. Create a new account / register with Fightcade at: www.fightcade.com/#register
3. Download the ROMs for Fightcade 0.42 (Final Burn Alpha 0.2.96.74) https://archive.org/details/fightcaderoms
4. Create a folder in your documents for the ROMs and copy them into it
5. Install Fightcade

First time playing setup

1. Start Fightcade
2. Log in
3. Click Settings > Locate ROMs Directory and point it at your ROMs folder
4. Select a game lobby from the list on the left
5. type `\play` in the chat to boot the game
6. Press F5 to bring up the button mapping windows and set your buttons
7. Test out the buttons, if they aren't to your liking, change em up
8. Close the game and double click a username from the list on the right to challenge them to a match.

Top Games

Fighters

• Garou: Mark of the Wolves
• Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
• The King of Fighters '98
• Marvel vs Capcom
• Samurai Showdown V Special
• Street Fighter Alpha 2
• Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
• Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo
• Vampire Savior (Darkstalkers 3)
• X-Men: Children of the Atom
• X-Men vs. Street Fighter

#Run N' Gun

• Metal Slug
• Metal Slug X
• Metal Slug 3
• Shock Troopers

Beat 'em Ups

• Sengoku 3
• The Punisher
• The Simpsons
• Gaia Crusaders

Shoot 'em Ups

• Giga Wing
• Twinkle Star Sprites

Puzzle

• Magical Drop II
• Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
• Pang

Sports

• Neo Turf Masters
• Super Dodge Ball
• Windjammers

If the buttons aren’t right

If you’re in a test game and you need to update controls, smash that F5 key to open the config menu.

1. Try loading a preset to see if it works.
2. Press buttons on your controller and look at the state column to diagnose problems.
3. Set the first drop down to player 1 and, in the 2nd drop-down, select:

• cps(Capcom fighters)
• neogeo (Neo Geo games, ex: Metal Slug, Samurai Showdown)

3. Click the “Use preset” button and close the window.