Shmupmame 4.2: Lagless Mars Matrix, Strikers 1945, Galaga 88

[dannnnn]

Just to be sure - you did enable joystick input in Options > Default Game Options > Controller and configure it in Mame via the tab-menu?

Yeah, it didn't recognise it. Xpadder works fine though.

[jonny5]

probably a stupid question, but how do i get these 'eeproms' for the cave games in 0.137?

i know, 'extract them'...but....ummmm....like how?

i wanna play some DDP in shmupmame, but even when i grab the roms from the 0.137 set, its asking for some eeprom?

helping plz

[TrevHead (TVR)]

PM sent

[dannnnn]

It's surprising just how noticeable one frame of lag actually is, even a scrub like myself can tell the difference

I'm having a problem with my sound though, when loading a game I get this message: Error creating DirectSound: 88780078. The game then loads in a window (the playable area is the same size but the black borders to the left/right are cut off) without any sound enabled, where as if I manually disable sound in the MAME Default Game Options menu, the game runs full screen (with borders) but obviously still no sound. Kind of odd since my sound works fine with everything else.

[Nick420]

HI slightly off-topic. But how do you watch and save those replays on mame? Tnx in advance for reply

[Hachi]

nimitz: thank you very much. Just played Guwange and ESP Ra.De. with your version: GREAT. Definitely an improvement playability-wise. Nice Job!

Now, how do I get savestates to work with this? Tried it with ESP Ra.De. and it gives me the good old timer issue.

Features :
-Savestate support

Only for some games?
Am I missing something?

Is there a chance for a diff patch version?

[croikle]

Hmm. A while ago ReKleSS posted a patch for cave.c to "fix" the anonymous timers error. Thoughts on incorporating it into shmupmame?

[TrevHead (TVR)]

nimitz: thank you very much. Just played Guwange and ESP Ra.De. with your version: GREAT. Definitely an improvement playability-wise. Nice Job!

Now, how do I get savestates to work with this? Tried it with ESP Ra.De. and it gives me the good old timer issue.

Features :
-Savestate support

Only for some games?
Am I missing something?

Is there a chance for a diff patch version?

Use lagless wolfmame0.99 version and u should beable to save Cave games in there (DDP works anyay, i havnt tried svaestates with the other cave games) Plus most replays use it or the older (laggy) wolfmame which still work on the lagless version.

[Hachi]

Thanks for your reply TrevHead. I got savestates to work by using the 0.99 built nimiz posted with the first post.

Is there a way to always save to certain slot? So that I have to only press Shift+F7 & F7 to save & load rather than having to type a letter each time?

Also, the 0.99 version is a MAME Plus built. Where do I get the Wolfmame version from?

[Hachi]

OK I got the savestate thing to work without having to press a letter:

Save: Shift-U
Load: U

This way it automatically saves to slot "U". Of course, any letter should work.

argh sorry I wanted to edit my previous post and failed -.-

EDIT: I even got it to work with my arcade stick / 360 Controller. So now I can save & load with a single button or button combination using AutoHotKey. pretty cool!

[ncp]

what's the point of save states if you only use one save state though... ?

[Hachi]

I don't use my keyboard at all while playing. I have built a gaming "box". Similar to an arcade cabinet, just without the cabinet .
Well, since I only use arcade sticks/gamepads/steering wheels and no keyboard, I wanted to save only to one single slot so that I do not have to assign multiple unwanted buttons for each slot. One slot is absolutely sufficient for me at the moment. I use savestates so that I can easily restart a game. Huge timesaver vs having to exit and restart a game or soft restart in MAME. Another use is to practice hard parts.

[ncp]

decided to try this for dodonpachi and I'm about to nerdrage my monitor in half

couldn't find the eeproms for the newer version, after like a half hour of looking i just decided to use the .99 one, and then after 20 minutes of trying to get it to display correctly in fullscreen I just started playing windowed. Now C-auto isn't saving so I have to service menu every time I start a recording.

wtf man

[jonny5]

decided to try this for dodonpachi and I'm about to nerdrage my monitor in half

couldn't find the eeproms for the newer version, after like a half hour of looking i just decided to use the .99 one, and then after 20 minutes of trying to get it to display correctly in fullscreen I just started playing windowed. Now C-auto isn't saving so I have to service menu every time I start a recording.

wtf man

just find a site that has the newer romset...download the ddp rom and it will have the eeprom in it already...drop that into the roms folder in the 0.137 version and you are good to go

ive got this running in cab and its all kinds of awesome.....

big ups to nimitz!!

[ncp]

Tried like 9 different downloads and they were all the old rom

[jonny5]

Tried like 9 different downloads and they were all the old rom

PM'd

[CptRansom]

I can't win. The 137 version runs things and they look great, but I can't use save states in DDP. The 099 version allows me to use save states, but everything is really pixelated and shitty-looking (I play on a laptop). Help here or through PM please?

[nimitz]

Nice to see the thread is still going

As for the wolf replay replay patched version, chances are I wont be working on that anytime soon, if anyone wants to help though the source is available and it shouldn't be too hard to do. You can also come to #shmups on efnet where I could help a bit if anyone is willing to try and do it.


Also, CaptainRansom's problem is fixed by now.

[CptRansom]

I'll say it again: Nimitz is awesome!

[Hatta]

Should the source code provided be expected to work with SDLMAME in Linux too?

What would I be missing out on using the 137 version vs. the mamep99 version?

What is mamep99 anyway, googling it only gets me this version.

You mention Raine has less delay than stock MAME. Is your build as fast or faster than Raine?

Also, how do you measure lag?

Sorry, lots of questions.

[Obiwanshinobi]

The lag this thing is all about has fuck all to do with the speed of emulation. When you press F11 whilst running a game, you'll see whether it runs at 100% speed or not.

Also, how do you measure lag?

Once your ship or playable character enters the screen (and sprite filckering stops), perform the following steps:

- press P to pause the game
- hold a direction (arrow key)
- press Shift+P (i.e. press P whilst holding Shift) whilst holding a direction to move the game one frame forward
- the ship most likely won't move immediately
- keep running the game frame by frame forward (Shift+P) until the ship moves
- the number of frames you had to wait for the ship to move after pressing a direction (arrow key by default) is the input lag measured in frames; this hack reduces it by one frame (two frames in games for Taito hardware)

If the ship responds in the very first frame, the controls are virtually lagless (real-time-wise there's still a bit of lag left, but you can't measure it this way). If it moves in the second frame, it's still pretty good. If you have to wait two frames (we're still talking framerates ~60 fps), the controls feel floaty (as in Battle Garegga even with this hack).
In my book thanks to this tweak Guwange advanced from "fun game, but..." to "awesome!", whereas Garegga, although enjoyable, still doesn't control tight enough for my liking.

[Hatta]

Thanks for that. I can confirm that the 137 source code posted compiles just fine in SDLMAME on linux and works as advertised. I don't need save state or replay support so this is great for me. I'd love to see future versions of these patches build against baseline MAME for maximum compatibility.

[Fan of MAME]

I use MAME 0.135 (Ash-Build) and there is not lag at all. FPS is always 100% and the blade, when paused, moves for every frame.
Is that emulation virtually lagless?

[Ex-Cyber]

I use MAME 0.135 (Ash-Build) and there is not lag at all. FPS is always 100% and the blade, when paused, moves for every frame.
Is that emulation virtually lagless?

I don't think you understand what's being measured. If you did this right, you should get a specific number of frames of lag, like "2 frames". The unit is "frames", not "frames per second" or "percentage of frames rendered" or "percentage of frames showing movement". Only "frames".

[Fan of MAME]

I am not skillfull with MAME... (Hah, and I have played MAME for a few years.) But that lag should slow down the whole game, right? So if the player is slowed down, so are the enemies. And there would be no difference in the diffuculty at all.

[Obiwanshinobi]

But that lag should slow down the whole game, right?

Wrong. It's not about how fast game runs. It's about how many frames after you press/release a directional button your ship starts/stops moving. The more frames, the more "loose" the controls feel. This kind of delay is pretty normal in platformers, but in shmups it's a necessary evil at best. So called euroshmups (such as Tyrian 2000) tend to have sort of inertia implemented for the sake of, dunno, realism? It never became standard in Japanese arcade shmups, though.
Play some Guwange without, then with the hack this thread is all about. You should feel the difference.

[nimitz]

Thanks Obiwanshinobi for clarifying all that for the newcomers

As he said, lag has nothing to do with emulation speed, it's about how fast the game reacts when you press a button.



also, inertia is a somewhat different thing, a game could have no lag at all and massive inertia (it would still suck though, but for other reasons )

[Jockel]

Still no way to use shmupmame in Linux? :<

[bob]

Still no way to use shmupmame in Linux? :<

Thanks for that. I can confirm that the 137 source code posted compiles just fine in SDLMAME on linux and works as advertised.

So it seems to be possible. But don't know what to do. Maybe you can ask Hatta for instructions.


Or was he talking about something else?

[Zaarock]

Still no way to use shmupmame in Linux? :<

They've made compiling sdlmame even simpler than before, so anyone should be able to do it.
Instructions here: http://www.bannister.org/forums/ubbthre ... 111&page=1

Just replace the drivers with nimitz' lagless ones before compiling.