Hi Forum, I'm making slow progress in TGM and I want to start recording my games. I am using shmupmame 2.2 and I tried using "Play and record input" from the "file" menu and "Play and record input" in the context menu (the same thing probably). In both cases it saves an inp file, but if I play it back using "play input" is just shows a weird game with blocks moving all over the place... What am I doing wrong? Is there a way to record automatically (I've seen something in ths forum before but I cannot find it anymore)? Amnesia told me le PetitPrince might know.... Uli
You'll need to make a back-up of the game's NVRAM before you start playing so there is proper context for the inputs. Otherwise, you just get a newly randomized set of pieces that don't match the keys you pressed. I really don't know why every version of MAME doesn't do this automatically. Some of them just ignore save data, some of them uselessly overwrite it after you're done recording leaving you with no context unless you made an advance back-up, some of them will hose your NVRAM after you're done watching a replay... it's retarded. Anyway, here is an example of the .bat script I have rigged up to automatically back-up my NVRAMs for Sega Tetris and start recording: Code: copy /B .\nvram\tetris.nv /B .\inp\latest_tetris.nv Shmupmame_v22 tetris -record latest_tetris.inp -r 640x480 -switchres -aspect 4:3 Some other players have fancier scripts that automatically wrap up the latest recording and relevant save data in a .zip with a timestamp as the filename, but I was never too bothered by manually zipping replays I cared about after the fact. Someone will probably chime in with something nicer, but I can poke around the forums for previous discussions otherwise.
For Sega tetris, just play the bootleg, which has no nvram. This will get you the poweron sequence every time.
fair enough. if I had the patience, i'd try to TAS it and find the optimum starting seed, but i don't really.
I use the following batch files provided by Edo. You can edit the files to make them work for different games. Instructions from Edo: I put the files I think are worth saving in different folders and usually just replay the files instead of using the playback command. Let me know if you have trouble getting it to work properly if you try the files.
