Ms. Pacman with hot pursuit button

[Phreakwars]

So years ago when I was in the arcade's, the first time I played the sped up version of Ms. Pacman, the machine had a button on the side labeled "HOT PURSUIT" where if you pressed it, the game went from sped up to insanely sped up. I remember a few years back you could also set this up in MAME as well, but I see the new version does not support this. I'm building a cab for someone and they also remember playing like this back in the day and they wanted that feature added to the Ms. Pacman game. Does anybody know if this is still possible? What MAME version? Is it a different rom? Any help is appreciated.

[PL1]

Somewhat related thread from KLOV.
https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/ms-pac-with-hot-pursuit-button.176742/



Another thread that might be useful:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,14317.0.html

There are tons of Ms Pac variants in MisfitMAME, but no idea which (if any) supports the Hot Pursuit button.   


Scott

[circusfreak]

I also was looking for this option. On my previous cab that I built 10 years ago, my Ms. Pac had an option to set a button to speed up the whole game while pressed. It was nice to speed up the cut scenes and also to play parts of the game sped up, but revert to normal speed when you need max accuracy. My new version does not have this. I also need to find some hacked or variant version to get this back.

[Phreakwars]

I'm gonna have to get out my dust collected box of old CD-roms and my portable CD-Burner and see if I can find that. 20 or so years ago, that's how my cab was set up as well. I saw several comments where people stated it was a cheat option. As I recall at the time, it was not. I even remember it being revised at one point in mame. You could speed up by pressing the ctrl key, then in a later version of mame, you set it in dip switches. Least that's how I'm remembering, been through so many dang mame versions over the years it's easy to forget. So I have no idea if that was a rom thing that was revised, or driver in mame. For sure it's not a cheat.

[circusfreak]

Yeah, since it just sped up the entire game, it was the opposite of a cheat. I liked it a lot, as it made it easier to whip through and try to get better at the game without the slow speed of slogging the easy parts and cut scenes.

[Phreakwars]

So I looked, and yes, there is a different set of files in the old rom version

In the older 37b5 set, Ms. Pacman contains:



In the new set used the rom set shows the following:

[Phreakwars]

Hell yeah, nothing like playing the sped up version along with a hot pursuit button, yould be able to whip it from one end of the screen to the next in under a second.

[Phreakwars]

OK, I figured out it depends on the Mame version. I tested on the current .230 rom set using Mame .106 and you are absolutely able to set hot pursuit under dip switches. Kind of weird that OBS recorded a smaller sized screen then what I actually saw, but it works!! Now I need to figure out which is the latest version to implement this.

[PL1]

Now I need to figure out which is the latest version to implement this.

Checked mspacmnf (speedup hack) in MAMEUIFX v0.152.
- No speed option in dipswitch menu.

The Info.dat entry mentions this:

- 0.126u2: Brian Troha added information on how to toggle the built-in speedup in Ms. Pac-Man.

That should help narrow your search.   


Scott

[Phreakwars]

I'll check out the documentation. Seems that version 0.111 is the last one to have that option. When I tried 0.112, that's when I see the option no longer available, but then, I know sometimes they have added things, then subtracted, then added again, and ... yeesh..

EDIT: Seems 0.111 yields a better OBS recording and better dip switch interface.

[Phreakwars]

The Info.dat entry mentions this:

- 0.126u2: Brian Troha added information on how to toggle the built-in speedup in Ms. Pac-Man.

From what I can tell, that entry from Brian pertains to "20pacgal" - Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga - Class of 1981 (c) 2004 Namco.

* To toggle the built-in speedup, insert coins then enter the following sequence : Left, Right, Left, Right, Up(x3), Fire. If you did it correctly, the sound heard in both "Pac-Man" and "Ms. Pac-Man" when you eat a bonus fruit item will play. This will toggle the speed in both Ms Pac-Man & Pac-Man as well as provide a 'Fast Shot' in Galaga.

Already know that cheat, my son actually showed me on an actual machine when we were out for pizza and went into the arcade room. You can even make Pac-man available for play on it too.

*  Play the original "Pac-Man" : At the game select screen press Up(x3), Down(x3), Left, Right, Left, Right, Left. If you did it correctly, the sound heard in both "Pac-Man" and "Ms. Pac-Man" when you gain an extra life will play, and Pinky will take Blinky's place on the "Press Start" screen. Press the Ms. Pac-Man Start button and you will play "Pac-Man". After the game is over, the original "Pac-Man"'s attract mode sequence will run for one cycle.

[PL1]

I'll check out the documentation. Seems that version 0.111 is the last one to have that option. When I tried 0.112, that's when I see the option no longer available, but then, I know sometimes they have added things, then subtracted, then added again, and ... yeesh..

The Info.dat entry for the "pacman.c" driver confirms the speedup options were moved from dipswitches to "configuration" switches at that time.

- 0.111u3: Nathan Woods and Aaron Giles updated input port tokenization for MESS. Added support in MAME for "configuration" switches which are separate from dipswitches. These can be used to configure aspects of the game that don't correspond to dipswitches. Modified pacman.c to use configurations to control the speedup options. Removed '2x Speed Cheat' dipswitch.

-------------------------
I think I remember reading somewhere that the speedup hack was part of the cheat system for a while, but don't remember the relevant range of MAME versions.   
-------------------------

The Info.dat entry mentions this:

- 0.126u2: Brian Troha added information on how to toggle the built-in speedup in Ms. Pac-Man.

From what I can tell, that entry from Brian pertains to "20pacgal" - Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga - Class of 1981 (c) 2004 Namco.

* To toggle the built-in speedup, insert coins then enter the following sequence : Left, Right, Left, Right, Up(x3), Fire. If you did it correctly, the sound heard in both "Pac-Man" and "Ms. Pac-Man" when you eat a bonus fruit item will play. This will toggle the speed in both Ms Pac-Man & Pac-Man as well as provide a 'Fast Shot' in Galaga.

The quote from Info.dat is copy/pasted from what showed up in the frontend under mspacmnf.   

The Info.dat entry for 20pacgal mentions the Galaga speedup, but not the Ms. Pac speedup:

- 0.126u2: Brian Troha added information on how to toggle the fast shot in 20pacgal (Galaga).

Looks like either he did similar documentation work on both mspacmnf and 20pacgal at that time or Info.dat misattributed his work on the Ms. Pac speed hack toggle info for 20pacgal to mspacmnf.

Either way, glad you found a known working version of Hot Pursuit.   


Scott

[Phreakwars]

Here it is implemented in Attract Mode. I added artwork, & got rid of the filters. Set Ms. Pac-man Fast to run on a separate emulator (0.111). Lookin good and the arcade cab is just like the dude wanted.

Edit: I checked, and the hot pursuit feature also works in Pacman. I'm gonna haven to try it with Pac Jr and Pac plus too.

[Phreakwars]

Couple more examples

Pacman with Hot Pursuit button demonstration: Romset version 0.230, rom name: pacmanf.zip mame version 0.111



Pacman +++PLUS+++- with Hot Pursuit Button demonstration. Romset version 0.230, rom name: pacplus.zip mame version 0.111

[Phreakwars]

For anybody who is interested in saving high scores in version 0.111, I recompiled mame using the hi_111.diff and uploaded it to my mega account, you can download it here: CLICK HERE FOR MEGA DOWNLOAD OF MAME VERSION 0.111 WITH HI SCORE ENABLED

EDIT: Note for Raspberry Pi users. You too can play with the speed-up cheat. You'll need to have AdvanceMAME 1.4 (0.106) installed. You can use current rom sets.