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Best way to get good recordings from WPC machines?


pudd1nG

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Hey guys,

I am coming along with my Wh20 colourisation but I'm sure I am not being as efficient as I could be.

Firstly, a huge thank you to the community and pin2dmd authors for all their hard work & support on this awesome project.

Currently, the only way I've found to record the DMD frames is to use playfield.dev DMD dump option. This works well as it captures the correct delay and seems to get all the frames. However It's tough to hit every switch in such a manner.

I have a real machine, but I can only seem to get .txt dumps using pin2dmd.exe - I am not sure what I am supposed to do with .txt files as the editor doesn't import them and if I open them up it seems like it's missing many frames.

I have tried to dump from the rom using WPCedit.exe however it comes out completely different than the real animations (colours flash back and forwards, most animations don't play until completion, hard to know where dynamic data appears). I can see how this will be helpful for some static frames, but clearly not the best option to get a complete dump.

So my question, is there a way to record .raw from my real machine? It's much easier hitting the physical switches for me plus I can record the LH-6 rom (playfield.dev is using 1.5)

Perhaps there is options or solutions I have not considered, so thanks in advance for any advice

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I think the editor expects txt dumps to be gzipped up in txt.gz format; and I have vague recollections of a problem in the past where a strict naming format was not observed "*.txt.gz", but that may have since been fixed. Try gzipping it up and sticking to that format eg: rom dump file is called myCoolRomDump.txt and you gzip it up into a file called myCoolRomDump.txt.gz

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Ah yes that does indeed work as a gzip.

However the same issue I've seen reported elsewhere - it only has maybe 1 of every 20 frames. I think for WPC we need the .raw export :(

I'll keep working from the playfield.dev dumps I have for now, I can also clone the project and have it load the 1.6h rom to get the extra animations etc. Hardest part is translating the switches to their names on the panel. Amazing tool none the less!

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8 hours ago, pudd1nG said:

it only has maybe 1 of every 20 frames

The dump function depends on the speed of your hardware/OS. I had the best results with my macbook pro although I never had a framedrop of 20 frames.

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I'm using a 2019 Macbook pro here, but perhaps quite an old USB cable via a hub - I'll try again with a new USB-C cable from some of my music gear.

I've had great dumps from playfield.dev - so I think I'm going to clone the repo there and get the home rom running there.

If there's any extra info you'd like about not getting any .raw dumps happy to help! Loving the new editor updates too

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Ahh nice one, that is now working with the .raw dumps.

I still can't seem to get many frames out of it, so I'll continue to use the digital dumps I'm getting - and perhaps try a few more cables

Thanks for your help and advice mate

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