Shock Troopers Score Problem

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Katsuragi Tarma
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Shock Troopers Score Problem

Post by Katsuragi Tarma »

that version of mame I can see this photo

http://replay.marpirc.net/inp/1/1/d/bbh ... m37b15.zip

because as you know the file extension uploaded a logically inp publishes the emulator file, but in this case is not

This also happens with

http://replay.marpirc.net/inp/a/4/6/bbh ... 35tg3b.zip
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RAX
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Re: Shock Troopers Score Problem

Post by RAX »

Inp files uploaded on MARP are always compressed in zip format, unzip it and play it back with the correct mame version
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Re: Shock Troopers Score Problem

Post by BBH »

like RAX said, they're zipped files that have to be unzipped to your \inp subdirectory and then played back with the corresponding MAME version.

The problem is those versions of MAME are pretty old now, and AFAIK trying to get those MAME versions to run correctly seems to be a pain in the ass on any OS since Windows XP. It's a problem with a lot of old recordings on this site, but back then who could anticipate things like this? Nothing we could do about it then.

If you want to see my play on Shock Troopers, I have a more recent recording done on WolfMAME 0.106, score of 32,703,800:

download/file.php?id=1017

Note that you will have to set the bios to Japan MVS Ver.3, or "-bios 5" from the commandline. While more points are possible on the European default of blood off, I consider the US/Japan default of blood on to be the true default setting on which real scores should be achieved for this game. You can read my reasoning of why in this thread.

I don't have a more recent recording of 2nd Squad. I guess there's always the score on the Lansquenet 2004 bootleg, but it's not like finishing that is all that difficult...
Katsuragi Tarma
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Re: Shock Troopers Score Problem

Post by Katsuragi Tarma »

Greetings, I have little doubt that I leave the file in the download I could see but not if it applies to your game or is it someone else because when I began to see not pass the first mission or if I'm wrong with This would leave me a further indication of the case.

the management of the inp file in the folder and start the same process that I see.

if there is any error in the file would ask the favor of the correct.

thanks for the attention
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Re: Shock Troopers Score Problem

Post by mahlemiut »

Make sure you have deleted or moved nvram/shocktro.nv before playback. Any game that uses some form of NVRAM (like all NeoGeo games) will require that (also before recording, too)
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Katsuragi Tarma
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Re: Shock Troopers Score Problem

Post by Katsuragi Tarma »

I still can not see, I'm not sure but I think the file is what is wrong if it had been seen aiguen ask the favor of setting this commotion tell me it is rare not to see.

leaving do is a bit of the game, the score is 1908000 and mark fim
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Re: Shock Troopers Score Problem

Post by The_Pro »

This old inp problem gets me thinking. If you can run it you could just make a video file for future preservation but that isn't convenient for MARP, you'd need a new inp.

Although it would take some work, I wonder if it would be possible to build some program that would run in the background as you playback an inp that would record the inputs. Said inputs would then be saved to a file. Then you would record the same game on a newer version but the inputs would come from the app, using the file as reference, thus creating a new inp file on the new version. Actually no, I'm sure it's possible and probably in a much more straightforward way than I describe. Problem is the amount of work involved.

I think it would be worthwhile in order to preserve some of the better inp's here and still have then available to the public. I don't have the chops to actually do this though.
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Re: Shock Troopers Score Problem

Post by mahlemiut »

The_Pro wrote:Although it would take some work, I wonder if it would be possible to build some program that would run in the background as you playback an inp that would record the inputs. Said inputs would then be saved to a file. Then you would record the same game on a newer version but the inputs would come from the app, using the file as reference, thus creating a new inp file on the new version. Actually no, I'm sure it's possible and probably in a much more straightforward way than I describe. Problem is the amount of work involved.
I'd say it wouldn't likely work, since any change to the emulation of any game is likely to change the timing ever so slightly, that it'll end up out of sync.
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Re: Shock Troopers Score Problem

Post by The_Pro »

Yeah, that occured to me as well. If you had to compensate for timing differences it would just make it that much harder and would probably only work on one specific game. Assuming it worked at all.

Maybe someday a coding genius will really want to watch some Shock Troopers. Keep your WinXP cd in the meantime.
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Katsuragi Tarma
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Re: Shock Troopers Score Problem

Post by Katsuragi Tarma »

Well I appreciate the attention given, I still am disappointed to see it, if something that the owner of the score reuploaded the file
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Re: Shock Troopers Score Problem

Post by Chad »

I am going to try to keep my old xp machine running that playsback most all old recordings on marp. If someone can teach me how to make a youtube video I'll make one for bbh's recording and post it. I lack video making skillz. It seems with all these Webex programs that make recordings of windows sessions that you'd be able to record a mame window and then make a video out of it.

Making videos of mame playingback a inp file is the best thing we can do to make playbacks viewable to all viewers.
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Re: Shock Troopers Score Problem

Post by Barra »

Chad wrote:I am going to try to keep my old xp machine running that playsback most all old recordings on marp. If someone can teach me how to make a youtube video I'll make one for bbh's recording and post it. I lack video making skillz. It seems with all these Webex programs that make recordings of windows sessions that you'd be able to record a mame window and then make a video out of it.

Making videos of mame playingback a inp file is the best thing we can do to make playbacks viewable to all viewers.
I use Camtasia Studio (http://www.techsmith.com/download/camtasia/default.asp). It has a "Screen Capture" function, so just download an INP, select playback recording in MAME and start recording using the screen capture (you can resize it to just record a window if you dont want to do full screen)
Its pretty handy and super easy to use, also a free download and trial use for 30 days.

I have the full version (from an undisclosed location ;)) and usually upload my recordings onto Youtube

Hope that helps
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Re: Shock Troopers Score Problem

Post by mahlemiut »

MAME has the -aviwrite switch which will record video and audio output to an uncompressed AVI file. You can then use a separate program (such as avidemux) to encode the AVI into a format you'd prefer.

Do note that you'll need a lot of spare disk space, and if your HD is formatted as FAT32, then you're pretty much screwed. (NTFS or ext3/4 will be fine).
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Re: Shock Troopers Score Problem

Post by BBH »

-aviwrite is awesome but it's only in fairly recent versions of MAME. It's not in 0.106 or anything earlier, obviously... so it doesn't solve the problem of old recordings. I'm definitely not using 0.106 or anything older for future recordings any more unless there's some severe emulation/speed problems in recent versions.

Funny this thread was revived because I wanted to start getting some of my old recordings up on youtube myself. I've been having a lot of problems getting everything just right, though. I've tried a number of screen capturing programs. FRAPS doesn't work with old MAME's. Hypercam only records audio through microphone, there's some trick to get around this supposedly but it didn't work for me. Camtasia was choppy as hell even when I set it to 30 fps. I had the most luck with ZDSoft Screen Recorder, but there's still a tiny problem with it - if you're recording video of a game that doesn't run at 60 fps, then the audio that gets captured will slowly drift off-sync the longer it goes. You can kinda solve this by splitting the video up into parts, but I want the video to remain as one straight recording. A game like Total Carnage which runs at 53 fps is practically unfixable though, audio will desync way early. I don't remember if there's any other programs I tried but they haven't gone well :(

On the subject of Shock Troopers 2nd Squad, because it's been one of my better recordings that even I can't play back any more, I tried to make a new one a little while ago to test MAME's -aviwrite. I got 11.8 million which obviously isn't as good as the 13.2 mil on MARP. I'll try to improve it at some point I guess?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NRsnmeJkyc
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Re: Shock Troopers Score Problem

Post by Barra »

BBH wrote: Camtasia was choppy as hell even when I set it to 30 fps.
This is my run of Cosmo Gang the Video, with Camtasia used to capture the screen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nWTNh5v17U

This is the best I could get it, its a little choppy but I think pretty fair for a game with this much movement
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