Skipping a certain number of frames when starting a game...

[Jakobud]

On the www.retroblast.com news, he points to this sort of Mame patch:

http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ealank2/mame/mpatches.zip

One of the most attractive things about the patch is that it allows you to tell Mame how many frames of animation to skip when you run a game.  For example, when starting Galaga, you could add this option in the commandline:

c:\> mame galaga -ssf 870

This would make Mame skip the first 870 frames of the game... so you could skip all the startup rom initilization screens.... making Galaga start up in 2 seconds rather than 16 seconds...

This is such a great idea I don't know why the Mame dev's haven't put something like this in the official build (or have they and I just don't know it?)!  

I am totally envisioning another .dat to add to the stack... a dat file containing the numbers of startup frames to skip for each rom in order to make the games startup faster....... does this intrigue anyone else?

[Acids]

Interesting idea for sure.

But doesn't that move away from the whole idea of mame.  ( even more that is. )

[Sephroth57]

yeah but the % of people who care about the "idea" of MAME, as in to preserve. is probably nothing to the people who could care less and just wanna play the damn games =p

i think thats a cool idea

[Mr. Dude]

I second that...  very good idea indeed.

[screaming]

yeah but the % of people who care about the "idea" of MAME, as in to preserve. is probably nothing to the people who could care less and just wanna play the damn games =p

i think thats a cool idea

  Actually, I like the idea of preserving the games, and I would home that most of the mamers on this board (at least) feel the same way. It's about history and nostalgia, not about convenience.

  Think about it this way: If you're playing your level 12 Dark Elven Mage in EverQuest and the GM one day said, "Oh, that Sephroth57. He's a cool guy. We should just give him his epic now.", you'd probably have a blast for oh, I dunno, 5 seconds at least until you realized you could kill Hill Giants and Spectres with one swipe from your earth pet's sword.

  My point is the game just would no longer be fun. You really wouldn't have a purpose of being there except to be a powerleveler for all your other level 12 friends (which incidentally is why I stopped playing once they allowed two-boxing).

  If the MAME devs stopped thinking about the nostalgia and history aspect of video gaming and started making it so you could start Galaga in 3 seconds instead of 20 because it's more convenient, well then it just gets to be a lot less fun for them (and me because I'm curious about the history!). MAME loses it's purpose, and you lose the future ROMs you would have gotton if the MAME project stayed interesting and all the devs didn't get bored and leave.

  Anybody with a little spare time and some scripting skills can make a pacman 'emulator'. It takes a lot more to emulate the original CPU and make the real-deal ROM work.

* Steve steps down from soapbox

  I'm not saying it's not a good idea for people that just want to play some games.. I'm saying that the MAME devs shouldn't consider implementing it and it should be kept as a 'patch'.

Plus, it'll keep all you script kiddie hacks out of my bank account and in something useful

/Steve

[Todd H]

The -ssf command is one of the reasons I use noname mame.  I don't think it should be added to the official build however.

[Mr. Dude]

How much nostalgia does looking at a game loading screen and flashing colors bring back really.  I don't know about you but I never remember even seeing those screens because the games in the arcades were already turned on and running when I put in my quarter.  Anyway, I don't really see the big deal either way... but for convenience sake it'd be nice to have a .dat circulating.

[Jakobud]

Sweet I didn't know that NoNameMame had this option.  

[Thenasty]

Sweet I didn't know that NoNameMame had this option.  

Did you  know that Advmame had this (similar) long time ago ?

Like this
Advmame galaga -startuptime 25

[Howard_Casto]

(ingoring the fact that i knew about this ages ago)


I think it has it's uses, but to skip a mere 16 second startup screen?  Nah.... now the 5 minute beatmania boot in which you get to stare at a blank screen, yeah it'd be useful for that.  

In all honesty though, for most games I feel that the startup screen is part of the whole experience.  

[Tiger-Heli]

On the www.retroblast.com news, he points to this sort of Mame patch:

http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ealank2/mame/mpatches.zip
c:\> mame galaga -ssf 870

It was added to NoNameMAME in v79u4.05 https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=91067&package_id=95932

It was added from SmoothMAME and advanceMAME had a similar option.  According to theGatesofBill -

Skip Startup Frames - Allows you to quickly and silently skip all the startup frames in a game. Adds a new option skip_startup_frames (-ssf) which you can add to a game specific INI file to specify the number of startup frames that will run quickly and not be displayed.

Thus you can define an ini file folder in you mame.ini file, create a galaga.ini file with "-ssf 870" in it, and when you run MAME it will now skip the first 870 frames.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about it.

I don't really like it for PacMan and Galaga - I DID see these machines boot up from time to time and I think it's neat to see MAME run the same code, and less authentic without it.

I tried it in Cruisin' and it didn't seem to speed up the boot time much, just let me look at a black screen instead of the rom verification screen.  Wouldn't use it for this one either.

There are quite a few games that don't have the nostalgia effect for me and take a while to check everything out before booting, and I would use it for these.

Also, I think it would be a useful feature if you are setting MAME up for kids to play, as I think they would tend to see the startup screens and think "Oh no, I broke it . . . "  (Maybe that's not all bad, either, though  . . .)

[TheGatesofBill]

Well, remember that if you don't like it, you don't have to use it. Personally, I like it. When you have some Front End running, the cabinet has already been turned on, so it seems strange to have it do ROM verification. Although it would be cool to have the boot thing from PacMan or something play when Windows or the FE starts.

[screaming]

Well, remember that if you don't like it, you don't have to use it. Personally, I like it.

  Right on! I agree 100%.  I was just saying that it doesn't belong in the MAME core, as a default option or not.

/Steve

[Knievel]

I like this idea. I enjoy the loading screens on the Pac games and some others but for the most part I could do without them.

Can someone explain how to add this option to the windows version of Mame?

~Thanks

[Howard_Casto]

Well, remember that if you don't like it, you don't have to use it. Personally, I like it.

  Right on! I agree 100%.  I was just saying that it doesn't belong in the MAME core, as a default option or not.

/Steve

I don't mean to egg on an argument, but if you truely agree with him then you would want it in mame as an option.  Keyword option.  Say what you really feel, you can't agree and disagree at the same time.

[Tiger-Heli]

Can someone explain how to add this option to the windows version of Mame?

Trust me, you don't want to do this, even if I knew how (comparing the WinMAME and NoNameMAME source files, seeing what changed, what was added by NoNAMEMAME, which of those additions were only for -ssf, adding that to WinMAME, recompiling, etc.

What you do want to do is download noname MAME, run it with the -cc option to create an .ini file.  Set this up and then use NoNAME to run your games.

See above for setup info.

[Tiger-Heli]

I don't mean to egg on an argument,

Of course not, certainly you would never do such a thing ;-)

but if you truely agree with him then you would want it in mame as an option.  Keyword option.  Say what you really feel, you can't agree and disagree at the same time.

Actually, Howard, I think he can.

"I think I know I mean a ?yes? but it?s all wrong, that is I think I disagree." - The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever

Here's some examples -

I personally would like to see -ssf in official MAME (as an option) but I feel it goes against the stated purpose of MAME, so I can understand if the devs leave it out.

I like the decocassette turbo loading feature of NoNameMAME, but don't think it should be added to official MAME, for the same reasons.

I think -skipgamewarnings and -skip_baddumps SHOULD be added to official MAME.

I think most of MAME analog plus should be added to official MAME, but - I always come back to the IKARI games.

I like the way MAME is set-up for IKARI, BUT, I think it goes against it's stated purpose.  I think Urebel's direct SNK 12 wire support should be in official MAME and the current spinner based support should be an option, but I doubt they'll change it.

FWIW!

[screaming]

I don't mean to egg on an argument, but if you truely agree with him then you would want it in mame as an option.  Keyword option.  

  How come? Why do would I want it as an option if I agree that it's useful sometimes for that feature?  Why can't I just be content to know that if I really want any option then I can go write it myself, since the MAME source is available?

  Technically, if I want MAME to say "Steve, you're the best game player in the whole entire universe." in a sexy chick voice every time I win a game, then I can because the MAME source is always available.  I'm content with that.

  Thankfully I don't have to write all that stuff myself (except maybe the sexy chick voice) becuase people like TheGatesOfBill and all the other MAME distro authors have taken the time to do a lot themselves, but they wouldn't be able to do anything to MAME if the source wasn't available to them.

  Anyway, back to my original point, I agree with the MAME ideal of preserving arcade games as accuratly as possible becuase I'm interested in the history. That said, I like the convenience being available that if I want to skip # of frames on startup then I can, even if that's not accurately running the game.

  However, it's a million times more important to preserve the games so they'll at least be available for me to play. If it weren't for that, there would be no point in the convenience hacks that skip # of frames

  I hope this better clarifies what I was trying to say above.

Say what you really feel, you can't agree and disagree at the same time.

  If you're going to argue, at least argue clearly. It'll make great strides to actually helping your side of the argument. C'mon man, it's bullet #3 in my Arguing for Dummies book!

/Steve

[Knievel]

Hmm...looks like my request for help with this has gotten lost in this disagreement so I'll ask again...

Can someone tell me how to add this frame-skip option to my windows version of Mame

[Thenasty]

Hmm...looks like my request for help with this has gotten lost in this disagreement so I'll ask again...

Can someone tell me how to add this frame-skip option to my windows version of Mame

Di you donwload the patches from the first post ? The source is already there, just read the TXT file in it and it will explain what is what and just choose which (in your case ssf) option you want added then compile away.

[Tiger-Heli]

Hmm...looks like my request for help with this has gotten lost in this disagreement so I'll ask again...

Can someone tell me how to add this frame-skip option to my windows version of Mame

wasn't lost - but I'm not sure what your question was?

See reply #15, or actually, I did some checking and the .zip in the first post will allow you to add only that option.

What is your question - I.E. how do I apply the patch?  How do I compile?  It doesn't work after I compiled, what do I do now?, etc.

[Knievel]

Well I downloaded it and tried to run the batch file which takes me into DOS mode and I get:

Analyzing src\windows\config.c...
ERROR: Unable to open source file.

So I'm guessing I don't have something in the right spot?
I am lost in DOS, sorry if this a stupid question

[Jakobud]

You could just try No Name Mame since its already in there.

[Tiger-Heli]

Well I downloaded it and tried to run the batch file which takes me into DOS mode and I get:

Analyzing src\windows\config.c...
ERROR: Unable to open source file.

So I'm guessing I don't have something in the right spot?
I am lost in DOS, sorry if this a stupid question

I agree with Jakobud, NoNameMAME will be easier.

Otherwise -

Q1 - Do you know how to compile MAME? - Have you done it before?
Q2 - Does a normal (unpatched) compile work?
Q3 - You do have a folder tree similar to C:\mingw\mame\src and you did unzip and run the patch from C:\mingw\mame, correct?  (And go to a command prompt and type "cd\" <enter> "cd mingw" <enter> "cd mame" <enter> and then type in the name of the patch, correct?)
Q4 - Every patch (other than the ones at the top) that I have ever seen was written for a particular MAME version.  You might be changing the same section of code in the same way in each version, but chances are the line numbers rolled up or down and the patch won't work.  This one doesn't say, so it may only work with an older (newer?) MAME version.

[Knievel]

Sorry I don't know how or why to compile Mame, in over my head here.
Thought this would be an easy thing to add... I will try the noname route later.

Thanks for the help