What You Need To Playback Recordings

[Chad]

This sticky post will eventually serve as a document of how to playback mame recordings. For now it'll be just a jumble of words "maybe" useful to some to get general recordings played back.

Things to know about how an inp was recorded before playing it back:

1. mame version used (and where to get it)

Usually mame.exe's can be downloaded right from marp right below the link you used to download the recording ("get MAME"). Though these links are usually not updated frequently so many are broken links. http://www.mame.net should have all the official versions and http://www.mame.dk should have all the rest.

2. sound on/off (default sound on)

If a description is blank, then it's assumed the marp submiter recorded the inp with sound on. If you record with sound off (or the recording only playsback with sound off), please mention it in the descritpion when uploading.

3. nvram (default nvram/gamename.nv non existant)

All future recordings at marp will be made with NO nvram file/directory present when mame is run. If any recording is submited with existing nvram files it will be removed. However this rule came into effect Sep.15th, 2001. So if a recording was made before then, it may require an nvram file to playback. You can do this by (1) create an "nvram" directory in the mame director, (2) running "mame gamename" and at least waiting for the emulation untill you can insert a credit, (3) press esc, (4) you should have a nvram file called nvram/gamename.nv in the mame dir. You can then try to playback the nvram requiring recording, mame -playback gamename

4. Sound, Frameskip, and misc settings

Some games require the exact same settings when playing back that were used during recording. This includes samplre rate frequency, sample bits, frameskip 0, auto frameskiping. Some older dos mame recordings may even need specific opl settings to get them to playback acurately. The opl boolean settings can be ym2203opl = yes/no, ym3812opl = yes/no, oplfm = yes/no.

5. Os version

Many times cross platform mames will playback inps recorded with different platforms. But in rare circumstances even the same mame.exe when used on the same architecture will not be able to playback a recording with a different OS. So be prepared to accept you may not be able to playback a recording if you don't have the same operating system the recording was recorded on.

[Larcen Tyler]

Don't you also need the ROM?

[mahlemiut]

That's what mame.dk used to provide. Now, however, you'll have to find them yourself. Google is your friend.