PacMan... help....

[EricDeLee]

Do any of you know of a home version of Pacman that follows the pattern? I can't find one. Namco screwed us over when it released it's Playstation version... cause it doesn't follow the pattern (and yet the Ms. Pacman/Galaga anniversary arcade games... it does follow the pattern).

 

So is there any system out there that has the correct arcade version that I cn play on my tv? (I already have the mame version... but would really like the correct version to play on TV as well)

[NE146]

Nope. As far as I know, there are ZERO home versions that follow the classic arcade patterns. If I'm wrong and there are.. it has escaped me.

 

Your best bet unfortunately is Mame. And to get that to play on a tv,

 

1) many people use a tv-out from their pc's (usually on some dedicated "white box" pc they built.. which is dedicated just for games). or;

 

2) Lots of people, including myself have discovered the joy of Mame on the Xbox. It requires a modded xbox and a little work, but the emulated games with their cool menus and that nice pad really take the cake as far as playing some of these games go. And of course, since it's emulated, Pacman ends up having all the patterns you learned in the 80's all the way up to the key levels, and they work 100%

 

[EricDeLee]

Very cool... (about the Mame/Xbox thing)

 

I recently noticed someone online is building a MAME machine with the Xbox powering it (rather than a PC). But I'm not sure if they will be able to run a trackball and spinner off of it.

 

I'm currently planning two Mame projects right now. Both powered by the 'white box' PC method.

 

One will be my main machine... and will be placed within a Tempest cabinet that I have in my garage. The other will be similar to this:

 

http://www.bishopzone.com/bishopzone/proje...jects/tron.html

 

But it more than likely have a Pacman theme. I saw one on ebay that I really liked that someone made into a Pacman theme... but I can't find the link.

 

But for the mini-Mame machine I plan on keeping it simple like the Tron machine. Although, I may add a trackball and spinner to it later on... and have it made into a second control panel (one that will simply plug in and work -- kinda' like a plug and play device for a PC).

 

I still am working on my Atari table top that I planned a while back, but I haven't been able to get a hold of a PSOne screen yet to complete my project. When I get that finished I will do a write-up on it and debut it here. I'm hoping to get all three done before Christmas!

 

Anyways... thanks for the info about pacman. I was wondering about that. Why do you suppose Namco would do that? Why use the same Rom for Galaga on their Playstation port... but not Pacman. Strange. Then again... maybe I'm wrong about the Galaga Playstation version. It could be different to.

[EricDeLee]

Use a TV-OUT from their PCs. ?? Hmmm... I guess I don't have a TV-Out on my PC. Nor my laptop. Can you toss a link up on here that shows a motherboard with TV/OUT? I guess I'm a little behind the curve right now....

[Avid Fan]

Shouldn't Pac Man on the Namco Museum and Pac Man World 2 be arcade perfect since their based off of the same code or something like that. CPUWIZ said something about it a few weeks back

[NE146]

Shouldn't Pac Man on the Namco Museum and Pac Man World 2 be arcade perfect since their based off of the same code or something like that. CPUWIZ said something about it a few weeks back

 

I'm here at home for a couple of minutes for lunch. I just tried Namco Museum (GC version), and no.. the patterns off somewhat. Try playing it a couple of seconds in and you'll see Pinky act differently. I didn't get a chance to try it in Pacman World 2 nor the xbox versions. But who knows! Maybe PMW2 does.. we'll see

 

@EricDeLee I meant with a videocard with a tv-out. I'm not sure if there's a mobo with that functionality. I kind of doubt it, but hey anything's possible

[EricDeLee]

Cool... I see what you mean now by the Video card. I'll have to look into that.

 

But as for the Namco Plastion release... it is different. The way to always tell what version it is (and if the patterns will work) is to watch the attract screen. If you wait until pacman dies... it should be a giveaway as to if the patterns work. If pacman is caught near the lower-left corner (near the power-up area)... then the game should follow pattern. But as mentioned... when you play this version... you quickly learn that the pattern does not work because Pinky's reactions are different.

 

I'll have to stick with my laptop until I finish my Mame machines.

 

 

BTW: Here's the pic I was trying to find earlier:

 

Well... here's a link because I can't figure out how to add a picture:

 

http://www.laweb.nl/galaga/pacman.jpg

[DEBRO]

Shouldn't Pac Man on the Namco Museum and Pac Man World 2 be arcade perfect since their based off of the same code or something like that. CPUWIZ said something about it a few weeks back

I remember CPUWIZ saying that Pac-man was emulated. It didn't use the exact code. He has the PSX Pac-man code that was written in 100% C.

 

I wonder if the Galaga code was emulated as it seems to be the same as the arcade game.

[raindog]

Regarding TV-out, many motherboards do have onboard video with TV-out, especially the smaller ones meant for appliance PC's. The Shuttle XPC I built my brother had TV out on the mobo as well as on the video card I put in there.

 

Barring that, you could just do what I did for my laptop and buy a scan converter for like 99 bucks. They're actually even cheaper than that now if you look around. Here's what I got for $95 last year:

 

(link to tigerdirect deal)

 

And there are a lot of cheaper ones out there, though I don't know how good they are.

 

If you don't mind the extra layer of analog, it's also a pretty good way to pipe DVD's through your VCR if you're like me and have an old TV with no direct video inputs and have problems with macrovision, and if you have another PC with a video capture card it's pretty cool for capturing flash videos to VCD/DVD

 

But if you don't already have a laptop and do already have an X-box, yeah, that's probably your best bet for playing MAME (and therefore pattern-accurate Pac-Man) on your TV.

[geosteve]

If you have a Dreamcast you can burn a MAME disk for that, MAMEDDC, it seems to only work good on games mid-80s and earlier but its still good enough. I have packs 1 & 2 both work ok.

 

see this link which is a Pac specific version of Dream-mame... (I havent used this yet but will try it)

 

http://www.dcemulation.com/soft-dreampac.htm