What is wrong with Omega Race???

[torez]

All is fine for first couple of levels, but when I get into 300,000 range and up, my ship slows down to a crawl at times, especially when the ufo starts chasing me.  On top of that I get irregular shots, even though there were no shots in the air before (you can have just 4 at a time).  Through all this, the ufo has no problems showering me with his shots, so I basically sit like a duck in the water.  Don't know, but is there a difficulty level or something?  It certainly doesn't play as I remember (maybe some changes with version 0.106?).

Anyway, have Pentium 4 3.2 GHz overclocked to about 3.3 GHz atm with 512 MB video ram with ATI X1600 pro and it still lags the higher level I go.  The thrust of my ship seems to be too big at start, so it is tougher to reverse direction with my spinner.  The spinner I have setup (Tornado) is crap for Omega Race as it spins the moment you let it go, so you lose control while being chased by the cranky ufo.  Will try mounting original Omega Race knob on top of the spinner to give it some of that needed friction.  Think also that the resolution of this spinner may not be the greatest for this game, but cannot confirm it, as it's been a while since I played the real thing.

Another thing I hate is when the ship fires one bullet, nothing, then three.  That's just enough space for a ship to sneak by.  It's even worse when the alien ship mysteriously sneaks through my carpet bombing.  That's gotta be like one in a hundred chance, but it happens all the time.  The feel of it all is nothing like I remember in the original arcade.  Yes, some of these flukes were there, but not as often.

I use the Throttle option in Mame32, but still think that the computer opponent is somewhat too fast.  Anyone else notices the difference?  Should I swith to some earlier version of Mame for this game?

[ahofle]

The list of classic games that seems to be breaking as MAME progresses appears to be growing.  You should probably go to an older version.

[destructor]

Read this topic:
http://www.twingalaxies.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=60250#60250
Try to enable high_priority for Omega Race.

[torez]

The thread priority slider was just one notch from being all the way to the right, so I moved it to Real Time.  So far it still works, but not sure, if I noticed any major improvements.  My ship still gets slower and shoots very crappy when ufo starts chasing me in later levels.  The throttle option was always checked, but not sure if it does the job 100% it should.

I tried WolfMame, think it was version 0.101, as it has recording and playback working.  Last couple of Mame releases seem to have it broken, so it's no fun when you want to record your game so you can analyze it later.

[destructor]

Throttle should be checked.
Frameskipping can't be automatic. Select draw every frame and uncheck Automatic.

Now enable game and play. Press F11 key and observe if speed will be change or not (right upper corner of screen) when ufo starts chasing.
Next write here what you observe.

If you use WolfMAME101, you can record inp file and attach it here, next I will watch it, and then I will can observe too what is wrong.

EDIT
Remember about compressing .inp file into .zip. Compressed inp files are very small.

[torez]

I overclocked my computer to 3.5 GHz and it plays better.  Well, this is not all good, as I noticed that the throttle option does not work too well.  At that clock speed the game plays faster than it should.  Even the ship flies faster then it normally would ... well, that also means that the ufo flies faster.  Sometimes it is just too sadistic/cruel to play.  Ufo just rips you apart.

WolfMame 0.101 plays it much slower (correct speed?), but still get some slowdowns.  Looks like the old engine was more tweaked.  I also noticed that the game plays better above 600.000 or so mark (different rom?).

[destructor]

Use wolfmame101 to record replay (inp) and post file here. I will watch it. I can observe your speed in wolfmame replays.

[torez]

Hi Destructor,
Do you really want to look at the framerate or just want to see me play?
I submitted a game to Twin Galaxies for the 3-ship version.  Hope it will be all ok.  Here is the score (it's more than 200,000 higher than the previous high score).  Few silly mistakes that should had been avoided, but what can you do LOL
I attached the game as well.  Enjoy,
Mark

ps.  Destructor ... siemanko!

[torez]

Another thing, that slowdown that I mentioned was at the discussed ~400,000.  It was very annoying when sometimes I would just fly and no shots were coming out.  It can be seen in the game in some different stages.

[torez]

Well, I went ahead and got the high score for the 7-ship game as well:).  Bit tired, as it's late here, so last few ships blew away for nothing
Well, anyway maybe the other guy will get motivated to beat my score.  There is nothing better than some healthy competition .  We'll see how it goes.

Here is my score and the game recording (beat the high score by more than 400,000):


Cheers,
Mark

[destructor]

Hi Destructor,
Do you really want to look at the framerate or just want to see me play?

Hehe, I want to look framerate only. I will never back to Omega Race (maybe for some bounties only). You can look at MARP or TG for Rick Carter 1,2 mln score (3-men) recorded with wolfmame.

ps.  Destructor ... siemanko!

Do you speak Polish? Or maybe you are from Poland?
What is your TG nick?

[torez]

Zgadles

[destructor]

I watched your inp and speed is OK.

Nie widze zeby framerate skakalo, jest stale, zreszta masz dobry procek. Nigdy nie widzialem omega race na automacie nie wiem czy tam byly takie zwolnienia tez. Byc moze dzieje sie tak kiedy na ekranie jest wieksza ilosc wektorow. Moze drivery MAME sa jeszcze nie takie jak trzeba a moze tak na automacie tez bylo.
A ty mieszkasz w Polsce? A to dlaczego ja nic nie wiedzialem o twoim istnieniu?

[torez]

The zwolnienia sa tylko na pewnych poziomach i kiedy UFO lata.  Byc moze to pewne czesci roma sa takie.  Kilka poziomow jest chyba specialnie takie zeby slabszych graczy dobic ... zmiana w szybkosci, czestotliwosc strzelania, etc.  Nie ma nic gorszego w grze kiedy lecisz 1:1 na UFO a lufa jest pusta hehe.

Na automacie gralem 20 lat temu  i chyba pamietam pewne poziomy troszke wolniejsze, ale niewiele.

LOL, zauwazylem ze jestem tylko pare kilometrow od Mruczka:).  Mysle, ze pare razy przejezdzalem kolo Jego domu hehe.

[torez]

Co to tam przeczytalem na TG, ze Robert odchodzi???  Moze inny Robert, ale wyglada na to ze to on?

[torez]

No troche jeszcze pogralem i jest nowy wysoki wynik na 2-coin.  Hmm, lepiej chyba po angielsku, bo ludzie pomysla ze Polacy chca przejac to miejsce

The new 2-coin Omega Race high score was upped a bit to make it bit more reasonable in comparison with the 1-coin score

Here they are: