American Laser Games (Mad Dog McCree and others)

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by jwallace

Try this, converted to AVI in the quickest way I could, so still MP4 but in a container.

https://mega.nz/file/z80GVDSJ#la5ue-...fSv2C902PJaIRI

I was just in the middle of using an online converter to change from .MP4 --> .AVI

...is going to take a while though:

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by jwallace

Try this, converted to AVI in the quickest way I could, so still MP4 but in a container.

https://mega.nz/file/z80GVDSJ#la5ue-...fSv2C902PJaIRI

Yup, that's better

Quality isn't top notch though, so maybe it's best to wait for MAME's "platoon.chd" to be released and then we convert

[jwallace]

That or an LDIMG. Youtube for these things is generally horrible because the settings are so lossy, but considering this is rare as hen's teeth, we may have to keep with this for a bit.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by jwallace

That or an LDIMG. Youtube for these things is generally horrible because the settings are so lossy, but considering this is rare as hen's teeth, we may have to keep with this for a bit.

Agreed

Now I need to calibrate the gun and setup correctly

[DamienD]

For anyone that wants to try this game; I've set everything up here; including the pain in the bum "Gun Calibration"

[lesta_smsc]

Originally Posted by DamienD

For anyone that wants to try this game; I've set everything up here; including the pain in the bum "Gun Calibration"

Is this the game that ran originally on A3000 or am I getting confused with another machine? ... I assumed as they were used in Virtuality, the ability to emulate the hardware was not possible.

[DamienD]

Video file also updated to the Amiga File Server under "Misc/American Laser Games":

[DamienD]

Hmmm, I do have one issue with this game... I cannot reload using the 2nd mouse button

Tried inverting the player controls like "Mad Dod McCree" but same issue.

Anyone figured this out?

[Belgarath]

Shooting at the bottom of the screen reloads the gun.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Belgarath

Shooting at the bottom of the screen reloads the gun.

Ah, thanks Belgo

[DamienD]

Not a big deal Toni, but do you think you could rename "Nova Platoon V.3.1 US (256k)" in the displayed ROM names as "American Laser Games Nova Platoon v3.1 US (256k)" like the others?

[jwallace]

I think the reason he hasn't is that Nova are only using American Laser Games hardware, they aren't connected to the company in any other way.

The game does play more like their other known laserdisc shooter - COPS, which also uses shooting outside the screen to reload. Interestingly though, the code still has an audit for the holster switches, despite never reading them. I presume that's because they were 'inspired' a little too much by the ALG base project.

Is everyone finding it works OK for them - I think the video might be out by a good number of frames in places, like it's a slightly different disc. But I'll try with your configuration before I start editing stuff.

EDIT: Just for clarity, COPS will not work through WinUAE if you find it, Nova, Atari and Deith Leisure put out a different hardware platform with the same player called LaserMax that that ran on, as well as a couple of Trivia games and a racing game called Street Viper. I'm still unsure as to why this came out on the ALG platform, as LaserMax was already a thing by 1994, unless it was some experiment to get into the market through conversion kits.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by jwallace

I think the reason he hasn't is that Nova are only using American Laser Games hardware, they aren't connected to the company in any other way.

Ah ok.

Originally Posted by jwallace

Is everyone finding it works OK for them - I think the video might be out by a good number of frames in places, like it's a slightly different disc. But I'll try with your configuration before I start editing stuff.

I agree here, definitely out in places.

[DamienD]

I wonder if the game is actually called the following, as that's what scrolls across the screen:

Platoon: Charlie Bravo

Or even:

Platoon: Charlie Bravo - The Combat Zone

[jwallace]

When I looked originally, as well as the border not being right (the overscan is pretty big) it looked like frames were wrong.

I suppose this was never meant to be a frame accurate capture, but the LDP test suggests that the hardware could read individual frames pretty well, and we seem to be not quite right. I'll have a play around, but it's a little frustrating, as it's not a bad (if a little slow paced) lightgun game.

EDIT: It looks like the video is slightly too short compared to what the ROM wants, but has 18 frames on the start that shouldn't be there. If you take off the first 18 frames it seems to work OK, in that the map screen is now right, but it does need some video at the end to make sure the last frames are seekable in the LDP . I presume they're just black level.

I'll take a look, and I might pull the old video link and refresh if I can make a better version.

[jwallace]

OK, this appears to be synchronised better with the way the game plays, it seems to expect fewer frames at the start and more at the end.

This lines up so we get crosshairs in the gun aiming, a blue screen to superimpose the instructions, the map screen now works etc.
https://mega.nz/file/OtxFnYja#02Irwj...7RhnSD9nXXGT88

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by jwallace

OK, this appears to be synchronised better with the way the game plays, it seems to expect fewer frames at the start and more at the end.

This lines up so we get crosshairs in the gun aiming, a blue screen to superimpose the instructions, the map screen now works etc.
https://mega.nz/file/OtxFnYja#02Irwj...7RhnSD9nXXGT88

Nice one jwallace

Where did you find this, or did you manually tweak?

Anyway, files on the "Amiga File Server" updated:

[Fiery Phoenix]

Sure it may be only me that has trouble with these. Mad Dog and Mad Dog 2 run fine. But both Platoon and Gallaghers Gallery just hold the WB hand screen and I can see / move the crosshair.

Posted previously - a codec error as Mad Dog never worked previously. Tried numerous different ones too and changed output / video settings in WinUAE to try different ones - no joy.

One day!!!!

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Fiery Phoenix

Sure it may be only me that has trouble with these. Mad Dog and Mad Dog 2 run fine. But both Platoon and Gallaghers Gallery just hold the WB hand screen and I can see / move the crosshair.

Is this the screen you get:

I get that with "Platoon [American Laser Games]" but that's when using WinUAE v4.4.0, as it's not supported as yet...

Of course if I use the latest unofficial beta then all good

I really don't know why these games don't work for you, you're using my setups hey? Maybe try doing a "Rescan ROMs" from under "Paths" or reapplying the .REG file.

I know it was a codec issue before but...

[jwallace]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Nice one jwallace

Where did you find this, or did you manually tweak?

Anyway, files on the "Amiga File Server" updated:

Did it manually, I have a video that is literally just the frame numbers in text, so I can see what the game is trying to seek to, and I worked out what was going wrong. It still isn't great quality, but it does the job.