Skip timer in DECO Tape games

[DaemonCollector]

I tried making a cheat to just change the counter to 0...that worked..but the game didn't start, it just kept counting down. Anyone have any ideas?

[TheGatesofBill]

I'm pretty sure No Name MAME had a speed loader for the DECO games. It basically overclocked the CPU like crazy and shut down everything else so the game loaded up much faster.

[MonitorGuru]

Press F9 to unthrottle, the timer will go really fast (depending on CPU speed), then press F9 again once it hits 0.  Best you can do.

[SpamMe]

Consider these source tweaks:
http://home.earthlink.net/~alank2/mame/readme.htm

fsf_ssf.scr     Adds -fast_startup_frames / -fsf <frames> and -skip_startup_frames / -ssf <frames>.

These options will allow you to either unthrottle (-fast_startup_frames) or to unthrottle and not display (-skip_startup_frames) startup frames in games.  Many games start out with diagnostic information which was not seen if you were playing games because they had been on for hours and were in the middle of their attract screens.  Not only can you use these options to hide this diagnostic stuff, but it starts games faster as well.  Galaga used to take 16 seconds to start, but you can have it ready and started in under 2 seconds by using -ssf 870 to skip the first 870 frames.

[u_rebelscum]

I tried making a cheat to just change the counter to 0...that worked..but the game didn't start, it just kept counting down. Anyone have any ideas?

FYI, it's not a "count down", but the timer for reading the tapes at the correctly emulated (aka original) tape speed.  As said, unthrottling during the reading and throttling for game play is only way.  (well not only: you can save after the reading, and then next time start from that save, if the save is working for that specific game.)  [shrug]

[DaemonCollector]

Well, if thats part of the emulation, is there any code hack I could use to change the driver? I havn't looked at the deco driver yet, but driver code has always been a little over my head.

[MonitorGuru]

Consider these source tweaks:
http://home.earthlink.net/~alank2/mame/readme.htm

fsf_ssf.scr

[TheGatesofBill]

Skip startup frames has already been done, so it shouldn't be too big a jump to have it get numbers from a file. If noone has done anything by the time my schedule opens up a bit I might look into it.