When do you think A.I. will be able to break the Donkey Kong world record?

[QAOP Spaceman]

^

[WCopeland]

But today, I'd love to hear a roll call from anyone willing to having had practiced harder stages in Donkey Kong by using MAME as a tool to build up motor-memory for the game.

Literally 99% of active members of this forum.

[f_symbols]

I'm not saying this to sound high and mighty, but to the best of my knowledge I am the only active player who has never played DK in mame.  I always assumed that I was in a boat with only  and  in this regard (and maybe  ), and that is the reason I chose the "long road" so to speak. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that all 3 of them have played on mame (specifically to hone their skills on certain screens), I'm sure there were plenty of 3-500K players back in the 80's and early 90's that took this route, if only by necessity. 

To answer your question, If you counted  and  in the percentages, it would still be over 99% as Wes stated.  Learning without mame is dumb and takes infinitely longer, from my experience. 

[Zmick_tricK]

I've heard the argument that one shouldn't use emulator functions to practice and, similarly, I've heard that practicing Connect Four in perfect-play software is "cheating". (if the latter sounds out of place, allow me to add that C4 has been a fixture in my life and, when I'm de-rusted, am an expert player in the game). If it's simply a preference, like with f_symbols, that's one's prerogative.

To actually insist or demand that others do the same is just To me, it's like saying you can only practice kicking field goals during a real game or that you can only practice running during a race.

Thankfully, at least 99% of people here would agree with me and the whole argument is moot