Just a question.

Thought it might start the ball rolling...

-- Zwaxy (zwaxy@bigfoot.com), July 17, 1998

Answers

I'm all for the Twin Galaxies book. My only concern is that the latest versions of Mame ignores both the HI and CFG files when you choose to either RECORD or PLAYBACK.

How would you change the settings for a recording on a dip-switch style game, and allow the recording to playback properly?

-- Angry (angry@thq.com), July 17, 1998.

That's not quite true.

It does, indeed, ignore the .hi file, which contains the high scores and any volatile RAM settings (like starwars or quantum use instead of dipswitches).

However, when you -record a game, MAME uses the .cfg file to determine which settings to use for the dipswitches. When you then play the recording back, MAME uses the same values for the dipswitches that were used during the recording - even if those switches were changed while the game was playing (which makes a difference to some games and not to others...)

So to make the 'TG' recording of centipd1, what I did was:

1) > mame centipd1 2) set dipswitch to 'HARD' then hit ESC to exit & save settings 3) > mame centipd1 -record centipd1

Then you can delete centipd1.cfg (if you like, though it won't make any difference) and do:

4) > mame centipd1 -playback centipd1

to play the game back.

Geddit?

Chris.

-- Zwaxy (zwaxy@bigfoot.com), July 17, 1998.

I'll answer now briefly, and talk more later.

It is pretty obvious to an expert player which difficuly settings were used when you watch an INP playback. In the case of Williams games you can even watch the player set the difficulty settings before he starts playing. Of course, the player would have to set the difficulty sets during the inp recording, which is supported by the newest versions of MAME.

In the case of centipede the spider is a lot more aggressive, and likes to collide with the player.

I've watched a lot of INP files, but I'm more than willing to hear expert players thoughts on the games they play.

Mark Longridge Twin Galaxies Emulator Judge

-- Mark Longridge (cubeman@idirect.com), July 17, 1998.

Mark,

For last years book, wasn't a custom version of Mame created specifically for Twin Galaxies scores?

I didn't participate at that time, so I'm not really sure how it worked, I just thought I remember seeing a special version of the Mame executable.

(If this existed...) did it utilize the TGTS by default, or was the player still required to change the settings.

(If this didn't exist...) it would make everyones life much easier in regards to the TGTS if someone creates it now.

=)

-- Angry (angry@thq.com), July 19, 1998.