Yep, remove it.

I couldn't get this to playback either after several attempts

Voting yes

Voting yes

Sounds like a valid dispute.

I am curious on the original submission there's an INP playback that seems to have screenshots of the whole game including final score. I'm with Barra and Jason on it not playing back correctly but that seems weird on the original submission, like whats going on here?

Originally Posted by Derek

I am curious on the original submission there's an INP playback that seems to have screenshots of the whole game including final score. I'm with Barra and Jason on it not playing back correctly but that seems weird on the original submission, like whats going on here?

I can't say for sure what was done, but one of the ways this would be possible is if the submitter sent the NVRAM file that was generated during the recording - if you had this with the .inp, it would be possible to play it back...of course, it's a moot point, as NVRAM usage is banned anyway.

Originally Posted by Derek

I am curious on the original submission there's an INP playback that seems to have screenshots of the whole game including final score. I'm with Barra and Jason on it not playing back correctly but that seems weird on the original submission, like whats going on here?

I don't know the user that played The Punisher. Costa Rica is a very nice place, I suppose, but I live very far from there. I never met him on TG or somewhere on the web. No private messages between us (maybe admins can confirm this). I didn't receive VRAM, files, or money from this user. Simply, I managed to play back his submission, it seemed good to me, therefore I voted yes. I didn't know about the "if the INP doesn't play back at the first attempt you must reject the submission" rule, sorry.

I don't remember exactly what I did with Punisher, maybe I read something on the MAME Replay site or forum about the way to play back INPs with these old WolfMAME versions if you run into problems. I don't remember well and I deleted all the stuff from the hard disk. Anyway, I tried to rebuild all the process. Simply, this INP works at the second attempt (lol). Maybe it's the same for that Pang submission that was disputed (by the way, I didn't notice it was played with MAME instead of WolfMAME, I would be an awful referee, I'm sorry, I'm only a gamer).

The Punisher INP plays back (on a "clean" WolfMAME 0.184 simply downloaded from Github and unzipped) at the second attempt. After the first failed attempt, WolfMAME 0.184 creates a VRAM folder by itself. I don't know why this happens. Then, if you simply try to play back it again, it works (I stopped the playback after Bone Breaker was killed, score was roughly three million points).

I made a video of this, if you don't believe me:

A step-by-step guide to the video:

0:00 WolfMAME 0.184 downloaded from Github, INP downloaded, WolfMAME unzipped, etc. Punisher ROM set previously downloaded from a well known "paradisiacal place" thanks to the script.

1:05 First playback attempt. Note that no VRAM folder exists at the moment.

21:05 The first (failed) attempt ends: Bone Breaker has won. Immediately the second (successful) attempt begins. Note that I didn't add or touch anything between the two attempts.

42:00 Bone Breaker bites the dust.

42:55 We are back to the desktop. As you can see, the VRAM folder automatically appears, I clicked on it to show its content, then I opened the Punisher zipped ROM too.

I guess this won't change anything due to the strictness of the laws that rule the MAME universe on TG, I was only trying to understand what happened and to give you an answer. It doesn't matter to me about credibility and all. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Ah ok I see, games that generate NVRAM will do it after they have been run once, unless it’s been disabled; either you must delete the folder after you play the first time (and was each time you play) or need to disable nvram from the start which is what most us do