Auto load mame save states?

[highland04]

Forgive me if this has been covered a million times, and if it is in the wrong spot.  I searched for this topic and couldn't find anything exactly like it.

Is it possible to automatically load a saved state for a game, without turning on the option to automatically save upon exit?

I want to save the games after the test, on the "insert coin" screen, then have it automatically load it from there.

I am using plain MAME.  It is on a relatively old system that supports mame better than mameui or similars.

Thanks,
highland04

[highland04]

Forgive me - I should have spent more time in this.

I figured it out.  I researched command line switches and the ini configuration file, and it's really quite easy. 

[Well Fed Games]

Hmm, never thought about doing that... might have to do the same on a project sometime.

[wildclay]

Interesting topic, highland04. Glad you brought it up because I've thought about doing something similar, primarily for longer action/adventure games like the Ghost n' Goblin, Double Dragon and TMNT series. Can you share the commands? I notice you said you're using plain old MAME but have you tried this with Hyperspin or other front ends?

[MTPPC]

I researched command line switches and the ini configuration file, and it's really quite easy. 

Please share.. The point of technical forums is to help everybody who reads them. Not to just solve individual problems. Proper forum etiquette is to post the solution if you find it before anyone gives it to you.

[Gray_Area]

.......why would you not use it all the time? And how are you cueing the event?

[Megaweapon]

without turning on the option to automatically save upon exit?

Wouldn't this negatively impact high score retention?

[P-chan]

without turning on the option to automatically save upon exit?

Wouldn't this negatively impact high score retention?

By definition, it would have to, unless MAME stores the hiscores in a different file/variable that isn't affected by the savestate.

[eds1275]

I had mine set up to save upon exit and reload when you go back to it but after a while it was no fun. I do see the usefulness for those crazy long and hard games like G&G or Castlevania though. I never thought of doing it on a game-by-game basis.

[codefenix]

By definition, it would have to, unless MAME stores the hiscores in a different file/variable that isn't affected by the savestate.

I think whatever the savestate remembers always overrides anything recorded as a high score.  In this scenario, it seems as if the "factory" high scores will always persist.

[ebo0763]

Forgive me - I should have spent more time in this.

I figured it out.  I researched command line switches and the ini configuration file, and it's really quite easy.

I was just looking for the same solution. How can we do this?

[Laythe]

When I tried it, I found some subtle internal state data to become corrupted over time.

For instance, Aliens lost sound entirely;  Xevious would lose the ability to move the ship right, and Galaga would start to glitch the positions of sprites and make collision detection errors.

That may have been ironed out in later Mame versions, or it might be something unique to my setup.  Watch out for it though, it took me a while to notice it was even happening, and then to track it down.

[equlizer]

I fought with this for quite some time and ended up using one of my buttons as a "shift" key to save and load save states.

[artyfarty]

If you get UXME MAME, there is a faststart feature that skips the frames for the machine startup, which achieves what OP wanted without save states.


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[big10p]

I just use a joystick and button combo to fast forward through the longer boot/test screens.