Konami RF2 has no onscreen layout and the gear shift must be held down to work

[ghost]

MAME version

0.252 (mame0252)

System information

Windows 10 Home, 64-bit, version 22H2, USA, US English Installed RAM 8.00 GB AMD A6-5200 APU with Radeon(TM) HD Graphics 2.00 GHz d3d video output

and another machine Windows 10 Home, 64-bit, version 22H2, USA, US English Installed RAM 4.00 GB Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU B950 @ 2.10GHz d3d video output

INI configuration details

all defaults

Emulated system/software

rf2 only, parent konamigt is not affected

Incorrect behaviour

Gear shift must be held down to stay in high gear, no layout for this either unlike its parent rom

Expected behaviour

Should have an appropriate layout for the gear shifter and the gear shifter should be able to switch with a single button press and not have to be constantly held down.

Steps to reproduce

1. start mame
2. run rf2
3. try to play the game.

Additional details

I also noticed that when the shifter is held down in service mode it returns a value of "7" whereas the parent rom konamigt returns a value of "1". Comparisons below. rf2 (no layout option for a shifter) shifter is pressed and held here

konamigt (has shifter layout option)

This makes the game pretty hard to play because you have to use the sound of the engine to know if you are in the right gear, and this game isn't one of Konami's friendlier titles in the gameplay department but that's just personal taste. I just wanted to try it out one day and I always look for different regions to see if the games have any small or big differences like cut content/censorship/etc, and well I caught this bug. I cannot find any footage of an actual japanese machine to back this up though. As an aside I think the game "Stocker" just had a similar issue resolved with the shifter recently.

[cuavas]

Lack of internal artwork isn't a bug - it mightv be nice to have, but it isn't required.

[ghost]

I don't mean the artwork, I am referring to the shifter graphic used on these types of driving games in the bottom corner. The parent rom has this and the clone does not.

[rb6502]

The shifter graphic, in MAME terminology, is artwork. The game itself doesn't do that.

[ghost]

Ok I was just about to edit my last comment but yes that. It's default mame artwork, I don't install the artwork packs when testing. But like I said, the clone doesn't have this option at all, and you need to see this to shift, that's why I captured the menus in the pics above.

May as well point this out too in case it gets overlooked, there's no "toggle inputs" option on the clone rf2 either:

And while it may not be a bug it is a marked inconsistency between the games besides the gear shifting problem, and is literally the only time I've encountered this sort of thing in all the driving/motorcycle games I've played.

[ghost]

Ok I also got the official WIP info that states: WIP 0.224: Added widescreen layouts with shifters [Firehawke]. 0.220: mmarino4 added steering wheel to Konami GT and clone Konami RF2. 0.212: Changed Z80 CPU2 clock speed to 1789772 Hz. 0.153: Alex Jackson fixed KonamiGT layout aspect ratio. Added 4x 'RC Filter'. 0.152: Added PORT_TOGGLE and PORT_NAMEs to Konami GT [baritonomarchetto]. Added shifter layout [hap]. Changed K005289 sound clock speed to 3579545 Hz.

They refer to that as a "layout" so that's why I referred to it as such. Seems maybe rf2 got overlooked with the onscreen shifter art. I'll look at the older mame versions around those mentioned above tomorrow and see if they have the art and if the gear shifter itself isn't switching in the appropriate way. It's late here.

[ghost]

the problem appears to be more complex

for RF2 the code has the following PORT_START("IN1") PORT_BIT( 0x70, IP_ACTIVE_LOW, IPT_BUTTON3 ) / gear (0-7) / PORT_BIT( 0x8f, IP_ACTIVE_LOW, IPT_UNKNOWN )

which suggests that at least for this set, the game is capable of recognizing 7 different 'gear' values, which MAME codes to only 0 or 7 depending on if the button is pressed.

Maybe Konami GT is an on/off gear toggle, while in reality for RF2 it's an analog stick, which MAME fakes as a button (if values 1-6 are any different to 0 an 7 in terms of how the game responds I don't know)

That's why it doesn't have an indicator using internal artwork anyway, it isn't a binary on/off thing, and is only hacked to be so.

[wd40yasu]

Konami sold RF2 as conversion kit (includes PCB and stickers for cabinet) for Namco's Pole Position, so gear shifter cannot be analog. Just selects L or H.

[ghost]

that's odd, was there no dedicated cabinet at all? I wonder why the code specifically recognizes 8 values (but only 2 on Konami GT)

[wd40yasu]

Yes, there is no dedicated cabinet for RF2. See page 29 of https://onitama.tv/gamemachine/pdf/19851001p.pdf Konami developed and manufactured the kit, and Namco sold it to customers.