re: "What to do when TG settings can't be found"

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This is in response to Steve Krogmans posting regarding TG settings that can't be found... Steve makes a very good explanation of how the TG settings are derived, and gives some insight as to how a player can make a limited judgement on their own. My only concern is at the end of his message, where Steve says:

If any player has a question about a setting for a particular game they can e-mail me and I will figure out the correct setting for the game and then confirm it with Walter Day to see if it will be an official setting to add to his archive.

Considering that Mark Longridge is the official Twin Galaxies judge for all MAME emulation game scores, shouldn't we be running these questions through Mark? I'm sure both Steve (being the official TG judge for PC games), and Walter (doing *everything* that he does), have better things to do.

Just my $.02... =Angry=

-- Angry (greggg@ix.netcom.com), January 26, 1999

Answers

Thanks Angry for the $.02.. :) Mark Longridge has done an exceptional job in helping create the TG settings page for what it is today. Allthough there are a few games unfortunately I have to dissagree on as far as the settings are concerned, and figured this is where I would gladly help a player when in question on the settings for a particular game. A good example (I'm sure Angry will back me up on this one) is on the game Donkey Kong 3. According to Mark's TG settings page, he only allows 3 men to start (which is perfectly fine) but only 1 more man and no extra's thereafter?! I'm sorry, but if anyone has ever played this game like Angry and myself have, you too will see that getting a score of 2.1M or 1.9M (in the TG book) with just 4 men is extremely hard to believe! We both used the default settings for this game but honestly, we probably could of bumbed up the extra men awarded from 30K to maybe 40K which would of put the settings somewhere in the middle like I mentioned yesterday. Also, if you visit his TG setting page, and want to look up the settings for most of the Williams games, you will only see the settings for "Tournement" mode, NOT "Marathon" (default) mode. Mark doesn't believe in the Marathon settings or "playing forever" which in some instances I can understand, but I think we should give the player the opportunity to submit a score on the default settings as there are many many scores in the TG book to compare with these such settings. The book has 2 score lists for most of the Williams games and a few others (Q*bert, Missle Command, Star Wars and Star Trek) I will be talking to Walter in the next few days about possibly adding another 2nd list of scores for these games for tournement settings (Centipede, Millipede, Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe, Mr. Do, Gyruss, and Galaga) Reason being is because all of these games do not have an inevitable end can be played for ever. It would also be interesting to see what players can do with 5 men on these games and no extra men awarded.

Regards, Steve Krogman

-- stephen krogman (skrogman@concentric.net), January 26, 1999.


On the DK3 TG scores. Just for fun I checked the TG listing at the TG mainsite and Mark's page. The TG main site's settings page doesn't list any settings for DK3 but Mark's page does (of course, it's the settings listed). If that phenomenal score was created on an arcade game and not on an emulated version then my guess is it was done on default settings at an arcade. And I agree, the score seems near impossible to beat, even on default settings.

I apologize if I'm way off base here as I do not yet own the TG book. I would like to know if it lists M.A.M.E. scores/settings or not. I plan on getting the book mid-feb.

Randood.

-- Randood (rbrown@netboise.com), January 27, 1999.


Actually, with regards to the Donkey Kong 3 score, I believe that a score of 2.1 million is achievable based on 1 extra life at 30,000 (or whatever points level).

DK3 only increases its difficulty level up to the point that I am now reaching in the game. After this, the game only present 1 of 5 different attack patterns, which can be easily learned.

While I agree that the 2.1 million score was likely achieved with the game awarding repeated extra lives (whatever the factory defaults were set to), the fact that the score would not be possible without the additional extra lives had not entered my mind.

-- Angry (greggg@ix.netcom.com), January 27, 1999.


Randood, The first edition of the TG book did in fact have a list of mame scores that were published at the last minute before the book went into being pressed. Mame at that time was still very new so there weren't too many scores and none of them came from Chris's page. All of them came from Mark's page. The settings weren't listed probably because you could research the game's settings in the arcade section to see what the setting was for that particular game because almost all of the games on mame compared to the arcade ver. were close to near perfect. I'm going to talk to Walter Day tomorrow and recommend he add a section in the book to have every possible game's settings he can get. The only other place to find settings that didn't make it into the book by the deadline, was put on his web page and has been growing (between Walter and Mark) to this day. I think in the next week or two, I will be generating a page for settings as well on the games that haven't been noted yet between Marks page and Walters page. Also, by working in the gaming industry, it helps when it comes down to finding out the settings on a particular game. Especially the newer one's that probably won't make it to mame for a few more years! :) Steve Krogman

-- stephen krogman (skrogman@concentric.net), January 28, 1999.

Steve,

It seems redundant to create yet another reference page for TG settings to be used within MAME. Since Mark has already created a list, why not work with him to fill in the blanks, instead of creating what could be a conflicting list of game settings?

-- Angry (greggg@ix.netcom.com), January 28, 1999.



as far as tg settings go, alot of tg settnigs for games are defaults, example ghosts n goblins, exedexes...and ,lots more...

when mark gets a full list of tg settings, post em on marp in the rules section and hell, ill submit some more to him :) alot of mine (and others) whooopass some of the scores on marks page already :)

and yeah, i hope a co-op will work sweet in the future for inp's (no, not with dave!)

K

-- Krool (kellyq@ihug.co.nz), January 28, 1999.


Angry, True. I probably don't have to contribute another list as Mark and Walter allready have one going for some time now. What I will do though, is contribute help as far as settings go for alot of the newer games found in the arcade that haven't made it to mame yet. I don't think Mark or Walter will want to go searching for TG settings for Time Crisis 2... Also, There are now over 1,000 games available to mame. I don't think Mark will end up going to every game to log down settings to add to his list what he's missing. Aventually, I would like to play most if not all the games available at least once and while doing that, I can help set the TG settings for that game that Mark or Walter will probably not get around to doing any time soon. Alot of games, Mark hasn't even played before and Walter has never even seen! That's where my help would come in.

Regards, Steve Krogman

-- stephen krogman (skrogman@concentric.net), January 30, 1999.


Stephan,

As an added note, it would be nice if the TG settings page, Marks page or whatever the list/page may be, used 'default' to denote MAME/Cabinet default settings rather than just the name of the game followed by blank space. Such as what is currently displayed when you go to the TG site and look up game settings.

By the way I saw your controller setup that you sell! Wow! That's some cool stuff. I'm trying to make one myself and if it doesn't work out I may be ordering it.

Randood.

-- Randood (rbrown@netboise.com), February 02, 1999.


Randood, Good point, I will pass the info to Mark Longridge and see if he'll consider it for his page. PS Can you believe I've sold several of my Ultimate Joysticks and forgot to save one for myself?! You should see the one I'm using now. It looks like a jewlery box with a joystick and a couple of buttons! :) Steve Krogman

-- stephen krogman (skrogman@concentric.net), February 02, 1999.

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