negative1's Super Breakout (sbrkout) recordings

diabolik · Post by **diabolik** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 2:51 pm

Could one of the editors check these recordings for slowdown, these are looking very suspicious to me:

http://marp.retrogames.com/index.cgi?mo ... 00&tourn=0

http://marp.retrogames.com/inp/rg1_sbrk ... _win61.zip
http://marp.retrogames.com/inp/rg1_sbrk ... _win61.zip
http://marp.retrogames.com/inp/rg1_sbrk ... _win61.zip

Chad · Post by **Chad** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 3:02 pm

sorry, i found nothing conclusive either way with these, at least they played back. negative1 did admit to having a slow computer, though for the ones that have no proof either way there's not much we can do about it other than asking him to re-record with alpha mame or tgmame.

diabolik · Post by **diabolik** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 3:21 pm

Ok, thanks anyways for checking them.

Francois Daniel · Post by **Francois Daniel** » Tue Dec 24, 2002 1:27 am

By the Willou's method, it plays at 100%

Francois

Phil Lamat · Post by **Phil Lamat** » Wed Dec 25, 2002 6:52 am

C'est quoi la méthode Willou ???

LN2 · Post by **LN2** » Fri Dec 27, 2002 4:08 pm

Well, without knowing that method it seems you can manually time the game, then check the inp filesize ..knowing how many bytes are saved for each frame after you have subtracted the #bytes for the header info(although that doesn't really matter if a long inp recording) you can easily get how many frames of input are saved. Then Divide the total #frames but total #secs to get an average frame rate for the recording so if they were below 60fps lots of the time then that average would reflect that.

I guess that even could be fooled though by having the speed throttle off where at times you might get beyond 60fps then below 60fps for certain areas...but that likely wouldn't apply to super breakout as the display and audio is so basic even a 100Mhz PC could likely play this at 100%. Also if you even playedlike this odds are you wouldn't be able to play very well from the variance of input response as the frame rate varies and the speed the game plays varies....I know I play much better when the game is running at 100% and constant speed.

Chad · Post by **Chad** » Fri Dec 27, 2002 5:31 pm

I'm pretty sure you can't do it that way LN2, because you don't know the exact time length of the recording, you can only tell the exact time of the playback. I.e. even if someone did "slowdown" on the recording, how are you going to "time" the length of the game recorded? There is a date and time (of the begining of the recording i think since it's a creation date) you can't get an acurate end time of the recording. The date uploaded might be the end date but who zips and uploads so quickly to make that acurate. Usually it takes a few minutes to zip and upload at best. You also can't accurately get the number of frames by dividing the filesize by frame size, since analogue frames store variable amounts of data in their inp frame entry and the size of each frame is unexpected. This, ignoring the fact that that the timestamps can be easily faked.

The method the marp editors use to detect slowdowns/autofire analyzes the joystick movements and button presses which can't be faked. Though, it can provide inconclusive results.

JoustGod · Post by **JoustGod** » Fri Dec 27, 2002 8:57 pm

Diabolik, you have reason to be suspicious with this particular player. I'm frankly quite tired of giving negative 1 and roncli the benefit of the doubt when both players have repeatedly refused and/or ignored requests to do at least a few recordings on a more secure version of MAME. Anyone who plays the games that these two have submitted recordings for and witnessed their "remarkable" learning curve that occured in such a short time will know what I'm talking about. A slowdown here or there and then a correction by the offending player is forgivable here at MARP. This garbage? No. Sorry if this seems extreme, but I propose that all scores by these two players are discounted until they can give us some kind of reason to believe that our suspicions are unfounded. If they can satisfy doubters via a simple TG MAME submission showing that they do indeed possess the skills they claim, then I shut my mouth.

I'm not proposing that this is the path to go down for every single infraction that is suspected. But, in the case of these two players, I feel it is justified. I dislike the thought of MARP's integrity being lowered because a couple of clowns make their little 3-month run through our playground.

Chad · Post by **Chad** » Fri Dec 27, 2002 9:19 pm

yeah those two need only record once or twice to demonstrate their speed learning skills are genuine. I think one of them did send a secure recording to someone and that was where we found out they had a seriously slow computer.

There's been a handfull of players that have recently run through marp and submitted detectable bogus recordings, and NONE of them responded to secure mame recording requests by making secure recordings. That pretty much irks me, when I'm thinking a legitimate player would be happy to re-record to prove they are clean. I think the only way we can truly have a complete and fair system is to ONLY allow secure mame recordings, which is what the touraments do which is cool. Maybe after a while and if alpha mame gets some serious use and testing, it might be an option to turn marp into a 'secure mame only' site either by bonusing secure mame recordings or not allowing future regular mame recordings at all.

JoustGod · Post by **JoustGod** » Fri Dec 27, 2002 9:26 pm

I think you are headed in the right direction with future recordings needing a bit more legitimacy. I would also like to see a secure Mac version as well. That will present a few more obstacles for this PC-dominated site, but I'm sure eventually the bugs can be worked out. I'm dead serious about wiping out -1's and roncli's recordings, though. I can't think of any other way to send the message loud and clear. If you choose not to respond appropriately to MARP's simple requests when a potential problem arises, you shouldn't be allowed to participate. Seeing how the only recording you mentioned busted them, it's a no-brainer.

Francois Daniel · Post by **Francois Daniel** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 12:12 am

Hi all and Happy new year for all

For Phil: Yes the Willou method is the same as decribed by LN2.

For Chad and Joustgod : me too, I'm very irk by many scores recently made by new players. It seem there is a 'K' virus on marp

I agreed for Alphamame or 35TG3 only recording in the future.

For Skito : I'm not very good in programmation but, Willou said to me that your method can be fooled on some shooting games who have an autofire shooting system (as 1943 kai), or those who have a beam system used very often (like Pulstar), because you calculate the average time between 2 shoots. But perhaps your method isn't exactly the one we think

Post by **mahlemiut** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 12:51 am

If the game intends for there to be autofire, then where's the problem? What we check for is autofiring inputs, on such things as joysticks, or whatever. The only difficulty would be those games where autofire is an option. But DIP switches can be checked, and NVRAM must be the default (the game should use default settings when the data in the NVRAM is invalid).

Chad · Post by **Chad** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 1:19 am

Right: "auto"-autofire is ok and can't be detected because it is NOT an "external" autofire when the game has autofire within it's emulation. I.e. you press and hold but the game automatically fires, this would be detected as one long press and rightly so.

Ok that's 3 people for alphamame/tg mame recordings only, it's a start, I'm personally for alpha mame recordings only but the slow computer whiners wouldn't like that.

kfx · Post by **kfx** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 6:33 am

I haven´t tried alpha mame yet, but if it works ok, then I can not see any problem if all recordings should be in alpha or tg mame.

diabolik · Post by **diabolik** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 7:21 am

Chad wrote: Ok that's 3 people for alphamame/tg mame recordings only, it's a start, I'm personally for alpha mame recordings only but the slow computer whiners wouldn't like that.

You can count me in. From now on I'll submit only tg/alphamame recordings (whenever it's possible).