Hi guys,
>I like to skip past the initializing/garbage screens and also the 'Winners don't take drugs' and 'Not for use outside
>Japan' screens.
Here is one of the issues I think we will need to iron out before we start building the list. My personal thought on the matter is : If what you see if *ever* repeated during the attact mode, then it should be included, even if it is something undesireable such as don't use drugs, don't use outside country, etc. If we used this definition, then we would skip only the frames that are never repeated. I'm not saying this is the right definition, just that if we build a uniform list, that we should try to define what will and won't be skipped.
>This is one of the biggest issues I think. However, I think we should just aim for 1 set of results for when nvrams
>ARE present. They are ony really not present if a game has not been run before, and if an nvram effects the startup
>a lot, its often for manual calibration of driving controls or guns, so there is no standard startup in this case
>anyway.... just a thought.
Lets talk the nvram and When it is not present, some games start up and allow you to calibrate them for example. You probably don't want to skip these calibration frames if they exist, but I don't know of a game that will timeout on calibration and skip by it even if we did.
My reasoning on having a with NVRAM and without NVRAM value was so that even the first time you start the game it would still skip the junk before the calibration and then start displaying at the first frame of calibration, then the with NVRAM value would be used the next time you start it to skip until the game starts. I don't truly know if this is a necessity or not, it just offers a bit more flexibility. The downside is that when we come up with the numbers, we will have to (1) determine if the game uses nvram or not (2) determine the number for no nvram present, and (3) determine the number for nvram present. It is more work when figuring out the values.
So, we can do is easier (1) just one value, assume nvram is present, or we can do it with more difficulty (2) coming up with values with and without nvram. Each way had its tradeoff.
Also, how accurate do you guys want to be?
How I always figured out values before was using the method of (1) start game (2) let it run until the point the diag screens are done (3) hit esc (4) look at the number of frames reported and finally (5) start guessing with ssf values until I find the one I like.
We can still do it this way, but I think it is probably better to add an option into MAME that saves every frame to PNG with its frame number as the filename part. You can then use your favorite image browser to see exactly what frame to start on. This will require a custom MAME, but hey we're compiling it to include the -ssf/-fsf options anyway...
Lets keep thinking about how to do this!
Thanks,
Alan