How do you save a game state in MAME?

[The Jerk]

Hello.

Are there any tricks to saving a game while playing?  I've read the faq at mame.net but I'm still having trouble getting it to work.  It always fails to load.  The game I was trying to save is Rygar if that means anything.  Has anyone had any luck using this feature?


Here is the faq from mame.net

H08. Can I save my game and resume it later?

This feature is being slowly implemented because it can be helpful to MAME developers. It's an especially complex feature, so only a small portion of the drivers support it. If you want to try it, press Shift-F7 and any key to save a state, and F7 and the key you previously pressed to load a state. This way you can save more than one state, for example by pressing A, B, C, etc. after the save or load state key. However, don't expect all drivers to work properly with this.

[Thenasty]

some games support it, some games don't. i dunno about Rygar but  make sure you have a folder STA.

[Thenasty]

just tried it and it works. This game supports save states.

Make sure you use LEFT-SHIFT F7 to save to a location. The FAQ don't think it mentioned it.

If still not working, check your setup in MAME. Go see what you have it setup to, or setup it up the way you want it of back to default.

[The Jerk]

Ok.  Thanks, I have it working now.

[SirPoonga]

Ihate the default key setup for save and load.  I changed them to normal key presses.  On my cabinet it's player 2 buttons 1 and 2 shifted.

[jelwell]

Ihate the default key setup for save and load.

[Thenasty]

so you have 2 buttons labled "Save" "Load" thats slick, instead of asking you to push a "Key" for location.

I should add that to my build. Wanna share the code changed ? How about the games that don't work with Save/Load state ?

[jelwell]

so you have 2 buttons labled "Save" "Load" thats slick, instead of asking you to push a "Key" for location.

I should add that to my build. Wanna share the code changed ? How about the games that don't work with Save/Load state ?

That's odd. I know for a fact that I posted the source changes online. I thought it was on the mame.net forums, but I can't find it there. Here it is again (basically I force the second "keypress" to always be the letter A). It would be nice if there was a solution that didn't involve me recompiling MAME every release - but this works ok. I also wrote some code so that MAME says "GAME PAUSED" when you pause it. I kept walking over to my cabinet and a roommate would have a game paused and I'd think the cabinet was frozen because it didn't respond to any of the joystick or button presses.
Joseph Elwell.

[code]
diff -c -r ..\/src/usrintrf.c ./src/usrintrf.c
*** ..\/src/usrintrf.c

[jelwell]

You can kind of make out my "Save Game" "Load Game" buttons on my control panel in this shot:
http://www.singleclick.com/gallery/album288/DSC05890

Games that don't work with SAVE/LOAD? F@#$ em. What are you gonna do? Is there anything that one could programatically look at to notify the user that this isn't going to work when they hit the SAVE button?
Joseph Elwell.

[Lilwolf]

Cool!  I would love to see this in the next NoNameMame if it ever shows up (I keep hoping )

I would also love to see some triggers happen on key press and another on key release...  So I can have a one button speed up (similar to final burn) that would unthroddle, and possible change to frameskip 11... then turn back to throddled and frameskip 0 (or original)..

I really have to start working on the mame code a bit more.

[jelwell]

If anyone cares. Here's a diff file that has both the one button save/load code; and also the "GAME PAUSED" code.
Joseph Elwell.

[Chris]

On my cab, I use Left Flipper (left shift) - PAUSE (P) to save and Right Flipper-PAUSE to load.  For some reason, MAME automatically reads the "P" as the save position, so all of my save/load games are on position P.

--Chris

[Animal]

If anyone cares. Here's a diff file that has both the one button save/load code; and also the "GAME PAUSED" code.
Joseph Elwell.

Hmmm.  I'm new to this and just building my cabinet, I have everything ready and just waiting on the artwork to be completed.

Anyway, my button layout has a 'save game' and 'load game' button but I hadn't figured out how to do it.  Which file do I put this code into ?

It'll give me something to play with whilst I'm waiting for the artwork !

[johnye_pt]

If anyone cares. Here's a diff file that has both the one button save/load code; and also the "GAME PAUSED" code.
Joseph Elwell.

I know this message is over 19 years old, but I would love to apply the "GAME PAUSED" message to version 0.170 which is the one I'm using since it's the last version to support DirectDraw.

Any possibility you're still around and can take a look at the 0.170 source code to help me figure out how to add the message? The code seems very similar to the latest 0.268 version, so it would probably work for both.

EDIT: I managed to figure it out. If anyone is interested, here it is.