help a noob

[pacman-jam]

Hi guys,

I new to all this, I have recently built a custom arcade box and installed a computer in it to run Mame. Forgive me for bringing this up but it's about the high score problem..

As we all know, old arcade games are pretty much all about high scores..

I've read around here abit about the hiscore.dat and I gather thats the ticket. However before I get started I'd like to know a few things:

1. Why was hiscore.dat removed from mame?
2. since I haven't installed mame yet and there are so many versions, is the a certain one I should choose? Or just install the latest version and run the hisorce.dat on it?

Apologies if all this has been covered before.

[Jouster]

The newer versions of MAME actually use saved states...these are better than hiscores.dat IMO anyway.  The system basically puts the game on pause (for practical purposes) until you start it up again...no more waiting for the games to 'boot' and the high scores stay along with credits already entered and whatever else was going on.

Jouster

[pacman-jam]

how come people don't just download the latest mame then?

but if it was completely saved states.. then it would begin the game where you left off rather than the beginning aye?

and what if you changed games.. when you went back would the high scores still be there?

It seems like there is a lot of compatibility problems with all these versions. Can anyone recommend a specific version of mame and a front end that will work best and be able to save highscores?

[bfauska]

The save states work even if you play a different game in between instances of playing the original game.  EX: If you play Pac-Man then exit that and play Galaga, when you go back and play Pac-Man again it will act as if it hasn't been unplugged.  W/O saved states on the game will act as if you just plugged it in for the first time every time you start it.  I think that it does mean some games (if not all) will start exactly where you left them, if you had coins in they will still be there and if you were mid game it will still be mid game, but I could be wrong here.  I seem to remember quitting a game once and coming back to play it later and having it be in the middle of the game I left when I started again.

On a side note... Many classic games didn't keep the high scores after the game was powered down at the end of the night in the arcade, with save states and hiscore.dat you can act as if they did.

[pacman-jam]

that sounds cool except for starting games where you left off.. I don't want my mates coming around and starting games mid way through and running away with my score.

why did they change from hiscore.dat to save states anyway?

should I use the latest mame with hiscore.dat then?

[jasonbar]

Follow-up to the "save states" discussion:

How do I set MAME (or MaLa, my front end) to use the save states feature? (yes, I checked the Wiki & couldn't find an answer...)

:]

Thanks,
-Jason

[severdhed]

i just started using the mame 117 with the save state feature..from what i have seen, it isnt automatic.  if you want to create a save state, by default you hit "L Shift and F7".  it then asks you to choose a slot (or something) you then press a number button.  you can load that state by pressing F7 and specifying which slot you used. 

if you dont create a save state, then when you close the game and come back in, it is just like it used to be

(you can change the key combo by hitting TAB and changing it)

[jasonbar]

Ah, thanks.  I thought they had save states going way back when (going back at least as far as my MAME32 0.82...yup...just confirmed it).

Anyway, what would be handy (for me, in my opinion), is to set up a macro that not only exits the game when I push the "Exit" admin button on my control panel, but also goes through that key sequence to save a slot automatically upon exit, and then have my FE spit out the correct macro sequence every time you launch a game.

Is this possible?  (yes, I realize you'd always save to & load from state 1, but I think I'd prefer to always load & save from 1 slot, and then, if I really wanted to save more games, I could do that manually w/ other slots)

My setup: I-Pac4 will have the "Exit" button mapped to it--can the I-Pac4 spit out a key sequence (probably w/ pauses) when I press a key?  My FE is MaLa--can it also send a macro upon launching each MAME game, *after* the game has launched?

Thanks,
-J

[Jouster]

I never needed to tell it to save the state for a game...but I never quit a game while I was in the middle of game play.   I did once quit while it was still in 'Enter your Initials' for a high score...played something else...came back and entered my initials.  You may need to config save states in MAME...but I don't know where you would go, I'm sure MAME wuold have an option for it or directions.

that sounds cool except for starting games where you left off.. I don't want my mates coming around and starting games mid way through and running away with my score.

There is an easy way to prevent that...don't quit mid-game.  Just play through to the end.

Jouster

[u_rebelscum]

If you want automatic save states, enable the -autosave option. 

The biggest 'problem' with savestate is -autosave only works for games that have the savestate flag is set to "supported", which does not match the games that hiscore.dat supported.  The second problem is savestates don't always cross between versions numbers of mame.

The 'problems' with hiscore.dat include: it's a hack that adds a feature the original game didn't have (that doesn't help decode, test, or emulate), can cause errors that wouldn't happen if hiscore.dat is not used, doesn't always cross between version numbers of mame (even though it currently has a better record than savestate), and isn't supported in official mame.

MameDev moved to savestate since it can help find, repeat, & fix bugs, supports everything hiscore.dat does and more, and hiscore.dat is a hack and has caused so called 'bugs' that weren't bugs in emulation and wasted dev time trying to fix them.  They implemented savestate in the core and said hiscore.dat would be dropped but both would be included to give time for savestate to be added to the games (just like hiscore.dat, each game has to / had to have the feature added).  After over a couple years of savestate and almost of year of autosave in mame, hiscore.dat was finally removed.  (However, one of the reasons it was done was because very few games had savestate added; it seemed like if hiscore.dat supported a game, noone bothered adding savestate, IOW the hiscore.dat was slowing down support for savestate.)


This history is from a person (me) that doesn't care that much about seeing my high score stay between times I play (although I'm not against it), that looks at the source, (very rarely) helps debug, and compiles my own.  So I'm pretty pro-savestate, but know that it doesn't cover all the games and isn't as steady as hiscore.dat ATM.  Just to let you know my slant.  Others here are pro-hiscore.dat.  [shrug]

[Howard_Casto]

I've got to agree.  Most of the original operators did not leave their machines on 24/7, which means those games never really had hi-score support anyway.  Adding features into a game that it did not originally have is not a goal of mame. 

Also I also could care less about having my hi-score saved.  Hi-scores being the most important part of the game died around 1984-85 when multi-level games came out.  Also remember that games with nvram/savestate support do indeed support hiscores.

[jasonbar]

Thanks, you Rebel scum!

I figured out (all by myself!) how to pass this command line to MAME (.115 in my case) via the MaLa front end.

For those even cluelesser & noobier than I, here's how I did it:
- went into MAME Config/Basics tab & hit the "Config" button next to the MAME executable & let it create a "sta" folder under the Mame folder
- went into the MAME Config/Additional tab & changed the "Command Line" box from %rom% to -autosave %rom%


Thanks--I'll try this out & see if I like it.

-Jason

[MKChamp]

Well, obviously I am 'for' the hiscore. I think it should NOT be in official MAME, but it definitely adds to the overall experience for having a cab in your gameroom. Seeing the hiscore gives you a challenge to try to beat it...and not having to 'write' it down on a piece of paper or whiteboard...basically automates the tracking ;-)

I would be more apt to use savestates if all the games had it AND they weren't so prone to not work from version to version. I do NOT want to lose my 648,000 score on galaga and it's nice to actually see it when you fire the game up.
 I understand that if you turned off galaga at the arcade, it would lose the hiscore...but then again that same game wouldn't be compatible with keyboard inputs, either!

[pacman-jam]

Well here is what I did,

Downloaded the newest version of mame 117u1 and the associated patches as well as the matching hiscore hi_117u1.diff from the top of this thread and configured it according to Mr Do's example.

but it didn't work  it runs fine but no hiscore saving. I tested it on 1941 and entered a hi score and then quit and restart and it wasn't there..

 (also, 1941 seems kinda fast compared with my previous mame 111, oh and MaLa won't work with 117u1 either.. actually, 117u1 seems to have its own front end on it.. but when I select a game it plays a completely different one!! like.. I'll choose 1941 and it will play spaceinvaders)

any ideas fellas?

[SGT]

but it didn't work  it runs fine but no hiscore saving.

Did you create subfolder named HI in the Mame folder? You must also download hiscore.dat and put it into your Mame folder.

[pacman-jam]

yes I made a HI folder in the same place as the mame.exe

do you mean the hiscore.dat is as well as hi_117u1.diff ?? I kinda figured they were the same thing..

[SGT]

yes I made a HI folder in the same place as the mame.exe

do you mean the hiscore.dat is as well as hi_117u1.diff ?? I kinda figured they were the same thing..

No, this is another file that's required.  You can download it from here:

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

Unzip it and put it into your Mame folder. Also note this warning from that site:

Some hiscores will not save properly unless the relevent nvram file is deleted first.

[pacman-jam]

how do you delete the nvram files?

I'm thinking perhaps mame117u1 might not be suitable with my rom list.. and perhaps I could revert to using mame111 instead..

so all I have to do is patch the .txt (.diff) file from the top sticky thread into mame 111 and then make a HI folder and put the hiscore.dat into the mame folder that holds mame.exe

maybe I should use mame 111 for games like 1941,1942, bublbobl, msword etc

and then use 117u1 for games like metalslug, doom and mortalkombat etc?

[MKChamp]

Just FYI, create an ini file (type mame -cc) to set throttle to 1 to keep the game from running too fast. I believe mame now looks for mame.ini despite what your mame executable is. For example, if your mame exe was called mamep4.exe it would like for mamep4.ini....now it would just look for mame.ini.

[SGT]

how do you delete the nvram files?

Just delete them like you would any other file.  They are in the nvram subfolder.  They have an nv extension with their name corresponding to the rom name.  I will say I have never had to delete these files for hiscore support to work, but wanted to make you aware that it might be necessary.

[pacman-jam]

ok I won't delete any but I'll bare that in mind..

so I'll revert to mame 111 and try and patch that with a hiscore thing and see if that works..  I think there must be something wrong with hi_117u1.diff for the latest mame.

[MKChamp]

Did you get the hiscore.dat file? If you don't have that, nothing will work.
In reply to your pm,
To create the ini file, just open up a dos prompt:
start -> run -> cmd
then navigate to your mame folder and type mame -cc [enter]
That will create your mame.ini file. You can then open it up in notepad and change/view the settings.
I know for certain that the hi_117u1.diff works for mame 117u1 and 117u2(the current u build). From your earlier post, maybe this is something with your mala? Try running a game from the command prompt instead of through mala. I'm a MAMEWAH guy myself so I'm not familiar with mala.

[pacman-jam]

well I'm not using Mala with 117.u1 as it seems to have it's own front end on it..
have you guys noticed that?

like, when you double click the mame.exe it opens its own front end. The annoying part for me is that when I select a game it will play something compelely different.. I don't know if thats because my roms don't match perhaps..

kinda not sure which direction to head now. Might delete everything and start again.. revert to mame111 as it seems to work best .. and try patching that for hiscore.

[SGT]

pacman-jam,

Did you place hiscore.dat into the mame folder?

[pacman-jam]

yeah.. it didn't work.

I tried to patch mame111 with the hiscore.diff 111u1 from the sticky thread but I got errors:

c:\mame>patch -p0 -E 0<ht_11u1.diff
can't fint the file to patch at input line 4
Perhaps you used the wrong -p or ---strip option?
the text leading up to this was:
----------------------------------
:diff -r -c -N old/cheat.c src/cheat.c
:*** old/cheat.c  thu Dec 28 23:04:52 2006
:--- src/cheat.c    thu Dec 28 23:02:10 2006
______________________
File to patch?

[pacman-jam]

ok so I've gone back to the new mame 117.. in good news I have figured out why it was playing games at random and fixed that. 117 is now playing most of my roms fine.. well bublbobl and 1941 anyways (for testing)

I have a HI folder (empty)
and hs17032007.dat file
and mame117 has been patched with all the latest u's 0117u1 and 0117u2
and there is also a history.dat file in ther (not sure where that came from)

from going in and out of bobblebobble and 1941 and making high scores I have found..

it's still not working 

I'm thinking of patching whiteboard.dat and markerpen.diff instead... 

[MKChamp]

yeah.. it didn't work.

I tried to patch mame111 with the hiscore.diff 111u1 from the sticky thread but I got errors:

c:\mame>patch -p0 -E 0<ht_11u1.diff
can't fint the file to patch at input line 4
Perhaps you used the wrong -p or ---strip option?
the text leading up to this was:
----------------------------------
:diff -r -c -N old/cheat.c src/cheat.c
:*** old/cheat.c  thu Dec 28 23:04:52 2006
:--- src/cheat.c    thu Dec 28 23:02:10 2006
______________________
File to patch?

You used the wrong diff for 111. Don't just glance over the post...read it:
MAME VERSION             DIFF VERION
-------------------             ----------------
110u3 - 111                  hi_110u3.txt

[pacman-jam]

sorry I typed it up wrong.. it was the hi_110.u3.diff though..

(I also tried 111.u1 as well just incase)

my mame version is V0 mame111.

[MKChamp]

Just to make sure you know...the Mr. Do's compiling page is for version of MAME starting with 116. I would try compiling MAME 117(most stable release).

Grab the 117 source here:
http://mirrors.xmission.com/mame/main/mame0117s.zip

Grab the hiscore diff here:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=64298.0;attach=80291

Unzipped the source and put the hiscore diff in the directory. Open up your command prompt and type: patch -p0 -E <hi_116u4.diff

Now compile it.

put your mame files(the exe files you created compiling) into your mame directory where your going to run it. Make sure there is a HI folder (along with your ROM, SNAP, etc. etc. folders)

Make sure you have the hiscore.dat file in your mame folder. You can get that here:
http://www.mameworld.net/highscore/hs17032007.zip

At this point, assuming you did everything correctly, if you have any issues, run MAME from the command prompt (NOT FROM MALA!) to see if it works as expected. If it does, but it doesn't from MALA, then you can concentrate on the correct 'stump' in the road.

Hope this helps clear things up.

[SGT]

MKChamp,

Shouldn't that be:

hi_116u4.txt

instead of hi_116u4.diff?

[MKChamp]

MKChamp,
Shouldn't that be:
hi_116u4.txt
instead of hi_116u4.diff?

Correct you are...for whatever reason, you can't upload diff's so I had to rename it to txt.