The struggle to not cash in on Neo Geo AES consoles and games..

bulbousbeard · Dec 8, 2019

BIG BEAR said:
Is that Metal Slug 2 Turbo patch released for hardware the equivalent of this MAME patch being discussed? How much better is the game with the TURBO patch in 2 player mode?
Thanks.
BB

Yeah it's the same thing. It makes an enormous difference in two player games.

Neo Alec · Dec 8, 2019

donluca said:
If you read the article made by the patch author you'll see that there's a routine which was meant to deliberately cut in half the FPS and it was easily patched. http://daifukkat.su/blog/archives/2015/03/30/its_turbo_time/ It was posted a couple posts above.

Now, from a developer perspective, this is not some kind of "bad coding" but rather "poor foresight", if you will. They wanted the slowdown in the game, but probably they didn't thought it could drop down to such abysmal levels.

Matter of fact, I still find it enjoyable while playing in single player but becomes unbearable when a second player joins in.

They probably tested only in single player mode and that was it.

Yeah, sorry. I don't read that as evidence that it was intentional.

bulbousbeard · Dec 8, 2019

Neo Alec said:
Yeah, sorry. I don't read that as evidence that it was intentional.

Because it wasn't. It was simply poorly written code and only psycho fanboys are going to make arguments that it was some brilliant decision on the part of the developers.

The fact that Metal Slug X was released so quickly after it and changed this behavior says it all. It was a fuckup. Metal Slug X is basically a glorified patch for Metal Slug 2.

GoosehanX · Dec 8, 2019

It's easy for current programmers to wonder why the original code wasn't up to snuff 20 years later after everything was already figured out.

Why did Fatal Fury 1 play like shit? Just look at Garou, it's not that hard.

bulbousbeard · Dec 9, 2019

GohanX said:
It's easy for current programmers to wonder why the original code wasn't up to snuff 20 years later after everything was already figured out.

Why did Fatal Fury 1 play like shit? Just look at Garou, it's not that hard.

Well, Street Fighter 1 played like shit, and the same guy directed FF1, so I just assumed that's why it played like shit.

I've never been an apologist for early Neo Geo fighters. There was never any excuse for them being worse than SF2. Can't stand any of those shitty World Heroes games either. Samurai Shodown 2 was much the first one they got right, and that was a whopping 3 years after SF2. There was no excuse for the Metal Slug games running at 30hz internally, either. Pretty embarrassing really.

(Gunstar Heroes remains the best Contra style game ever made)

donluca · Dec 9, 2019

Neo Alec said:
Yeah, sorry. I don't read that as evidence that it was intentional.

No problem, you gotta have some basic understanding of programming (or, in that case, C language) to understand what was going on there and what the patch did, but all it did, really, was to remove the check if the vblank call was an even number and, in that case, ignore it.

Code:

if(vblank_counter != 2)
    return;

Although this is highly inaccurate, just to let you understand what's going on, you can think of a vblank call as a screen refresh, or frame. If you look at it this way, the first routine basically discarded all the even frames. If trap15 has an account here he could probably explain this a billion times better than me.

Besides, remember that Metal Slug X used a whole new engine (not a patched MS2 one), which was used as a kind of test bench for Metal Slug 3. They were probably testing out the limits of the new engine to see how hard they could push it for their next major game.

Neo Alec · Dec 9, 2019

I know. I understand.

I just think it's so intolerably bad that there's no way it was intentional. Especially in an arcade setting where there is little incentive for the gameplay to take longer. I think it's more likely a mistake. Perhaps something that was changed and overlooked last minute.

I admit, it's strange that they didn't find it and correct it in later releases, but plenty of games never received revised code after initial release, so who knows. I suppose the speed was just more acceptable in those days. I remember hearing about the issue far less often back when MS2 was released.

donluca · Dec 9, 2019

I don't know man, I used to play MS2 at the arcades like everyday and the slowdown didn't bother me in any way. But I have to admit that when I got back to it when MAME became more mainstream I immediately thought "wow, was it like this back in the arcade?". Exact same reaction from several friends: no one remembered being it this slow.

And still, we played the hell out of it and, after getting used to it (single player) I find it perfectly acceptable. Two players though... that's really a mess.

Also, the way they coded it make it apparent that this was a deliberate decision: they wanted it to run like that. It wasn't a mistake or bad coding, because that took two distinct variables to handle this additional slowdown which meant they purposely programmed it to behave like that, it would have been a hell lot easier for the programmers to just let it roll.

oliverclaude · Dec 9, 2019

donluca said:
Also, the way they coded it make it apparent that this was a deliberate decision: they wanted it to run like that. It wasn't a mistake or bad coding, because that took two distinct variables to handle this additional slowdown which meant they purposely programmed it to behave like that, it would have been a hell lot easier for the programmers to just let it roll.

This is an extremely cool (even if bold) assumption, donluca. Thank you for elaborating on it! I myself also lean towards your opinion, that it could be intentional and that the game works nicely with this, sort of, Woo'esque slow motion in 1-player mode.

I see the same in Pulstar, where the slow down is used as a slow motion effect, too, in order to raise the tension − and it works, especially in the last stage. Here, the programmers didn't make the mistake to allow a simultaneous two player game, so it never crosses the line like MS2 in its 2-player mode.

But, even if it wasn't intentional, I think both teams still knew what the outcome would look like and what was technically possible at that time, so they decided to make a virtue out of necessity and indeed, you can interpret the slow down in both games as an authentic part of the game design and not an unintentional mistake or a lack of diligence.

geise · Dec 9, 2019

bulbousbeard said:
HAHA it was not intentionally put there, you slope. MAMEdevs identified the error and fixed it, and Metal Slug X also fixed it.

There's some pretty creepy ass cult like behavior going on around here.

There ARE games with intentional slowdown like Samurai Shodown 2, but Metal Slug 2's was not by design.

There's a big god damn difference from creating a game for certain hardware from the ground up and adding to already programmed in emulation. Any dev would know this. What were your claim to MAMEDev fame again?

Edit. I thought I remember reading your name before. Now I remember from years ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/cade/comments/46ii20/arcadevga_is_now_completely_useless/

bulbousbeard · Dec 9, 2019

It's hilarious how naive some of you are. Games have been FULL of simple and stupid errors for decades.

The SNES Super Mario Brothers All Stars has a simple error in the code that fucks up in the physics in SMB1. It was just a lazy oversight. This kind of crap happens all the time even now. Can't believe anyone actually thinks that Metal Slug 2 catastrophe was intentional.

Burning Fight!! · Dec 10, 2019

geise said:
There's a big god damn difference from creating a game for certain hardware from the ground up and adding to already programmed in emulation. Any dev would know this. What were your claim to MAMEDev fame again?

Edit. I thought I remember reading your name before. Now I remember from years ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/cade/comments/46ii20/arcadevga_is_now_completely_useless/

What a weirdo.

Gentlegamer · Dec 10, 2019

bulbousbeard said:
It's hilarious how naive some of you are. Games have been FULL of simple and stupid errors for decades.

The SNES Super Mario Brothers All Stars has a simple error in the code that fucks up in the physics in SMB1. It was just a lazy oversight.

This is why I never liked SMB All Stars. It feels wrong.

bulbousbeard · Dec 10, 2019

Gentlegamer said:
This is why I never liked SMB All Stars. It feels wrong.

As with most games, it's better emulated than on real hardware.

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/167/

Although to be fair you could patch the ROM and play that on real hardware, too.

Neo Alec · Dec 10, 2019

I guess if the slowdown was intentional, it could've been a lazy last minute attempt at balancing the difficulty. They should've had a better way though. And increasing the difficulty level in the game options should disable the slowdown then, but it doesn't.

Also, if it was intentional, then it should disable in 2-player mode.

Atro · Dec 10, 2019

bulbousbeard said:
As with most games, it's better emulated than on real hardware.

Dude, please stop...

The more you post, the deeper the hole gets. :oh_no:

Late · Dec 10, 2019

bulbousbeard · Dec 10, 2019

Atro said:
Dude, please stop...

The more you post, the deeper the hole gets.

Whatever, psycho! It's true.

Dr. Jigglin · Dec 11, 2019

bulbousbeard said:
Whatever, psycho! It's true.

But no one cares.... except you and donluca.

donluca · Dec 11, 2019

Cares about what?

I'm not sure if people are thinking I'm doing some crazy wizardry coding shit, debunking myths or anything, but I'm not.

I'm just looking at another guy's work and explaining in a more down-to-earth what the code does and why.
Since I don't own a crystal ball and wasn't there reading the minds of the programmers when they wrote that code, I've just added my 2 cents on why they probably coded the slowdown that way.
That's pretty much it.

The beard guy is just going on in his personal crusade for god-only-knows-why reason against Nazca programmers, I don't really care about that, he's free to do all his ramblings and make a fool of himself for all that I care.

geise · Dec 11, 2019

5 min Duckduckgo search (yes. Lol) for bulbousbeard can show he's either been banned from a forum, deleted his account or no one cares for him.

Liquid Snake · Dec 11, 2019

Dr Shroom said:
I don't regret selling all my neo geo stuff. I also don't regret selling my X68000's. Just dump that shit, make some space and buy something you actually have a use for on a daily basis.

toilet paper?

wyo · Dec 11, 2019

It's reasonable to assume the MS2 slowdown was deliberate and the game was optimized for 1P.

BlackaneseNiNjA · Dec 11, 2019

wyo said:
It's reasonable to assume the MS2 slowdown was deliberate and the game was optimized for 1P.

Sup wyo! Normally I’d be inclined to agree, since a glaring issue would have been noted in the location test phase...but the release of Metal Slug X seems to indicate that even if there was the possibility that it was an intentional implementation of code, the end result was likely not the intended player experience.

HeavyMachineGoob · Dec 11, 2019

Atro said:
Dude, please stop...

The more you post, the deeper the hole gets.

To be fair, that physics fix for Super Mario All-Stars is awesome, I have it and the classic graphics hack applied to a ROM on my SNES flash cart.

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/604/

The struggle to not cash in on Neo Geo AES consoles and games..

Iconic Romhacker Analinguist

Legendary Member?

Iconic Romhacker Analinguist

Horrible Goose

Iconic Romhacker Analinguist

Ninja Combat Warrior

Legendary Member?

Ninja Combat Warrior

General Morden's Aide

Mickey's Coach

Iconic Romhacker Analinguist

NIS America fan & Rent Free tenant

Tung's Hair Stylist

Iconic Romhacker Analinguist

Legendary Member?

Who?,

Reichsf?rer-Finnland,

Iconic Romhacker Analinguist

A Real Doctor

Ninja Combat Warrior

Mickey's Coach

I am untouchable

Warrior of the Innanet

The Fatal Fury Disciple

My poontang misses Lenn Yang's wang