I've noticed a great deal of submissions being done lately with m35b13. I was wondering if there was a special reason for using this beta for games that are previously available under earlier betas or better yet, available under mame34 final.

Which brings me to a previous subject. If a game is fully functional under the latest final version of MAME, then it would make verifying much easier for everyone as we could keep less versions of MAME on our collective hard drives. So the advice is, try to make your recordings with the latest MAME final if your game is available and functional with that version. For all recordings being made during this latest beta cycle for mame35, it would be appreciated if once the final version comes out, to re-verify that the inp works with the final version and then edit your recording to show that it is now playable under mame35 final.

I know this is a large task for some, but it would simplify the verification process. Any thoughts on this?

JoustGod

-- JoustGod (pinballwiz1@msn.com), May 30, 1999

Answers

There is a problem with your suggestion. Because many roms changes from version to version,people like me,who has all perfect romsets uptodate for the lastest beta,we no longer have the old romsets. Today i tried to playback Neil Chapman's Ms.Pacman recording with the current romset,on mame30,wich Neil used. I discovered mame30 looks for some files that are no longer in the romset.

Stig

-- Stig Remnes (sremnes@samsen.com), May 31, 1999.

I have every mame from Mame 30 onward... it takes about 36.5 megs on my hard drive out of 6 gigs. It doesn't take that much space because I have a program called UPX - it's like winzip... it zips up your executables. (The reason I say this is some of the earlier versions on this page are not "zipped".) I also have created an enhanced "playback.bat" batch file where I just type "playback ", and I get a list of all the mames from mame 30 to mame 35 beta 13. All I have to do is select the right one. It makes my playbacking much less tedious. If I get requests, I will post the source on here so you can use it.(it's all ASCII text). It is somewhat lengthy... 2.89K... but I'm sure it's nothing this board's server can't handle...

Don't get me wrong, do I say this because it's ok to do such a thing? Nope. I'm sure people can't sacrifice 36.5 megs of hard disk space just for all the mames just so one plays back recordings, and that's it. I'm also sure that I'm guilty of doing what you said JoustGod. (I know of an easy example... my 10 yard fight recordings...) Perhaps what can happen is that the CGI script will reject games that were recorded in beta cycles and only accept games that were made in final releases... IF a game was working at a final release. There are several games which were supported WAYYYYYYY back in the mame series, but are just now working. A good example is the original F1 Dream. It certainly wasn't working back when mame 34 was released. It became working in the mame 35 beta cycle... WITHOUT the 4th track bug! Woohoo!(Yes... I didn't put in that recording just for ten points.)

So to make a long story short,(I know... too late :) ) I concur with what JoustGod is saying... I need to make a better habit of recording games in final versions if they're working at that point... and I think others should try to do the same.

Thanks for reading my thoughts on this matter...

-- Gameboy9 (goldengameboy@geocities.com), May 31, 1999.

I wholeheartedly agree, JG. (wow, I'm busting phat rhymez) Although I'm not sure if all the recent "offenders" read this board, but oh well. I certainly hope that none of the contributors that are UL'ing MAME 0.35 beta 13 recordings are always overwriting their old version of MAME and just using that... because if you want to play recordings back you're going to have to keep a variety of MAME versions on your HD :)

If a game is working perfectly in 0.34 Final, then by all means that should be used. But in the case of games added during the 0.35 Beta cycle, then it doesn't matter... just use the newest one. It's also understandable to use one of these 0.35 Betas when improvements are made in the emulation of existing games. Or, if you can show restraint, wait for the 0.35 Final to UL recordings. (yeah, RIGHT!) For now though, since Zwaxy is away, try saving yourself a little time and recording games with 0.35 Beta 12... then you won't have to put "0.35 Beta 13" in the subject, and then you'll have to go back and edit the description once the database has been updated.

On a strange note (I won't "embarass" the individual here... heh), I had someone complain that I used 0.34 Final for a recording rather than the newest beta... mainly because it screws up .CFG files, which I understand. But still, it was an odd complaint. :) (no offense man!)

-- BBH (lordbbh@aol.com), May 31, 1999.

rua 25 de abril

-- leite (bruno_leite@portugalmail.pt), November 07, 2002.