Choreographed Gameplay via M.A.M.E?

[usernameshmusername]

Hi,

A dream of mine is to beat DDPDFK in a "traditional" mode, meaning only using the functionality that DDP had (no hyper). Since I haven't seen anyone else beat Hibachi without using bombs or hyper I'm wondering if such a feat is even possible, but I'd like a more methodical means of trying it out. I'd like to be able to practice fighting the two last bosses the same way one practices piano: Going at a piece very slowly and gradually work ones way up to the pacing of the expected final performance. Is there a way to do that in MAME? To be able to practice any game with that much control over when the next frame in the game happens?

[__SKYe]

I'd like to be able to practice fighting the two last bosses the same way one practices piano: Going at a piece very slowly and gradually work ones way up to the pacing of the expected final performance. Is there a way to do that in MAME? To be able to practice any game with that much control over when the next frame in the game happens?

You can use savestates. Check the How To Practise section, in particular Prometheus's guide (he has a massive score in DDP).

[__SKYe]

Ah, I was thinking of practicing a slice of the game at a time. But I think you can slow the CPU rate of the game in MAME; check in the Slider options, under the Tab menu when playing the game.

[Shepardus]

MAME has the -speed command-line flag for that. For example, "-speed 0.5" runs the game at half speed. This is actually how I practiced the stage 7 boss in Dragon Blaze.

[Vexorg]

You would probably be able to do what you're looking for with TAS (Tool Assisted Speedrun) tools, There is a MAME version (called MAME-rr) with rerecording capabilities, might give that a try.

[usernameshmusername]

Thanks for the advice, everyone...So far, setting the speed flag via qmc2 almost worked the DDPDFK soundtrack is an...experience at 1/2 speed... I can't get save/load sates to work, which is an issue since I just want to practice the last bosses like I can in steam. There also appear to be shortcuts for moving frame by frame manually and even rewinding but that only gives an error message saying to look for more details in an error.log file that I can't find...

[usernameshmusername]

One thing I forgot to ask...Is there any way to control the delay between switching between shot/lazer in DFK? Does the type of input device make a difference to that as well? That's the other issue with trying to beat the last boss w/o bomb/hyper/miss is it feels like there's a rather long interval while switching between laser/shot than what I recall seeing in video playthroughs...

[__SKYe]

I'm not entirely certain, but I believe that if you are holding the C button (autofire) before you press the A button, then you switch to the laser instantly. I could be thinking of a different game, though.
As for the type used, I don't think there's a difference.