Shmup Related Questions That Don't Deserve a Thread

[BareKnuckleRoo]

lol, it actually took longer than I hoped too cause when the vic viper appears it scrolls up at the same speed as the text so there's several spots that are always covered by the credits that need manual pixel-editing touch up on its body as well as below on the blue guy

If anyone wants the good ending done you can message me and send me an appropriate Paypal donation to do the work. (and if you don't have a savestate I can use at the good ending to take screenshots I'd charge for the time spent having to savestate the game to get the good ending first...)

[xxx1993]

But what happens to Natsuki after you defeat her???

I think someone mentioned that you sent her ship tumbling away or something. Kinda like what Han Solo did to Darth Vader at the end of Star Wars: A New Hope.

[xxx1993]

I don’t know how to use PayPal, unfortunately.

[xxx1993]

Has anyone ever reached Haya Oh in the PS2 remake of Space Harrier? If so, how did you do it?

[Xyga]

Some play Progear with bolt/chain; any particular logic behind that choice?

[CloudyMusic]

Somewhat better damage (especially point-blank damage) than the other Bolt subtypes, making a few particular parts easier (the stage 5 midboss comes to mind). It's kind of awkward due to the really slow focus-shot speed, but it's pretty decent if you can get used to it. Bolt/Nail is way easier to use in general, though.

[Xyga]

Ok makes sense now, thanks (I'll stick to bolt/nail though yeah ^^)

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Some play Progear with bolt/chain; any particular logic behind that choice?

Bolt does more damage when using his rapid shot than when using the slow movement gunner shot. The gunner you pick not only affects the shots you fire and your movement speed in gunner shot, but it also affects your regular movement speed when using rapid fire.

Chain's movement speed in gunner mode is too slow to be practical normally and is difficult to control, but you get a bit of extra damage there, and you also get reduced speed in normal mode, which can make using the rapid shot during bosses a bit easier to handle than Bolt/Nail's very quick speeds.

Really though, just use whatever you feel is comfortable. I think my best score currently happens to be Bolt/Chain, not because it's a combo I regularly use, but because I was messing with shot types and that happened to be my best run.

[Xyga]

ha ha, sometimes I wish there was an hidden item to switch gunners during play.

for now I'm just trying to make my stage 4/5 experience less painful.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

It's not well known, but there are actually 24 total different shot types in Progear. I actually find the ones that position the gunners in front much more useful, especially for Nail who benefits from the slight damage increase in rapid mode. I'd recommend experimenting with the extra shot types.

Basically, each combo of Pilot + Gunner has 4 gunpod formations which are determined by what buttons you select when you pick your Gunner:

a) Tap Shot or Bomb (default)
b) Tap and hold Shot or Bomb to pick Pilot, then hold it down while picking Gunner with the other button (hold the button you used to pick the Pilot, you can also press them both at the same time but it's tricky to get it to register this way)
c) Hold the OPPOSITE player's Start button while pressing Shot or Bomb (when picking Pilot/Gunner, the Start button of the player side you are using changes your costume, you need to hold the Start button that doesn't change costume which makes this harder to activate in Free Play without accidentally starting 2 player)
d) do b) and c) together (Shot+Bomb+Start)

The changes are minor, and I don't remember what all the combos are, but the various changes are where the gunpods are initially positioned, and whether or not they rotate around your ship when locked on.

Bolt+Nail has one where they stay locked in place at all times at the back of the ship, not great for damage but gives extra spread to your lockshot which can help if you want extra spreadfire when using gunner mode, but her best IMO is the one where both gunpods are positioned in front (great pointblank damage) and rotate freely around in gunner mode. If you are having trouble with stage 4 and 5, she has one combo where the gunpods are positioned above and below the ship, and rotate in an unusual way. It's not as ideal for damage on bosses and harder to score with, but it's actually a bit better on enemies coming from above and below, so you may prefer to use this gunpod formation if ST4 is what gives you trouble.

If you want a small tweak to freshen things up, I highly suggest experimenting with the extra gunpod formations!

[Shepardus]

I usually use Start + Shot + Bomb for the foward-position gunners, it makes more sense to me and the pods shift around less when changing between modes. IIRC the gunner's shot also varies depending on the pilot and the "relationship level" between the two, and the rate at which that level rises also depends on the combination chosen. It's pretty minor stuff anyway.

[Xyga]

Ok I didn't know about some of these lol. I've noticed sometimes while playing or in replays, formations I had no access to and wondered 'why is it not doing this for me', but never cared to look into it.
Indeed I think I really need to try a variety.
As for balancing my play style to influence the relationship meters, ugh, I'm still far from that, actually unless it's another thing that could make my run actually easier maybe I'd consider looking into it too, but so far I've been skipping that part completely.
The game's always been great fun, for me at least until approximately the last third of the game where I'm always battling, so I'm trying to improve at least for that. ^^

[CloudyMusic]

The relationship meter only actually matters if you're using Ring/Rivet or Bolt/Chain. All you ever wanted to know about pilot/gunner combinations and more, right here!

[Xyga]

Okay...kind of confirms bolt/chain isn't for me at my current level anyway

[Shepardus]

Bolt+Nail is the true ship anyway.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

just for that I'll keep playing bolt/chain, just watch me

[BareKnuckleRoo]

This is why a visible hitbox would've been nice, if you compare the hitbox location the player select screen shows you in Progear, it doesn't match up to the actual hitbox location which appears to be further to the left (not near the cockpit!).



I feel like I've been playing Progear wrong this whole time. Ring's in particular is positioned in a spot that's tricky to discern (just below the propeller).

Please excuse my MS Paint skills here, the hitboxes for each plane are the same size, the red box is just an estimate of their position based on my testing and isn't necessarily pixel perfect on size/position.

[Stevens]

Fucker.

Reminds me of when I was playing Mars Matrix - I was making stage six thinking the hit box was the cockpit before Hyp pointed out to me it is in fact not.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Yeah, it's definitely the yellow cockpit in Giga Wing, but in Mars Matrix it's positioned further back, like the middle of the ship or something.

[xxx1993]

Does Soldner-X 2 have Free Play?

[tnc]

With d3d Groovymame's frame_delay set at 7, I can play Ketsui with low input lag on my lcd and there is no tearing. Anything above 7 and there is slowdown. What I'm wondering is the reason for game specific ini files regarding frame_delay is because while one game might not tear at 7, another one might tear, right? And I can't understand what the vsync_offset does. But I'm guessing if there is no tearing, there is no reason to change the value from 0, of course I might be wrong.

edit: My monitor resolution is 1920x1080 and I'm not using HLSL.

[Xyga]

the vsync_offset can be used to push the tearing line off the screen and therefore eliminate it. depending on where it is appearing (near the top/border of the screen or more in the middle) you have to set a value that corresponds approximately to the number of lines you want to move it.

if it's near the side/top you might need only a few 10's, if it's closer to the middle you might need a greater value of several 100's, for instance;

Code: Select all

vsync_offset     10

Code: Select all

vsync_offset     300

typically when I don't use any shader or overlay I can push frame_delay to 7 and 8 on most games with no issues (my computer has enough cpu/gpu for it)
but when I use some it is typical that a tearing line would appear and vsync_offset become needed, but in those cases it is also often typical to need to lower frame_delay by 1

it's a small sacrifice, but when I don't want that and just get as much lag reduction as possible I just set;
filter 1
prescale 2
which honeslty looks good enough for playing most games, especially on a LCD

and yeah the specific .ini's are necessary but I find managing per-game a bit tedious, personally I create a subfolder in the INI folder, called 'source' and I put driver-specific .ini's inside of it
for instance: toaplan2.ini, taito_f2.ini, cps2.ini ...
and your settings will apply to all games running on those drivers

you can still use game-specific .ini's on top of that of course

[tnc]

the vsync_offset can be used to push the tearing line off the screen and therefore eliminate it. depending on where it is appearing (near the top/border of the screen or more in the middle) you have to set a value that corresponds approximately to the number of lines you want to move it.

if it's near the side/top you might need only a few 10's, if it's closer to the middle you might need a greater value of several 100's, for instance;

Code: Select all

vsync_offset     10

Code: Select all

vsync_offset     300

typically when I don't use any shader or overlay I can push frame_delay to 7 and 8 on most games with no issues (my computer has enough cpu/gpu for it)
but when I use some it is typical that a tearing line would appear and vsync_offset become needed, but in those cases it is also often typical to need to lower frame_delay by 1

it's a small sacrifice, but when I don't want that and just get as much lag reduction as possible I just set;
filter 1
prescale 2
which honeslty looks good enough for playing most games, especially on a LCD

and yeah the specific .ini's are necessary but I find managing per-game a bit tedious, personally I create a subfolder in the INI folder, called 'source' and I put driver-specific .ini's inside of it
for instance: toaplan2.ini, taito_f2.ini, cps2.ini ...
and your settings will apply to all games running on those drivers

you can still use game-specific .ini's on top of that of course

Thanks Xyga! Does filter 1 turn bilinear filter on? My prescale is set to 1, what does setting it to 2 do?

On an older mame ini I used, I had an HLSL setting that I configured using someone's settings here, I think it was cools'. What I did only was turning off the scanlines and bloom. Now copying those to the last build of mame doesn't work. I thought setting scanline_alpha to 0 would do the trick but scanlines are still visible. Is there any shader, setting you can recommend that just does a good scaling instead of a crt emulation?

edit: Oh, I already have bilinear on.

[Xyga]

Thanks Xyga! Does filter 1 turn bilinear filter on? My prescale is set to 1, what does setting it to 2 do?

On an older mame ini I used, I had an HLSL setting that I configured using someone's settings here, I think it was cools'. What I did only was turning off the scanlines and bloom. Now copying those to the last build of mame doesn't work. I thought setting scanline_alpha to 0 would do the trick but scanlines are still visible. Is there any shader, setting you can recommend that just does a good scaling instead of a crt emulation?

edit: Oh, I already have bilinear on.

filter 1 -> turns bilinear on indeed
prescale 2 -> basically makes the smoothing much less strong/blurry

but this is a simple smoothing alternative to the basic bilinear, only when you don't use HLSL.
it doesn't create any significant stress not tearing so it's convenient when you want optimum lag reduction, just a simple not-awfully-blurry simple scaling, only slighly soft.

when you do use HLSL keep bilinear off (0) and prescale (1 is needed although equivalent to off)

Honestly I've quit using HLSL since the settings management has changed seveal times and I feel it's become way too bothersome, so I can't recommend settings anymore.

[tnc]

Thanks Xyga! Does filter 1 turn bilinear filter on? My prescale is set to 1, what does setting it to 2 do?

On an older mame ini I used, I had an HLSL setting that I configured using someone's settings here, I think it was cools'. What I did only was turning off the scanlines and bloom. Now copying those to the last build of mame doesn't work. I thought setting scanline_alpha to 0 would do the trick but scanlines are still visible. Is there any shader, setting you can recommend that just does a good scaling instead of a crt emulation?

edit: Oh, I already have bilinear on.

filter 1 -> turns bilinear on indeed
prescale 2 -> basically makes the smoothing much less strong/blurry

but this is a simple smoothing alternative to the basic bilinear, only when you don't use HLSL.
it doesn't create any significant stress not tearing so it's convenient when you want optimum lag reduction, just a simple not-awfully-blurry simple scaling, only slighly soft.

when you do use HLSL keep bilinear off (0) and prescale (1 is needed although equivalent to off)

Honestly I've quit using HLSL since the settings management has changed seveal times and I feel it's become way too bothersome, so I can't recommend settings anymore.

Alright, thank you! prescale 2 was just the kind of sharp I wanted.

edit: Wow, interesting. I get tearing in the middle of the screen when I set prescale to 2.

[Xyga]

Shouldn't. But there can be a number of reasons for that. Speculations in no particular order:
-Remember to start from clean frame_delay and vsync_offset settings, and start with setting frame_delay first.
-Remember that frame_delay is useless for games that fall below the range covered by sync_refresh_tolerance. if it's set on 2 (Hz) only games down to 58Hz will be handled by syncrefresh/framedelay. those with a refresh rate inferior to that fall to triplebuffering and shouldn't have frame_delay nor offset activated in their specific .ini's
-A handful of resolutions don't scale well using filter 1 and prescale 2, a 'tearing' line may appear but in this case it's due to a rescaling error. from my experience this isn't consistent, I thougth it might be due to changes in MAME but it seems more likely that GPUs and drivers (AMD/nVidia) are to blame.
-In some cases using integer scaling might help (unevenstretch 0, intoverscan 1) but it's not very useful if your monitor/tv isn't quite high-res, 1080p is a bit too small for using integer scaling especially in regards to vertical games in yoko/landscape.
-Remember that in D3D (btw are you using a D3D9EX build? you should) it's your GPU that's in charge of MAME's video output and a number of quirks might apply. Lately I've swapped my 750ti with a r7 260x and those 'scale-tearing' errors were gone. Changing to a higher resolution display (1080p > 1200p in my case) also eliminated the issue no matter the GPU.
-Lastly remember Groovy needs both decent CPU and GPU power, for an effective/working frame_delay set rather high (7~8) plus post-processing (shader, filter, overlay whatever) your GPU needs enough margin to work with, even for something rather lightweight like bilinear+prescale2. Again it might be necessary to decrease frame_delay by 1 (and combine with sync_offset or not idk it's to your appreciation) with games where it's too cramped for 'having it all'.

[tnc]

Shouldn't. But there can be a number of reasons for that. Speculations in no particular order:
-Remember to start from clean frame_delay and vsync_offset settings, and start with setting frame_delay first.
-Remember that frame_delay is useless for games that fall below the range covered by sync_refresh_tolerance. if it's set on 2 (Hz) only games down to 58Hz will be handled by syncrefresh/framedelay. those with a refresh rate inferior to that fall to triplebuffering and shouldn't have frame_delay nor offset activated in their specific .ini's
-A handful of resolutions don't scale well using filter 1 and prescale 2, a 'tearing' line may appear but in this case it's due to a rescaling error. from my experience this isn't consistent, I thougth it might be due to changes in MAME but it seems more likely that GPUs and drivers (AMD/nVidia) are to blame.
-In some cases using integer scaling might help (unevenstretch 0, intoverscan 1) but it's not very useful if your monitor/tv isn't quite high-res, 1080p is a bit too small for using integer scaling especially in regards to vertical games in yoko/landscape.
-Remember that in D3D (btw are you using a D3D9EX build? you should) it's your GPU that's in charge of MAME's video output and a number of quirks might apply. Lately I've swapped my 750ti with a r7 260x and those 'scale-tearing' errors were gone. Changing to a higher resolution display (1080p > 1200p in my case) also eliminated the issue no matter the GPU.
-Lastly remember Groovy needs both decent CPU and GPU power, for an effective/working frame_delay set rather high (7~8) plus post-processing (shader, filter, overlay whatever) your GPU needs enough margin to work with, even for something rather lightweight like bilinear+prescale2. Again it might be necessary to decrease frame_delay by 1 (and combine with sync_offset or not idk it's to your appreciation) with games where it's too cramped for 'having it all'.

Syncrefresh and waitvsync should be both set to 1 for vsync to be active, right? If either of them is set to 0, I get tearing. My sync_refresh_tolerance is set to 2 by default.

Even if I set frame_delay to 0, if prescale is 2 whether bilinear is on or off, there is a thin line of "tearing" the way you describe so it probably is due to rescaling. I have Geforce GTX 960, it's driver is updated. My cpu is an i7-6700 at 3.40GHz by the way. I'm using a D3D build and i set video under OSD VIDEO OPTIONS to d3d. It's not a big deal, I don't have to set prescale to 2 but if someting is wrong of course I'd rather fix it.

I found out that changing bilinear in the mane.ini doesn't work, only setting it for individual machines works. It's same for hlsl settings for me by the way. Now having a seperate ini, I was able to remove scanlines and bloom the way I wanted.

By the way, what does modeline_generation do? I have it set to 1 by default.

[Xyga]

Syncrefresh and waitvsync should be both set to 1 for vsync to be active, right?

Absolutely not!
You only need autosync 1, then GroovyMAME will manage by itself activating the fitting sync method.
Your current settings actually disable the correct behaviour of GroovyMAME.

my sync_refresh_tolerance is set to 2 by default

that's ok.

Even if I set frame_delay to 0, if prescale is 2 whether bilinear is on or off, there is a thin line of "tearing" the way you describe so it probably is due to rescaling. I have Geforce GTX 960, it's driver is updated. My cpu is an i7-6700 at 3.40GHz by the way. I'm using a D3D build and i set video under OSD VIDEO OPTIONS to d3d. It's not a big deal, I don't have to set prescale to 2 but if someting is wrong of course I'd rather fix it.

putting that aside from now you should first witness what happens with correct settings, from a fresh mame.ini when you first use GroovyMAME (recent build) the only thing you should have to set is the monitor type under the CORE SWITCHRES category:

Code: Select all

monitor                   lcd

everything else should be set by GM automatically, internally, without your intervention.
-then try a game or two: if you see tearing, that means something's really wrong to begin and it is not yet time to adjust frame_delay nor make specific ini's
-if there's no tearing activate filter 1, prescale 2 (in a specific ini this time), and check again for tearing. if you see some here as I explained it might be a scaling issue rather than a sync one and it'll likely be your GPU's fault, in which case just forget that option for now and only use either filter 1 alone or HLSL.

you need to do this in that order otherwise you won't be able to correctly identify the cause

I found out that changing bilinear in the mane.ini doesn't work, only setting it for individual machines works. It's same for hlsl settings for me by the way. Now having a seperate ini, I was able to remove scanlines and bloom the way I wanted.

yes that's normal, I don't remember the reason but basically after selecting 'monitor lcd' leave the mame.ini and adjust/select/tweak everything from your specific .ini's in the ini folder.

By the way, what does modeline_generation do? I have it set to 1 by default.

although I have noticed it isn't absolutely necessary, you might want to disable it, yes.

PS: I recommend again using a d3d9ex build, although it isn't compulsory, compared to baseline MAME it still grants lower lag in smooth-synced situations even without using frame_delay (2 frames faster by default which isn't half bad) and also even when Groovy switches to triplebuffer for games under 58Hz.
Well if you really only play games that are at least 58hz and plan to always use frame_delay, then yeas you may not need a d3d9ex build, but that's a more limited Groovy as a whole IMHO.

[Bananamatic]

is there any way to make groovymame stop registering the controller buttons for savestates and enable numpad instead like in regular mame?
also how to make it stop crashing every 10 minutes

[Xyga]

I only know Calamity is aware and working on these issues.