HiToText (Version 2010.11.4).

[tspeirs]

Alternativly, is there or if there was a command line option to tell it the mame executable, rather than have it search?

[Fyrecrypts]

Alternativly, is there or if there was a command line option to tell it the mame executable, rather than have it search?

You can, or at least should be able to, append the -v command after any request and follow that with the full path to the mame executable. It should grab the info from that version of mame. I haven't tested that feature in about half a year though, so it could currently be broken.

[highlander]

hey guys... has anyone done any work on "gorf"? the hiscore.dat entry for it seems to be wrong...

[Fyrecrypts]

hey guys... has anyone done any work on "gorf"? the hiscore.dat entry for it seems to be wrong...

I haven't done any work on it, is it missing important score data? I get a .hi file to generate, but haven't done any testing beyond that. Do you have more info?

[highlander]

Yes... a hi entry is generated but no hi scores are saved.. I tested it with six scores in the hi score table and none of them was saved... all went back to zero...  sorry I don't know much about the process of finding the correct hi score entries...  I had been using the hi.dat from Leezer, but heard that you guys were good at fixing incorrect entries.. I have a version of "tiny" mameui 0.138 that I compiled myself that has only 113 classic games from the 70's and 80's in it... after comparing your latest hiscore.dat to Leezer's (the 'gorf' entries are the same) I found that your entry for 'berzerk' was correct, 'cosmicmo' was correct, also 'astdelux' was correct (not in Leezer's dat)... however Leezer's entry for 'dkongjrj' was correct (no hi entry was created when using yours)... anyway the 'gorf' and 'spacezap' entries are the same in both hi.dat files and neither saves the hi scores... If my memory is correct, I don't think 'spacezap' has ever worked, even when mame officially supported hi scores... sorry for the rambling and thanks for you help.. 

[Fyrecrypts]

Yes... a hi entry is generated but no hi scores are saved.. I tested it with six scores in the hi score table and none of them was saved... all went back to zero...  sorry I don't know much about the process of finding the correct hi score entries...  I had been using the hi.dat from Leezer, but heard that you guys were good at fixing incorrect entries.. I have a version of "tiny" mameui 0.138 that I compiled myself that has only 113 classic games from the 70's and 80's in it... after comparing your latest hiscore.dat to Leezer's (the 'gorf' entries are the same) I found that your entry for 'berzerk' was correct, 'cosmicmo' was correct, also 'astdelux' was correct (not in Leezer's dat)... however Leezer's entry for 'dkongjrj' was correct (no hi entry was created when using yours)... anyway the 'gorf' and 'spacezap' entries are the same in both hi.dat files and neither saves the hi scores... If my memory is correct, I don't think 'spacezap' has ever worked, even when mame officially supported hi scores... sorry for the rambling and thanks for you help..  

You are correct! Dkongjrj doesn't work. It appears my trying to fix it, broke it. Leezer's version is missing the score 5 first digit or something like that. My repairs must have failed, I'll be fixing it shortly. The link in my sig points to a current version of the hiscore.dat database I have, so as soon as I fix it, there will automatically be an update. As for gorf and spacezap, guess those are good candidates to fix as well. =)

Thanks for pointing out the issues.

Edit: It does in fact seem to work for dkongjr, so looks like it just needs to be split up a bit, as the memory is probably in slightly different locations.

[highlander]

Edit: It does in fact seem to work for dkongjr, so looks like it just needs to be split up a bit, as the memory is probably in slightly different locations.

Yes.. dkongjr appears to be working, but it looks like its the same as Leezer's entry except for the 3'rd column being two digit's instead of one digit.. does this make a difference?...

[Cananas]

As for gorf and spacezap, guess those are good candidates to fix as well. =)

Apart from a littles fixes, both gorf and spacezap write the hiscore data in the Protected RAM (0xd000-0xd03f). Even in the debugger I can not write at this locations,so I don't know how we can tell to "hiscore.c" to write into this Protected RAM (I even don't know how this pprotection works. Of course, the program writes on those memory locations).

MkChamp, maybe?

[Fyrecrypts]

As for gorf and spacezap, guess those are good candidates to fix as well. =)

Apart from a littles fixes, both gorf and spacezap write the hiscore data in the Protected RAM (0xd000-0xd03f). Even in the debugger I can not write at this locations,so I don't know how we can tell to "hiscore.c" to write into this Protected RAM (I even don't know how this pprotection works. Of course, the program writes on those memory locations).

MkChamp, maybe?

Came to the same conclusion, the scores get saved in the file after exiting, but never get rewritten (protected RAM). I thought maybe the scores were being saved in more than one place, hopefully somewhere not also protected, but I hadn't looked yet.

Cananas is very knowledgeable, especially about the hiscore.dat and how the memory works for each game, so I would say he's much more likely to be correct and thorough.

[Cananas]

There is another location (not in gorf) in spacezap, at 0xd041 (not Protected RAM), but it don't take effect. It rewrite the data, yes, but this is not the data the game wants.

I sent a PM to MKChamp.

wow is also a similar case, but here, the hiscore data is stored above 0xd03f (so no Protected RAM) and of course, it works and is included in HiTotext.

Meanwhile, I debuging the game step to step trying to find a good point in which the program writes to those locations, with no results.

[highlander]

Oh well.... I was afraid "gorf" and "spacezap" was a lost cause... guess I'll just have to use savestate for these... anyway thanks very much for looking into it... I have noticed a problem with 2 other games: polepos and polepos2, a hi file is not generated for either of these.. I know some of the hi scores are saved in nvram anyway... poleposa generates a hi file though...

[Fyrecrypts]

Oh well.... I was afraid "gorf" and "spacezap" was a lost cause... guess I'll just have to use savestate for these... anyway thanks very much for looking into it... I have noticed a problem with 2 other games: polepos and polepos2, a hi file is not generated for either of these.. I know some of the hi scores are saved in nvram anyway... poleposa generates a hi file though...

I wouldn't call them lost causes, when the cinemat.c issues were discovered, Cananas and MK Champ were able to come up with a solution fairly quickly. I'm not saying this will be the same, but I wouldn't be too concerned about never seeing gorf or spacezap in HiToText in one form or another.

[highlander]

Your right there is always hope

[Fyrecrypts]

No major fixes here, but hopefully it's the final fix to the -lp command. Additionally, I went ahead and implemented something to stop HiToText for looking for MAME if it doesn't need to. No new games in this version.

-------------------
Version 2010.8.24
-------------------
Bug Fixes:
Fix to -lp command, it actually works in all known circumstances (so far).
Fix to version checking of MAME, only used when necessary (so far just Track and Field).

[Fyrecrypts]

Minor news, I've gone ahead and put this project up on Sourceforge. It's currently using SVN for the source control, so hopefully that's easier than me zipping it up and putting it on my FTP.

I haven't decorated it too much, as it's mostly setup right now for code retrieval, but I'm sure I'll add to it as time goes on.

I probably won't do source updates through my FTP anymore, since I have this setup. I'll update the main post with the new links when I get a new version done.

[kernelpanic]

so I was playing with hiToText after finding a link to this from the MaLa front end forum. I notice that pacman is not supported. Has this just not been tackled yet? It's a single high score - file is 11 bytes long and the first two bytes are the high score in reverse order. In my simple tests, I can't get over 10K, so not sure how those are handled. The next 3 bytes are all 00s so likely a continuation fo the score - the remaining bytes make no sense to me - the file does seem to always end with  @@H (40 40 48)

[Fyrecrypts]

so I was playing with hiToText after finding a link to this from the MaLa front end forum. I notice that pacman is not supported. Has this just not been tackled yet? It's a single high score - file is 11 bytes long and the first two bytes are the high score in reverse order. In my simple tests, I can't get over 10K, so not sure how those are handled. The next 3 bytes are all 00s so likely a continuation fo the score - the remaining bytes make no sense to me - the file does seem to always end with  @@H (40 40 48)

It's supported in legacy drivers. Hasn't been ported over to the XML format, but it will work.

[loadman]

FYI:

In the MaLa section there is discussion going on about how best to integrate/display this in MaLa.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=105664.0

[kernelpanic]

so how can help with this project? Specifically, I am interested in getting some games that we play a lot into the "system" so to speak. For example, for The New Zealand Story, it only stores the top 5 scores, but it also keeps a "last round completed" value along with 3 initials. I have a screen shot with a corresponding .hi file - would that help? or do you need more?

[Fyrecrypts]

New release, mostly a big bugfix for resupporting legacy drivers (found by kernelpanic). A previous release had broken that, so games like pacman (!) were no longer working. Also added a few games to the XML.

-------------------
Version 2010.9.10
-------------------
New Games: Ambush, Angel Kids, Avengers (Fyrecrypts)

Bug Fixes:
10yard modified in hiscore.dat, and XML entry to add new clones.
1943 modified in hiscore.dat, and XML entry to add clone: 1943u, and move 1943kai to it's own entry.
Fix to legacy driver support. It stopped working on the last release, it's back in!

[Fyrecrypts]

so how can help with this project? Specifically, I am interested in getting some games that we play a lot into the "system" so to speak. For example, for The New Zealand Story, it only stores the top 5 scores, but it also keeps a "last round completed" value along with 3 initials. I have a screen shot with a corresponding .hi file - would that help? or do you need more?

This is doable in the XML format (read my response below)! In the meantime, I recommend taking a look at what dna disturber and Wob were doing around pages 6-9 to show how to document games so we could incorporate them into HiToText. It's a lot easier now with the XML format, so simpler games can just sorta be plugged in.

However, screenshots with .hi files are certainly better than nothing, but if you have the motivation, there's more that could be done that would make incorporating these games much faster and easier.

Thanks for wanting to contribute! The more contributors, the faster things get done. =)

[kernelpanic]

ok, I'll give it go.

The NEWZEALAND STORY
ROM Name: tnzs

Keeps "Best 5" scores

.hi file length = 35 bytes, 7 bytes per record

3 bytes for score, 1 byte for round, 3 bytes for initials

byte 00-02      00 49 00 // score of 49000
byte 03           05 // round (see below)
byte 04-06      4B 41 4E // initials of KAN

rinse and repeat as necessary

byte 03 of the record is a round completed value mapped as follows

val = level-round
00 = 1-1
01 = 1-2
02 = 1-3
03 = 1-4
04 = 2-1
05 = 2-2
etc
etc
there are 5 levels of 4 rounds, up to 20 rounds total - 5-4 is the last round

I think there are only 3 special characters allowed in initials, but I'll have to dig around some more to be sure about this

. period
?
!

I don't find a NVRAM file for it.


Let me know if that's too much info, or not enuf and what else you might want/need.

[kernelpanic]

-------------------
Version 2010.9.10
-------------------

pacman works great now - thanks!

[Fyrecrypts]

ok, I'll give it go.

The NEWZEALAND STORY
ROM Name: tnzs

Keeps "Best 5" scores

.hi file length = 35 bytes, 7 bytes per record

3 bytes for score, 1 byte for round, 3 bytes for initials

byte 00-02      00 49 00 // score of 49000
byte 03           05 // round (see below)
byte 04-06      4B 41 4E // initials of KAN

rinse and repeat as necessary

byte 03 of the record is a round completed value mapped as follows

val = level-round
00 = 1-1
01 = 1-2
02 = 1-3
03 = 1-4
04 = 2-1
05 = 2-2
etc
etc
there are 5 levels of 4 rounds, up to 20 rounds total - 5-4 is the last round

I think there are only 3 special characters allowed in initials, but I'll have to dig around some more to be sure about this

. period
?
!

I don't find a NVRAM file for it.

After seeing this description I realize I misread your first post about the game. This is totally doable in the XML format! Here's an example game that utilizes the same basic format:

<Entry>
    <Header>
      <Games>
        <Name>alexkidd</Name>
        <Name>alexkidd1</Name>
        <Name>alexkid1</Name>  <!-- Old name -->
        <Name>alexkida</Name>  <!-- Old name -->
      </Games>
      <Fields>
        <Name>RANK</Name>
        <Name>SCORE</Name>
        <Name>NAME</Name>
        <Name>ROUND</Name>
      </Fields>
      <Extensions>
        <Name>.hi</Name>
      </Extensions>
      <TextParameters>
        <Formats>
          <Name>NeedsSpecialMapping</Name>
          <Name>ASCIIStandard</Name>
        </Formats>
        <SpecialMapping>
          <Map Char=" " Byte="0x00"/>
          <Map Char="-" Byte="0x3e"/>
          <Map Char="." Byte="0x5b"/>
          <Map Char="!" Byte="0x5e"/>
          <Map Char="&amp;" Byte="0x5f"/>
        </SpecialMapping>
      </TextParameters>
    </Header>
    <FileStructure>
      <Mapping NumberOfBlocks="7" Ordering="Ascending">
        <Entry Name="Score" Length="4"/>
        <Entry Name="Round" Length="1"/>
        <Entry Name="Name" Length="3"/>
      </Mapping>
      <Mapping NumberOfBlocks="1" Ordering="None">
        <Entry Name="HiScore" Length="4"/>
      </Mapping>
    </FileStructure>
    <SetStructure>
      <FieldName Name="Score" FieldType="int" ConversionType="IntToByteArrayHex" Position="1">
        <SpecialUtilization>EmptyScores</SpecialUtilization>
        <SpecialUtilization>IsAdjusted</SpecialUtilization>
        <SpecialUtilization Function="Standard">DetermineRank</SpecialUtilization>
      </FieldName>
      <FieldName Name="Name" FieldType="string" ConversionType="Name" Position="2">
        <SpecialUtilization>ModifyName</SpecialUtilization>
        <SpecialUtilization>IsAdjusted</SpecialUtilization>
      </FieldName>
      <FieldName Name="Round" FieldType="int" ConversionType="IntToByteArrayHex" Position="3">
        <SpecialUtilization>IsAdjusted</SpecialUtilization>
      </FieldName>
      <FieldName Name="HiScore" FieldType="int" ConversionType="IntToByteArrayHex" Position="1">
        <SpecialUtilization>EmptyScores</SpecialUtilization>
        <SpecialUtilization>IsHiScore</SpecialUtilization>
      </FieldName>
    </SetStructure>
    <DisplayStructure>
      <FieldName Name="Rank" ConversionType="CannedDisplay.AscendingFrom1"/>
      <FieldName Name="Score" ConversionType="Standard"/>
      <FieldName Name="Name" ConversionType="Name"/>
      <FieldName Name="Round" ConversionType="Standard"/>
    </DisplayStructure>
  </Entry>

[kernelpanic]

After seeing this description I realize I misread your first post about the game. This is totally doable in the XML format! Here's an example game that utilizes the same basic format:

Ok, I downloaded the XML guide and I'll see if I can figure out what all the stuff means.

[dna disturber]

Hi Fyrecrypts,

Could you check this one out for me ?
It's congo bongo and clone tiptop.....

Display seems to go fine and  erasing all scores but writing or modifying just won't work.
What am I doing wrong here?  (With hexedit I can just change them so no checksum I would think)

TIA,

Dna Disturber  

P.S. All nvram games won't display the scores in hyperspin....is there something wrong in my config or is hyperspin not handling the .nv files.

[Fyrecrypts]

Hi Fyrecrypts,

Could you check this one out for me ?
It's congo bongo and clone tiptop.....

Display seems to go fine and  erasing all scores but writing or modifying just won't work.
What am I doing wrong here?  (With hexedit I can just change them so no checksum I would think)

TIA,

Dna Disturber  

P.S. All nvram games won't display the scores in hyperspin....is there something wrong in my config or is hyperspin not handling the .nv files.

Looks like you should have: ConversionType="IntToByteArrayHex" for the score and hi score to be: ConversionType="IntToByteArraySingleBCD"

Not sure about the high score since i'm not able to look at it right now, but my guess is you just didn't realize you needed to change the conversion types in the set structure. =) Also, welcome back!

As for the games in HyperSpin, I'll have to take a look later when I get a chance, but I'd guess it's probably a bug in HiToText that I need to fix.

[loadman]

OK thanks to kernelpanic there is basic support for HiToText to display on info page in MaLa:

It only works with the MaLa beta at this point 1.716 +

Instructions here:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=105664.msg1119973#msg1119973

[dna disturber]

@Fyrecrypts thanks for the info .....changed it and found out that I had to use determinerank in it too.

Here are 2 new games:
congo (including tiptop clone)
qix (including qixa,qixb,qixo,qix2 clones)

qix unfortunately has checksums (it uses nvram only) so when I write a highscore using hitotext the game won't accept any credits anymore.
Perhaps the master checksum analyzer can find this one out -> Cananas  I need your help  
Reading the hiscores works fine btw....

Dna Disturber    

P.S It feels good to be back  

[headkaze]

Just wanted to say "great job" to Fyrecrypts (and team) for your continued hard work on this 

[dna disturber]

4 new games + clones:

satansat (includes clones:   satansata , satansaa & zarzon)
rocnrope (includes clones:   rocnropk & rocnropek)
rompers  (includes clone : romperso)
saturn

Suggested changes to hiscore.dat :
satansata needs to be added as clone to satansat
satansaa can have the comment ;old added to it
rocnropek needs to be added as clone to rocnrope
rocnropk can have the comment ;old added to it

Dna Disturber   

[dna disturber]

@fyrecrypts

Is it possible to have a specialutilization command for the XML that fills up bytes with chosen value's
This would be for the incomingmodified specialutilization.

For instance I'm working on ladyfrog and the names get filled at the back with spaces. When writing a highscore with hitotext the scoretable in the game doesn't look good because of the spaces not being there.
Same goes for ladybug , this game fills up the front of the name with F's (so this is just the opposite of ladyfrog).
So it could be something like a frontfill and backfill function to fill up the bytes in certain games.
It could be used with one parameter, that would be the fillvalue (the length of the field is already known)

Never mind, I figured it out.....paddata or reversepaddata should do it.
I will try and see if I get it to work.

Dna Disturber   




 

[dna disturber]

2 new games + clones

kick     (includes clones :   kickc & kickman)
dogfgt (includes clone  :   dogfgtj)

For dogfgt to work properly the hiscore.dat needs to be changed (the entry wasn't complete and didn't have the hiscore in it)
The entry should be:
dogfgt:
dogfgtj:
0:0607:50:00:00
0:029:03:00:01

First time I used the mame debugger and actually found the missing data  (It took me a while though.....and some luck....) 

Dna Disturber   

[Fyrecrypts]

OK thanks to kernelpanic there is basic support for HiToText to display on info page in MaLa:

It only works with the MaLa beta at this point 1.716 +

Instructions here:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=105664.msg1119973#msg1119973

Nice! This is great stuff! Thank you loadman, I'll have to check it out soon, it's been a very busy last few days. =)

I'm pretty sure Cananas uses MaLa quite a bit as well, so he'll probably be loving this.

Just wanted to say "great job" to Fyrecrypts (and team) for your continued hard work on this 

Thanks, and it's definitely a team effort!

@fyrecrypts

Is it possible to have a specialutilization command for the XML that fills up bytes with chosen value's
This would be for the incomingmodified specialutilization.

For instance I'm working on ladyfrog and the names get filled at the back with spaces. When writing a highscore with hitotext the scoretable in the game doesn't look good because of the spaces not being there.
Same goes for ladybug , this game fills up the front of the name with F's (so this is just the opposite of ladyfrog).
So it could be something like a frontfill and backfill function to fill up the bytes in certain games.
It could be used with one parameter, that would be the fillvalue (the length of the field is already known)

Never mind, I figured it out.....paddata or reversepaddata should do it.
I will try and see if I get it to work.

Dna Disturber   

Exactly, I ran into this quite a bit, and finally just made a common function out of it instead of creating custom code to handle it every time. PadData and PadDataReverse should do it for you, whichever one you need.

2 new games + clones

kick     (includes clones :   kickc & kickman)
dogfgt (includes clone  :   dogfgtj)

For dogfgt to work properly the hiscore.dat needs to be changed (the entry wasn't complete and didn't have the hiscore in it)
The entry should be:
dogfgt:
dogfgtj:
0:0607:50:00:00
0:029:03:00:01

First time I used the mame debugger and actually found the missing data  (It took me a while though.....and some luck....) 

Dna Disturber   

Congratulations! You've now been upgraded to hiscore.dat-astic mod/editor! I've sent you an e-mail with some details. Also, thanks for pounding out the games, I'll be adding them to the official HiToText.xml file and making a release sometime in the next couple days.

[Cananas]

I'm pretty sure Cananas uses MaLa quite a bit as well, so he'll probably be loving this.

How do you know that? Yes, I use MALA... I hope someday Loadman or somebody else include in MALA a pop up window with the clone games when you press a key on a parent. A parent games list with this it would be fatastic.

First time I used the mame debugger and actually found the missing data  (It took me a while though.....and some luck....) 

Great!

Congratulations! You've now been upgraded to hiscore.dat-astic mod/editor! I've sent you an e-mail with some details.

Uppps. Sorry, dna disturber. I updated the hiscore.dat with your changes...

[Fyrecrypts]

I'm pretty sure Cananas uses MaLa quite a bit as well, so he'll probably be loving this.

How do you know that? Yes, I use MALA... I hope someday Loadman or somebody else include in MALA a pop up window with the clone games when you press a key on a parent. A parent games list with this it would be fatastic.

Stumbled on some post a while back in the MaLa forum where you gave some configuration help. Not trying to be creepy, sometimes I just remember these things.

[dna disturber]

I'm pretty sure Cananas uses MaLa quite a bit as well, so he'll probably be loving this.

How do you know that? Yes, I use MALA... I hope someday Loadman or somebody else include in MALA a pop up window with the clone games when you press a key on a parent. A parent games list with this it would be fatastic.

Stumbled on some post a while back in the MaLa forum where you gave some configuration help. Not trying to be creepy, sometimes I just remember these things.

Hmmm your avatar says otherwise.......    

And thanks for the trust guys  (datastic)      

[dna disturber]

1 new game
dockman  with clones portman & porter

Adjusted the hiscore.dat entry to match the correct hiscore-data (removed a piece of player 1 score and added 1 digit to the highscore)
Also removed the comment old at clone porter because it's still the correct name for the clone.
The game dockman still has both clones portman and porter.
 
@Fyrecrypts & Cananas  : Modifying worked datastic     


Dna Disturber      
 
P.S. Since there is only one score that is kept in this game I named it Hiscore instead of the normal Score. 
I think it just looks/sounds better on a game with just one hiscore. (and no names and other ranks, like pacman for instance)
@Fyrecrypts, Cananas , bLAZER What is your opinion ?

[Fyrecrypts]

P.S. Since there is only one score that is kept in this game I named it Hiscore instead of the normal Score. 
I think it just looks/sounds better on a game with just one hiscore. (and no names and other ranks, like pacman for instance)
@Fyrecrypts, Cananas , bLAZER What is your opinion ?

That's the beauty of the XML format, you can make it look like whatever you want. As for the official version, I'll probably stick to SCORE, just because that's what everything else already is. I don't mind changing everything else, if people think it looks better. I just want to maintain consistency.

[dna disturber]

5 new games to add to the XML

calipso
zzyzzyxx + clones
zodiack
zombieraid
zoar

Dna Disturber