Universal coin counter is now possible in mame!

[Howard_Casto]

Mind you I'm not going to do it because I have too many projects as it is but I thought I would share.  

With the new cfg format, mame now stores the number of coins inserted for each game in a parsable format.  

"So what?" You say...  Well this means coins can be kept track of at all times.  

An example:

Have a frontend that allows you to insert coins.  When you launch a game, the front end opens that games cfg file and transfers the coin number inserted to the number of coins inserted in the game.  Then you play as normal, but if you inserted 5 coins prior to launching the game then 5 coins are already inserted when it starts up.  

Now after the user exits, check the coin total again.  if the coin total of that game is higher than the fe total (the user inserted coins during gameplay) add the difference to the fe total.  If there are less (the user didn't insert coins, but instead played with the coins already inserted) then subtract the difference.  

I don't see how it would be particularly useful as it would only be needed if you wanted to charge people to play (which is illegal)  but I just wanted to give an example of the power of the new cfg/ctrlr file format.  

Other things of note.....  Many games store the number of games played as well, which might be useful to a fe.  Although dips still aren't complete, they are parsable now.  They just need a bit more work.  

[Hamselv]

Well, it might be useful for something I have been thinking about for a while:

I find that having a dedicated button to simulate coin insert has the potential (for those without proper selfcontrol  ) to quickly ruin a game, as the button can easily be abused to give yourself infinite coins/plays/lives.

I have been thinking about a way to make the Insert Coin button add something like three credits and then disable until the game has been reset. This would put back some of the pressure to perform well in the game in order to win (or at least get further) that I remember from the arcades, where I always had a very limited cupply of coins

If it would be possible to disable the Insert Coin button within a game, then with this new counter you might be able to add the wanted number of credits prior to entering the game and basically that would be your total game 'allowance'. Perform or Die!

[SirPoonga]

I did not see this behavior.  When I an pacman and put in 5 credits and then exit, without playing the game I looked at the new cfg file.  Yep, the 5 credits where there.  Then started pacman again, pacman was at 0 credits.  ok, I added another 5 credits.  Exitted and looked at teh cfg file.  Now it is at 10 credits.  Ahhh, it's a coin counter and that's it.

[Howard_Casto]

Older games like pacman didn't save the number of credits when powered off, and thus this method wouldn't work with them.  I should have mentioned that it's not universal and only works with games with a battery backup.  

[Lilwolf]

beware of writing an middleware piece for this.

Other then the coolness factor.  The real use for this will be bootleggers.  So if you do write something, you might want to keep it to yourself... Or individuals who ask for it (that you know it will be for home users).

I do like the idea of clearing it out when you leave a game and add totals to your frontend though.  Nice little stats on favorite games, most coinage games.

[SirPoonga]

I have had game keep track of credits.  Many of the games I play do that.  It isn't new?  Or am I missing some point in this thread?

[Edgedamage]

The williams games keep the credits all the time in mame. It might be for newer games that had battery back-up but mame would forget the credits.

[Lilwolf]

The trouble is you could leave a game, reset the number of coins left over.

Then... when launching another game, add those coins.

but not all games have this feature (only games which when turned off and on again, maintain the coin count I believe).

But this would allow bootleggers to put multiple games in one cabinet without the possibility of loosing coins when they switch games.

BUT there is a real use.  You could add to your frontend the ability to see how many coins total for the system... and per game.  Not how many times you have launched it.. .but how many times you played once it was launched.

I'm not sure how useful this would be.