Hi: I'm new on this Site but when I found it I love it! First at all, I'm from Argentina so please be patient with my English... I have a question: I downloaded a lot of .inp files but when I playback some of them doesn't work And worst, sometimes my own recordings doesn't work either!!! I'll submit all my .inp anyway so you can tell me if you figure what happening. I also download all the Mame's versions to playback the files with the same version as they were recorded but it didn't work I 've been reading all the mails here but none seems to have the same problem. What am I doing wrong?, please help me!!!!! Since I have much more time now, I promise to visit you more frequently and fight for the Top 5 !!!!!

Thanks a lot !! German Krol

-- Castagnasso German (German_Castagnasso@rocketmail.com), August 01, 1998

Answers

Welcome to MARP (that's MAME Action Replay Page)

Welcome aboard, German Krol!

I've also experienced some playback problems with a few games. You need to tell us exactly which games are giving you problems. The ones for me so far have been Safari, Invinco DeepScan & Invinco HeadOn 2. Top 5, eh? You better be prepared for many nights of frustration and agony because it ain't easy...we've got some awesome players here as you'll soon find out! ;) Anyway, welcome and good luck.

JoustGod

-- JoustGod (pinballwiz1@msn.com), August 02, 1998.

My Quick answer

Ok, let's see: I have problems with the Punch Out ( seems like only works without sound), Carnival (maybe bad rom) but my big problem occurs in games where my enemies appears, how can I say, 'randomly' such as Arabian, Domino Man, Pitfall, Mysterius Stones, Pinball Action, Pengo, etc , etc.... even in Tetris!!!. I mean, when I playback one of these games, my original movements are fine but the enemies appears everywhere so I die soon . I'm starting to record my files in mame33rc1 ( no more windows' recordings); maybe that was the cause but what can I do with my all old records anyway? Thank You JoustGod (Is a placer to me be welcome by the Leader Board)

German Krol

-- German Castagnasso (German_Castagnasso@rocketmail.com), August 02, 1998.

MAME Recording problems...

Seeing that most of your original recordings were made with the Windows version of m33b6, I believe that the problem you are having does have a fairly simple solution.

Since m33b6 was the first version of Mame32 that supported INP files, the programmers did not yet implement the feature where Mame ignores the .hi score files whenever an INP is recorded or played back. Many games base some of their random variables on the existing high score table, among many other things. In most cases, if you delete the .hi file for the game you are recording (before you play), as well as before you playback any file for the same game, the INP file will work.

I have had some luck getting recordings made in Mame32 to work properly in DosMame, however, some games just WILL NOT playback correctly (specifically, Atari System 1 games, i.e., Roadrunner). I have since switched to using DosMame exclusively, as it seems to be the standard used on MAME Action Replay.

I hope this helps,

Angry

-- Angry (greggg@ix.netcom.com), August 02, 1998.

Another welcome and helping hand...

Hey hey German Krol,

Welcome to the challenge for the top 5... One of these days soon I'll get back into the recording as well and get back into the top 5.

As Angry and JG (thats JoustGod) have rightly said there are some incompatibilities between the Mame32 (Windows) version and the DOS version. Your best bet is to replay with the correct version of Mame and without and hi files for that game present either. Actually some earlier versions of Mame require your cfg file to not be present either. Likewise when recording the games you should rename your hi file prior to starting. Of course again if you're using an earlier version of Mame you may want to rename your cfg file as well.

The easiest way to do this is to get a copy of the record/playback batch files off MARP and adjust them to suit your requirements.

-- BeeJay (bjohnstone@cardinal.co.nz), August 03, 1998.

Thanks everybody! :o)

I'm learning fast so I started to do all that you told me (using mameDos, deleting .hi, etc)... and I think it works! Thank you very much for your help JG,Angry and Bee Jay (hope to see us soon at the Top 5) :o) German Krol

-- German Castagnasso (German_Castagnasso@rocketmail.com), August 04, 1998.

Re: Thank everybody! :o)

Hi German Krol. Welcome to the MARP! :o)

There's sure going to be a lot of us in the top 5 soon!!!

Since DOS MAME 0.31 you haven't needed to delete the .hi file - it is ignored if -record or -playback is used.

MAME will read your .cfg file for the driver you're using when you're making a recording, so if you've set the game to be easier than the default settings, it will record an easy game. It will also use those settings when the recording is played back. And then, Krool will watch your recording and tell me that you've used 'easy' settings and I'll have to delete it. I think that's how it works, isn't it?

-- Zwaxy (zwaxy@bigfoot.com), August 04, 1998.