07719: indytemp: inp playback issue

ID	Category [?]	Severity [?]	Reproducibility	Date Submitted	Last Update
07719	DIP/Input	Minor	Always	Jul 31, 2020, 21:51	Oct 1, 2020, 20:47

Tester	rcoltrane	View Status	Public	Platform	MAME (Official Binary)
Assigned To		Resolution	No change required	OS	Windows 10 (64-bit)
Status [?]	Closed			Driver	atari/atarisy1.cpp
Version	0.222	Fixed in Version		Build	64-bit
		Fixed in Git Commit		Github Pull Request #

Summary	07719: indytemp: inp playback issue
Description	After finishing the game with 1 coin and 3 lives on hard, I tried to playback the gameplay to record a video, but the inp file lost sync at the 1st level and ruined the playback.
Steps To Reproduce	Record an .inp file while playing the game and after playing it for some time, quit the game and try to playback it.
Additional Information	I've attached my latest .inp file here to be analyzed.
Github Commit

Flags
Regression Version
Affected Sets / Systems	indytemp

Attached Files	indytemp - 1cc hard 3 lives.inp (387,206 bytes) Jul 31, 2020, 21:51 Uploaded by rcoltrane

No.17884 AJR Developer Aug 12, 2020, 19:26	It's possible that desyncing on this game is caused by nonvolatile data being changed. This likely affects numerous other games as well. Perhaps the INP file format should be changed to include a checksum of NVRAM data taken when recording begins to ensure integrity.
No.17885 Tafoid Administrator Aug 12, 2020, 20:59	nvram must be clean, in fact, for .inps to work at all correctly. The leading MAME high score site insists on such usages when recording inputs for submissions. http://replay.marpirc.net/ f) As of 15 September 2001, the use of nvram files is prohibited, unless otherwise specified in special rules. If a person thinks a certain game fits into that category, he must contact any of the editors so they can discuss the issue. After the discussion all the editors will vote for or against the idea and present a final decision. All games will be discussed on a case by case basis. You can also download this file to ensure no nvram is used if you use the commandline. (usage: record {gamename}). It should be noted that in some games, having hiscore.dat present can affect playback, as can memory cards (memcard\memcard.), so it would be wise to remove these before recording. The same goes for difference files (diff\.dif), which contain changes made to a CHD (Compressed Hunk of Data - typically a Hard Drive or CD image). If the corresponding file isn't deleted or moved before recording, the INP is likely to be unplaybackable. It is strongly recommended that you set the nvram_directory option to NUL (or /dev/null for Linux/BSD/OS X users) in mame.ini, or simply add to the commandline -nvram_directory NUL or -nvram_directory /dev/null on Linux/BSD/OS X. Of course, I always seem to forget when dealing with .inps, but they have a high chance of playback issues when such nvrams are not default/cleared.
No.17886 rcoltrane Tester Aug 13, 2020, 17:33	In this case I had no NVRAM recorded. I always check if a NVRAM file is present and I delete it before recording (i've learned it from Haze in the past), but in this game I had NVRAM disabled before playing/recording. So I think it's not a NVRAM-related issue.
No.18022 rcoltrane Tester Oct 1, 2020, 18:24	I did some major cleanup here after updating to latest mame 0.225. I had a lot of old .ini files that were not being used anymore and so I erased all these .ini files (I'm handling everything through LaunchBox now). I've also erased all my old .inp files too. After that, I did some more tests with nrallyx and ikarijp and, to my surprise, both are recording/playbacking fine now! I did a somewhat long recording in both of them and both playbacks worked fine to the end. And I didn't need to remove the hiscore plugin and/or cheats as you suggested. So I suppose that the trouble has no relation to the cheat system and/or hiscore plugin, but it may has relation to the old .ini/.inp files I had that were recorded/generated by old mame versions. With that said you can now close all these .inp bugs I reported here beacuse it seems that the .inp system is working fine.
No.18024 Tafoid Administrator Oct 1, 2020, 19:53	One of your .ini files appears to have had plugins activated making the -plugin hiscores work where it doesn't work if if plugins is set to 0 or -noplugins is set as high scores would not load or save. In any case, we are going to not suggest either -cheat or -plugin hiscore be active when recording/playing back an .inp file. I am relieved that the issue seems resolved on your end in any case. I will close the recent reports.