Ms. Pac-Man MAME Vs. Dedicated ghosts are changing back too quickly ?

[mrclean]

Basically I noticed that in MAME after certain intermission screens such as "They Meet", "The Chase" The ghosts will stay blue longer on the first screen after the intermission and change back quicker round 2 / 3 while staying on the same maze... However on my dedicated Ms. Pac the ghosts are turning back / switching from blue to normal way too fast almost instantly as if it were on the 3rd screen of the same maze?! Is that normal what's the cause of that... Is it a dip switch setting for "Difficulty"? I have an original board set that matches the cabinets serial number. It's behaving completely differently than my MAME Ms. Pac-Man.  '

So I just read that NO difficulty settings on the dip switch settings existed other than pts / lives. I also read that :

"It has a pair of solder pads that you can solder across to set it on difficult. The only difference I can see with it on difficult is the ghosts stay blue for a shorter duration."

So my question is where on the board is that ? I would like to de-solder the pads. Bottom line is my game is freakin' tough ! Makes it way more challenging to earn points but not what I'm used to.

Which if this was a common thing operators did to original board sets or perhaps midway factory as an option? I'm surprised it's not in MAME. Does a "Ms. Pac-Man harder" MAME Rom setting exist ? Or is it just the speed up hacks ?

**Edit.. after more research other forums / members stated " There are 2 small solder pads near the DIP switch bank, right next to it is resistor pack RM6, the 2 pads are located just past the end of RM1 (by DIP switch see if they are jumpered"

So I'm going to look  over my PCB to see If I can locate anything noticeable in the described area. I would really be shocked if this option wasn't brought into the MAME community because this is one of the most popular games of all time. I'm not sure if it would be construed as a hack or difficulty adjustment. Any ways someone should add it !

[mrclean]

now FIXED! I love actually not only fixing something, but not breaking something else in the process :-)

Below is a picture of the culprit causing my Ms. Pac-Man game play to be frustratingly hard ! Game play is back to normal after De-Soldering that crap above RM6. Hopefully this helps anyone in the future who thinks the ghosts in Ms. Pacman are changing too fast ...




I didn't skim through the actual manual but I'm really curious if Bally/Midway told operators to use this as an option for difficulty. If so than it should without a doubt be implemented into MAME.

[Well Fed Games]

Glad you got it figured out. I had no idea that was a viable option to modify difficulty.

now FIXED! I love actually not only fixing something, but not breaking something else in the process :-)

Below is a picture of the culprit causing my Ms. Pac-Man game play to be frustratingly hard ! Game play is back to normal after De-Soldering that crap above RM6. Hopefully this helps anyone in the future who thinks the ghosts in Ms. Pacman are changing too fast ...




I didn't skim through the actual manual but I'm really curious if Bally/Midway told operators to use this as an option for difficulty. If so than it should without a doubt be implemented into MAME.

[Paul Olson]

If you go to the tab menu in MAME while Ms Pac is loaded, there is a dipswitch setting for difficulty. The options are Normal and Hard.

[mrclean]

If you go to the tab menu in MAME while Ms Pac is loaded, there is a dipswitch setting for difficulty. The options are Normal and Hard.

Ahh should of thought to do that, Thanks. My MAME machine doesn't get utilized that often other than to generally "test" games that I think I would potentially like to own the actual hardware / dedicated machines. Don't get me wrong MAME certainly has it's place and Is pretty sweet, but for the most part the dedicated machines do in fact play and feel slightly differently.

Glad you got it figured out. I had no idea that was a viable option to modify difficulty.

Yeah neither did I ! But she's playing the way she's suppose to now.   

[Paul Olson]

If you go to the tab menu in MAME while Ms Pac is loaded, there is a dipswitch setting for difficulty. The options are Normal and Hard.

Ahh should of thought to do that, Thanks. My MAME machine doesn't get utilized that often other than to generally "test" games that I think I would potentially like to own the actual hardware / dedicated machines. Don't get me wrong MAME certainly has it's place and Is pretty sweet, but for the most part the dedicated machines do in fact play and feel slightly differently.

When you see differences, go to mametesters and see if it has already been listed as a bug. If not, please submit a bug report. The people that are actually good enough at the games to notice the differences need to point those differences out so they can be fixed. Hopefully one of the devs will be interested in working on it.