MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Help with Frogs backdrop

>Updating Mame has sorted the problem. As a bonus it also means I'm running a more up to
>date rom set!

Good that things worked out.

There might have been a change within the layout file artwork that was not compatible
with older versions of MAME. It is a guessing game, but in the past, there may have been
a bug report or maybe the source file that runs some game was updated. And then that
meant the external layout artwork layout file also required being updated to match what
was updated in MAME source. And with that, then it meant the user might have also had to
update to a newer release of MAME.

It doesn't happen as much compared to rom updates, but it probably has happened on past
occasions. Mr. Do would know more of the specifics since he has done updates in the
past.

*gregf mode length story of his Frogs game history*

>I can now play Frogs in all it's glory!

I first played Gremlins Frogs at a local Socal ski resort (Mountain High) in the waiting
room area of a cafeteria/warming hut some time in November 1978 when about 13 at the
time. The Frogs cab was standing lonesome all by itself as soon as one would open front
door and walk inside. It was inconspicuous and wasn't blaring any noise from the speakers
other than the splash attract mode sound effect. It was lonely standing there by itself
just looking for any attention from a passersby. (ie: sucker willing to drop in a coin
credit

*kidding*) I walked up to the cab and the backdrop artwork, frog on lily
pad, and butterfly scrolling overhead made the peaceful looking game to be enticing. This
was before all hell broke loose and I became a Frogs-addicted teenager maniac spending
loads of quarters on the game like the known pacman addiction phenomenon in the days of
gamers having the pacman addition and blowing lots of coin money on the game.

iirc when playing the Frogs cab would have a suspended backlit bulb (out of view inside
the cab) that would illuminate the backdrop piece giving a daylight visual appearance
when game first starts up. As the time 90 second game advances, the daylight visual
appearance from the hidden bulb, starts to dim making the game have an afternoon to dusk
to nightime appearance as bulb finally turns off. That was the first time I had ever seen
a visual effect like that during gameplay which was interesting in itself. The sound
effects were cute...maybe a bit annoying, but not some loud screaming crash sound effect
or some gargantuan 'BOOM'. And the Frogs character was a frog with a happy face. How can
a player not like a frog with a happy face as it hops around in hopes to catch a
butterfly or pesky buzzing noisy housefly.

I played the heck out of a cab for a straight hour whenever I saw Frogs cab at some
arcade place or a business such as the cafeteria at the ski resort. The last time I saw a
Frogs cab in person was in 1980. I missed playing the game and thought it would never
happen again. Fast forward to around mid to late 1990s era, I bought Digital Eclipse
coinop retro packages and was happy with those, but still wondered if ever a chance to
play Frogs or Sega Carnival. Around spring 2000, I stumble upon Tim Eckel's Arcade@Home
web site and was noticing screen snaps of coinop games. I had not grasped yet what I was
looking at when visiting the sites including Retrogames and other places including
JoseQ's Emuviews web site.

I telephoned a relative who was also coinop videogamer. He figured things out a day or
two faster than I did and he explained what I needed to do. While on JoseQ's Emuviews, I
downloaded Gremlin Frogs rom set and Carnival rom set and then went to old MAME.net site
and grabbed .36 final of MAME. I ran MAME and Frogs and just sat there stunned for a
couple minutes in disbelief seeing Frogs or Carnival in person. It was almost like a kid
at some holiday event getting some long wanted present that they always dreamed of
getting.

I was happy at the time, but then noticed lots of stuff missing and never understood why
that was the case. It then became a learning lesson that the non-commercial emulation
scene was a volunteer project and required many users over the years to contribute along
the way.

Using Frogs as an example, one of the users had to correct the control panel inputs to
match the actual control inputs for Frogs. Then BS Ruggieri added the external audio
samples from his own Frogs cab back around 2004. Derrick Renaud did early discrete
emulation sound effects for one of the sounds. Seth S. added Frogs backdrop artwork from
a Frogs cab. There are still pieces not yet supported for Frogs, but Frogs is more
playable these days compared to in 2000. Maybe the analog audio sound effects of Frogs
will eventually be updated to netlist standards, but that may be a while since there
might still be ttl components not yet emulated in netlist code.

I haven't followed carefully, but I believe Frogs bezel piece is still on want list of
needing to be scanned and also a control panel piece.

Old 2017 post, updated Oct. 2020 now that analog audio has finally happened for some of
the Sega vicdual hardware games such as Borderline, Tranquilizer Gun, and Frogs for
those that upgrade to .226 or newer builds of MAME. See old post link for details.

--
Sega/Gremlin Borderline analog audio finally for Pete *edit*
09/05/17

https://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/sh...part=1&vc=1
--

Pete is on far left holding a Borderline manual since it is his favorite vicdual
hardware game (Dec. 2006 soCali MAME meet went to Round Table pizza and also to
Camelot miniature golf course for arcade games), David/Zephyr, Mr. Do, and me with
Frogs manual since Frogs is my favorite vicdual hardware game.

Edited by gregf (10/31/20 11:43 PM)