This is a revelation.

[casualcoder]

I haven't been on mame for years, preferring instead to play my shmups on x360. But I've been thinking recently about building a custom cabinet so I can play some rare shmups on mame.

Before I got knee deep into that project I decided to try mame out again with my Hrap ex-se and using shmupmame 3. I fired up Guwange, which I have been playing a lot of lately on x360, and right away in my very first play got within THIS close to my first 1cc.



I felt like I was playing a completely different game. Dodging was so much easier, and Amagisu's final pattern was totally beatable. I thought this may have been a fluke so in my second play session I AGAIN got to Amagisu with 2 lives and 4 bombs but blew it because I was getting greedy and sensed a 1cc now being a foregone conclusion. To put this in perspective, i have been playing Guwange on x360 for over a year and a half and only recently did I get to Amagisu ONCE and I had nothing to spare. All of a sudden im dodging crazy patterns like all of the superplays I've been watching (though I'm obviously going to have to work on my chaining once the 1cc is officially out of the way). I also did some savestate reps on the final pattern and could reliably beat it with only one life and 2 bombs.

I'm as high as a kite and all of a sudden feel like I have a goldmine of gaming available to me. My girlfriend thinks I'm ridiculous, and I'm sure I am, but nonetheless I though I'd share this just to put it out there and maybe encourage some who are struggling to maybe try this out.

I am COMPLETELY shocked at the difference in play quality from the laggy experiences in past mame incarnations, as well as the difference playing on my standard LCD/x360 setup. I think one of the main differences is I had a stable control surface for the HRAP, and the lack of display lag. Also, the emulation seemed to retain all of the slowdown you would get on the arcade pcb. What's more, my display refresh is at 60hz so I'm actually playing the game slightly faster than the pcb but it didn't matter because i feel so in control. This is why I love STGs.


 

[Giest118]

Possibility: Screen size/proximity to the screen can have an effect on how you perceive bullet patterns. If you play MAME on a different monitor, it might just be that that monitor is just somehow more conducive to you interpreting bullet patterns.

[casualcoder]

Possibility: Screen size/proximity to the screen can have an effect on how you perceive bullet patterns. If you play MAME on a different monitor, it might just be that that monitor is just somehow more conducive to you interpreting bullet patterns.

That is absolutely true as well. I noticed that I could take everything in better sitting mere inches from the screen. Everything is far more intense and intimate as well. I cannot wait to get building a tabletop cab.

[casualcoder]

Got the 1cc today with a low scoring run of only 6 million. Coming close to 1cc's in espgaluda despite not playing it in years and never getting to the final stage.

[cuttingagent]

Funny thing about the screen size, I actually find these games much harder to play at close range. I'm almost thankful when I see smaller monitors in arcade cabs.

[Giest118]

Funny thing about the screen size, I actually find these games much harder to play at close range. I'm almost thankful when I see smaller monitors in arcade cabs.

It depends on the game. If a game tends to have faster bullets, being a bit further away can help, as it lets you take in the whole screen better. But in Touhou, which focuses on obscenely slow-and-dense patterns, being close is almost an absolute necessity.

Sometimes I actually adjust my head's distance from the screen in the middle of a game; one notable example is the TLB's opening pattern in Blue Wish Resurrection, where part of my strategy is actually to pull my head back a few inches so I can take in the whole screen better, simply because that pattern is so bananas-ass fast.

[ciox]

Sometimes I actually adjust my head's distance from the screen in the middle of a game; one notable example is the TLB's opening pattern in Blue Wish Resurrection, where part of my strategy is actually to pull my head back a few inches so I can take in the whole screen better, simply because that pattern is so bananas-ass fast.

Prometheus does this A LOT in his live performance DDP videos from a while back.

[casualcoder]

In regards to varying sight distance from the monitor, I didn't realize it but I'm obviously doing that instinctively as well. As the previous post mentioned: further for fast bullets, closer for slow bullets. Another thing I notice that I'm doing now is concentrating on the how the bullets look at the place of origin. I find that you can get an early feel for the exact pattern shape by following it from the point of origin and it creates a sense of slowdown.

I remember when I first picked up these games all I saw were a swarm of bullets but that must be because I had my eyes trained on the hitbox which is obviously a beginners mistake.