FB Alpha Shuffle 2.4.0 Adds AVI Recording, Input Macros, and IPS Patch Support

Two tools that competitive arcade players and content creators typically piece together from external software now ship built directly into FB Alpha Shuffle: a native AVI recorder and a full input macro system, both contributed by Gangta and emufan as part of the March 31 version 2.4.0 release. For anyone running Neo-Geo or CPS1/2 sets and wanting reproducible training sequences or clean gameplay captures, those two additions alone make this build worth benchmarking against the FinalBurn Neo workflows most of the community currently runs.

The AVI recorder eliminates the need to route sessions through OBS or a screen-capture layer to produce archive-quality clips. The input macro system goes further, letting users record and replay complex input sequences for combo training, tool-assisted demonstrations, or repeatable comparison testing. Contributor blip extended that further with undo and rewind functions for input recordings, meaning a failed sequence during capture no longer requires scrapping the entire take.

IPS v4 patch support, ported from MAMEPlus! and credited to Emuman and emufan, closes the other major gap for the preservation crowd. The v4 format is now standard in current translation and ROM-hack toolchains, and FBAS users previously had to maintain a separate patching tool in their workflow. That friction is gone. The translated game name import system, contributed by Sho and user 800, compounds the benefit: drop a mamep.lst file into the fbas.exe or config directory and the selection dialog automatically surfaces localized titles, making non-English library curation noticeably cleaner.

The image menu, ported from MAMEPlus! by Emuman and kkez, and a jukebox for Neo-Geo and CPS1/2 games, credited to CaptainCPS-X and iq_132, handle the media-facing side of the release. The jukebox requires placing a sound.dat caname file in the config folder with UTF-8 encoding, a quick setup step that enables soundtrack browsing without launching individual ROMs. Both features matter most for public-facing demo setups and streaming frontends.

Where FinalBurn Neo users land on this comes down to workflow. FBN remains the better-maintained upstream for general compatibility, and its romset conventions align with current MAME naming. FBAS romsets follow MAMEPlus! conventions instead, which creates real friction if you maintain a single set shared between both emulators. The derivative build also means compatibility fixes flow downstream from upstream projects rather than originating here.

That tradeoff is clearest at the extremes: if your use case involves recording gameplay for archival or content work, testing IPS v4 translation patches, or curating large multilingual collections, FBAS 2.4.0 brings tools that FBN simply does not currently offer. If your workflow is already solid inside FBN and you just need occasional IPS patching, a standalone patcher still costs you nothing. The rest of the 2.4.0 changelog, including adjustable emulation speeds via Shift+/-, autofire with configurable per-button delays, saveable input presets stored in config/presets, 7-Zip archive support, and expanded video output through OpenGL and Direct2D, keeps the build competitive as a full-featured standalone frontend for dedicated arcade collections.