Moving High Scores

[mpm32]

OK laugh at my plight if you will.  I have my cab set-up with a PII inside.  I just 'aquired' a PIII to replace the worn out PII.  My wife has been working on staying at the high score for centipede.  I told her that when I change PCs I may lose her high scores.  She nearly flipped and said then don't change PCs.

If I copy the high score tables and highscr.dat over to the new PC will the scores be saved?  Is there a way to move them over so that they're saved?

Thanks in advance for your help in keeping the domestic peace.

[Lilwolf]

copy your mame directory from one machine to the next (get both harddrives connected to one machine is the easiest if possible).

but I think the single file you want is the hiscore.dat in your hi directory...

[Smack]

Make sure you copy your NVRAM folder too. Some games utilize that to store the highs as well.

Word.

Smack

[Tiger-Heli]

copy your mame directory from one machine to the next (get both harddrives connected to one machine is the easiest if possible).

but I think the single file you want is the hiscore.dat in your hi directory...

hiscore.dat only allows mame to save high scores.  It doesn't keep the scores themselves.  You need the contents of the NVRAM and HI folders.  I think Centiped uses NVRAM, so there should be a centiped.nv file.  There might also be a centiped.hi file.

But copying the directories over will ensure there are no lost files.

Also, AFAIK, unless you are using MAME32, normal MAME does not use registry keys, so very little additional set-up should be required.

[mpm32]

Cool Thanks!

[CM]

I'm just thinking of that Seinfeld episode with the Frogger high-score for some reason  

[mpm32]

The funny thing is she's not really competitive at all.  For some reason the Centipede high score is really important to her.

Maybe I should buy a battery backup.  

[RetroBorg]

As Tiger-Heli said you need the Hi folder, there is a NVRAM file for centipede too I had trouble keeping my hi-score for Centipede it would reset or sometimes even put the scores out of order e.g might show 50,000 ranked as #1 and 51,000 ranked as #2, in the end I deleted my NVRAM file and haven't had a problem since. Also had similar problem with Asteroids Deluxe and deleting the NVRAM file fixed that as well.

Just for interest sake what is your wife's Hi-Score and do you have a track-ball or just use a mouse.

[mpm32]

I really don't think that it's high in terms of the outside world.  It's around 65,000 or so.  But in our little world, the house and friends she has the high score.  And yes we have a trackball, an p/s2 imperial.  I'm thinking of getting oscar's encoder wheels for it to improve the perfomance.

[RetroBorg]

It does'nt matter if the scores not high in the outside world, what's important is house champion. Took me a couple of weeks of dedicated play to beat my wifes Centipede score. I'm not happy she's still the Galaga, Moon Patrol and Canyon Bomber record holder.

[Tiger-Heli]

As Tiger-Heli said you need the Hi folder, there is a NVRAM file for centipede too I had trouble keeping my hi-score for Centipede it would reset or sometimes even put the scores out of order e.g might show 50,000 ranked as #1 and 51,000 ranked as #2, in the end I deleted my NVRAM file and haven't had a problem since. Also had similar problem with Asteroids Deluxe and deleting the NVRAM file fixed that as well.

Just for interest sake what is your wife's Hi-Score and do you have a track-ball or just use a mouse.

I have that problem with Centipede (highest score is often listed in 4th place and top high score is smaller).  I'll try deleting the NVRAM file and see if it fixes itself.  Thanks for the tip.

[RetroBorg]

Also removed NVRAM files for Defender and Joust because it would'nt save my Hi-Scores but now it does, I'm no expert and really know nothing about NVRAM, but my experience tells me though, those NVRAM files create more problems than they're worth.

[Tiger-Heli]

Also removed NVRAM files for Defender and Joust because it would'nt save my Hi-Scores but now it does, I'm no expert and really know nothing about NVRAM, but my experience tells me though, those NVRAM files create more problems than they're worth.

I don't think the NVRAM files are the problem (I'll wager you have new Centipede and Joust and Defender NVRAM files), but I could be wrong.

I think what happens is NVRAM is used by the main MAME build to keep track of high scores.  Occasionally a new version of MAME is incompatible with the old NVRAM files, but the docs never mention this, so you just notice something amiss, delete the old NVRAM files, MAME builds new ones, and away you go until the next time you upgrade and the devs break (er, ...) fix something.

[Tiger-Heli]

Deleted my Centiped.hi and centiped.nv files and the score table is now sorted correctly again.

WooHoo!!!  Thanks RetroBorg!

<EDIT> Found more of the problem.  Everything was working fine and I changed the DIP switch settings for five lives and 10,000 bonus and the sort order got scrambled.  The key is to set the DIP switches first, then delete your .nv and .hi files.  Works fine again now . . .
</EDIT>

Of course this is the opposite of what the initial thread was trying to accomplish.

Crawling back under my rock . . .