problem uploading large zipped recording

dbh · Post by **dbh** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 10:38 pm

Yes, I read all the previous posts about upload problems

I have a large Centipede recording to upload but I am having no luck with any of the upload scripts (the regular one, the "AOL" one that takes a URL, or the other regular one running on a different server). The scripts failed in the same manner whether I tried to upload from home (cable internet) or work (an ISP with plenty of bandwidth).

The zipped file is 1.7MB (17.6MB unzipped). I've put it on my own web site for now:

http://www.thedonald.org/marp/dbh-centiped-715201.zip

It was recorded with AlphaMAME 0.69 (TG), -nosound.

I was able to upload a Millipede recording which was only about 700KB zipped. It appears to me that perhaps zip files above a certain size cannot be uploaded.

The error from the AOL script was as follows:

Your request required more memory than is available.

File "main.py", line 464, in main
upload_url.do_upload_from_url(cmd_line)
File "upload_url.py", line 24, in do_upload_from_url
inp = open(message[0]).read()

Post by **mahlemiut** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 11:17 pm

I could hazard a guess and say that the ZTNet servers are low on disk space (again), but Zwaxy would be the one to know more about this.

Weehawk · Post by **Weehawk** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 11:33 pm

Hey Don,

It may be awhile before this gets fixed. (Haven't seen Zwax around lately)

I tried uploading the recording to an archived game myself - no luck.

In the meantime why don't you submit the score with a dummy zipfile and use the description to point to the real one.

This needs to take it's rightful place above the negative1 abomination (which I am still determined to beat myself before I ask that it be removed from MARP).

LN2 · Post by **LN2** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 11:39 pm

The script/server doesn't seem to accept zip archive uploads larger than 1 meg in size.

The fact your zip archive is 1.7 meg is why it's not uploading.

Just submit a "dummy" zipped inp but enter your actual score...and in the description put the URL for the real inp of that score. That's what I would do at least.

BTW, nice. I'm jealous. I'll have to watch that cuz I am starting to think in pc-mames you can move the man faster than in macmame. I can't even begin to cover and keep up with the mess the fleas are making once up around 225-250k.

That's what ends up killing my game...the mushroom mess from them which leads to side feed. If I have it clean I can avoid the side feed most of the time.

I know even at 250k you can group mushrooms together to prevent the fleas and keep things fairly clean but I figure if I am to get up in the 400-500k range that strategy isn't going to work up there...so might as well try and get used to fighting the fleas at the earlier time.

QRS · Post by **QRS** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 12:09 am

LN2 wrote:The script/server doesn't seem to accept zip archive uploads larger than 1 meg in size.

The fact your zip archive is 1.7 meg is why it's not uploading.

Look at this:

http://marp.retrogames.com/index.cgi?mo ... lines=9999

The zipfile:

http://marp.retrogames.com/inp/5/8/a/wp ... _m37b1.zip

The size doesn´t matter. At least not in this case [yeah it´s a bad joke] $\:D/$

LN2 wrote: BTW, nice. I'm jealous. I'll have to watch that cuz I am starting to think in pc-mames you can move the man faster than in macmame. I can't even begin to cover and keep up with the mess the fleas are making once up around 225-250k.

... or maybe you are not good enough yet?

dbh · Post by **dbh** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 1:23 am

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I did actually send an email to Zwaxy about it (one of the error pages I got during the last week asked me to, so I did

but I didn't hear back from him.

I think the file size is actually the problem. I'm sure the script has been modified over time and the existing large zip that QRS noted was uploaded in 2000.

I will try submitting with a dummy zip file and put my URL in the description. Just curious...will Zwaxy or someone else eventually upload the zip from my site and manually put it on the server? Is there even anyone else besides Zwaxy that can do that?

I'll have to watch that cuz I am starting to think in pc-mames you can move the man faster than in macmame. I can't even begin to cover and keep up with the mess the fleas are making once up around 225-250k.

If I had access to a Mac, I could test that theory out

I was actually thinking of getting a Mac so that I could watch Mac MARP recordings. Any suggestions for a low-end Mac suitable for watching/playing MAME on?

This needs to take it's rightful place above the negative1 abomination (which I am still determined to beat myself before I ask that it be removed from MARP).

Well, you're not too far off from his score. I think you'll be able to beat him soon, especially if you can utilize the strategies we discussed in the TG forums. Let me know if you have any more questions about that.

I haven't watched his recording, so I'm am not sure why you refer to it as an "abomination"? Did he use the blob method or something like he did in one of the other clones?

QRS · Post by **QRS** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 1:43 am

True, Donald. Chris might have done something about the scirpt since that file was uploaded.

*Edit*

I just tried to upload your zip file in my own name *MWAHAHA* but it didn´t work. I tried all of the upload forms, so there is indeed some kind of problem with the size. I guess Chris is the only one that can fix your file into the server. Let´s hope he will be back soon :=)

Weehawk · Post by **Weehawk** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 3:19 am

Don wrote:I haven't watched his recording, so I'm am not sure why you refer to it as an "abomination"?

Well, I hadn't wanted to really get into it here until I beat the score, but this is a member who had several scores disqualified for slowdown, and when alphamame became "mandatory" (sorta), he disappeared.

When I first watched the recording and saw the inept movement of the shooter, I thought "This must not be the right recording..this guy's gonna be through before he gets his first extra man...". Of course he wasn't. He did play the blob method, but although I personally don't care for it, I do not think there is reason enough to ban it from competition at MARP. It does however appear obvious to me that the game was not played at regulation speed. It is clearly not the play of a Centipede player capable of attaining that kind of score legitimately.

I want to beat it fair and square however, before I formally make a case for removing it, so that I may be seen not to have any personal motives for doing so.

BTW, might I prevail upon you to try your hand at arcadecl-sc? It appears easier than normal Centipede in that the side feed speed doesn't seem to ramp up very high, but the spiders don't always stay moving in the same direction, sometimes they reverse field and leave the same side they came in from. Also the fleas are pretty relentless - so much so that in his 711k game, no scorpions come out after 500k or so...because the fleas never stop. I don't think I would ever be able to beat this one legitimately.

LN2 · Post by **LN2** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 4:27 am

dbh wrote:If I had access to a Mac, I could test that theory out I was actually thinking of getting a Mac so that I could watch Mac MARP recordings. Any suggestions for a low-end Mac suitable for watching/playing MAME on?

For watching...any G3 or better will do...cuz speed doesn't matter much for watching. For most games you can alter the frameskip on playback and it doesn't affect the playback to get the speed.

However, playing is another story.

First, be aware the last few versions of the official macmame are for OS X only. If you got an older mac with only OS 9 on it you wouldn't be able to view replays using these latest versions of macmame. 0.66.2.x is the latest official version for OS X. However, there is an unofficial version put out by a japanese group that does also run in OS 9. I have used that version from time to time cuz they are fast to release new versions where the official takes a bit. In every case replay files made with the unofficial one playback fine in the official one...so likely no issue going the other way also.

The new official macmame has a great new integrated opengl renderer optimized for OS X that works very well. The unofficial one doesn't have this...since it's made to run in both OS X and OS 9.

I play macmame on a 450MHz G3. For most of the golden era classics, I can play them at 100% without using any frameskip. For others like Marble Madness or Gauntlet etc., I need to use a frameskip of 6.

It depends on the budget you set for buying the mac. Through eBay you can get some macs pretty cheap....others are pricy. It varies.

If you seriously wanted to play most games using a mac then I would recommend something more along the lines of a 800+Mhz G4. The cheapest mac along these lines is actually likely an eMac...which even new is only like $700 and is an all-in-one type unit....display and CPU etc. all in 1 casing. You can get details on that at the Apple store if interested.

You likely can find some used/refurbished towers of similar speed for what likely would end up being about the same price.

I would just check eBay to get what market values are for used and older macs.

My 450Mhz G3 does me pretty good for most games I want to play so perhaps something along the lines of a 500Mhz G4 would be enough for what you would want to play.

I hope that helps. Think of it similar to PCs. Think of what you can play on a 600-700Mhz Pentium system....that would be fairly similar to how a 500Mhz G4 would be. If getting one with OS X, for it to run pretty well; you will want to have at least 384 and perhaps 512 meg of RAM in it. One with OS 9, 192 or 256 meg would be plenty.

Post by **mahlemiut** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 4:40 am

If you're tight on money, buy a PC instead.

LN2 · Post by **LN2** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 8:33 am

mahlemiut wrote:If you're tight on money, buy a PC instead.

Read his above. He obviously has a PC.

He wants to buy a mac so he can watch some macmame replays..or make some of his own.

Donald, which replays in particular did you want to watch?

Some are cross-platform compatible...others like pac-man, can be converted so playable in pc-mame.

I personally wish the pc-mame dev team would bitch slap the mac dev a few times to get him to match the PC replay file format.

We would still have some cross-platform issues due to difference in pseudo-random selections in some games, but that would be about it. A much higher % of games would result in replays that are cross-platform compatible if the file format was only the same.

I'll have to get details on exactly what LordGaz did to convert my pac-man inp. Perhaps I can make a small converter util...even if terminal based...hehe...to do a similar treatment to other inps. I can then more easily see if that resolves others.

I think it would resolve others like Marble Madness and perhaps even Millipede and centipede. The question for those would be if the fleas and spiders are some pseudo-random thing that might differ.

I just played about 10-15 millipede games. I'm frustrated. Most were in the 230-245k range. Even with that, my high was 249k...which was a new personal high for me in MAME.

You would think with 5-10+ games in the 230k range that at least one of them would be up around the 300k range.

If I had the $$$ for it I would get one of those Razor Boomslang mice...cuz I think that would help me a lot. I have many tracking issues when playing that lead to some deaths....where my optical mouse goes spastic or something. I barely move it and the man goes warping across the screen.

I see it in my OS at times also...so it's not a macmame issue I think....but a mouse or mouse driver issue.

Weehawk · Post by **Weehawk** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 9:51 am

LN2 wrote:Read his above. He obviously has a PC.

Maybe he meant buy you a PC so the rest of us wouldn't have to get macs to watch your recordings.

LN2 wrote:If I had the $$$ for it I would get one of those Razor Boomslang mice...cuz I think that would help me a lot.

I got one just on the chance that it might help any. I meant to post a review, but upon searching it appears that I never did.

The Boomslang basically was like playing with my regular mouse with higher sensitivity settings. To get the same gearing that you would have with the ordinary mouse you just had to turn down the sensitivity in the game. It didn't help any. The analog overflow didn't seem any better or worse with it. I think my uploads for the Kick-man games used the Boomslang. On that game I preferred the higher sensitivity, but of course I could have achieved it just as easily by turning the sensitivity in the game up the right amount. Ergonomically the Boomslang didn't feel as weird as it looked, and I could even imagine someone preferring it if they got used to it. I'll send it to you if you want...I think you can download a mac driver for it somewhere.

Phil Lamat · Post by **Phil Lamat** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 1:51 pm

Weehawk wrote:
Don wrote: He did play the blob method, .

What do you call the "blob method" ?

LN2 · Post by **LN2** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 5:18 pm

Phil Lamat wrote:What do you call the "blob method" ?

The blob method is where you intentionally create/leave a "blob" of mushrooms on the bottom area of the screen to prevent fleas from dropping down.

When I do blobs I find I end up with a few alternate vertical columns "blobs" in the right-center of the screen. Why alternate columns?

Well, for one the spider comes in then vertically moves up certain columns...eating the mushrooms....but won't do that to other columns.

If you are on top of things you get all the spiders though to prevent him from eating any of your blob. hehe You also can get a blob formed near the corners where most spiders won't eat any of them.

I had a blob set up once that was really nice where I went through 2 entire cycles of the centipede waves without 1 flea dropping down and without 1 occurance of side feed.

Since watching Donald play a couple weeks ago I have been trying to play in the pure shoot up everything style. hehe

LN2 · Post by **LN2** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 5:23 pm

Weehawk wrote:The Boomslang basically was like playing with my regular mouse with higher sensitivity settings.

Well, my main point was perhaps I would do better and get better tracking using a ball mouse instead of my optical mouse.

It seems my optical mouse sometimes throws a bad signal cuz even using it in the OS I can start moving it up and to the left and the cursor will warp over to the right before going up and left.

It's like where it was resting it was on an "edge" where the first movement registered as toward the right which for some reason registers as a gigantic movement...when it's not at all.

It happens to me at least a few times each game I play...often costing me men...and sometimes the game.

It could be the surface I use the mouse on. I have it on a typical deskpad type thing. I have an old ball mouse I might pull out and try with centipede and millipede to see if tracking is better for those games.

I stopped using that mouse cuz the clicker gets stuck sometimes...but for those games I use the mouse only for movement. I use the control key for firing.