Shmup Related Questions That Don't Deserve a Thread

[Pretas]

Rosa, Follett, and Field E are indeed exclusive to IIX/Arrange mode and were not in the arcade version.

[Austin]

Because it was mentioned earlier in the thread, Gaiabreaker (Wii U) is getting released on the US eShop on the 14th. It's a low quality programming exercise that you should avoid, though.

I ended up buying this just now. The screens looked OK, so I thought, "Hey, a decent looking shmup on the Wii U? This is something I can get behind."

Oops.

Bad move.

To be blunt, this game blows. You can only move left and right, and even that limited movement is relegated to the left analog stick (no d-pad movement, period). It also has framerate issues and a lock-on system that is fairly pointless.

Yeah, I know. I should have read here first. $15 down the drain. Oh well, that'll teach me a lesson.

[ACSeraph]

$15 down the drain. Oh well, that'll teach me a lesson.

Gad dahm Gaia Breaker costs $15!? wtf...

[amdiggywhut]

Is there anything special I should be doing to get Chronoblast to work on 360?

It was working when I played it many months back, but I get an error every time I try to load it up. Deleted & re-installed it but I still get the error. Can anyone help?

[Astraea FGA Mk. I]

Aspect ratio woes.

For DOJBLEX on Xbox 360, has anyone been able to get the 16:10 setting to actually work on a 16:10 display? In TATE the aspect ratio seems to be identical to the 16:9 setting.
This setting works correctly in the 5pb Ketsui Xbox 360 port.

It seems silly that I may be better off playing this game in MAME over the Xbox copy I purchased.

[ACSeraph]

First off, I play shmups on a pad when I'm not at the arcade. Dont judge me.

I'm currently looking for a PS2 pad and a PS3 pad that has optional zero delay auto-fire and a decent D-pad. Any recommendations? On my Saturn and SFC I use a Hori Fighting Commander, has anyone had experience with the modern revisions of that controller? The newest revisions D-pad looks suspect to me...

[Ghegs]

First off, I play shmups on a pad when I'm not at the arcade. Dont judge me.

I'm currently looking for a PS2 pad and a PS3 pad that has optional zero delay auto-fire and a decent D-pad. Any recommendations? On my Saturn and SFC I use a Hori Fighting Commander, has anyone had experience with the modern revisions of that controller? The newest revisions D-pad looks suspect to me...

I always play shmups on a pad.

Instead of a controller, you could try looking at something like this. It's an adapter that comes between the controller and the system, and you can use it to give autofire to most of the buttons on the controller. So you can use your preferred controller and have autofire. I have that model myself, it works great on PS1/2 games. Don't have a PS3 so haven't used it with that.

[Squire Grooktook]

Could someone explain the scoring system in Perfect Cherry Blossom to me in a way that makes sense? I keep getting confused with all these three different types of "cherry points" or whatever, or what I'm supposed to do.

[Prinny]

Could someone explain the scoring system in Perfect Cherry Blossom to me in a way that makes sense? I keep getting confused with all these three different types of "cherry points" or whatever, or what I'm supposed to do.

I'll try to explain the scoring system. Just need to keep in mind the numbers on the bottom left of the screen. Also using the Touhou wiki to help explain this. This will get long since the scoring in Perfect Cherry Blossom is pretty complex compared to something like Imperishable Night (since your point item value doesn't degrade as far as I know). For an example of how it appears, some number like +40359 is your cherry+. I believe the way to read a value like 5000/20000 is to read the denominator as your current cherry value and the numerator as your cherrymax value (I think this is how its read).

The cherry value is more or less the value of the point items you pick up assuming the value is over 50,000 when collected at the point of collection (POC). Under the POC, point items are worth a percentage of the cherry (a value I don't have memorized). You raise this value simultaneously with the cherry+ values as you shoot enemies and collect cherry and star items. Just be mindful that bombing and dying decreases the cherry value.

Cherry is capped by the cherrymax (basically the max value of point items. will explain later on how to raise this value), both of which are linked to the cherry+ (the number on top of the fraction you see on the bottom left of the screen) that is actively being filled as you hit enemies unfocused (against bosses and mid-bosses firing focused raises the cherry+ value slowly compared to firing unfocused). There are also cherry items that raises the cherry+ value (which alone gives 1000 cherry+. I believe this value increases as you capture more spellcards). Should be worth noting that whenever the cherry value equals the cherrymax value that the cherry items are worth points since they are worth 0 points otherwise.

Whenever the cherry+ value reaches 50,000, you enter the supernatural border that ends when the cherry+ value returns to 0. During that state, you basically get a free hit (which is good for survival). Scoring-wise, you want to let the border end without breaking it since you get a score bonus as well as increasing the cherrymax value by 10,000. Keep in mind the score bonus is your cherry value multiplied by 10 (so at 100,000 cherry you can get a bonus of 1 million). Also, during a supernatural border you can increase the cherry value by grazing bullets.

That is a lot to read...but here is the short version. Basically shoot unfocused if its safe, collect the items enemies drop, and try to let the border run out instead of cancelling it yourself to get a score bonus. If you can, also try to graze bullets while in a border (preferably unfocused since the gain is higher unfocused) to help increase the cherrymax value. Bomb if you absolutely need to.

I don't think there is a good way to explain the Perfect Cherry Blossom scoring system without the explanation being long. I do have replays in the high score thread if you want to look at those (though I only posted my lunatic runs as far as scoring focus is concerned). I'm worried this might make things more complicated than it actually is when you actually play since I'm sort of explaining why a particular aspect of the cherry system is important to scoring.

[Erppo]

I don't think there is a good way to explain the Perfect Cherry Blossom scoring system without the explanation being long.

Graze stuff during borders (unfocused if you can) to increase the point item value.

[mastermx]

Has anyone successfully 1cced CCWI Arcade mode Unlimited?

[Patashu]

Has anyone successfully 1cced CCWI Arcade mode Unlimited?

Just check the online leaderboards on Steam? It's not like there's a non-Steam version with scores you don't know about.

[Bananamatic]

It's not like there's a non-Steam version with scores you don't know about.

nesica arcade?

[mastermx]

Yeah I was wondering if one of the top tier players managed to do it in the nesica version. Unlimited just seems insanely difficult. Surely a player like iso, clover-TAC or yusemi could do it. Or is this going to be like the doj death label, where it takes a number of years till someone pulls it off.

[Bananamatic]

it's reasonably clearable but very hard
2-3 miss on the st5 boss+TLBs is doable even with the weakest type I and then you have 3-4 lives for the rest of the game

easier than most 2-alls i would say, even easier with type Z

[Patashu]

Sometimes while playing shmupmame, it will drop from 60 fps to 30 fps, then a while later it will suddenly rush forward as though someone had hit and released the ins button (though of course no one did). I have seen it happen on Dodonpachi and DaiOuJou. It only happens after it's been open for 10 minutes or more, and closing and re-opening makes it stop happening for about that long.

Is there a fix for this?

EDIT: It's doing it to me on Ketsui too. Please help. I won't be able to do 1CC attempts if it speeds up and kills me randomly XD

[LordHypnos]

Sometimes while playing shmupmame, it will drop from 60 fps to 30 fps, then a while later it will suddenly rush forward as though someone had hit and released the ins button (though of course no one did). I have seen it happen on Dodonpachi and DaiOuJou. It only happens after it's been open for 10 minutes or more, and closing and re-opening makes it stop happening for about that long.

Is there a fix for this?

EDIT: It's doing it to me on Ketsui too. Please help. I won't be able to do 1CC attempts if it speeds up and kills me randomly XD

Do you have auto frameskip on? I have noticed that I get awkward speed ups that make it tough to play the game with that. Instead, I usually set a consistent frameskip if I think that my computer can't handle the framerate.

[mastermx]

I'm wondering if bliter settings could do that at all. I'm a complete noob on this, so take my conjecture with a grain of salt.

Does this only happen on certain games or every game. If it's just cave games this might just be the case.

[Patashu]

Sometimes while playing shmupmame, it will drop from 60 fps to 30 fps, then a while later it will suddenly rush forward as though someone had hit and released the ins button (though of course no one did). I have seen it happen on Dodonpachi and DaiOuJou. It only happens after it's been open for 10 minutes or more, and closing and re-opening makes it stop happening for about that long.

Is there a fix for this?

EDIT: It's doing it to me on Ketsui too. Please help. I won't be able to do 1CC attempts if it speeds up and kills me randomly XD

Do you have auto frameskip on? I have noticed that I get awkward speed ups that make it tough to play the game with that. Instead, I usually set a consistent frameskip if I think that my computer can't handle the framerate.

Thanks, this seems to have fixed it.

So new question: Is it possible to make a cheat/hack in MAME that increases the size of your hitbox for a given shmup?

[cave hermit]

Can you use samples in Mame plus? For example to play later toaplan games with sound?

[cave hermit]

speaking of which, what toaplan games don't have sound emulation in MAME?

[Xyga]

Haven't tried all but last time I checked Fire Shark and Vimana were still missing sound.
I've tried using samples but it didn't work... maybe I did it wrong?
Truxton II, Dogyuun, Batsugun+SP had sound without using samples.

[cave hermit]

I tried downloading the samples for fire shark, and I couldn't figure out how to get them to work in mame plus; I got them to work easily in shmup mame though.

Does anyone know if mame plus has support for samples, or what you have to do to get them to work in mame plus?

[LordHypnos]

V . V has sound in shmupmame.
I seem to remember Hellfire having sound, as well.

[Kollision]

So I tried lots of things on this but none worked...

What can I do to run Blue Wish Resurrection in fullscreen on Windows 8.1 at normal 60 FPS?
Right now this bloddy thing is capped at ~30 FPS....

[BareKnuckleRoo]

What is your screen refresh rate normally set to? Is there a setting in your video card that's trying to override BWR's fullscreen FPS? There's no settings ingame for this it seems (I know Touhou has a half-fps mode for slower computers...). Are there any compatibility settings you've tried?

Edit: it looks like the Screen.Txt file in the main directory has two options - one for windowed/fullscreen and one for how FPS timing is worked out (0 is vsync, 1 is timer), try messing with those.

Just discovered you can get select an alternate green colour for the ships by selecting them with the bomb button. Neat.

[Xyga]

capped at ~30 FPS

It's an issue caused by... absolutely nobody knows what.

This used to happen on various past Windows builds, though rarely, but since Windows 8 came out it's become a very common issue that can affect any pc game or software.
You'll find tons of 'stuck at 30fps' discussions on the internets, with lots of advice that will not solve your problem.
It's got nothing to do with v-sync, driver updates or you needing a better gfx card.
From what I've read most threads end without the OP having found a solution to the problem, or with it disappearing God knows why.

Recently there was that guy with a powerful computer who couldn't get Crimzon Clover WI to run beyond 30fps.
Nothing he did helped, no advice helped, then one day it just fixed itself and he could finally play at 60fps.

It's like a disease with no found cure yet. Once in a while someone will get over it and survive, leaving scientists puzzled.

[cave hermit]

Shot in the dark here; have you tried running the game in Win7 compatibility mode? From what Xyga says it sounds like 30 FPS happens primarily with windows 8, so maybe there's some sort of weird compatibility problem?

[Xyga]

I don't remember if it began with 8 or 8.1 and I'm no expert but it seems like Microsoft changed something in the way older versions of DirecX components are managed, it's some kind of buggy/shitty emulation.

Countless games (including many doujin) and emulators are affected (i.e 60fps windowed, 30fps fullscreen), some people just ran stuff on XP via vmware and poof all problems gone.
Patched DLLs and registry fixes are appearing one by one to fix various individual programs or families, but until Microsoft actually begin to care about the issue the shit will go on.

[DocHauser]

You know how the Hi-Score and Strategy boards have an index? Would it be worth creating a similar index for the shmups chat section, so if people want to discuss a certain game then they can just immediately find the thread for that game? I realise it would probably be tricky to start compiling such a list now...