mame-libretto (mame 2003) and Joust - launch screen weirdness but game plays okay?

wolfgangrumpf

@mediamogul ahhh, LOL, okay. So really authentic then! Thanks again....

caver01

@wolfgangrumpf The way I have understood this symptom is that it needs to find NVRAM in order to actually start the game. At first run, this does not exist (but MAME creates the file for you). That's why a reset at that point works--the file is saved and this time it finds what it needs. Moreover, the game will not do this again the next time--it will launch as you would expect.

I may be a little off with the the technical description, but looking at it this way helps me to understand something close to what is going on under the hood. A few other games do this too. If you ever re-image and need to reload roms, you can hang on to the configuration files that get created and reload those too so this doesn't happen again.

dankcushions

some mame games permit save states, so you could do a save state (select + R bumper) after the load, and then load it (select + L bumper) to skip it. however:

some mame games don't support it - i'm not sure if joust does/doesn't.
it will probably reset any hiscores recorded after your save state.

mediamogul

@dankcushions

I do that for several games and it works very well. Anecdotally, I was disappointed when it wouldn't work with the 'BurgerTime' sequel, 'Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory', as it's a DECO Cassette title that requires a 113 second countdown before it will begin. It feels like it takes forever, but I usually just go grab a cup of coffee and it's ready when I get back.

akafox

Yes I know this is an old thread..but I wanted to this posted for others to see it. With the deco cassette games you can by pass the loading screen using advmame. I can get Burger time to load in twelve seconds as opposed to three minutes or so (estimated times) And yes I know the is a Burger time that is not deco cassette so it loads faster..that is not the point. The point is to load the games that are deco cassette that do not have a non deco version to load faster.

Let the game load normally then press the minus key on the 10-key (or num keypad) you will see a message that says:

Startup time of nnn seconds saved

if you open the advmame.rc file and look at the bottom of it you will see (for example):

cbtime/sync_startuptime 37

you can change the number up to 180..NOT any longer.

this will speed up the loading of deco cassette games. Hope this helps! :D

Just to note..strange that mame wants to be authentic for historical reasons.. (the whole point of mame) but I would think that a nv ram could be used to save the loaded rom..like Street Fighter 3. I mean we don't wait 20 minutes every time it writes once then wait again when we start it shrugs

mediamogul

@akafox said in mame-libretto (mame 2003) and Joust - launch screen weirdness but game plays okay?:

this will speed up the loading of deco cassette games. Hope this helps! :D

Very nice! I'm gonna give this a shot with 'Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory' a little later. Thanks.

akafox

@mediamogul Not a problem! :D

I did notice that version 3.5 doesn't seem to speed up when I set that...1.4 will (the version on my pi)..I have not tried version 3.7 yet.

Also note that this can be done for ANY game that you load in advmame..yes even a PC..

akafox

@mediamogul Sure let me know how it works out :D

mediamogul

@akafox said in mame-libretto (mame 2003) and Joust - launch screen weirdness but game plays okay?:

let me know how it works out :D

It worked great, thanks! On 3.7 I did have to alter the number to 160, otherwise it continued on to speed through some of the game's initial attract mode. This might just stem from changes to the feature between the versions of AdvanceMAME. Regardless, it's really great to see that number counting down so quickly.

akafox

@mediamogul still not working..guess I will have to compile 3.7 sigh
I'll report back