Too close for comfort? the revival?

[joeboto]

Maybe now that Ibara, Pink Sweets and MMP are in MAME, the rank system hackers can get to work digging in the code for hard numbers? ^_-

the rank display in special ver is on the top where the score is, right?

[ptoing]

So that would mean that if you have no lives left the base rank increase would be 0.
It might also be 0 in case you have no lives but rose hips, depending where in the equation the rosehips are added, before or after the multiplication with 0.

If you have no lives left, it's game over. ;p

True, probably the live you are on counts as well. Most likely. Derp ',D

[ebarrett]

The best (only) way to play Pink Sweets is to go FUCK RANK CONTROL as soon as stage 1 starts - spares you the headache and makes everything so much more fun (brutal). Not to mention that you score a fuckton more points this way.

Sadly if you do too well you might end up triggering the abominable infinite lives trick and kill all the fun about midway through! Point for 360 owners who get the fixed version.

[PinkSweets]

What would you guys say are the minimum system requirements to run most of the newly emulated Cave games? I have yet to try any of these.

[kevenz]

well... giving them a try is a good idea they're small roms anyway... you won't waste your bandwith for nothing.

I think if you have a quad core it'll be perfect... or dual 3ghz.

[shmuppyLove]

I think there's a stretch from "playing game I like for free" to "buying 400-1000$+ pcbs", most ppl would go for the "let's buy 360 ports" intermediate. (I know mushi1 ans ibara's aren't on 360 and that mmp/ps aren't that great of ports, but still)

Yeah there's that too. But honestly, I've played the PS2 Cave ports, and I actually prefer them emulated in MAME.

I'm sure the 360 ports are better?

[ptoing]

They are a lot better than the PS2 ports. Not perfect, but they are still very good. And you get extra stuff such as arrange modes, which are not always great, but DFK Arrange A for example is very good fun. And HD for those who like that.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

I like the idea of infinite lives opening up most of the game as a score attack mode. That's why I want it perfect in MAME, so I can play with the trick. I would still not score well on stuff like stage 6 as it seems completely impossible to me. I know someone could figure it out, and someone who does would score a lot more on it.


And if you don't like infinite lives, you could suicide on the first enemy. Rank would go up a little slower, but it'd mostly be the same as the port then minus the slowdown differences.

[Korszca]

I tried a bit of Pink Sweets against my own PCB (2006/04/06 MASTER VER.) and there are a number of strange differences, other than the lack of slowdown.

The first boss, after destroying its arms, should stand still as the twins yell at you (which you can milk for some points) but in MAME, the twins start moving right away. They should also stop briefly after destroying the chest gun, which again they do not.

Also, there are more enemies generated in some parts (notably the suicide ships right before the large laser shooting ships in Stage 2).

The start of each stage as well as the start of each midboss has a massive spike in slowdown, almost as if the game is dynamically loading the sections of the stage into RAM. Otherwise the game runs at a consistent 100%. This loading is also evident at the beginning of each in-game play in the attract mode.

There's also some graphical weirdness with shadows being cast too early on the portraits at the title screen. Interestingly, the title screen with the Rose Sisters is correct, the other two cast shadows early.

I'll post more as I go through the game in MAME. FWIW, these issues may not appear at all in other revisions.

[captpain]

Maybe now that Ibara, Pink Sweets and MMP are in MAME, the rank system hackers can get to work digging in the code for hard numbers? ^_-

nerd!!!!!!!!! (i am very very interested in this too)

[captpain]

What would you guys say are the minimum system requirements to run most of the newly emulated Cave games? I have yet to try any of these.

i have an e8400@3.6GhZ and it runs everything 100% except for one or two tiny, totally unimportant post-midboss dips in futari, as far as i've noticed. that's getting to be an older cpu by now.

[IseeThings]

I tried a bit of Pink Sweets against my own PCB (2006/04/06 MASTER VER.) and there are a number of strange differences, other than the lack of slowdown.

The first boss, after destroying its arms, should stand still as the twins yell at you (which you can milk for some points) but in MAME, the twins start moving right away. They should also stop briefly after destroying the chest gun, which again they do not.

Also, there are more enemies generated in some parts (notably the suicide ships right before the large laser shooting ships in Stage 2).

The start of each stage as well as the start of each midboss has a massive spike in slowdown, almost as if the game is dynamically loading the sections of the stage into RAM. Otherwise the game runs at a consistent 100%. This loading is also evident at the beginning of each in-game play in the attract mode.

There's also some graphical weirdness with shadows being cast too early on the portraits at the title screen. Interestingly, the title screen with the Rose Sisters is correct, the other two cast shadows early.

I'll post more as I go through the game in MAME. FWIW, these issues may not appear at all in other revisions.

Not sure why the things you've mentioned would differ, that's controlled by the code, sure it's not some settings somewhere that differ in service mode?

The slowdowns at the start of the level are exactly that anyway, the games avoid 'loading' screens by running background threads on the SH3 which decompress the data (gfx) for that level during the first couple of seconds of the level, which makes emulation more demanding at that point despite there being apparently nothing happening. MMPork does the same, it's just the way Cave designed these. Apparently some people report unexplained slowdowns on the PCB at these points too, so obviously they must push the SH3 a little TOO hard in doing that at times. (I guess higher ranks where the enemies come faster at the start and they don't have as much CPU time as they thought)

I wouldn't really expect any further changes to the driver in the short term now. It will probably sit as it is now for quite a while as no SH3/4 recompiler is on the horizon. For people talking about the sound skipping that's just a general sign that the driver isn't running at full speed, optimizing the sound implementation won't magically fix that.

[captpain]

anyone talking about stutter or problems with stuttering or slowdown present where it shouldn't be need to be sure that it's not just their computer chugging. always press F11 and make sure emulation speed is staying at 100% in the problem spots before you start posting about anything as a rule.

[Korszca]

Not sure why the things you've mentioned would differ, that's controlled by the code, sure it's not some settings somewhere that differ in service mode?

Nope, they're exactly the same.

[Elixir]

anyone talking about stutter or problems with stuttering or slowdown present where it shouldn't be need to be sure that it's not just their computer chugging. always press F11 and make sure emulation speed is staying at 100% in the problem spots before you start posting about anything as a rule.

The game running slower than 100% isn't going to rectify the problem of the game running faster than usual.

[Uzumakijl]

Pretty much, It's quite nice to see that they are emulated and everything but as long as there's missing slowdown they aren't any better than the 360 ports.

[NTSC-J]

Not sure why the things you've mentioned would differ, that's controlled by the code, sure it's not some settings somewhere that differ in service mode?

Nope, they're exactly the same.

Does Pink Sweets have that thing Battle Garegga (and perhaps other Raizing shooters) have where the rank is affected even between runs? When its first powered on, the game starts to accumulate rank, so even when your run is finished there will be some residual rank increase from previous credits. Japanese arcades address this by installing reset buttons on Raizing cabs (just another reason why arcades here are badass).

This emulation is great and all, but for people like myself that play for score, its bittersweet having the slowdown screwed with. I think I`m going to blame that for why Futari Ultra is kicking my ass.

[Korszca]

Does Pink Sweets have that thing Battle Garegga (and perhaps other Raizing shooters) have where the rank is affected even between runs? When its first powered on, the game starts to accumulate rank, so even when your run is finished there will be some residual rank increase from previous credits. Japanese arcades address this by installing reset buttons on Raizing cabs (just another reason why arcades here are badass).

Yes, but not relevant here, as runs on MAME were made immediately when turned on (as I do with my PCB).

[NTSC-J]

Yea I figured just as much, but thought I should mention it.

At least it has the infinite lives trick. (Anyone save state it yet to see if it does?)

[rancor]

Japanese arcades address this by installing reset buttons on Raizing cabs (just another reason why arcades here are badass).

Wow! I always wondered about that! Thanks for addressing that mystery. Any idea why the Bakraid/Garegga cabs always have so many "extra" buttons on the CP? I have no idea what those are for.

[sven666]

Japanese arcades address this by installing reset buttons on Raizing cabs (just another reason why arcades here are badass).

Wow! I always wondered about that! Thanks for addressing that mystery. Any idea why the Bakraid/Garegga cabs always have so many "extra" buttons on the CP? I have no idea what those are for.

theyre different autofire rates.

[moozooh]

I tried a bit of Pink Sweets against my own PCB (2006/04/06 MASTER VER.) and there are a number of strange differences, other than the lack of slowdown.

Might be a different revision indeed. There were 4 or 5 in total, with at least two of them stupidly obscure.

[spl]

Mind blown about the Garegga buttons in jap arcades.

I'm totally shocked because I got so sick of resetting it - I thought I'll just play it normally and insert a new credit since that's how they must play it in japanese arcades!

Anyone got a pic of such a cab with these extra buttons setup?? Which ones do they use and are they marked/labelled?

[mjclark]

Just realised that if I think of Pink Sweets as Recca II then the snowballing rank and infinite lives trick make much more sense.
It's like a multi-stage score attack really

[Vamos]

Just realised that if I think of Pink Sweets as Recca II then the snowballing rank and infinite lives trick make much more sense.
It's like a multi-stage score attack really

Recca still has better music though although pink sweets is really good .

I just watched icarus,s pink sweets youtube vid and the first boss in his vid does exactly what it does here on emu .

[NTSC-J]

Mind blown about the Garegga buttons in jap arcades.

I'm totally shocked because I got so sick of resetting it - I thought I'll just play it normally and insert a new credit since that's how they must play it in japanese arcades!

Anyone got a pic of such a cab with these extra buttons setup?? Which ones do they use and are they marked/labelled?

I can take a picture next time I go, but here's a shot of the reset button:



I'll have to look at it carefully next time I'm there to see why there are two warning labels and what each switch does. I'm assuming one is a soft reset.

As for the shot buttons, they're labelled something like 15/sec or 30/sec for the different shot rates. Many cabs have this, not just Raizing games (although its usually just one extra, I think Garegga has three).

[joeboto]

props to those jap players who can wait the ram loading screen. its quite lengthy.

[NTSC-J]

Actually, it's rare to see players play consecutive credits (out of courtesy to others who may want a turn), so they don't really have to wait, although I'm sure they'd spark up a cigarette if they had to. Most of the time you see a guy crush the game with a J+ score, then he immediately hits the reset when he's done out of disgust that he missed some points on something.

[fagin]

What would you guys say are the minimum system requirements to run most of the newly emulated Cave games? I have yet to try any of these.

i have an e8400@3.6GhZ and it runs everything 100% except for one or two tiny, totally unimportant post-midboss dips in futari, as far as i've noticed. that's getting to be an older cpu by now.

Are you using 32 or 64bit OS though?

[shmuppyLove]

What would you guys say are the minimum system requirements to run most of the newly emulated Cave games? I have yet to try any of these.

I'm running an older Athlon X2 7750, OC'd a little bit to 3GHz, on 32-bit Windows 7. I haven't tried the official u8 build yet, but the last 32-bit build that was posted a couple pages ago is much faster than u7. There is the odd stutter with the music, and some slowdown when things get hairy on-screen, but they're very playable. Everyone's tolerance level is different of course, but you won't hear me complaining.