Home Page Forums Archives MacMAME Bullet Time on MAME???

Here's an idea for a cool feature that would be good for people (like myself in some games) who just can't seem to make the scores they used to make 20 years ago, but DON'T want to resort to using the cheat functions:-

Bullet Time - well, sort of...

You see, in the earlier versions of MacMAME, games like Bombjack and Robotron, Stargate, etc., ran slow enough to anticipate the computer's moves. This gave you ample time to counter. Just like bullet time where things are slowed for all but the observer, the game could run slowly, or slow enough for you to react at a more, shall we say superior skill level...

Or maybe I should just stick to the earlier versions of MacMAME? Trouble with that is a lot of the games now were incompatible then...

Ah well, just a thought...
What're your ideas on something like that... wouldn't it be cool to slow down the entire 5th Brain Wave of Robotron at the touch of a button?

Mame really is a preservation/accuracy project in it's heart. If the machine didn't have it or support it, you can bet Mame won't have it.

So short of a slow cpu, a crippled cpu (low ram, etc) or something that hogs all your resources, I wouldn't bet on it intentionally. Besides running things slow is not only uncool, but it sounds annoying and hurts the experience.

That said, Killer Instinct has your feature built in.

I recall mention of an keyboard command to overclock CPUs in MacMAME, I assume you can set things in the opposite direction and underclock also.... Or am I just imagining things?

I agree, its a useful option. I just don't cut it on shooters anymore. The ravages of time take your high scores first it seems.

Uh...that's why I took the time to include So basically, those who find such a feature uncool and annoying (surprise!)... DON'T HAVE TO USE IT!

But that's just a thought at any rate. It would actually be cool to be able to slow down the action during any point of a game just to match my reaction time in the more frantic-paced games...

Optional or not, such a feature would never be added to MAME itself. You're welcome to program a derivative build with it though.

(BTW, Robotron used to be too fast in MAME at the higher levels - newer versions are much more accurate in this regard).

It's already in MAME.

In the Misc tabs, check "Enable Cheats".

When in a game, hit ~ and use the up/down arrows to find the overclock CPU option. Then use the left arrow to turn down the speed. If there is more than one CPU, you'll need to turn them all down.

It's not at the touch of a button, but it is in there.

For what it's worth, I don't really think cheats, underclocking or save states should be part of MAME at all. They have nothing to do with the original arcade games. I'm assuming they're useful debugging tools, which is why they're in there in the first place.

But that's just my 25 cents.

What happens when we all turn 70 or 80? This is going to tough. Hopefully those neural implantation joysticks will have all of the bugs worked out!

True. But the Defender cheat that allows use of a 4-way joystick instead of a zillion buttons to control movement has added at least a couple years to the usefulness of my hands before arthritis sets in.

Speaking of Defender, why does the UI report it as having an 8-way joystick? Doesn't a real defender machine have a small 2-way joystick (up and down only), and five buttons (fire, flip, thrust, bomb and teleport)?