YouTube Emulation Extravaganza

[Chopaholic]

Wonky is correct F12 is your key for that, there are a load of useful keyboard shortcuts in MFME and I don't know all of them myself. There is one to reset the short term meters which is handy as it saves loading the layout back in, but I'll be buggered if I can remember what it is..... 

[Amusements]

Here is a list of some shortcuts I have lying around that may help. I have posted this before, but stuff gets buried and hard to find sometimes.

Shortcuts in normal mode:
-------------------------

F1  - Borderless
Alt F1 - Show Picture Viewer
F2  - Borderless Maximised
F3  - Borderless Maximised Full screen
Shift F3 - Borderless Maximised Full screen ( Stretched )
F4  - Manager Toggle
F5  - Toggle Cropped/Normal Mode
F6  - Load Random Game
F7  - Quick Save
F8  - Take Screen Snapshot
F9  - Toggle Meter Panel
F10 - Switch Reel View
F11 - Profit/Loss Meters
F12 - Long/Short Term Meters
Shift F12 - Clear Short Term Meters

Ctrl a - Add Game to Manager
Ctrl d - Show Diag Window
Ctrl e - Toggle edit mode
Ctrl h - Show/Hide extra screens
Ctrl k - Reset with alternate ROM
Ctrl m - Toggle muted ( including linked slaves )
Ctrl n - Show Notes Window
Ctrl o - Open current game folder in explorer and highlight .gam file
Ctrl p - Pause and enter edit mode
Ctrl r - Reset game
Ctrl s - Snapshot RAM
Ctrl q - Quit ( including linked slaves )
Ctrl y - Show shortcuts

Alt  l - Link all instances ( slaves )
Alt  u - Unlink all instances ( slaves )
Alt  p - Toggle Autoplay if configured
Alt  r - Reload RAM and Restart Game
Alt  s - Save Game

Shift +- Adjust Volume ( including linked games )
Shift c - Open/Close Cash Door
Shift p - Turn On/Turn Off Topup Switch
Shift s - Open/Close Service Door
Shift r - Turn On/Turn Off Refill Key
Shift t - Turn On/Turn Off/Toggle Test Switch

Esc - return to normal mode/exit mouse mode/exit program
TAB - Reveal Mirror reel

Shortcuts in Edit Mode:
-----------------------

Ctrl c - Copy Component
Ctrl g - Toggle design grid
Ctrl l - Toggle Lamp edit mode
Ctrl t - Show Lamp numbers
Ctrl v - Paste Component
Ctrl x - Cut Component
Ctrl z - Undo

Shift Click on component to add/remove from a group
Ctrl drag to move lamps between lamps/buttons/background

Cursor keys:

Move a group of components pixel by pixel ( group highlighting and outline can be disabled by holding down SHIFT key )

Shortcuts in Manager:
---------------------

Ctrl a - Add current to game list
Ctrl f - Find a game in the displayed list
Ctrl g - Select current running game
Ctrl n - Find next
Ctrl p - Find Previous

Cursor Up/Down to move up and down the list, Return to run selected game.

bmps/jpgs can be dragged and dropped into the Cabinet or Flyer panels. If bmp->jpg is selected in prefs, bmp files will be converted to jpgs to save space.

Be sure that there is both a Cabinets and a Flyers folder in your game directory.

cabinet.bmp/jpg and flyer.bmp/jpg files in a layout directory will also be displayed the manager.
It will also detect files ending in 1-9 or _1-_9

Cabinet or Flyer pictures can be double clicked to preview, use mouse wheel to adjust size.

Gamelist can be sorted by clicking on any of the column tabs, and column order can be changed by dragging.

All changes made are saved in the registry, including the size and position of the manager window itself.

 

[woodsy]

50 minutes ago, Amusements said:

Here is a list of some shortcuts I have lying around that may help. I have posted this before, but stuff gets buried and hard to find sometimes.

Shortcuts in normal mode:
-------------------------

F1  - Borderless
Alt F1 - Show Picture Viewer
F2  - Borderless Maximised
F3  - Borderless Maximised Full screen
Shift F3 - Borderless Maximised Full screen ( Stretched )
F4  - Manager Toggle
F5  - Toggle Cropped/Normal Mode
F6  - Load Random Game
F7  - Quick Save
F8  - Take Screen Snapshot
F9  - Toggle Meter Panel
F10 - Switch Reel View
F11 - Profit/Loss Meters
F12 - Long/Short Term Meters
Shift F12 - Clear Short Term Meters

Ctrl a - Add Game to Manager
Ctrl d - Show Diag Window
Ctrl e - Toggle edit mode
Ctrl h - Show/Hide extra screens
Ctrl k - Reset with alternate ROM
Ctrl m - Toggle muted ( including linked slaves )
Ctrl n - Show Notes Window
Ctrl o - Open current game folder in explorer and highlight .gam file
Ctrl p - Pause and enter edit mode
Ctrl r - Reset game
Ctrl s - Snapshot RAM
Ctrl q - Quit ( including linked slaves )
Ctrl y - Show shortcuts

Alt  l - Link all instances ( slaves )
Alt  u - Unlink all instances ( slaves )
Alt  p - Toggle Autoplay if configured
Alt  r - Reload RAM and Restart Game
Alt  s - Save Game

Shift +- Adjust Volume ( including linked games )
Shift c - Open/Close Cash Door
Shift p - Turn On/Turn Off Topup Switch
Shift s - Open/Close Service Door
Shift r - Turn On/Turn Off Refill Key
Shift t - Turn On/Turn Off/Toggle Test Switch

Esc - return to normal mode/exit mouse mode/exit program
TAB - Reveal Mirror reel

Shortcuts in Edit Mode:
-----------------------

Ctrl c - Copy Component
Ctrl g - Toggle design grid
Ctrl l - Toggle Lamp edit mode
Ctrl t - Show Lamp numbers
Ctrl v - Paste Component
Ctrl x - Cut Component
Ctrl z - Undo

Shift Click on component to add/remove from a group
Ctrl drag to move lamps between lamps/buttons/background

Cursor keys:

Move a group of components pixel by pixel ( group highlighting and outline can be disabled by holding down SHIFT key )

Shortcuts in Manager:
---------------------

Ctrl a - Add current to game list
Ctrl f - Find a game in the displayed list
Ctrl g - Select current running game
Ctrl n - Find next
Ctrl p - Find Previous

Cursor Up/Down to move up and down the list, Return to run selected game.

bmps/jpgs can be dragged and dropped into the Cabinet or Flyer panels. If bmp->jpg is selected in prefs, bmp files will be converted to jpgs to save space.

Be sure that there is both a Cabinets and a Flyers folder in your game directory.

cabinet.bmp/jpg and flyer.bmp/jpg files in a layout directory will also be displayed the manager.
It will also detect files ending in 1-9 or _1-_9

Cabinet or Flyer pictures can be double clicked to preview, use mouse wheel to adjust size.

Gamelist can be sorted by clicking on any of the column tabs, and column order can be changed by dragging.

All changes made are saved in the registry, including the size and position of the manager window itself.

 

That’s awesome thanks!!! Just one thing that I’m desperate to know of if possible, when I’m designing a layout I have the window size massive and half the machine in view, page up/down zoom in/out but is there a way to use the page up down for exactly that purpose, I’m just trying to avoid the added mouse movement to scroll bars to move the screen you see!! It’s a efficiency thing that I really really get frustrated with!! Of course the fact remains it’s my own issue, mfme is not at all to blame as it is the epitome of what is good in life!!

[CasinoFruits]

11 hours ago, WonkySausage said:

press F12 to flick between session and lifetime stats

Thanks @woodsy @Chopaholic

[Chopaholic]

Hot Dogs and Fairground for this one, thanks to @dad and hurtand for the layouts featured.

 

[woodsy]

34 minutes ago, Chopaholic said:

Hot Dogs and Fairground for this one, thanks to @dad and hurtand for the layouts featured.

 

Oh man can’t wait to watch this!! Loved hot dogs so much, there were loads of them in butlins!!! And fairground was my first semi clue with the coconut shy trick!! Brilliant choices!

[dad]

6 hours ago, Chopaholic said:

Hot Dogs and Fairground for this one, thanks to @dad and hurtand for the layouts featured.

 

I really enjoyed that review of my old DX Degsy, thank you! Its years since I played it myself.  If I remember correctly this was my first dabble with trying to do a 'Photo DX' and was a royal pain in the arse.  Lots of flashburn everywhere and having to redraw stuff.  I had a request not so long ago to redo this one from the original photo and thought  - sod that!!  Even now with much more experience I don't think I could improve it that much TBH!

Anyway, you mentioned in the Video if I'd be happy for you to release a MFME 20.1 update.  It goes without saying that I'm more that happy for you to do this, as I would be for any of my older layouts if you wanted to do so in the future.

Cheers

[WonkySausage]

another fine vid choppers  i didn't know about Hot Dogs and looks really fun to play, so it's another added to the collection, also cheers Dad for the layout as well!

[wearecity]

Another enjoyable video.

Loved, Hot Dogs, me and a girl I worked with, played it many times in a few arcades. I sent a picture of the layout to her, a little while back on Facebook and she instantly remembered it.

We used to go for Butch 9/10, with the odd time for Fritz. but never Flash.

All the features were worth an exchange, because they could all give £3 +, even Money Belt and Spin A Win.

Fairground, is another one, I played many times in many places, but always found it quite frustrating, so never pushed it for the anything beyond £3 repeat. Always felt the feature board was a bit too short.

[MPU_FIVE]

Another brill Degsy video... love to chill out with a cuppa and watch on my big telly in my hovel of a living room!

Remember playing Fairground in the Ship, Sittingbourne... used to have 4 fruit machines in that pub and 2 pool tables, and a dartboard. I loved it there - i could even buy drinks/crisps/chocolate from the bar with the 20p tokens from the machines. Those were the days! I miss them.

[MPU_FIVE]

Just tried running Fairground in MFME 20.1 and the dice reel does'nt show the dice when it spins... always lands on the blank red as in picture... also reels are pissed... (winning symbols are below the winline in the pic) - did this happen to you @Chopaholic? - and if so, how can it be fixed?

Cheers -

Gary. :)

[wearecity]

12 minutes ago, MPU_FIVE said:

Just tried running Fairground in MFME 20.1 and the dice reel does'nt show the dice when it spins... always lands on the blank red as in picture... also reels are pissed... (winning symbols are below the winline in the pic) - did this happen to you @Chopaholic? - and if so, how can it be fixed?

Cheers -

Gary.

Go into edit mode, right click on each reel choose properties and on the left hand side of the properties screen adjust the reel band offset until the reels line up.

If at 0, adjusting them by just a couple either way usually - 2 or +2 works.

It happened to many sys5 layouts in the later versions of MFME. 

Edited December 2, 2021 by wearecity

[MPU_FIVE]

8 minutes ago, wearecity said:

Go into edit mode, right click on each reel choose properties and on the left hand side of the properties screen adjust the reel band offset until the reels line up.

If at 0, adjusting them by just a couple either way usually - 2 or +2 works.

It happened to many sys5 layouts in the later versions of MFME. 

.... Thank you @wearecity!

[Chopaholic]

22 hours ago, dad said:

I really enjoyed that review of my old DX Degsy, thank you! Its years since I played it myself.  If I remember correctly this was my first dabble with trying to do a 'Photo DX' and was a royal pain in the arse.  Lots of flashburn everywhere and having to redraw stuff.  I had a request not so long ago to redo this one from the original photo and thought  - sod that!!  Even now with much more experience I don't think I could improve it that much TBH!

Anyway, you mentioned in the Video if I'd be happy for you to release a MFME 20.1 update.  It goes without saying that I'm more that happy for you to do this, as I would be for any of my older layouts if you wanted to do so in the future.

Cheers

Thanks DAD it's been a favourite of mine to return to over the years so it was nice to give it a proper airing on the channel, I appreciate you saying you're happy for it to get a new lease of life in V20.1 so if anyone asks me for it I'll pass it over  

It still holds up well as a DX today IMO, perfectly playable and a great machine too!

[Chopaholic]

22 hours ago, WonkySausage said:

another fine vid choppers  i didn't know about Hot Dogs and looks really fun to play, so it's another added to the collection, also cheers Dad for the layout as well!

It's a fab little machine, going from the comments on the video it's also one many people never saw back in the day either, which was kind of the point of video really, to give some attention to what's a bit of a hidden gem IMO, especially as it harks from the 'old testament' era of fruit machine emulation.

 

14 hours ago, wearecity said:

Another enjoyable video.

Loved, Hot Dogs, me and a girl I worked with, played it many times in a few arcades. I sent a picture of the layout to her, a little while back on Facebook and she instantly remembered it.

We used to go for Butch 9/10, with the odd time for Fritz. but never Flash.

All the features were worth an exchange, because they could all give £3 +, even Money Belt and Spin A Win.

Fairground, is another one, I played many times in many places, but always found it quite frustrating, so never pushed it for the anything beyond £3 repeat. Always felt the feature board was a bit too short.

Fairground works well on the original 20p/£6 combo I think, any other stake and prize combo stuffs it up, and it really needs the £3 repeater too.

Hot Dogs is just flat out great, no real idea why it didn't do better back in the day TBH, if you think about how many Popeyes, Hagars, Fairgrounds etc there were, but I never saw a Hot Dogs for real.

6 hours ago, MPU_FIVE said:

Another brill Degsy video... love to chill out with a cuppa and watch on my big telly in my hovel of a living room!

Remember playing Fairground in the Ship, Sittingbourne... used to have 4 fruit machines in that pub and 2 pool tables, and a dartboard. I loved it there - i could even buy drinks/crisps/chocolate from the bar with the 20p tokens from the machines. Those were the days! I miss them.

That's a highly agreeable setup, real fruit machines and videos of fruit machines in one neat package  

Fairground is one I have lots of memories of as there were so many of them around at one point, is it just me though, or did that dice reel always break on the real thing?

[Chopaholic]

6 hours ago, MPU_FIVE said:

Just tried running Fairground in MFME 20.1 and the dice reel does'nt show the dice when it spins... always lands on the blank red as in picture... also reels are pissed... (winning symbols are below the winline in the pic) - did this happen to you @Chopaholic? - and if so, how can it be fixed?

Cheers -

Gary.

I see wearecity has already answered your question above Gary but yes I had to do the same fix on my copy of the layout as well, which is quite advanced by my standards!

IIRC the main reels were quite badly out and needed a pretty hefty offset to get them correct.

[MPU_FIVE]

16 hours ago, Chopaholic said:

It's a fab little machine, going from the comments on the video it's also one many people never saw back in the day either, which was kind of the point of video really, to give some attention to what's a bit of a hidden gem IMO, especially as it harks from the 'old testament' era of fruit machine emulation.

 

Fairground works well on the original 20p/£6 combo I think, any other stake and prize combo stuffs it up, and it really needs the £3 repeater too.

Hot Dogs is just flat out great, no real idea why it didn't do better back in the day TBH, if you think about how many Popeyes, Hagars, Fairgrounds etc there were, but I never saw a Hot Dogs for real.

That's a highly agreeable setup, real fruit machines and videos of fruit machines in one neat package  

Fairground is one I have lots of memories of as there were so many of them around at one point, is it just me though, or did that dice reel always break on the real thing?

Yeah, the one in the ship was £6 jackpot - i never saw an £8 one in real life...

and yes i'm sure i saw one with a broken dice reel in Sheerness before - mind you arcades back then often had half broken machines, half the bulbs blown, empty payout tubes, buttons that are sticky.... oh the joys! lol

16 hours ago, Chopaholic said:

I see wearecity has already answered your question above Gary but yes I had to do the same fix on my copy of the layout as well, which is quite advanced by my standards!

IIRC the main reels were quite badly out and needed a pretty hefty offset to get them correct.

They certainly were well out... the dice reel was set to -8 and had to be set to +8 and similar huge change for the main 3 reels too...

I also took advantage of this to fix the Bands of Gold DX you recently reviewed, but although it gets the reels straight again, every few spins they go pissed again, but if i get a nudge they suddenly straighten up again... i'm guessing Bands of Gold does'nt like MFME 20.1 - as i remember on your video you was using MFME 3.2 to play it.

While i'm here, slightly off track but still to do with layouts seen on your channel, did anyone ever do a DX for Sinbad? I know it is a machine you were particularly passionate about.  - I know there's a DX of the German one but it's just not as good a machine as BWB's UK Sinbad.

Cheers...

Gary :)

[Chopaholic]

Hitting the legendary CRITICAL ERROR state on a Barcrest where it basically drops on its arse and screams that it wants its mummy.

Thanks to @Tommy c for the layouts featured

 

 

[wearecity]

5 hours ago, MPU_FIVE said:

I also took advantage of this to fix the Bands of Gold DX you recently reviewed, but although it gets the reels straight again, every few spins they go pissed again, but if i get a nudge they suddenly straighten up again... i'm guessing Bands of Gold does'nt like MFME 20.1 - as i remember on your video you was using MFME 3.2 to play it.

While i'm here, slightly off track but still to do with layouts seen on your channel, did anyone ever do a DX for Sinbad? I know it is a machine you were particularly passionate about.  - I know there's a DX of the German one but it's just not as good a machine as BWB's UK Sinbad.

Cheers...

Gary

To stop the reels going out of sync, go into design, edit mode, then right click on reel 1, choose properties, then on the left hand side put a 2 in the Opto Tab box and apply the change. Come out and then do that for the other two reels.

It will instantly stop it happening, then just save the changes when finished playing.

There are several layouts for this machine, some have the 2 into the Opto Tab box, for anyone else, thinking it doesn't do that on my version.

Edited December 3, 2021 by wearecity

[logopolis]

3 hours ago, Chopaholic said:

Hitting the legendary CRITICAL ERROR state on a Barcrest where it basically drops on its arse and screams that it wants its mummy.

Thanks to @Tommy c for the layouts featured

 

 

Cheers for the shout out in the video! It was good for this method to have some commentary because it might have been a bit difficult to figure out what was actually going on without the narration.

[MPU_FIVE]

On 03/12/2021 at 21:44, wearecity said:

To stop the reels going out of sync, go into design, edit mode, then right click on reel 1, choose properties, then on the left hand side put a 2 in the Opto Tab box and apply the change. Come out and then do that for the other two reels.

It will instantly stop it happening, then just save the changes when finished playing.

There are several layouts for this machine, some have the 2 into the Opto Tab box, for anyone else, thinking it doesn't do that on my version.

Thank you again, @wearecity ...I will apply that fix, i dare say many more that have been converted from pre 5.1 will also need this too. You're a FME lifesaver, matey!

Cheers...

Gary. :)

[Chopaholic]

On 03/12/2021 at 22:50, logopolis said:

Cheers for the shout out in the video! It was good for this method to have some commentary because it might have been a bit difficult to figure out what was actually going on without the narration.

There are a few others on your channel @logopolis that I might give the same treatment if that's OK with you  

As with this one, I'll give full credit to you and link to your video and channel, to make it clear I'm just doing a 'narrated version' of your video as it were.

[jasonc]

Thanks as always for the video, Tommy C for the DX and everyone involved with sourcing.

On 03/12/2021 at 19:18, Chopaholic said:

Hitting the legendary CRITICAL ERROR state on a Barcrest where it basically drops on its arse and screams that it wants its mummy.

I was curious about how this one played out, so I did a bit more digging... this Cheerful Pessimist video from 2017 has an interesting insight:

Quote

Ross Kemp on cheeseburgers | 4 years ago

all wins when u plugged it went on the 25p stake (stakes were separate)if u went on 1 that wasn't giving boards on 25p you could only risk 1 or 2 plugs....if the 25p was happy then u could get more than 4,even after the chip they were excellent games until the sticky chip came out

Sure enough, that seems to be what is happening - and not only can you trigger the notorious critical error (HEY! Check it out!) but you can really screw up the profile of the machine - to your benefit or detriment. 

• Cash or Bust (Death or Glory) in IM awards Mega Streak, for faster experimentation.

On restart, there seems to be three scenarios:

1. The restart was too late, and the win will be accounted for correctly and the IM happiness on 50p will end.
2. The machine successfully recovered the win on restart (e.g. during count-up or reel spinning phases) - it'll be credited to the bank but wrongly accounted for against the 30p stake.
3. As happened in the video - if you restart just after the count-up finishes on any win (e.g. during bookkeeping phase), the machine can "pop" (sound effect) on restart and does a memory clear - the win is voided (neither tracked or credited) and the existing bank and credits will also be lost.  This means the machine has accounted for wins that it will never pay out.

The meters do give an idea of the fuckery going on:

• CASHIN (physical cash) and VTP (total staked) drift apart due to the credits lost by memory clears.
• STK1 PERC (30p) and STK2 PERC (50p) track the awarded wins, but PERCENT (overall) behaves differently - e.g. 28.9% overall is lower than both 105.0% at 30p and 36.1% at 50p components.
• STK1 PERC can increase without STK1 VTP changing - e.g. 3351 at 64.1% becomes 3351 at 73.7%

If you do get the critical error, you can still check the meters out of curiosity through the door - in my case STK1 3405 at 126.5% (+£131 drift) was fine, but 3405 at 136.5% (+£165 drift) killed it.

Edited December 5, 2021 by jasonc

[logopolis]

2 hours ago, Chopaholic said:

There are a few others on your channel @logopolis that I might give the same treatment if that's OK with you  

As with this one, I'll give full credit to you and link to your video and channel, to make it clear I'm just doing a 'narrated version' of your video as it were.

That's fine because there are a few other methods or empties that you could cover. I think Fruitopia was one that would benefit from your commentary and also Ready To Rock. Both of these could do with a £25 Dx to be honest. The only thing that needs to be changed in the layout is the jackpot amount from £15 to £25. I don't think the other wins change as far as I can recall.

[Chopaholic]

On 05/12/2021 at 19:27, jasonc said:

Thanks as always for the video, Tommy C for the DX and everyone involved with sourcing.

I was curious about how this one played out, so I did a bit more digging... this Cheerful Pessimist video from 2017 has an interesting insight:

Sure enough, that seems to be what is happening - and not only can you trigger the notorious critical error (HEY! Check it out!) but you can really screw up the profile of the machine - to your benefit or detriment. 

• Cash or Bust (Death or Glory) in IM awards Mega Streak, for faster experimentation.

On restart, there seems to be three scenarios:

1. The restart was too late, and the win will be accounted for correctly and the IM happiness on 50p will end.
2. The machine successfully recovered the win on restart (e.g. during count-up or reel spinning phases) - it'll be credited to the bank but wrongly accounted for against the 30p stake.
3. As happened in the video - if you restart just after the count-up finishes on any win (e.g. during bookkeeping phase), the machine can "pop" (sound effect) on restart and does a memory clear - the win is voided (neither tracked or credited) and the existing bank and credits will also be lost.  This means the machine has accounted for wins that it will never pay out.

The meters do give an idea of the fuckery going on:

• CASHIN (physical cash) and VTP (total staked) drift apart due to the credits lost by memory clears.
• STK1 PERC (30p) and STK2 PERC (50p) track the awarded wins, but PERCENT (overall) behaves differently - e.g. 28.9% overall is lower than both 105.0% at 30p and 36.1% at 50p components.
• STK1 PERC can increase without STK1 VTP changing - e.g. 3351 at 64.1% becomes 3351 at 73.7%

If you do get the critical error, you can still check the meters out of curiosity through the door - in my case STK1 3405 at 126.5% (+£131 drift) was fine, but 3405 at 136.5% (+£165 drift) killed it.

Thanks @jasonc that's a really interesting analysis of what's going on  

A couple of people left comments on my video also making the point that the 'free' win is indeed wrongly accounted for against the 30p stake, hence the 50p stake stays buzzing.

Also, apparently, this was a good machine to play before the plugging was discovered, as it dual-staked so a decent player could take all the value out of it properly via the Revolver feature on both stakes, so the plugging being discovered and knackering all the machines for them was really quite unwelcome!

TBH it all just feeds more and more into my overarching narrative that compensated machines were just never done properly.