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Shared High Score.dat?
NoOne=NBA=:
It can be done relatively easy--with one provision.
You can't BOTH play at the same time.
To make this work, the first player needs to finish playing, and then replace the .hi file on the master server with the new version from his computer.
When the next player (which can be either one, but not BOTH) wants to play after this, that person needs to get the master .hi file from the server, and replace the local one on his machine.
This can be repeated as often as necessary, and will allow both players (or an entire group) access to a single hi score file that will include data from all the other players--as long as only one person USES it at a time.
The reason that only one player can USE the master file at a time, and thus play the game, is that there is no easy way to merge them (if that is possible at all).
If BOTH players were playing remotely on their own machines, and BOTH beat the current high score, the last person to post their local version of the .hi to the master server would have the new high score because their posting would overwrite the others.
g3rg:
A friend and I have done some work on an app that reads the hi score file for certain games (every game is different pretty much, we've done about 40 odd games, some of which have clones which should be the same), and then displayed it. It is / was being built for use in a front-end, i.e. allowing you to show the hi-score table on the game selection screen.
I have also started a slight modification of the app that allowed it to read 2 files, merge them by score, and then spit out a new hi score. Although this again has to be done for each different mame game. The idea for this was to maybe one day have a web based service that allowed you to share your hi scores with your friends, not just by showing the scores on a webpage but by updating your own mame.hi files
If there is interest in it we would probably put more effort into it, but at the moment, work, girlfriends and playing the games gets in the way. One thing that could make the work better is for people to state which games they would like the system to support first etc...
RetroBorg:
--- Quote from: g3rg on February 03, 2004, 04:39:10 am ---I have also started a slight modification of the app that allowed it to read 2 files, merge them by score, and then spit out a new hi score. Although this again has to be done for each different mame game. The idea for this was to maybe one day have a web based service that allowed you to share your hi scores with your friends, not just by showing the scores on a webpage but by updating your own mame.hi files
--- End quote ---
If you were to do as you suggest with your app, I assume the following would happen:
Machine A Machine B Combined
1 200000 FIL 1 195000 AKL 1 200000 FIL
2 180000 FIL 2 183000 AKL 2 195000 AKL
3 170000 FIL 3 175000 AKL 3 183000 AKL
4 150000 FIL 4 142000 AKL 4 180000 FIL
5 125000 FIL 5 115000 AKL 5 175000 AKL
This would be cool if that were to happen.
But I also assume the following would happen once you are both using the combined scores and combine again:
Machine A Machine B Combined
1 200000 FIL 1 200000 FIL 1 200000 FIL
2 195000 AKL 2 195000 AKL 2 200000 FIL
3 183000 AKL 3 183000 AKL 3 195000 AKL
4 180000 FIL 4 180000 FIL 4 195000 AKL
5 175000 AKL 5 175000 AKL 5 183000 AKL
Which wouldn't be very cool because the scores would be doubled up and eventualy if the hi-scores were combined enough times the top 5 would all read 200000 FIL.
Is what I'm thinking correct or is there a way to stop the new file from doubling up each time?
g3rg:
Yeah, that problem is under consideration... the best strategy I've come up with so far is:
* merge both hi score files
* keep removing duplicates from the lowest score up until we either hit the top score or the number of entries has been reduced to the number allowed by the game
* take the top 'n' games (where n is the number allowed by the game)
The second part of the app (the merging and spitting out the file) has only had an hour or so spent on it (mostly designing and planning, although it does work for 1942...), started working on the whole thing while unemployed, then got myself a job, so havent had much time
RetroBorg:
--- Quote from: g3rg on February 03, 2004, 05:15:04 am ---Yeah, that problem is under consideration... the best strategy I've come up with so far is:
* merge both hi score files
* keep removing duplicates from the lowest score up until we either hit the top score or the number of entries has been reduced to the number allowed by the game
* take the top 'n' games (where n is the number allowed by the game)
The second part of the app (the merging and spitting out the file) has only had an hour or so spent on it (mostly designing and planning, although it does work for 1942...), started working on the whole thing while unemployed, then got myself a job, so havent had much time
--- End quote ---
Well I guess you've got most things covered then, I guess removing duplicates scores (by this I guess you mean same score & same name) would be satisfactory but not perfect if you actually get the same score twice.
What about having 2 options on merging.
Option 1 - Top Scores Merger, like as discussed already.
Option 2 - Top Players Merger, keeping just the highest score of each individual player, sometimes one player is really good at a game and hogs all the hi-score places and other players can't keep track of their own personal hi-score.
Just an idea, looking forward to hearing how you a progress anyway.