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Finally got a playback to work after running the recording after installing the version of MAME it was played/recorded on. Having done that, I have a couple more newbie questions (I did read FAQ and search archives first).

1-I see several recorded scores using wolfmame. I am unfamiliar with that version. Why does it appear many MARP players seem to prefer that version? What advantages/disadvantages does it have over just regular MAME?

2-When I played back a recording, before it started, it gave some info, part of which said "This recording has cheats enabled". As I said, I'm a newbie to MARP, but on first impression, it would seem to me that cheats wouldn't be allowed? Can someone please explain? Thanks,

Joe
joemagiera@ameritech.net

1-wolfmame is one of the most secure mame versions available, so by using it you are saying yeah i'm making an attempt at proving that i'm not cheating. Regular mame has several ways to cheat and make a recording that you normally wouldn't be able to do in a real arcade, wolfmame attempts to force people to play and record games as they had to be played, standing up in a room somewhere, with out an autofire mechanism or computer connected to the arcade game...

2-barry can answer this better but i think earlier wolfmames had a bug where it always reports cheats are on, but bascially you can run mame with cheats enabled and not individually enable a specific cheat that is advantageous to the player. Usually a quick inspection of the recording can tell if specific cheats really are used (i.e. not dieing when you are supposed to)...

Enabling a cheat like invincibility or infinite lives to record an inp isn't going to play back unless you enable the same cheat to replay it. Quiz games on the other hand would be easy to cheat at where the cheat gives you the answers to all the questions .

Cheers.

joemagiera wrote:(I did read FAQ and search archives first).

But did you read WolfMAME's readme?

What advantages/disadvantages does it have over just regular MAME?

One of the most frequent reasons for recordings getting disqualified is that they were played below regulation speed. Many people never check their framerates and don't realize that their computers are too slow. WolfMAME saves the recorded speed and you can check it during playback (press F11).

it would seem to me that cheats wouldn't be allowed? Can someone please explain?

In case you didn't know: Put cheat.dat in your MAME dir and press tab after starting a game. You can now go to "Cheats" and enable unlimited energy and stuff like that. You can also overclock the processors of the machines you're emulating through the tilde menu.

Chad wrote:i think earlier wolfmames had a bug where it always reports cheats are on

No, MAME Plus (which WolfMAME is based on) defaults to cheats 1. So if you don't set cheats 0 in your .ini or specify -cheats 0 from the command line you will have cheats enabled. Mahlemiut changed the default to 0 a while ago I think.

Wolfmame doesn't allow cheats when recording? Also load state is disabled when recording? Pressing f11 shows speed% of a recording. If played back using commanline wolfmame, you can checkout average% used. Average percentage should be over 90 or 95% at Marp..there was some thread about it recently, can't remember straight what the decision was...Maybe it's this damn hangover

Basic idea is not to gain advantage compared to arcade machine. I think if your machine slows down at critical stages, but average percentage is above marp regulation, then unfair advantage is gained.

TJT

I have checked with recent versions, and the default setting for cheats is '0' (disabled). A default ini, created with the -cc switch, proves that this is so.

Cheats are usable in WolfMAME, as there is a category on MARP for various Pacman clones that have the speedup hack.

Save states, graphic tile viewing, pausing, and speed throttle toggling are disabled during recording only.

MARP average speed cutoffs are 90% for regulation play, 95% for tournaments.

EDIT: Looked through the GUI code, found the GUI default differs, changed it. Hopefully, there'll be no more of this confusion.