Mame High Scores

[jrmitch]

Is there any way to get high scores to work in recent versions of Mame? 

Thanks,
Jeff

[pcb]

Yes. You have to apply the patch that is in the first post in this forum, and recompile it.

[TheShanMan]

And if you get the mame compiler (can be found in mame compiler thread in this forum), it will make the process pretty much trivial.

[jrmitch]

Got it working.  Thanks guys!

Is there a list around someplace that denotes which games are supported?

Thanks!
Jeff

[SGT]

You can view the contents of your hiscore.dat file.

[jrmitch]

You can view the contents of your hiscore.dat file.

Perfect.  Thank you.

[rooter]

What happened to save game state on exit in .123?  I always found that to be better because it would keep my NBA Jam career, Golden Tee records, etc.  It would also automatically save my game.  If I wanted to come back to a game later, I could just exit.

[SGT]

The problem with save states is that many times a new version of Mame means your save states from a previous version will not work.  Therefore its not really practical for long-term tracking of high scores.

[TelcoLou]

I'm curious about this;

I'm running mame 0.110, command-line version. Certain games save the high scores, even though this build doesn't officially support high-score saves (i.e. Zoo Keeper, Track and Field). Though I had a few high scores saved in Black Widow, then they vanished 

What gives?

[MKChamp]

Games *can* save high scores 2 ways (without the addition of the hiscore support)

1) If the game *HAD* the ability to save high scores if the game was turned off (at the arcade), MAME saves the high scores in the nvram file.
2) Save states. If the game has save state support (and you have this turned on) the high scores are saved this way

Periodically (and too frequently) MAME is changed to the point where pre-existing save states no longer work. So, when you upgrade, you lose (could lose) the high scores you had previously.

ALSO, I believe if you reset the game in MAME, it will clear the high scores. Perhaps one time you did a reset in the game which caused you to lose your scores. This is correct behavior as it is the same as resetting the game at the arcade...which resets the high score table back to default. I haven't spent ANY time 'testing' this...so if I am wrong, someone feel free to chime in.

[MKChamp]

What happened to save game state on exit in .123?  I always found that to be better because it would keep my NBA Jam career, Golden Tee records, etc.  It would also automatically save my game.  If I wanted to come back to a game later, I could just exit.

I don't believe you NEED save states to save your career on NBA Jam...this should be saved via nvram. If I recall correctly, mine is saved...haven't check Golden Tee, but I would suspect the same is true there as well.

[u_rebelscum]

Games *can* save high scores 2 ways (without the addition of the hiscore support)

1) If the game *HAD* the ability to save high scores if the game was turned off (at the arcade), MAME saves the high scores in the nvram file.
2) Save states. If the game has save state support (and you have this turned on) the high scores are saved this way.

Good point.  Just for clarification, I'd say (basically as you said)

"Mame could save a high score in 3 ways:

1) Native to the game.  (If original game could, so does mame, the same way the original did.)
2) Save State.  (If all the stuff you said)
3) Hiscore.dat hack.  (If game is in hiscore.dat, and it's recompiled in, and enabled)"

Of the three, 1) supports the most games, 2) the least.  3) is the most hacky, and 2) the most fragile. 

The most important thing, IMO, is hiscore.dat is not the same as "high score support", and at most it's a part of it.

[TelcoLou]

 

Heh. After reading all this, I no longer care about High Score support. Besides, it would likely grow tired seeing the same 3 initials on every game