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there's something that separates xp from 98 when playing back this game, if you are on 98 (i'm betting you are) you'll need and xp box to playback these inps correctly. As far as i know John is the only person who has a machine that acts like 98 with these games but he can't playback these with xp; I would like to ask John what he has installed on his machine, so we can compare and figure this out.

Chad wrote:I would like to ask John what he has installed on his machine, so we can compare and figure this out

Gee, where to start?

Here is a screen capture of my Program Files folder.

I don't have idea

But inp from 1st regular MARP (wolf77) playback for me correctly.

in order to playback a rampage inp you most likely have to find another computer with a different operating system and then it may playback ok on the other computer. this problem has been around for a while and has been dismissed as not being a problem but it is, me and john may have a solution as we're going to try to disect two computers that playback different sets of the inps to see what might be causing the difference.

Very interesting news:

At Barry's suggestion I tried running Process Explorer:
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freew ... cexp.shtml

to see what dll's MAME had open.

The only non-Microsoft, non-MAME dll appearing was GA0003FF.dll which I believe is a remnant from the software of a gamepad I tried to install a long time ago.

With the removal of that dll, the recordings that failed for myself and Gameboy9 seem to play back properly. Metrackle's new 117k inp however, desynced for myself and for Barry. After reinstating the suspect dll, however, it played fine.

I appear to be able to switch sets now, by the inclusion/exclusion of this dll.

I suspect this is not the only dll that can do this. Also I wonder if perhaps the general difference between xp and win98 is merely that the 98 systems are older and have had more time to acquire "compromising" dll's.

Members in the "compromised" set should look for similar situations.

Looks a lot like some extra DLLs that may be loaded with MAME can cause these problems. We already know that Windows Blinds can cause this.

I would recommend that anyone having playback issues in Rampage, download Process Explorer to see if there are any unusual DLLs loaded with MAME. Anything non-Microsoft or not a .nls (language service) is a good candidate. Move or rename the DLL, or disable the related driver, so that it can't be loaded with MAME, then try playing back my Rampage inp - which also playsback under the Linux version, which obviously lacks stuff like DirectX so that obviously doesn't affect it.

Here's a list of the DLLs loaded with MAME on my system. This should be normal for Windows XP systems at least.
http://mahlemiut.marpirc.net/dlllist.png

Unicows.dll will be loaded on non-Asian Win9x/Me systems only.

Trying to "cure" my Win98 machine proves more difficult.

After removing a couple of suspects the machine still plays back in the "compromised" set.

Attached is a screenshot of the dll's MAME has open:

I tried enabling nView - adds a couple of DLLs, but no effect on playback.

Probably worth disabling nView yourself, to make sure nview.dll isn't causing it.

jtc you mean your 98 machines playsback the same way as your xp?

i was thinking you'd have to ADD a dll to 98 to get it to playback xp recorded inps, which appears you have to remove a dll to playback 98 inps. i really wonder WHAT could be affecting playbackabily when dll's are added/removed, i know memory spaces are affected by concurent programs, but random numbers? mame_rand code doesn't appear to be affected by memory addys.

Update:
I got my old system upgraded with a new motherboard and a new hd with a fresh installation of win98se.

It now plays in the "clean" set. This is the set which can play Tommi's 76k Rampage inp and not Metrackle's 117k. This is the set most XP systems are in, not the system most win98 systems are in.

Attached is a list from Process Explorer showing what dll's it has open when MAME is running:

The only dll's the old "compromised" system had open that the new one does not were: nview.dll and oleaut32.dll

Nview is a recent addition to the system so it can't be the reason (or at least not the only reason) for it to be in the "compromised" set. Barry's winME system which is in the compromised set does not have oleaut32.dll open.

Other differences noted:

These dll's show to be different versions from my old 98 system:
comdlg32.dll
ddraw.dll
dinput.dll
dsound.dll
hid.dll
kernel32.dll
ole32.dll
rpcrt4.dll
shell32.dll
shlwapi.dll
user32.dll

And this dll shows on the new system that hadn't in the old:
ksuser.dll

Could the difference between the sets be a different version of one of the above dll's?

My win98, wolf80 dll's:
(edit: now arranged by name)

Yet....if I playback recording, my dll's look like this:

But most importantly...

If I playback in window, my rampage recording playsback only to 24k
If I playback fullscreen, playsback correct to 76k...

So...?

the full screen/window relation to 98/xp interesting...