Bell Fruit Cobra3 emulator ?

[wearecity]

I see the % can be set as low as 30% 

[slotsmagic]

31 minutes ago, wearecity said:

I see the % can be set as low as 30% 

It's the same for all SWPs, including those aimed at kids (ticket payout). Min 30% and max 50%. I'm surprised you are shocked, I've mentioned it loads on other threads  

But - in their defence - I used to love playing the TOTP with dad. OK the payout percentage isn't great. But you were guaranteed a couple of minutes of fun for your quid, unlike an AWP on 70% where £1 might give 4 dead spins lasting 8 seconds. You can work with whoever you are playing with, it's a bit more social than slotting.

Ours was always on the original £5 jackpot, on £1 play. It was a pretty easy force. Don't think it ever cost more than a tenner to do. Can't remember the other games as much but with TOTP it is pretty progressive. As it gets happier it'll start giving more and more bonus discs, and start giving 4 questions per round instead of 3. If you walk up and it only offers say one bonus discs, it'll be a costly force. If it offers plenty it should be about ready.

I reckon 12+ seconds and 5 bonus discs and you'd have to be absolutely inebriated to not get the jackpot. 10 seconds and 3 bonus discs and it's doable but you'll have to be bloody quick and get some good luck with the answers.

Not sure if they realised the 'power' of the bonus discs fully. The fact they move you up on a losing guess, and you have a 1/3 chance of guessing the correct answer with your eyes closed, normally means a case of trying to get the first couple of questions right, then spamming any button and hoping you get enough right - plus the bonus discs - to get you into the Top 3. Then if you have time left and aren't at the jackpot, you can try and use skill to move up to the jackpot.

Edited October 21, 2025 by slotsmagic

[wearecity]

1 hour ago, slotsmagic said:

It's the same for all SWPs, including those aimed at kids (ticket payout). Min 30% and max 50%. I'm surprised you are shocked, I've mentioned it loads on other threads  

But - in their defence - I used to love playing the TOTP with dad. OK the payout percentage isn't great. But you were guaranteed a couple of minutes of fun for your quid, unlike an AWP on 70% where £1 might give 4 dead spins lasting 8 seconds. You can work with whoever you are playing with, it's a bit more social than slotting.

Ours was always on the original £5 jackpot, on £1 play. It was a pretty easy force. Don't think it ever cost more than a tenner to do. Can't remember the other games as much but with TOTP it is pretty progressive. As it gets happier it'll start giving more and more bonus discs, and start giving 4 questions per round instead of 3. If you walk up and it only offers say one bonus discs, it'll be a costly force. If it offers plenty it should be about ready.

I reckon 12+ seconds and 5 bonus discs and you'd have to be absolutely inebriated to not get the jackpot. 10 seconds and 3 bonus discs and it's doable but you'll have to be bloody quick and get some good luck with the answers.

Not sure if they realised the 'power' of the bonus discs fully. The fact they move you up on a losing guess, and you have a 1/3 chance of guessing the correct answer with your eyes closed, normally means a case of trying to get the first couple of questions right, then spamming any button and hoping you get enough right - plus the bonus discs - to get you into the Top 3. Then if you have time left and aren't at the jackpot, you can try and use skill to move up to the jackpot.

I always knew, they were much lower, like 60% or perhaps 50%, but 30% is madness.

[Altharic]

As I have been saying for a while now if this place had a better reputation and the lack of thirsty emptier posts it would be a viable host for your emulator sad you chose to dump to archive.org 

8 hours ago, dec1962 said:

Just been told the software on archive.org has been changed for a new version. I'm not home so can't try it

 

[Altharic]

I return to my exile until the dross is removed from this place and it is an emulation site again and not Alex and his cock sucking brood.

[slotsmagic]

1 hour ago, Altharic said:

As I have been saying for a while now if this place had a better reputation and the lack of thirsty emptier posts it would be a viable host for your emulator sad you chose to dump to archive.org 

 

I don't think there are that many emptier posts. It's pretty quiet here. Emptiers are pretty much dead and buried in the digital random era anyway, most of the ones discussed here are more like historical curiosities. I like seeing how the people were leaving machines dead for me back in the day. I didn't have to play them -yes I had an addiction, and I should have sought help - but my failure to do so rests on my shoulders, nobody else's.

Besides, the size of the CHD files make make hosting them here a bit awkward. Not sure how much bandwidth the site has but if everyone who is active these days grabbed the 2GB set from this site it would take quite a battering.

I'm actually pleasantly surprised with archive.org - downloaded the full set in under a minute. I expected there to be some kind of download speed limit!

Also, we can't be sure that the person you have quoted is the emulator author. If they are and want to distance themselves from it, great. They may also just be someone who found it (I don't follow FME other than on here) - so maybe it's been discussed elsewhere and the member you quoted wanted to keep us up to date?

I certainly wouldn't want to scare off / annoy someone who is clearly capable and bringing something new and exciting to the table.

Edited October 21, 2025 by slotsmagic

[Manana]

14 minutes ago, Altharic said:

I return to my exile until the dross is removed from this place and it is an emulation site again and not Alex and his cock sucking brood.

I have no idea who Alex is or what this post is about but thanks anyway, it made me laugh a lot

[jabbathehut]

Nice emulator works well. Good find

[niallquinn]

I was going to say, I've been playing this is mame for years.  It's mame compiled with only the bfm video driver in it.

Good little find though.

 

[Chopaholic]

On 20/10/2025 at 13:24, thealteredemu said:

@Chopaholic I feel a Degsy video might be in order to cover this new emulator

J

Sorry folks had a bit of IRL stuff going on recently so not been on top of things. Have downloaded the latest version of this and it's running fine, I remember these from in the pubs very clearly!

All seems to run very nicely, although only buttons A-B-C seem to be defined, how do you select the fourth option on the category select page?

I'm probably being dumb and haven't spent much time with it yet, will see if I can work it out.

EDIT - I was being dumb, you need to use the right hand buttons  

There was a time when full motion video on a pub machine was a very impressive sight.

[thealteredemu]

@Chopaholic Ah, no worries, I hope everything is ok with you bud.

J

[slotsmagic]

25 minutes ago, Chopaholic said:

Sorry folks had a bit of IRL stuff going on recently so not been on top of things. Have downloaded the latest version of this and it's running fine, I remember these from in the pubs very clearly!

All seems to run very nicely, although only buttons A-B-C seem to be defined, how do you select the fourth option on the category select page?

I'm probably being dumb and haven't spent much time with it yet, will see if I can work it out.

EDIT - I was being dumb, you need to use the right hand buttons  

There was a time when full motion video on a pub machine was a very impressive sight.

Yes, especially on the CRT tubes these used. Playing them on a modern LCD monitor or TV will show up imperfections that you would never have noticed on a CRT set, so it would have looked very close to the quality you'd have seen on your TV at home watching a live broadcast.

The only thing it is missing really would be dip switch settings which I believe are needed to change the prize level. I much prefer the £5 jackpot version, even if only because it's quicker to force out  

 

1 hour ago, niallquinn said:

I was going to say, I've been playing this is mame for years.  It's mame compiled with only the bfm video driver in it.

Good little find though.

 

You never told us, or if you did it got buried  

I'm a sucker for a standalone emulator where possible anyway, especially on a PC. Less so on a dedicated retro games unit (Raspberry Pi, e.t.c.).

[fruitsnappa]

22 hours ago, wearecity said:

I always knew, they were much lower, like 60% or perhaps 50%, but 30% is madness.

Cranes (Grabbers) are the same 30%

[slotsmagic]

33 minutes ago, fruitsnappa said:

Cranes (Grabbers) are the same 30%

Ours were set at 10% back in the day (toy cost £2, vend price £20 (so £20 of credits before the machine would lock on to the prize and attempt to drop it down the chute)). That was in 2008 and I'm sure that was pretty standard practice.

Edited October 22, 2025 by slotsmagic

[niallquinn]

8 hours ago, slotsmagic said:

You never told us, or if you did it got buried  

I'm a sucker for a standalone emulator where possible anyway, especially on a PC. Less so on a dedicated retro games unit (Raspberry Pi, e.t.c.).

Thought most people would have known, mame being the biggest most popular emulator out there.

Alth's been talking about it for years!

Must admit, just building one source thread does make it easier though.

[Jamie28J]

Good find and great nostalgia.

[Chopaholic]

3 hours ago, niallquinn said:

Thought most people would have known, mame being the biggest most popular emulator out there.

Alth's been talking about it for years!

Must admit, just building one source thread does make it easier though.

I suspect some folks might at some point have got a version of MAME that was 'complete' for them and left it there. I bought a full MAME set off a ROM burner on the web many years and decided that would just do for me going forward. (All ROMs and CHDs verified, all artwork and samples present etc.)

I've had a look through the games and Top Of The Pops is in there, but in a totally busted state.

It was always far too much of a ballache for me to keep up with everything being changed all the time in MAME, especially old ROMs being stopped from working in a new version when a few bytes were deemed to be 'wrong' or a workaround had been fixed or whatever, I get that the purity of the emulation is king and all but one always sort of got the impression that for some MAME devs, the fact people could actually use the emulator to, y'know, play old games on was more of a bug than a feature.

This is my version of MAME, as you can see it's now ten years old  

[wearecity]

Discovering Mame back in 1998 possibly 97 was so exciting. Then I realised I don't like 99% of arcade machines. 

I remember keeping uptodate with it for a few years on and off. But stopped well back in the early 2000.

I do and don't see the point of huge emulation collections on the one hand it's cumbersome and 99.9% of games you'll never play. But on the other hand, when you discover something maybe on YouTube or a mag like Retrogamer it's great to have it to hand.

I very much drop in and out retrogaming, for months at a time. 

[slotsmagic]

16 minutes ago, wearecity said:

Discovering Mame back in 1998 possibly 97 was so exciting. Then I realised I don't like 99% of arcade machines. 

I remember keeping uptodate with it for a few years on and off. But stopped well back in the early 2000.

I do and don't see the point of huge emulation collections on the one hand it's cumbersome and 99.9% of games you'll never play. But on the other hand, when you discover something maybe on YouTube or a mag like Retrogamer it's great to have it to hand.

I very much drop in and out retrogaming, for months at a time. 

That was my issue with MAME, and also Retroarch to a similar extent. Too much choice - to the point where I never really bothered with them. But when I have standalone emulators - be it MFME, or a console (like my 3DS I use for Gameboy / GBC / GBA / DS / 3DS games) I load them up and play a small range of games I enjoy (or occasionally add a new game).

Maybe I'm just old fashioned like that. Standalone emulators are like a comfy pair of slippers.

I made a similar mistake with emulation as I did with music and stuff back in the day. I used to grab anything and everything. Now I just go for bands I like, either grab a decent Greatest Hits (official or fan made), maybe an original album if it's a band I really like and every track is a hit.

To some extent that is why I like the system here of not having the complete library as a single download, as useful as some people may find it. I wouldn't be against it, but I prefer to search for games I like, based on look, style, jackpot value. If I had everything I'd play 1% of it or get overwhelmed  

 

Edited October 22, 2025 by slotsmagic

[wearecity]

1 hour ago, slotsmagic said:

That was my issue with MAME, and also Retroarch to a similar extent. Too much choice - to the point where I never really bothered with them. But when I have standalone emulators - be it MFME, or a console (like my 3DS I use for Gameboy / GBC / GBA / DS / 3DS games) I load them up and play a small range of games I enjoy (or occasionally add a new game).

Maybe I'm just old fashioned like that. Standalone emulators are like a comfy pair of slippers.

I made a similar mistake with emulation as I did with music and stuff back in the day. I used to grab anything and everything. Now I just go for bands I like, either grab a decent Greatest Hits (official or fan made), maybe an original album if it's a band I really like and every track is a hit.

To some extent that is why I like the system here of not having the complete library as a single download, as useful as some people may find it. I wouldn't be against it, but I prefer to search for games I like, based on look, style, jackpot value. If I had everything I'd play 1% of it or get overwhelmed  

 

I do similar, with standalone emulators. I discover one, get some games, play them and then move on to whatever is the next thing. PS3, GameCube, Wii and Wii U was my last real obsession for a few months at a time. Semi interested in 3DS, PS Vita, but not the Switch, nor PS4.

[Chopaholic]

The thing with a lot of arcade games (i.e. MAME) is that they were designed as money-making schemes as much as actual games, and that really shows in the design of a lot of them.

Also, and with the best will in the world, however 'classic' a game might have been back in the early 1980s, it's just not going to hold up in the modern day. Getting through the mid 1980s with Sega games such as Space Harrier and Out Run, there are games I can play and enjoy in the here and now. Also Sega 'solved' the money eating problem by just having the game last about five minutes if you completed it (in the case of Out Run.)

When I got my complete MAME collection off that ROM burner back in 2015, I spent several days loading in every single unique game and playing it for a bit, and anything that I thought had a bit of replay value in it, I added to a Favourites list. The percentage of stuff that basically just went straight into the bin is massive.

Chase HQ is an absolute timeless classic though  

 

[dec1962]

On 22/10/2025 at 08:57, niallquinn said:

I was going to say, I've been playing this is mame for years.  It's mame compiled with only the bfm video driver in it.

Good little find though.

 

Where are you getting your version of mame from which supports cobra3 ? Can you post it ?

The official mame does not support cobra3, the driver is just a very bare skeleton

[thealteredemu]

I was going to say they are in older versions of mame but preliminary and not playable.

J

[Chopaholic]

On 21/10/2025 at 17:06, slotsmagic said:

It's the same for all SWPs, including those aimed at kids (ticket payout). Min 30% and max 50%. I'm surprised you are shocked, I've mentioned it loads on other threads  

But - in their defence - I used to love playing the TOTP with dad. OK the payout percentage isn't great. But you were guaranteed a couple of minutes of fun for your quid, unlike an AWP on 70% where £1 might give 4 dead spins lasting 8 seconds. You can work with whoever you are playing with, it's a bit more social than slotting.

Ours was always on the original £5 jackpot, on £1 play. It was a pretty easy force. Don't think it ever cost more than a tenner to do. Can't remember the other games as much but with TOTP it is pretty progressive. As it gets happier it'll start giving more and more bonus discs, and start giving 4 questions per round instead of 3. If you walk up and it only offers say one bonus discs, it'll be a costly force. If it offers plenty it should be about ready.

I reckon 12+ seconds and 5 bonus discs and you'd have to be absolutely inebriated to not get the jackpot. 10 seconds and 3 bonus discs and it's doable but you'll have to be bloody quick and get some good luck with the answers.

Not sure if they realised the 'power' of the bonus discs fully. The fact they move you up on a losing guess, and you have a 1/3 chance of guessing the correct answer with your eyes closed, normally means a case of trying to get the first couple of questions right, then spamming any button and hoping you get enough right - plus the bonus discs - to get you into the Top 3. Then if you have time left and aren't at the jackpot, you can try and use skill to move up to the jackpot.

It gets to the point where it really wants to give you the tenner  

Note I only even bothered trying to answer the questions for the last couple of rounds hence the shit amount of time, and it was desperate to give me bonus discs (as you can see I have seven).

50% RTP sounds shit but in reality it basically wants to give you a tenner for every £20 in.

Fun game.

[slotsmagic]

13 hours ago, Chopaholic said:

It gets to the point where it really wants to give you the tenner  

Note I only even bothered trying to answer the questions for the last couple of rounds hence the shit amount of time, and it was desperate to give me bonus discs (as you can see I have seven).

50% RTP sounds shit but in reality it basically wants to give you a tenner for every £20 in.

Fun game.

It is, I used to really enjoy it hence why I bought it. Not a 'cheap' way to pass the time, not the best value for money, but was a reliable thing to play and not too taxing.

I probably had rose-tinted specs on when I gave my stats above about being an easy JP on 5 discs and 12+ seconds but it is doable at that point - but yes it does get happier and happier to the point where it gifts it via the bonus discs, something other SWPs won't necessarily do - assuming you get enough questions right in the first 5 rounds to get enough seconds anyway  

Glad you enjoy it, and am having a similar experience to me.

I think Telly Addicts, or Radio Times - I forget which one it was - in the college lounge was the same basic thing. Had plenty of £5 jackpots off it but can't remember much about it so I'll have to give that a battering next.

Only unfortunate thing is I can't get Cheat Engine to speed it up, unlike some other SWPs, so there's no high-speed way to bang credits through

Edited October 24, 2025 by slotsmagic