Location of the RAM value for the timer in TGM?

Thread in 'Research & Development' started by Ephraim225, 21 Aug 2015.

  1. A little bird told me the TGMs kick the speed into overdrive if you take longer than 15 minutes to finish your game. Naturally whenever I hear of something like that I've just got to try it, but I don't feel like sitting for 15 minutes :p so if anyone's tried hacking the timer or something else, I'd love to try it. I'm a sucker for modifications that result in insane (or even borderline stupid) challenges.
     
  2. TGM1 does not, I already recorded games that long.
     
  3. Hi Ephraim225, I'm guessing you did some of the F-Zero let's plays that I saw on Youtube? If so, nice stuff! I'm baffled that some people who take interest in TC are people I took interest in their channels, lol.

    If you feel like it, you can always introduce yourself on the introduction thread!

    Your assertion is correct, but only for TGM 2 and 3, and stalling for time can be quite difficult for those games, but it's definitely doable. For TGM2 though, you're better off trying Death mode (which is a superior mode) since it ACTUALLY reaches that speed once you get to 400 on a normal run, and for TGM3 you can go to world mode, make a lot of rotations for each piece to reset the timer all the time and then destroy the next sections with the speed you'll have. However world mode in TGM3 has different rotation system, different color scheme, different everything and not a lot of people in this forum are actively playing world mode... Not a lot of people have discovered this thing firsthand, to be honest.

    I suggest you go to Master mode in TGM2 and slow down as much as possible, and you might get it, considering your TGM1 GM! Best of luck for that
     
    Ephraim225 likes this.
  4. Zaphod77

    Zaphod77 Resident Misinformer

    you can stall long enough on the first I piece in world rotation on TI. you can force the i to kick upwards in midair. this will work until the speed kicks in.

    I'm not sure it's even possible to stall that much at ALL in classic. You would need to stack in a way that allows you to seriously abuse step reset, score as many singles as possible, and not hard or soft drop.

    and in TI you would be stopped by the torikan before you hit 15 minutes for sure unless you were stalling with world..

    hence why he wanted the cheat i think. :)
     
  5. Ah, hello Qlex, I did LP all the F-Zero games way way back. I'm a sucker for speed :p Congrats on that Death GM last month by the way, that was hype.

    I guess if the timer's kill speed is just Death mode at L400 I suppose it's not worth trying to get to happen deliberately anyways. I can never get that far in Death mode :(

    But yeah like Zaphod77 said for TI the torikan would stop me if I tried to stall for time. This is all a just for fun thing anyways I suppose.
     
    Qlex likes this.
  6. Under low gravity, DASing across a single cell protrusion on the stack will allow you to stall up to a maximum of (29 * gravity timer) frames at the same height. The gravity timer is zeroed when the piece is grounded and DAS will allow you scrape by with a single frame of lock delay expended. Even with just a single spire available, you can stall 15~30 seconds per piece in the early game. It goes without saying that you can multiply your stalling opportunities by carefully building these protrusions at multiple elevations down through the stack.

    Moreover, TAP Master doesn't have a torikan, so it's that much more feasible to achieve this without having to worry about brushing up against the 500 level limit.
     
  7. So, I've just tested it on TAP Master Mode in Mame. Since I never got that far, I dont really know how fast Death 400 is, but the speed definitly escalated beyond my skill from 1 second to the next. Sadly, I havent recorded it, and I was very slow with taking a screenshot, but you see on it that the timer, the rank and level counter changed to a golden color (what also happens if you reach 20G, if im not mistaken). With no sonic/soft dropping this is fairly easy to achieve this during the level 200 slowdown.
    [​IMG]
     
  8. For everyone who wants to try this without stalling for 15 minutes, here is a cheat file to set the timer to 14:45:00. Put the zip file in your MAME directory (don't extract it) and set "cheat 1" in your mame.ini. Then start a game, hit TAB->Cheat->Set 1P Timer to 14:45.

    In case you want to merge it with an existing cheat file, here is the xml:
    Code:
    <mamecheat version="1">
      <cheat desc="Set 1P Timer to 14:45">
        <script state="on">
          <action>maincpu.pw@6064BEA=0xCF6C</action>
        </script>
      </cheat>
      <cheat desc="Set 2P Timer to 14:45">
        <script state="on">
          <action>maincpu.pw@6064F9E=0xCF6C</action>
        </script>
      </cheat>
    </mamecheat>
     

    Attached Files:

    Ephraim225 likes this.
  9. Thank you very much, I got it to work. Oh my god is that fast.

    ...I'm gonna try it in Doubles. :twisted:
     
  10. I tried the cheat in doubles, and I found out that you can carry the speed over to other modes. When you start a game in doubles as Player 1, use the cheat for P1, wait until 15:00, die, and then start a game in Master-Mode, the Master-Mode game will also be at this speed. I dont know if it works with waiting too, and if it does, if it works on a real machine. Maybe somebody wants to experiment with this a bit more.

    EDIT: I tried it a couple more times, and it seems like it only works when the OTHER player dies. So, if you are using P1 for everything, the you must make P2 to die before P1 does.
     
    Last edited: 25 Aug 2015
    Kitaru likes this.
  11. Any videos of this effect happening, even with the cheat on? I don't think any exist as of now.
     
  12. Well there is now, I made one myself.



    EDIT: Oh yeah, the code does nothing in a versus match, because the timer ticks down instead of up. Well, it makes the match last longer, I suppose.
     
    Last edited: 25 Aug 2015

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