gregf |
Ramtek's Trivia promoter
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Reged: 09/21/03
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Posts: 8599
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Loc: southern CA, US
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Frogs etc. *edit*
08/13/20 12:00 AM
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>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)
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