MAME:Commando service menu

[lomoverde]

Ive been working on my frontend,and trying to remove any quirks that can cause confusion for anyone operating it.

Ive run into an issue with Commando.When selecting the game,it starts the ¨Use or export of this game......¨dialogue.

 Now if I press fire before this screen disappears Im sent to this screen :



The only way I seem to be able to get out is to exit the game and start it again.

Ive checked the settings and searched google,but I dont seem to be able to disable this service menu. Any ideas ?

[abispac]

its like that on the original hardware, nothing to be done, just dont push fire before the game begins.

[lomoverde]

its like that on the original hardware, nothing to be done, just dont push fire before the game begins.

Thanks for confirming that for me 
One of the few people other than me to use the cab somehow found this out immediately, and its the sort of confusion I was hoping to minimize.

[Thenasty]

just a thought.

1. How about changing the BUTTON to another button (different than the START/LOAD from the Front End).
2. I use Advmame (it has a speedup option so it quickly goes right into the DEMO). Dunno if your version of MAME has an option like it.
3. Maybe use SAVE STATE and load that STATE instead (or INP but this does not save scores (unless disabled = compile your own))

[lomoverde]

just a thought.

1. How about changing the BUTTON to another button (different than the START/LOAD from the Front End).

Launch game and the fire button already are different.

2. I use Advmame (it has a speedup option so it quickly goes right into the DEMO). Dunno if your version of MAME has an option like it.

I dont know if Groovymame has this feature,Ill take a look.

3. Maybe use SAVE STATE and load that STATE instead (or INP but this does not save scores (unless disabled = compile your own))

Im not too sure what this is 

Thanks for the suggestions 

[PL1]

3. Maybe use SAVE STATE and load that STATE

Im not too sure what this is 

It's a MAME feature that saves the current game state and allows you to reload that position/condition at will.
- Not supported in all drivers, so not sure if it works in Commando.

For example, if you want to practice fighting the 3rd level boss in a game you can either start each time from the beginning and play through all 3 levels to get to the third boss or you can play through the first three levels once and do a save state just before you get to the third boss and load that save state to start right at the third boss as many times as you want.

In-game, press Left Shift+F7 followed by a number key to save the game state to that save slot.
- Save any time after the initial "only for use in Japan" text screen.

Press F7 followed by a number key to load the game state from that save slot.

https://docs.mamedev.org/usingmame/defaultkeys.html

F7

    Load a save state. You will be prompted to press a key or select from the menu to determine which save state you wish to load.

    Note that the save state feature is not supported for a large number of drivers. If a given driver is not known to work perfectly, you will receive a warning that the save state may not be valid when attempting to save or load.

Left Shift+F7

    Create a save state. Requires an additional keypress to identify the state, similar to the load option above. If an existing save state is present, it will also appear in the selection menu to allow overwriting of that save state.

To load a savestate from command line, use something like "mame commando -state 1".

https://docs.mamedev.org/commandline/commandline-all.html

-state <slot>

    Immediately after starting the specified system, will cause the save state in the specified <slot> to be loaded.

    Example:

        mame -state 1

Scott

[lomoverde]

Thanks so much for the detailed explanation.Ill definately be reading up on this and seeing if its supported in commando. 

[PL1]

Thanks so much for the detailed explanation.Ill definately be reading up on this and seeing if its supported in commando. 

Just checked and yes, save states are supported in Commando and the "mame.exe commando -state 1" command line will load the save state in <slot> 1.
- Tested using MAMEUIFX64 v0.152.  Should work in newer versions too.


Scott

[lomoverde]

Yep Ive also just checked that. 

But Im a bit unsure now of where and how Id set Attract Mode to launch this save state and not the regular commando when its selected from the gamelist.

[PL1]

Im a bit unsure now of where and how Id set Attract Mode to launch this save state and not the regular commando when its selected from the gamelist.

Another way to do this is to make a one line commando.ini file to enable autosave.
- This autosaves the gamestate when you exit and restores you to that point when you launch the game again.
- First time you launch with this method, it will give a loading error (it hasn't autosaved before) but the second time it will work fine.   

autosave                  1

Scott