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Main => Software Forum => Topic started by: madk on October 08, 2002, 02:20:39 pm

Title: MAME and highscore
Post by: madk on October 08, 2002, 02:20:39 pm

I need some info on saving high scores.  I hear I can downlaod an unofficial Highscore.dat that works with most games.  Can anyone point me in the right direction and give me some info on the subject.  Thanks in advance.

-madk

Title: Re:MAME and highscore
Post by: hyiu on October 08, 2002, 02:26:37 pm

I would like to know too....

I read from Mame.net if we set a highscore file somewhere, most games high score will be saved... but then... couldn't get it working...

but for some games... (Cyberball is one of them) high score is automatically saved.....

would like to know details...

thx in advance...

Title: Re:MAME and highscore
Post by: Howard_Casto on October 08, 2002, 03:08:08 pm

The highscore.dat is pretty much a lost cause.  The problem is every game stores it's high score in a different format.   It's hard to read and hard to parse, and thus it's very hard to use it for front-ends, which I believe was it's intention.  

Unless I am mistaken on this, the highscore.dat has nothing to do with saving your highscore.  You see in order for a game to save it's score to the highscore.dat, it's game driver has to be coded that way.  Since it is a lot of work for the devs to convert the highscores of a game from hex or whatever odd ball format the game uses into the highscore format, it is seldom supported.  

Sorry :(

Title: Re:MAME and highscore
Post by: madk on October 08, 2002, 03:30:20 pm

I found this...

http://www.mameworld.net/highscore/

Haven't tried yet...will update after I try.

Title: Re:MAME and highscore
Post by: madk on October 08, 2002, 04:32:22 pm

K I just copied the file into my MAME folder and gave Marble Madness a try...after setting the high score I quit...loaded it back up...and BAM...my name in lights!  So this method apparently works with all the games listed.  Good enough for me.

-madk

Title: Re:MAME and highscore
Post by: Chris on October 08, 2002, 05:17:51 pm

Quote from: Howard_Casto on October 08, 2002, 03:08:08 pm

Unless I am mistaken on this, the highscore.dat has nothing to do with saving your highscore.

Actually, the hiscore.dat tells MAME where in memory the high scores are stored; when the data in that location changes, it writes the data out to a .HI file for that game.  The data in the .HI file is then patched back in to the game's memory map at startup.  So yes, it saves high scores for games that don't save them in NVRAM.

--Chris