Donkey Kong Arcade, varying speeds...?

[mikegmi2]

Just like last year, I got home and played my first game of DK on my home arcade machine (tonight), and noticed it felt slightly faster than the machine I had been playing on all weekend at the KO.

I don't know if it is even possible to compare with others, due to formatting, uploading, compressing, viewing on various monitors and computers with different processors...but nonetheless wanted to officially bring this up.  I posted a couple videos.  One - just the attract screen.  Two - Coin up, game start, and first death with no input.  I also jump a few times for the second death because I feel like the jumps are quicker on my machine.

I figure if things like jumping, moving, delay time during smashes...seem faster to me, then the whole game should be running faster as well, including the time it takes for the attract screen to cycle through...and time for that first barrel to hit you in the head after starting a game.

Could just be mind games, but this is the second time it's happened like this so it might do me some good for people to call me crazy. Here are the links:

Attract
Donkey Kong Attract Screen Speed Test

Coin Up Game Start
Donkey Kong Game Start Speed Test

Maybe the only way to verify this would be to have multiple machines in the same room, power them all up at the same time, and see if any cycle through the attract screen faster.

I used an iPhone 5s, and uploaded in HD format to YouTube.

[marinomitch13]

I know that there were several times during the KO3 where I started a game at nearly the same time as people next to me and all of the start-up sounds stayed 'parallel' to one another -meaning they went at the same speed/rate. So, I know at least like 4-5 of the WC machines matched in speed (assuming the startup is a good dictator of the game speed even for when many sprites are on the screen -which actually may not be true).

[ChrisP]

I remember you bringing this up in the past, but I think it's physically impossible that different PCBs could be running the game at different speeds.

Differences in the horizontal/vertical sizing on monitors could definitely create the perception that timing (the distances in space and time between objects) is inconsistent, but it's just perception.

I've played on many different DK machines and while monitor differences have definitely thrown me off, I've never noticed this, and you're the only person I know of to feel that this is happening.

Sound might actually be a better indicator, since the sounds are synced with the animation. If your animation is moving at the wrong speed, then your sounds would have to be moving at the wrong speed as well, which would mean that the pitch of the sounds would not match the standard. Check the pitch against other DK machines/MAME.

[lakeman421]

Im glad you brought this topic up, because I feel like there are times where the game seems slower on a different cab.  At least now I know I'm not crazy.  Now someone needs to try Eric's unsteerable barrels on his PCB and see what I was saying. 

[ChrisP]

Man, if this is actually a thing, I don't even want to think about how it might affect score submissions!

[johnbart]

There was a similar thing that happened a few years ago when Dwayne set a WR on Nibbler and it ended up that the board was indeed running faster which allowed him to go through boards quicker.  There have been a number of other games in the past that have been affected by subtle variations in voltage going into the board causing different behaviours.  I recall a head to head Frogger battle between Pat and Don that ended because one of the boards keep acting up due to power issues.

[ChrisP]

It's funny, the stage start music in Mike's second video DOES sound like it's at the wrong pitch, or like the pitch is actually warping/oscillating AS it plays. (The problem there being that it's video, meaning that there are at least a dozen purely video-related reasons why this could happen.)

Unfortunately, I don't know if anybody who posts at DKF has the technical expertise to speak on this issue definitively. KLOV might have better insight?

[marinomitch13]

My 'jump' sound is quite lower pitch than most. I'd suspect that if a machine has different pitches than normal that it is more likely a speaker/sound board issue than something having to do with the pcb. Probably nothing to worry about.

[ChrisP]

I should have mentioned this when I was talking about pitch, but what you're describing is a separate thing.

The DK sounds are produced by two different chips, one is analog and one is digital. There are five analog sounds (three separate sounds for walking, one for the stomp/crash, and one for jump. Pitch issues with those, which we hear sometimes on some people's boards, are caused by problems in the analog chip.

But the rest of the sounds and music are produced by the digital chip and the pitch should definitely be "standard" from one machine to the next. So if the pitch is off in the music, then there is definitely a problem with the speed at which the program is running.

[Scoundrl]

I remember you bringing this up in the past, but I think it's physically impossible that different PCBs could be running the game at different speeds.

This is not really true. There are several things that can happen to game boards to alter aspects of the game including sound speed/pitch, jumpman speed, height and length of jumps ect....

The wrong speed/pitch of the sounds are actually a pretty common repair on the PCB.

Usually the speed differences, like the sound differences we hear are pretty obvious and the skilled player would notice it immediately and anyone watching with any experience with the game would tell for sure. Its not a slightly difference speed, its a radically different speed, like 1.5 x or more or jumpman jumping all the way up the screen...

There was a similar thing that happened a few years ago when Dwayne set a WR on Nibbler and it ended up that the board was indeed running faster which allowed him to go through boards quicker.  There have been a number of other games in the past that have been affected by subtle variations in voltage going into the board causing different behaviours.  I recall a head to head Frogger battle between Pat and Don that ended because one of the boards keep acting up due to power issues.

Dwaynes issue was not a speed issue with the gameplay, it was an issue with the snake/screen regeneration speed. The game changed from board to board much faster giving him the ability to score many more screens per hour, the snake however moved at the proper rate once the board was generated.

I have never seen or heard of power related speed issues, though its technically possible. Usually power issues manifest themselves with random resets or sprite generation problems.

Looking at the video posted, it looks to be playing at the proper speed to me. Like Chris pointed out, aspect ratio, screen height/width can give the perception of game speed difference even if it is truly the same.

-Ken

[mikegmi2]

Thanks for the replies guys. The last thing I want to do is bring up a pointless topic, and I remember going through this before last year, and realizing that playing on a machine with a 'skinny' ratio...then coming home and playing on a fat one...would trick your brain into thinking the game was running faster...when it really wasn't.

When I started up that first game at home, the first thing I noticed was how quick the fireball took to hop out of the oil can...and then when I started leeching it, how quick the frequency of the jumps seemed.

Then the barrels did seem to be rolling a little faster, but I chalked that up to the aspect ratio diff (I did play on a skinnier ratio at the 1Up, than what I am used to at home).

When I got to leeching Kong on 1-1, I felt like I was playing Super Donkey Kong Remix II Turbo Edition. The jump frequency seemed noticeably faster.

I don't know much about adjusting voltage levels or anything that might effect this, but I'm willing to try anything out. I've done a few minor repairs on my board.

[MrDontsMildRide]

Just wanted to chime in here, because I consistently play on both a 'skinny' DK and what I suppose is considered an appropriately wide DK. I have the width of my machine at home set skinny because of a monitor fold over issue that I am just too lazy to investigate/pay for to be fixed. It is not super skinny, but pretty noticeable.  The Barcade near me has an appropriately sized machine and the only time I really notice the difference is on 2-1, when going to get the 100 on the first blue barrel on a side jump. On both machines, I start the level holding right, jumping once, then jumping again to get the 100, when to the right of the barrel. On the skinny machine, I occasionally have a little mind explosion and think that the barrel is going t hit me, pause a little and then end up being hit by the barrel anyway. On the wide machine, it always appears that I have space and thus, no mind explosions. There is no difference in the actual speed of the gameplay, and I guess that I'm just agreeing that going from skinny to wide or vice versa is weird and messes with you a bit.

[_Zaphod_]

Dwaynes issue was not a speed issue with the gameplay, it was an issue with the snake/screen regeneration speed. The game changed from board to board much faster giving him the ability to score many more screens per hour, the snake however moved at the proper rate once the board was generated.

Oh, the same issue MAME has.    The snake generates too fast, and finishes before the sound effects do.  as far as i know this is still unfixed. 

A similar issue affects speech/music timing in fantasy.