alphamame blocking question

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zlk
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alphamame blocking question

Post by zlk »

This is somewhat confusing to me. Lets say that I submit a score in regular mame for some game and get 1st place scoring 1,000,000 points. There have been no alphamame recordings made for the game. If someone comes along, plays for 3 seconds, submits a lower score of 10 points in alphamame, is my score then changed to be lower than theirs?

If would seem reasonable that if an alphamame score already exists and you want to beat it, you should have to use alphamame. But if no such score exists and you record in regular mame, is it fair that someone could come along and block it?

Marp has special rules for special games. Is there any way that we could modify this alphamame rule for games that do not work properly in later versions of mame? Currently I am trying to play hangon and while I am getting better at the game, I can't quite finish it on one credit when the bike and track are invisible in alphamame67. 8O The game works perfectly in win36.
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Post by LN2 »

zlk, yep exactly. that score of "10" would result in your 1 million being blocked down to a score of "9" since your score was submitted after March 3, 2003.

I think that's odd also...but hey you all voted for the blocking so be it.

I think it would have been nice to have a requirement that a alphamame score has to be at least 75% of the regular mame score to block it.

That would keep someone from doing exactly what you stated.

I think on some cases like Hang-On where you generally use mame36 to still play it so you can see all the graphics, they make an exception cuz someone just playing it with alphamame even though you can't see your own cycle except on turns is bogus IMHO.

Playing with a version where the emulation is more accurate and correct should take precedence over alphamame blocking.

You all so quickly passed it though....so be it. :P
I personally didn't vote in that poll since playing in macmame the outcome of that doesn't affect my macmame entries.
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Francois Daniel
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Post by Francois Daniel »

LN2 wrote:zlk, yep exactly. that score of "10" would result in your 1 million being blocked down to a score of "9" since your score was submitted after March 3, 2003.

I think that's odd also...but hey you all voted for the blocking so be it.

I think it would have been nice to have a requirement that a alphamame score has to be at least 75% of the regular mame score to block it.
.

Hmm. I'm not understand that. It's when a non alphamame is post after an alphamame was posted, no. If the nonalphamae is post before, it's not blocked, no ?

Why we don't make a page with the exact rule and all cases of the rule ?

Francois

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Post by LN2 »

Francois Daniel wrote:Hmm. I'm not understand that. It's when a non alphamame is post after an alphamame was posted, no. If the nonalphamae is post before, it's not blocked, no ?
Nope... March 3, 2003 is the key date.

For example a new game added with version 0.67 after March 3, 2003, four people could submit very high scores all with regular MAME this month.

If someone then scores even 0.1% of their score but using alphamame, they would be the #1 top score with all others blocked to a score lower because their scores were posted after March 3,2003.

The blocking rule essentially makes it where PC gamers MUST use alphamame for new scores if they don't want their score possibly blocked.
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Post by zlk »

Wow that is harsh. :cry:
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Post by mahlemiut »

You'd better watch out, Rick, if I ever get cross-compiling working with XMAME. :)

Still need to get the GCC source at some point though... *sigh* I guess you're safe for a while. :)
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Post by LN2 »

if by cross-compiling you mean building an xmame that works in OS X but requires X11 environment it would likely only really run on the new macs.

A couple mac people have rebuilt the xmame code to run in X11 for OS X and it runs easily 5-10 times slower than macmame0.60a did at least...and 2-5 times slower than macmame 0.66-2.

It would be the end of me at MARP with my mac if MARP required such a build to be used. Now if you mean something else like something that runs native in OS X and can run at speed compared to the current macmame...ok.

Odds are already my next pc will be a pc, not a mac. My mac is still good for everything I do except playing games. I could see possibly spending $300-500 for a cheap PC in the 1-2 GHz range that would be ok for alphamame and WinXP. However, that likely won't be happening in the coming months.

From Hisa's actions against me I'm thinking about not participating at MARP anymore already. It's not worth the harassment and insults I am getting from him constantly. He can't get past it. MARP doesn't seem to want to do anything about it....so be it.
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Post by Mr. Kelly R. Flewin »

LN2 wrote:From Hisa's actions against me I'm thinking about not participating at MARP anymore already. It's not worth the harassment and insults I am getting from him constantly. He can't get past it. MARP doesn't seem to want to do anything about it....so be it.

I can't believe I'm reading this... if you give up.. he wins! Are you going to let him beat you? Now granted, words can be powerful tools of destruction, but there are far worse.. and words can easily be deflected, reflected, inflected and a lot more `cted words' I'm probably missing ^^;;

Ignore the mud that he doth sling,
Instead pummel him in the ring.

Think... wtf would have happened if Ali's opponents took his taunts and jibes that poorly and instead of trying to whip his ass in the ring, decided the words were too much and just left?

I hope you don't take this as insult.. that is furthest from what I am intending... just don't want to see someone the community.... it's like someone moving from Winnipeg [where I live] because they got bit a mosquito [our Provincial Bird ^^;;]... we live and deal with the pests by ignoring them... so can you.... unless you had like this big ass can of Raid... I think that'd stop nearly anything then ^^;;


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Post by mahlemiut »

If I understand right, the next MacMAME is going to require MacOS X anyway. Also, XMAME does have MacOS X support as it is in 0.67.x, if what I see in the makefile is anything to go by.

Also, what kind of feature support is there in MacOS X?
Like for some of the things that can be compiled in for use in XMAME - in particular things like DGA (Direct Graphics Access), Xv (hardware window scaling a la the Win32 version), MITSHM (shared memory for speedups), or SVGAlib and OpenGL builds.

Many of these probably aren't supported, as MacOS X is Unix based, not Linux based, although I would figure that OpenGL is there, that's been in MacOS for some time now.

Still, it'll probably be quite some time before I get around to attempting a Mac build, lot's of shit to read up on. :)
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Post by LN2 »

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin wrote:I can't believe I'm reading this... if you give up.. he wins! Are you going to let him beat you? Now granted, words can be powerful tools of destruction, but there are far worse.. and words can easily be deflected, reflected, inflected and a lot more `cted words' I'm probably missing ^^;;
Well, I started participating at MARP the last week of July of 2002 after a friend actually pointed out the site to me. I joined and was having a lot of fun seeing what other gamers here were doing scorewise and also was getting my game in gear and back up to speed after not really playing any arcade games in about 13-14 years.

However, with all this Hisa crap it's no longer fun. I was participating for the fun. That's why I'm considering why bother participating anymore if I'm not having any fun but instead being stressed out by some forum bully that has no respect toward others?

Hisa posted tonight he will start ignoring me. However, he promised that at least 4-5 times in the past when asked yet he wasn't able to stop. Maybe this time he really will stop. It won't surprise me if he doesn't stop though. He could have easily stopped many times already but didn't. However, if I see an issue on a game just because Hisa has posted some opinion on it shouldn't keep me from still posting my opinion without him thinking it's yet another attack so feeling he has the right to insult me and slander me etc. I post my opinion as input for the discussion just as everyone else does. I don't think I can participate here and just look the other way whenever some game issue comes up. I think gaming is pointless unless you have integrity and respect for the games. There is no point in playing if players are using a different set of rules for games versus other players. The rules must be consistent for all for the competition to have any meaning.

Because I play on a mac limits what i can participate in already. I really want to play in the Deca and other Snipercade stuff but can't. I think my next pc purchase instead of getting a new mac will be getting a cheap PC instead just for gaming. My current mac will last me a while still for regular stuff like e-mail and web surfing, word processing, etc. However, even when I can swing the funds for a PC remains to be seen right now.
Think... wtf would have happened if Ali's opponents took his taunts and jibes that poorly and instead of trying to whip his ass in the ring, decided the words were too much and just left?
If Hisa was just taunting me that's fine. However, it's clear that isn't what he is doing at all. I understand taunts. They don't bother me. It's actually a cool part of gaming. I taunt my friends and competitors a lot. hehe However, it's all done with respect and them knowing I'm taunting them.

Plus using your Ali analogy I'm sure some of those opponents wouldn't have boxed with Ali if there wasn't such a nice paycheck in it as well asa golden opportunity for bigger paychecks from future fights if they faired well against him.
we live and deal with the pests by ignoring them... so can you.... unless you had like this big ass can of Raid... I think that'd stop nearly anything then ^^;;
Yes, but no can of Raid can stop this pest. Marp admins aren't willing to enforce their own rule #1 about being courteous and respectful to the other players and not using profanity in the forums. Hisa has violated this numerous times and nothing happens.

Also, if you think these few game trick examples are it...that's not even close. I'm sure Hisa has plans on submitting several other "trick" inps as high scores and just waits for me to comment on them so he can bash me again. Hisa can cause all kinds of commotion here at MARP if he really wanted to submitting questionable inps for 100+ games. Given he seems to generally be getting away with it I see many more coming.

Why can't he just play like the rest of us and submit scores without using all kinds of odd tricks or tricks he knows are already banned elsewhere? He is just testing the waters. Watch soon he will dive in....making MARP not fun for many here...instead of just a few.

I'm sorry. He might be having fun doing that but I'm not having any fun. I don't need that kind of harassment in my life.
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Post by Francois Daniel »

LN2 wrote:The blocking rule essentially makes it where PC gamers MUST use alphamame for new scores if they don't want their score possibly blocked.
Ok :) Good thing but harsh however.

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Post by SJK »

LN2 wrote:The blocking rule essentially makes it where PC gamers MUST use alphamame for new scores if they don't want their score possibly blocked.
And this even applies with games that only work well in old MAME versions but it is possible to get a very bad score in AlphaMAME?
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Post by LN2 »

I would hope not....especially in cases like the Sega games that only run well in 0.36.

...but it seems the way the rule is written once coded that will be the case yes.

Barry can better answer that one. Perhaps he can make an alphamame 0.36 which would be cool.
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Post by Chad »

It applies but if the game truly plays better in mame36 then no one will upload a recording for a later alphamame and no blocking will occur. We're also considering (proly endup doing) the auto-blocking to occur AFTER the alphamame recording has been confirmed, so there will be some leway for politness of confirmers to have control to have a shady game NOT block better regular mame games after 3-3-3.
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Post by zlk »

That's great to hear chad.
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