Looping - emulation modifications

Discussion of playback questions / problems. Any recording where people have playback problems should appear here.

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sawys
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Looping - emulation modifications

Post by sawys »

Hi !

I used to play this game in 2004, and when i played it today, i realized that emulation speed increased a lot ! Surely to the good point, but now the game is really hard !!

According to the modifications, it seems that crash after the 1st stage has been fixed but with the new correct speed emulation, it's hard to reach this level ^^

So i propose, if emulation is correct now, that all old inps must be zeroed and a special rule would be necessary to precise from which version you can play (I tried wolf 0.106 and this version is, of course, to avoid)
- 0.125u4: Aaron Giles fixed a 'Fatal error' crash in the Looping driver.
- 0.122u6: Changed COP420 CPU2 clock speed to 4MHz.
- 0.114u2: Couriersud fixed shifted P2 graphics in cocktail mode.
- 0.113u2: Changed VSync to 60.606061 Hz.
- 0.109u4: Improvements to the Looping driver [Aaron Giles]: Fixed clock speeds, proper video timing, fixed protection (game would reset; should never have been marked 'working' in the first place!) and various other driver cleanups. Added COP420 (1MHz) CPU3, changed TMS9995 CPU1 clock speed to 12MHz, sawpped gfx1 roms and changed VSync to 60.606060 Hz.
Sawys is Sébastien GIRAUD, admin of MAMESCORE, member of MARP, TWIN GALAXIES, RETRO UPRISING and ex-member of JVRM :-D
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Phil Lamat
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Re: Looping - emulation modifications

Post by Phil Lamat »

I've tried it, game is fun, and it looks like speed is correctly emulated since m110.
But scoring is stupid, and occures some sort of leeching (even if not easy to do), just look at Diabolik input to have an idea.

So I've a proposal which
1- avoids to erase all existing scores
2- prevents from leeching (I hope)
3- forces the use of m110 or later

100k for each stage finished !
If I'm not wrong, nobody has finished 1st stage yet with older versions, so nothing to change.
It will force everybody to play with recent versions (game crashes at the end of stage1 before) and to try to finish at least 1st stage.
It's been hard, but I've managed to do that
(final score = 16k, should be 116k with new scoring)

Opinions ?
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Chad
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Re: Looping - emulation modifications

Post by Chad »

sounds good to me, http://replay.marpirc.net/r/looping

However, instead of modifying the score to reflect stages (like we do in several games for good reason) maybe now is the time to discus adding a "scoring style" and "time" and "stages" fields to each MARP game entry, like HARP does.

HARP similarly stores score, stages, & time within the game submission entry and also a Scoring Style. The HARP Scoring styles can be "Most Points/Most Stages/Least Time" or "Most Stages/Least Time/Most Points" or "Least Points/Most Stages/Least Time". The Scoring style reflects an order by which the game submission is ranked and subsequent scoring methods are used to break ties. "Most Stages/Least Time/Most Points" will first rank the submissions by the stages completed, then if the stages completed are identical it ranks the submission first that has the Least Time, then if the Times are identical it ranks the submission with the Most Points first. At MARP all games are scored in the style "Most Points" and we have to adjust the scores based on the game. If it is a timed game we have to convert the time to points. If it is a golf game we have to subtract the points from the stages. If it is a leeching game we have to add stages completed to the score.

It seems like we should do the right thing and store stages and times along with the points for each entry, and Style the game scoring for how the game should be played.

Any comments Phil? Is it too late in the adolescence of MARP to make a right scoring Style change?
-skito
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sawys
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Re: Looping - emulation modifications

Post by sawys »

Agree with your proposals, Phil :-)

If you finished the 1st stage, it's a good work because now the game is very hard with the correct speed !
Sawys is Sébastien GIRAUD, admin of MAMESCORE, member of MARP, TWIN GALAXIES, RETRO UPRISING and ex-member of JVRM :-D
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Phil Lamat
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Re: Looping - emulation modifications

Post by Phil Lamat »

For general scoring, I agree with you Chad : quality of a good input depends for me on stage reached first, then time to reach it (which prevents us from points leeching).
But you need also to ask Zwaxy for technical possibility, and all other Marpers : debate is needed, on another topic.

Concerning looping, I gonna edit rules and upload an input showing how the game was supposed to be played i.m.o. : stage 3 reached !
Hard to do that (only managed once) and I doubt I will ever reach stage 4.
What is your best, Sawys ?
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sawys
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Re: Looping - emulation modifications

Post by sawys »

Phil Lamat wrote:Concerning looping, I gonna edit rules and upload an input showing how the game was supposed to be played i.m.o. : stage 3 reached !
Hard to do that (only managed once) and I doubt I will ever reach stage 4.
What is your best, Sawys ?
Wow ! For the moment, i didn't play seriously to reach the stage 2 ^^

I prefered wait until decision, now i will take time, but i'm actually on spy hunter 2 for the COTW 103 at TG :-)
Sawys is Sébastien GIRAUD, admin of MAMESCORE, member of MARP, TWIN GALAXIES, RETRO UPRISING and ex-member of JVRM :-D
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sawys
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Re: Looping - emulation modifications

Post by sawys »

According to the new rules, now my best is online on the parent rom but it was hard to reach the 3rd stage ^^
Sawys is Sébastien GIRAUD, admin of MAMESCORE, member of MARP, TWIN GALAXIES, RETRO UPRISING and ex-member of JVRM :-D
Q. T. Quazar
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Re: Looping - emulation modifications

Post by Q. T. Quazar »

i agree with Chad. many other fan favorites like Bubble Bobble might become competitive again under a stage+score or similar system, and this would eliminate all but life-gain leeching.

as much as i think the new leaderboard system is lifeless, since it's no longer limited by percentage calculations but rather by ordinals i would guess the coding change would be feasible.
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