Dragon's Lair Lives Change Question

beastrow

After battling with a huge amount of stuttering/freezing issues in Daphne, I have finally reformatted and have all LD games functioning correctly. I now have a question about "commands" files and adjusting life amounts, though. I would like to add additional lives to what Dragon's Lair is giving me by default, (which, I believe, is 5). I've added "-cheat" to the "lair.commands" file, but it does not appear to be having any impact. I assume I'm not suing the command correctly, so does anyone have any idea how to correctly adjust it to add lives to each credit?

Thank you!

mediamogul

@beastrow

I've beaten it on one life, but it's no big deal. I'm not a hero or anything. Wait, am I? Humblebrag aside, are you sure it's supposed to produce that effect in 'Dragon's Lair'. According to the Daphne wiki:

-cheat - Enables cheating. Cheating is not available for all games. Each game only has one cheat. Most cheats give you unlimited lives.

Adding additional lives to each credit sounds like something that might be altered from the service menu of the game itself. Check the log at /opt/retropie/emulators/daphne/daphne_log.txt to see if there is any activity going on when the -cheat argument is added.

beastrow

@mediamogul Great suggestion, thanks! I'll take a look at the log to see what's doing. My frustration has been that I CAN beat it in a handful of lives, (if not one) as I could back in the day, (I was our city's local laserdisc game "idiot savant" in the early 80's). What seems to happen is that, every now and then, the movements register differently, resulting in deaths that shouldn't happen. At first, I thought it was a loose joystick, but then the sword button is registering wrong sometimes too, (hard to describe, but for levels that repeat, sometimes hitting the button or moving the joystick at the same time you did the first time results in a death the second time).

Also, when I play, I get a message at one point saying I'm halfway through and to insert more quarters. I always start the game by over adding credit, so it's fine, but I don't remember that from the original arcade version.

mediamogul

@beastrow

Those are all indeed odd issues. I love DL, but haven't played it in a few years. I might work my way through it this evening to see first hand what the deal is. It's always a point of contention that most of my friends flat out loathe the game, but I have a tremendous admiration for just about every aspect of it. I'm a big fan of traditional animation and have been known to let the 20th anniversary disc play through just to appreciate Don Bluth's stunning work.

briankross

@beastrow

Which version / revision of Dragon's Lair?

For example:

Dragon’s Lair (rev F2)
Dragon’s Lair (Enhanced) (rev 2.1)

In both of these above you can set the number of Dirks to unlimited by setting DIP switch B2 = Off.

If you need more specific help post your command file and I'll be happy to take a look at it.

briankross

@beastrow said in Dragon's Lair Lives Change Question:

@mediamogul ...
Also, when I play, I get a message at one point saying I'm halfway through and to insert more quarters. I always start the game by over adding credit, so it's fine, but I don't remember that from the original arcade version.

In short, this is a DIP switch setting for one of the "pay as you go" options. Let me know which version / revision of Dragon's Lair and I'll give you some suggestions.

mediamogul

Boy am I rusty. That castle is piled high with dead Dirks and I only barely made it to Singe's lair once. The timing does seem like it might be a little inconsistent at times, but quick time events being what they are, it's really hard to tell. I've been logging in most of my Daphne gaming with the various shooters and timing issues are nearly impossible to notice there.

caver01

@beastrow
Here are all of the command line game options for Daphne.

caver01

@beastrow said in Dragon's Lair Lives Change Question:

Also, when I play, I get a message at one point saying I'm halfway through and to insert more quarters. I always start the game by over adding credit, so it's fine, but I don't remember that from the original arcade version.

You must have some arbitrary dip switches set to enable "pay-as-you-go" options. If you have the -bank command line switches with binary codes after in your commands file, you really need to verify that's how you want the game configured. I posted my DIP switches a while back as an example, but this was ROM-specific. In other words, the game works differently with ROM A than it does with ROM F and with DLE21. The switches are not the same.

You need to check yours and lookup what you need here.

briankross

@beastrow

I'll give you some examples of what I've done.

Dragon’s Lair (rev F2)

I reference the Dragon's Lair Project for DIP switch settings
The above is for dedicated Dragon's Lair machines, using ROM revision E, F, F2 and Dragon's Lair Enhancement ROM set 1.1.

Here's a chart I've made to keep track.

My Dragon's Lair (rev F2) DIP chart

Reference the Daphne Wiki about command line values to see how DIP switches are set, look under their Game Options then -bank.

Here's my lair.commands file:

-bank 0 11111101 -bank 1 01110110 -blank_searches -latency 950 -noserversend -x 640 -y 480

In your case, if you want unlimited lives, you would set B2 to 0, which is -bank 1, third from the RIGHT.

Here's the same thing, but set to unlimited lives:

-bank 0 11111101 -bank 1 01110010 -blank_searches -latency 950 -noserversend -x 640 -y 480

After editing, save your lair.commands and restart Emulation Station if you were editing remotely.

Dragon’s Lair (Enhanced) (rev 2.1)

I reference the Dragon's Lair Project for DIP switch settings
The above is for Dragon's Lair games running the Dragon's Lair Enhancement ROM set version 2.0 or 2.1 ONLY.

Here's a chart I've made to keep track.

My Dragon’s Lair (Enhanced) (rev 2.1) DIP chart

Reference the Daphne Wiki about command line values to see how DIP switches are set, look under their Game Options then -bank.

Here's my dle21.commands file:

-bank 0 11111000 -bank 1 00110110 -noserversend -x 640 -y 480

In your case, if you want unlimited lives, you would set B2 to 0, which is -bank 1, third from the RIGHT.

Here's the same thing, but set to unlimited lives:

-bank 0 11111000 -bank 1 00110010 -noserversend -x 640 -y 480

After editing, save your dle21.commands and restart Emulation Station if you were editing remotely.

I hope this helps!

beastrow

Thanks for all your help, guys! REALLY appreciate it! To give you some back story, I built a cabinet using a kit that I bought online. Part of the kit was getting the vendor's image for Retropie, which had some stuff that was preset. As a result, I'm currently using the command setting they had already baked in, which are as follows, (note, I added the "-cheat" line):

-nocrc -noissues -noserversend -latency 950 -x 640 -y 480 -bank 1 00110111 -bank 0 10011000 -cheat

Based on what you've said above, it looks like the preset "-bank" settings are what cause the split of the game into two sections, (where it prompts for more credits). I'm going to try replacing it with the "-bank" settings suggested above to see how it does.

On a side note note, what is the best way to check my version of DL? Based on what I see using WinSCP and what I've played around with before, I know it's not DLE.

caver01

@beastrow You could download all of the different ROMS from dragon's lair and compare them to yours to see which one is a match.

briankross

@beastrow

Edit: My mistake.
~~You can add -version to your "commands" file temporarily.~~

If your commands file is lair.commands it's probably rev F2.