forums.marpirc.net

Ah, the board is working then, it wasn't working an hour ago.
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The Twin Galaxies thing is a great idea, the reasons for using alternative settings are to make it more challenging as some games can be played infinately by many players so it becomes more of an endurance rather than game playing skill.

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How will this affect the leaderboard? I propose that it doesn't affect it, the TG scores are just thrown in with the others but marked TG, so they might be in 2nd or 3rd place in the MAR database.

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Also how will the TG scores be confirmed, should they first be submitted to Mark Longridge at the MAME TG page before being posted at the MAR?

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Dith

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dith@europress.co.uk

Woohoo! Activity on the board!
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(Nobody told me it was broken until today. ( )

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Um - I don't know how we can confirm what settings are used for a game. In some cases you can tell (does the player get the extra life at 10k or 20k in burger time, for instance) but in others it's harder - I just uploaded a 'TG' recording of centipd1 (although what with scoring only 20k points I don't suppose it will make the book...) - the TG settings require that you set the game to 'hard' before playing, but when you play the game back, if you hit 'TAB' and look at the settings, it shows you *your* settings, not the recording's settings. The game plays back correctly, since it reads the settings from the .inp file (no need to include the .cfg with the .inp, kids) but you can't tell what those settings are.

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Any ideas, anyone?

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Chris.

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zwaxy@bigfoot.com

talk to the mame guys...do a microsoft and ask intel to put a few useless instructions into their new processor...<p>
i believe Z has affiliations with them...? maybe on playback it could show a settings screen after the other startup junk, or a menu in the tab menu....how hard is that ? NOT VERY, hell, why dont it just show the current game replay settings in the tab menu ?!

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kellyq@ihug.co.nz

The thing is, you can change the settings at any point throughout the game, and the .inp file will record this. So showing it at startup isn't enough, since the emulation might be started with the TG settings, and then changed to easier settings before the actual game is started.

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zwaxy@bigfoot.com

If the dip switches are changed during the game then it shouldn't have any effect on most game, you need to restart before any changes are made.

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dith@europress.co.uk

I have to agree with Dith, most games will not be affected by changing the dipswitches during gameplay.
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In the case of Bomb Jack on which I'm trying to adjust my gameplay for TG settings, it shows the value of the dipswitches in binary during startup - so long as you don't "ctrl" quickly through the initial startup crap. So, hopefully soon I'll have adjusted for the harder gameplay (well actually its mainly that it gives less extra lives on TG settings) I should soon get that big Bomb Jack recording of been promising for ages.... the time has come.

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Cheers,
BeeJay.

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bjohnstone@cardinal.co.nz

Unfortunately my computer skills aren't up to par, otherwise I would be doing it myself, but I really don't see it being a problem in knowing if a player has played a game using the corrent TG settings or not. A friend of mine Mark Longridge has been taking this allready into consideration. The scores (450+) on his page have been carefully looked at as far as the settings are concerned, and will do so for the MAME action replay page when the time comes to gather the scores for the next edition of the book. He's good at knowing when someone has used a cheat, or set the game on a much easier setting then that of the TG settings. He's had to dissqualify inps for this reason.
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Not all of the TG settings are set to hard. Some games are broken into 2 groups which are: "Tournement" and "Marathon" settings.
With tournement settings, games like Robotron, Stargate, Defender, Q*Bert, and a few others have a setting of 5 men to start, and that's it! Now the Marathon settings are used for the majority of the games which is self explanitory. You can find the settings on The Twin Galaxies web sight, and Mark Longridges's sight for even more games listed. Basically the reason for this is because you can't compare a score on lets say Joust of 200,000 pt on (tournement)vs 10,000,000 pt on (marathon). So if most of the scores for Joust on Chris's page met the TG marathon settings, then they would be published in the next edition of the book under "Marathon". For some of you Curious players out there, I listed just a few game scores on both settings which are current world records.

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If anyone should have any questions about settings, or about Twin Galaxies in general please e-mail me, and I'll do my best to answer you back. Also, if you don't have the book allready, GET IT!
It's AWESOME!! A video game players bible! It's the Guinness Book of World Records on Video and Pinball Games since 1980!

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Regards,
Steve "Galaga" Krogman

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*** MARATHON ***

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1) Robotron: 348,691,680
2) Joust: 115,910,850
3) Q*bert: 33,273,520

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*** TOURNEMENT ***

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1) Robotron: 960,350
2) Joust: 1,537,050
3) Q*bert: 2,222,220

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skrogman@concentric.net