Ok, here's the deal.(posted 9528 days ago)The fundamental problem with MAME inp files are rerecordings, and play on a slow machine.
If MAME was changed with a good encryption scheme which also included frame rate information, cheating would be almost impossible. It really shouldn't be too difficult to add this to TG MAME.
It is all for naught if none of the players use this new version.
So I am proposing setting up an anonymous ftp site with the tournament version. Anyone who wants to can download this new version for personal/tournament use only. This is allowed under the MAME license aggreement.
To put it bluntly, if you are going to have a tournament, why not making cheating as DIFFICULT AS POSSIBLE?
The new version will have the following features:
1) No rerecording ability 2) No pause 3) New and tougher encryption 4) Time stamp for the frame rate 5) No distribution of source
Anyone who wants to can download the new version anonymously. This is probably the last time I'm going to open this particular can of worms. It's crystal clear to me that some players are using some sort of slowdown scheme for T2. This is a viable way to correct that problem. If there is no interest in this from the players then I'm going to stop posting about this on MARP.
Please let me know what you all think.
Mark