YouTube Emulation Extravaganza

[serene02]

I believe they originally had this problem in Donkey Kong.  The first 'skill nudge' software could be emptied and it was easy to get to the reel wins.  The chipped version you could still keep the invincible board, it was anything but easy as it was actually very difficult obtaining a reel win before the machine would pause for the feature, which would reset the board back to it's default state.  Best I ever did was grab two extra invincible boards which was extremely fortunate to say the least.

I do find it hard to believe that the same company can fall into the same trap with the same type of error?   Crazy.

Same with Project Coin.  On the original Jokers' Wild, release 1989, it was possible to exploit the token reflex.  Once it was ready for the jackpot it would always offer nudges for it when in was within 3 nudges.  Taking a cash win instead wasn't accounted for so it would stay jackpot ready, you could even take the token jackpot every £10 recycled through, maybe even £8.

Their initial release of '3 Steps to Heaven', which was released in late 1990's also suffered from jackpot ready nudge.  Again, you could just keep taking the XXX wins instead and it would never go dead and would offer the jackpot nudge if the it was available within 9 nudges.  So it came round quite regularly.   I remember having a 10p £5 one for a fair few months.

We have a 3 Steps to Heaven layout but unfortunately it is a fixed rom revision.

 

J

[Zippy]

1 hour ago, A:E said:

I believe they originally had this problem in Donkey Kong.  The first 'skill nudge' software could be emptied and it was easy to get to the reel wins.  The chipped version you could still keep the invincible board, it was anything but easy as it was actually very difficult obtaining a reel win before the machine would pause for the feature, which would reset the board back to it's default state.  Best I ever did was grab two extra invincible boards which was extremely fortunate to say the least.

I do find it hard to believe that the same company can fall into the same trap with the same type of error?   Crazy.

Same with Project Coin.  On the original Jokers' Wild, release 1989, it was possible to exploit the token reflex.  Once it was ready for the jackpot it would always offer nudges for it when in was within 3 nudges.  Taking a cash win instead wasn't accounted for so it would stay jackpot ready, you could even take the token jackpot every £10 recycled through, maybe even £8.

Their initial release of '3 Steps to Heaven', which was released in late 1990's also suffered from jackpot ready nudge.  Again, you could just keep taking the XXX wins instead and it would never go dead and would offer the jackpot nudge if the it was available within 9 nudges.  So it came round quite regularly.   I remember having a 10p £5 one for a fair few months.

We have a 3 Steps to Heaven layout but unfortunately it is a fixed rom revision.

 

J

Well at least two other Projects I know of including Jokers Wild has a complete unlimited hold emptier which is something I have great fun with. Unfortunately until I get a solution to solve my recording issue I won't be able to reveal it as don't like keeping it all to myself but never mind!!

[Chopaholic]

My second video about this machine for the channel, I make no apologies as it's bloomin' fantastic and now we have an incredible Pook DX for it.

 

[Chopaholic]

Crikey, 10 seconds of a low quality sample from a 25 year old fruit machine.....

As you know I don't monetise the channel in any way so this makes no difference to me, but talk about the eggshells folks must have to walk on when they are!

And if you see ads around this video, it's not my fault!  

[Mort]

Wonderful video that I have just had the pleasure of watching. Really enjoyed it.

I have a plan for Win Series and will try and post something up for that shortly.

This is an amazing machine which has a top draw DX (thanks Pook) and your comment at the end about just having this machine running in attract mode is the same for me. 

I really appreciate what FME has made available to us all thanks to the efforts of the coders, artists and resource gatherers over the years.

It's layouts like this which provide a showpiece for the enthusiasm and a strive for perfection and attention to detail that a small niche non-commercial hobbyist community can achieve over time.

Edited August 27, 2020 by Mort

[Mort]

here is a teaser, the game code does support the feature at least! but with RAM pokes/hacks ! I will have a play around more and try and post a video to explain how I got it.

I got £5 from Win Series btw haha

Edited August 27, 2020 by Mort

[Zippy]

Nice one @Mort knew someone would get there in the end, not taking anything away from anyone but you do know your stuff.

Love the videos as always Degs, entertaining, amusing and very insightful

[wearecity]

Another entertaining video. I remember years ago, trying for hours to get the win series in the emulator and failing. 

So many circumstances have to happen for it to stand a chance.

I'm not even sure I've had £5 or Nudge Time either. If I have it would have been ultra rare.

I was playing the layout, while watching the video and took Pathway to Riches. I thought that was a bit more difficult to follow than I remember, then you had the same thing as me, not being 100% sure, from the middle path of the feature. Perhaps it's old age. 

This is definitely the ultimate version of this machine for the emulator, but due to the slowdown, I have kept the dural version, which still looks great today.

Edited August 28, 2020 by wearecity

[Chopaholic]

The slowdown is a shame, CPU and GPU power makes no difference, so it's clearly some sort of internal limit on what the emulator is capable of.

The odd thing is that Hi Ho Silver (the Ploggy DX) had similar slowdown on the jackpot sequence when all the blended lamps were going but Wizard fixed that it an emulator update.

Maybe it'll be possible that the same thing can be achieved with whatever is going on with Indy. It's certainly not so much of a deal breaker for me that I'd return to the Dural DX though.

[wearecity]

Yep, Wizard has made some amazing steps, so I'm sure if it can be done, it will be.

I remember during emulator testing, receiving a version of the emulator that was a bit slow on certain layouts, he sent back another version within hours, that completely got rid of the slowdown.

I would say, that Indiana Jones, lamp wise is much more complex than Hi Ho Silver was, not just the amount of lamps, but the quality of them as well. Plus a much greater sized image.

So to me, I think although perhaps it the same issue, if he had to make changes that meant 10% improved lamp performance for Hi Ho, then it's more like 100% for Indiana.

Although of course, I speak with no experience or knowledge, so could be talking utter bollocks. 

[vectra666]

No ones mentioned the button lamps on this 

I wondered how he got them to look as if they’re pressed down them looked at the lampung in edit mode, total genius and makes it 100% more realistic 

@Pook any chance of whipping up a £8 or £10 version of this please,  as only got a jpmemu conversion atm

or even just the decals so we can add them in manually if possible?

[Zippy]

Well they don't call him Wizard for nothing, he is here for us but maybe not all things can be fixed.

A slowdown on a few layouts isn't too bad and still grateful for what we have like and sure most of you feel the same way.

[wearecity]

1 hour ago, Big J said:

Well they don't call him Wizard for nothing, he is here for us but maybe not all things can be fixed.

A slowdown on a few layouts isn't too bad and still grateful for what we have like and sure most of you feel the same way.

Yep even if it's the way it is, it's still fantastic to load up and admire the attract mode in fullscreen borderless mode in a dark room.

Edited August 28, 2020 by wearecity

[Zippy]

38 minutes ago, wearecity said:

Yep even if it's the way it is, it's still fantastic to load up and admire the attract mode in fullscreen borderless mode in a dark room.

And as I have said to Vecs and Chloe(maybe a few others)but if there is no sound, no problem, just whack on some good music, have a nice background then you're off and one day they will turn up, don't you just love MFME

It's the little things you know!!

[Pook]

5 hours ago, vectra666 said:

No ones mentioned the button lamps on this 

I wondered how he got them to look as if they’re pressed down them looked at the lampung in edit mode, total genius and makes it 100% more realistic 

@Pook any chance of whipping up a £8 or £10 version of this please,  as only got a jpmemu conversion atm

or even just the decals so we can add them in manually if possible?

@Wizard recently introduced this as a new design feature in MFME. Right click on a button and choose 'double up', this will spit the lamp into two, the left being unpressed and the right pressed. Just extract and edit the bmp to the desired animated effect. Countdown is the only release of my last 5 that I haven't utilised this.

And I only had scans of the £6 decals, as @Chopaholic says it's the best incarnation anyway.

 

[Mort]

So here is a video showing a very basic use of the powerful and often overlooked feature included in MFME, a complete machine debugger.  (sorry no voice over on the video, I'm crap at that stuff)

In this example I use MFME's ability to use write break points and write/poke bytes (in hex) to a memory location which the machine uses to store the value attributed to the number reel. I use a write breakpoint on the number reel value, which means that when the game writes in the next value the execution of the game code is then halted, which then allows me to intercept and over-write, or poke, that value with an alternative. The game code is then resumed and it will read this value that I have changed instead.

In the case of Indy I tried to find a nicer more natural method than this one but I've spent far too much time on this already trying to hunt down the RAM locations for the gun code in particular, and just wanted to get this video out there.

Anyway what I do here is get on the board, set the write breakpoint, and then intercept it to move 2 places first, then get the first bullet, and then intercept again but to move 0 places each time and keep landing on the same safest! gun square. I have done this a few times and it will kill you before 5 bullets on occasion. This eventually fills up the feature to £6 and Win Series. Then I move around the board, intercepting values on the way to get to the square to collect Win Series.

The Win Series result is shocking in this video, but I have had higher values in testing around £12-£15 with a JP spinning in on occasion.

At the end I attempt to show how you can poke in the amount of nudges in reel play and was going to nudge in a JP but I messed it up lol.

Hope it makes sense. If anything this goes to show another side of MFME and also proves that the Indiana Jones game code at least supported the Win Series feature (it was not just a lamp on the glass) but alas it doesn't look like it was ever possible to get it within normal play anyway.

Just something different anyway:

 

 

[Zippy]

Jesus H fucking christ @Mort what is this......

HACK THE PLANET!!!!

Love it bud

[Dougsta]

55 minutes ago, Mort said:

So here is a video showing a very basic use of the powerful and often overlooked feature included in MFME, a complete machine debugger.  (sorry no voice over on the video, I'm crap at that stuff)

In this example I use MFME's ability to use write break points and write/poke bytes (in hex) to a memory location which the machine uses to store the value attributed to the number reel. I use a write breakpoint on the number reel value, which means that when the game writes in the next value the execution of the game code is then halted, which then allows me to intercept and over-write, or poke, that value with an alternative. The game code is then resumed and it will read this value that I have changed instead.

In the case of Indy I tried to find a nicer more natural method than this one but I've spent far too much time on this already trying to hunt down the RAM locations for the gun code in particular, and just wanted to get this video out there.

Anyway what I do here is get on the board, set the write breakpoint, and then intercept it to move 2 places first, then get the first bullet, and then intercept again but to move 0 places each time and keep landing on the same safest! gun square. I have done this a few times and it will kill you before 5 bullets on occasion. This eventually fills up the feature to £6 and Win Series. Then I move around the board, intercepting values on the way to get to the square to collect Win Series.

The Win Series result is shocking in this video, but I have had higher values in testing around £12-£15 with a JP spinning in on occasion.

At the end I attempt to show how you can poke in the amount of nudges in reel play and was going to nudge in a JP but I messed it up lol.

Hope it makes sense. If anything this goes to show another side of MFME and also proves that the Indiana Jones game code at least supported the Win Series feature (it was not just a lamp on the glass) but alas it doesn't look like it was ever possible to get it within normal play anyway.

Just something different anyway:

 

 

That's cool. I'd always wondered if there was a way to do this, and now I know what all that stuff in the Debug area is for.

I've dug around before trying to find the locations for the compensators on various machines to try to figure out how they work e.g. proportion of each £1 assigned to different compensators, and how payouts are then deducted. I think I found them on some Maygay games, but was never sure, and gave up in the end.

I see no reason why it shouldn't then be possible to just overwrite the compensator value, and basically home bake a happy RAM file for example. The only difficulty is finding the location of the compensator values, it seems. Something to try on a rainy day.

[Chopaholic]

On 28/08/2020 at 21:39, Mort said:

So here is a video showing a very basic use of the powerful and often overlooked feature included in MFME, a complete machine debugger.  (sorry no voice over on the video, I'm crap at that stuff)

In this example I use MFME's ability to use write break points and write/poke bytes (in hex) to a memory location which the machine uses to store the value attributed to the number reel. I use a write breakpoint on the number reel value, which means that when the game writes in the next value the execution of the game code is then halted, which then allows me to intercept and over-write, or poke, that value with an alternative. The game code is then resumed and it will read this value that I have changed instead.

In the case of Indy I tried to find a nicer more natural method than this one but I've spent far too much time on this already trying to hunt down the RAM locations for the gun code in particular, and just wanted to get this video out there.

Anyway what I do here is get on the board, set the write breakpoint, and then intercept it to move 2 places first, then get the first bullet, and then intercept again but to move 0 places each time and keep landing on the same safest! gun square. I have done this a few times and it will kill you before 5 bullets on occasion. This eventually fills up the feature to £6 and Win Series. Then I move around the board, intercepting values on the way to get to the square to collect Win Series.

The Win Series result is shocking in this video, but I have had higher values in testing around £12-£15 with a JP spinning in on occasion.

At the end I attempt to show how you can poke in the amount of nudges in reel play and was going to nudge in a JP but I messed it up lol.

Hope it makes sense. If anything this goes to show another side of MFME and also proves that the Indiana Jones game code at least supported the Win Series feature (it was not just a lamp on the glass) but alas it doesn't look like it was ever possible to get it within normal play anyway.

Just something different anyway:

 

Many thanks for this Mort, and my plan was to make a follow-on video for the channel (giving full credit to you for working it all out of course!).

I tried it out on my main PC, copying what you did in your video, and it worked fine. Got set up to do the recording downstairs on my laptop, and it doesn't work, despite following the exact same steps.

I've flitted back and forth between the two machines and the behaviour is consistent, on my main PC the emulation halts as per the write breakpoint, but on the laptop it just spins the hi/lo reel, doesn't halt, and carries on playing as normal.

Here's an Unlisted video of me demonstrating it not working.

Any ideas?

 

[Mort]

I can't see anything wrong there chap, there isn't a space in the memory address either before or after in the breakpoint box ?

Alternatively try putting 00401d6F in the breakpoint box.  before you do that go to Breakpoints menu and Delete All option.

 

[Mort]

If you get this working a few points to note.

The address for the number reel only supports up to 16 positions, which means you cannot poke a value over 0F

You can poke nudges (no need for breakpoint) in normal reel play using location 4002df

It can be given values over 04, in fact I think if can be feed FF for 255 nudges but it will lock after iirc.

[Chopaholic]

23 minutes ago, Mort said:

I can't see anything wrong there chap, there isn't a space in the memory address either before or after in the breakpoint box ?

Alternatively try putting 00401d6F in the breakpoint box.  before you do that go to Breakpoints menu and Delete All option.

 

No dice I'm afraid, makes no difference.

It really is rather strange. I assume the memory location is entirely consistent within the emulator and wouldn't vary from one PC to the next or some crazy shit like that?

[Mort]

Damn that’s a strange one. I can see on your video that the location is correct because it updates in sync with the number reel. For some reason the breakpoint is not working. I would have to ask Wizard for input on this one now as I have no idea how to resolve. You could try setting the location for nudges as a write breakpoint just to see if breakpoints are not working at all on your laptop. 

[Chopaholic]

Cheers Mort, in a way I'm glad I'm not doing something spectacularly stupid but it is a mystifying one.....

Hopefully Wizard can shed some light!  

[Mort]

Try setting the breakpoint location to be 401D6C

But still poke/write the value at location 401D6F