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MAME's state saving is getting more stable...?
Shoegazer:
I'm not sure if it's just me, but it appears that with the latest releases of MAME, state saving is getting more stable. I've been relying on this feature exclusively after high score saving was mercilessly ripped out of MAME, and for a while it seemed that each new release would knock out all my high scores since states simply would not get preserved between releases - something like 90% of them would just not make it. Now, I've run my own little acid test to see how many of my 50+ saved states would make it from .117 to .118, and I found only two games (gunsmoke and major havoc) that didn't make it. With that in mind, I have a few questions for someone who might hazard a guess:
1) Exactly WHY is state saving getting more stable, or at least appearing to? Is it perhaps due to more features being moved away from game-specific drivers and into the core?
2) What is the reason for games to LOSE their state between releases? I'm a little baffled that the two aforementioned games lost state with the .118 release, especially given that there did not appear to be any work on their drivers during the .117-.118 cycle (check MAWS and you'll see what I mean).
3) Could it be just me who is thinking the state system is getting better, or is it just a matter of coincidence? I'm wondering if there could be a brighter future for it in the near future. I love the concept of saving high-scores, and it's especially cool for those of us lucky enough to have real cabinets, but I hate the negative side-effects and hackiness of having them in MAME, so save states could truly be the best of all worlds... so much potential.
Unless/until save states ever reach 100% reliability, I'll continue to spend most of time playing games that save high scores to NVRAM such as the early Williams games, centipede and crystal castles. Those seem to be just about 100% reliable as I've had my scores in those games for as far back as I can remember!
Shoegazer
Shoegazer:
Hmmm... Bueller? Something-doo-economics? Anyone here have any thoughts on this? At ALL? :)
SGT:
No response eh? You can probably get a quicker response here:
http://www.mame.net/cgi-bin/wwwthreads/wwwthreads.pl?action=list&Board=mamegeneral
If you ask the question over there, I wouldn't mention the high-score hack as some there can get a little testy about that.
Shoegazer:
Yeah, just wanted to avoid (gasp) cross-posting if possible... also this forum seems to have more folks interested in high-score saving than the MAME forum, so I figured it was a better bet. Shows how much I know. :p
SGT:
--- Quote from: Shoegazer on August 16, 2007, 07:59:15 am ---Yeah, just wanted to avoid (gasp) cross-posting if possible... also this forum seems to have more folks interested in high-score saving than the MAME forum, so I figured it was a better bet. Shows how much I know. :p
--- End quote ---
Yeah, definitely more people here implement high score saving. However the other site is frequented by the actual Mame developers that would know the answers to your questions regarding save state stability.
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