Playback recordings

[artz]

Hello everyone,

I've downloaded mame 36 final for dos, got it from mame.net/oldmame.html (listed as mame036b.zip. I followed the instructions on the playback guide and at the C:\Mame> prompt typed: mame tutankst -playback TUT-ST-356,560

It will not play the recording for me. All it does is start a new game for me. This file is for the game Tutankham. Per the readme file, the final version of mame 36 dos was used for the recording. The mame 36 dos .exe file for the game recording is the same size as the one I am trying to use, so I figure that this is the same version of 36 dos. Should the recording automatically start, or do I have to do something once the game starts to get the recording to play.

I also have Mame32 installed, but have it in a different directory (Mame32). The games play fine with no problems in the dos version. I have Windows 98SE as my OS.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[mahlemiut]

Sounds like it can't find the inp. If it does find it, it should display the message "Playing back previously recorded game xxx [XXX] [press return]" and wait for you to press return. Of course, xxx is the games short name (ie: the name of the game zip) and XXX is the game's full name.

Make sure that you do the following:
a) make sure you type the filename of the inp exactly (minus the '.inp' and case isn't important)
b) you have extracted the inp from its zip file to the folder that contains inps (default '.\inp')
c) that the correct folder is listed in mame.cfg.

[artz]

Thanks for answering Barry,


My Mame directory looks like this: artwork, Bin, cfg, hi, inp, Manifest, memcard, nvram, roms, samples, and snap folders. Also I have in the Mame directory Cwsdpmi.exe, mame.exe, romcmp.exe, & Mame.cfg. I have the .inp file unzipped in the .inp folder. I've also removed any cfg, hi, and nvram files related to the game. I understood what you meant by a & b, but not sure I understood what you meant by c)that the correct folder is listed in mame.cfg. Is my Mame.cfg file in the correct place?

artz

[mahlemiut]

What I meant was if the folder listed in mame.cfg matched where you stored the inp. Open mame.cfg in Notepad or some other text editor, and check for 'INP = ...' The default should be '.\inp' which refers to the subfolder 'inp' from where mame.exe is.

Actually, that comma in the inp filename does looks rather suspicious...

[artz]

Barry,

I figured it out. I was using the the windows name for the inp which was TUT-ST-356,560 and should have been using the dos name for the inp which was TUT-ST~1. I right clicked and selected properties on the .inp file and saw the dos name was different. I've been using Mame32 for about a year now, and decided it was about time I learned the dos version. As you can probably tell, I'm not very good at dos. Again, thanks for the help.

[mahlemiut]

I am pretty sure DOS MAME supports long filenames. I guess the comma just threw it off a bit (I think hyphens do the same).

[Patwos]

I've always gone with renaming the .inp file so they fit into standard 8.3 Dos naming conventions to avoid playback problems.

Cheers,
Patwos.

[Chad]

yeah you're always safer at 8.3, dos mame supports long file names "WHEN" the windows command shell supports them i think. I know if you use older dos mames on a older dos command shell long file names aren't supported.

For playback scripting help, my script ALWAYS unzips the inp to the same filename d:\mame\inp\_inp_tmp.inp

so i never have any question what inp i want to playback, of course you have to keep the zip around since i'm constantly uncompressing overwriting the same inp file. but it makes things handy for doing other inp processing since i don't have to remember the "last" inp file i was looking at. it also makes the inp directory somewhat cleaner.

[artz]

I've been able to run all .inp's (about 8 so far) using the dos file name. Most .inp's have the same windows and dos names, but a couple have different, namely the one i mentioned on my first post.

All I've done is unzipped the .inp's in the .inp folder, and also keep the unzipped files of the inp's and the mame.exe files on hand. Whenever I finish viewing an .inp, I just delete the mame.exe and mame.cfg file (that way I don't forget what version of Mame I'm using). Whenever I'm ready to view another one, I just unzip the new version of mame.exe into my Mame directory. Also like the readme states, I delete the games .cfg and nvram files before each viewing. I haven't had any problems doing this so far.

Thanks again for the advice.

[The TJT]

What bugs me, is that I can't play KLUI's or JG's Tempest recordings.
Man I suck at Tempest