I know this sounds silly but,

[lastrega]

Hey all, I have a silly question? Is there a way to save the scores automaticly for old school games ? I want to keep scores for like Pac-Man and moon patrol, without having to save the state.. And when I try to overwrite an exiting state file, I get an error in mame 142, that reads "error saving state due to existing timers". Or some intellegent sounding jargon like that... So I thought I am sure there is an easier way to keep up with the old school:) any tips would be greatly thanked:)

[TOK]

I still run an older version of MAME with hiscore.dat support. I know mamedev felt it was a kludge, but I have never had an issue with it. Thought I read that you can compile a version of MAME that puts it back into newer versions.

I have high scores on my original MAME cab that date back to when I built it in 2005.

[SammyWI]

You can recompile your Mame executable to include high scores.  Check out this thread:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=64298.0

[lastrega]

Thank you both for you kind replys:) I like all the games 142 supports but I dislike some of the features that it has lost........ another one is the dreaded screen misalignments for old school cocktails like galaga, dig dug ect.... I know , I know thats another thread........ But still... Any way I will update for the hi- scores and thanks again:),................. ML

[SammyWI]

Most front ends will let you run different versions of Mame for specific games.

[lastrega]

Alright:) I did what the post suggested and I got Mkchamps 141U version with hi score data, and it works great:) I am happy exept for one or two things, first one I can live with , I have a cocktail table and I have spent weeks setting up the games that run in dual screen mode.. Now normaly mame always saves settings like that , but since I put the hi score data on I have to manualy set to cocktail every time:( any suggestions?   

The second issue really blows and I hope it is a setting or something tiny.... I lost alot of sound , IE moon patrol, no sounds for blowing up rocks, and little tanks and stuff....... and Asteroids rev 4 has NO sound at all now? any help would be great:), and thanks for the save info it did solve that one problem:)

Funny thing with this hobby, when you get one thing working like you want, it makes three other problems:)  thanks to you all it is not as bad though      ML

[GreenBoy]

You might have forgotten to copy the sample folder across as well as your rom folder, that's where a lot of the older games sounds are stored.

[lastrega]

thanks for the reply, I wish it were just that easy, here is how I made my mame config, maybe that will help.
I was using Mame142 without any issues, I just wanted to save scores for old school games like pac-man ect....
after digging in the forum, I found a link to MKchamps pre compiled mame141u1, I downloaded it.... In my Mame142 folder I made a folder named "hi" for the scores and I made another new folder called "backup".

I placed my mymame142.exe in the "backup" folder incase it did not work. I extracted the pre compiled mame141u1 where the mame142.exe was....... Thats it:)  Upon testing pac man it worked great, All my custom sttings for mame, were not altered, it had allthe links to the config folder, all settings were acting fine and it saves hi scores perfectly.  Now this part is important... I have a cocktail cab , with a 32 inch lcd monitor running in vert orientation.
Old school games like did-dig pac-man ect, have the dip switches set to cocktail and they flip for two player games, for newer games they have been set to run in cocktail mode under the the video setting.... It took over 3 months to set them all up.... Like I said with the Mame141u1 all settings from 142 were preserved just fine..... However now when it saves a new hi score,  it resets the video settings back to default for that game... Why I dont know?  I have run extensive test and know for a fact that is the hi scores doing this, it will only alter the vid settings if it breaks a record or beats a new score..... 

The issue with that is, I have a thrid control panel on the side of my cab, it has all my "control" buttons like MAME MENU system volume , f2 service button, ect....It is also LOCKED by a key..... so my kids or others wont have access to any main menus....so now when this glitch happens I have to go get my key unlock the panel, hit the mame menu button, scroll down to video and set it back to cocktail..... now do yall see why this is such a pain:)  This really is a big issue I have not said to much about it 'cause I don't want to bug anyone, but any help by ANYONE ON THIS WOULD BE SUPER:)   so to answer your post sir, I never moved my samples folder, its still there and as stated before, mame141u1 links to all the other folders in mame142, so it should be reading the samples folder, like it does the other folders:)   the sound effects glitch is bad, but I need the video issue resolved more than the sound at the moment:)         Thanks in advance:)........ML