Mame High Score Question

[rtkiii]

This is not really a Game Ex question so I thought I'd post here since this community seems alittle more active/talented than a couple of the other forums I go to.

Hello all,

I have my Mame to save High Scores. The games that seem to work correctly say "Save state Successful" when I load them each time. But I have a couple ROMS like Bad Dudes and Tecmo Bowl, for example, that do not save High Scores. I verified in MAME that the "Save State" is checked. I also went through the Tecmo Bowl game menus when the game is loaded and turned on "Save High Scores" with no luck. which it makes sense because when you exit a ROM you are essentially turning the power off and all RAM data is lost like HS and settings(at least in my head it makes sense). As a test I have created a Save Point to key "Q" for both ROMs and it works fine when I hit F7 - "Q" when I load the game the next time around. My question is....

1. Is this the way high scores saves work or did I do something wrong. By something wrong did the pre-complied version of MAME that had the High Scores enabled that I installed...was that done wrong

2. If this manual creation of saves states is needed is there something I can do to when I run Tecmo Bowl ROM that a script or something is enabled so F7 and then "Q" are pressed automatically so the game state loads on it's own. Then when closing is there some script or something that will hit SHIFT F7 then press "Q" for me to save the newest save data?

I hope this makes sense.

Thanks,
Rich

[Draco1962]

Rich - there is no way to know for certain whether a pre-compiled version you are using may have had an issue during the compile. Also, not all ROMS are going to be compatible with or support High Scores or Save States even with using a properly compiled version of MAME. Just the nature of the beast.

[rtkiii]

Yeah I understand that but if a Game such as TB or Bad Dudes allows me to use a save state manually then that means it uses the save state correctly. My question is at that point can I set up some sort of script that loads and saves the save state automatically when I launch the ROMs in question? I understand some will not allow saving high scores...

[nullPointer]

Hi Rich,

I guess the part that is confusing to me is the bit about displaying the save state messages. The high score patch I’m most familiar with doesn’t display any sort of save state messages at all. This would be the hiscore diff (with no nag/white box removal) linked here. The trouble with using save states for high score functionality is that in order to pull it off you must start the game at the exact same point you left off in the game. This may mean starting on the title screen, it could mean starting on the high score screen, or it could mean staring off in the middle of a game. It’s a bit of a kludgy way of doing things to say the least.

I’m certainly no expert on the inner workings of MAME patches, but the hiscore diff linked above actually stores off high score information directly from the ROM itself (i.e. it looks at the memory registers of any given running game, and stores information as a .hi file separately and completely divorced from the ROM itself). The .hi file is a bit like a save state except that it only contains high score information, rather than any sort of information regarding the run state of the game. I don’t think save states are involved at all in this particular process.

I know it’s intimidating at first, but I’d seriously consider researching how to compile your own patched version of MAME. Forum member (and all around code superhero from down under) headkaze has written a utility that takes the guesswork out of compiling and makes the whole experience easy and seamless (Mame Compiler 64). He provides all the instructions you need, and if you follow them carefully you should be golden. It worked just fine for me the first time I ever tried it. Really the worst that can happen is that your build process errors out, at which point you can just start over again; no harm done.

Naturally we’re here to help if you run into difficulties. Collectively we have a lot more knowledge about compiling MAME than we do about the huge multitude of unofficial MAME builds floating around out there.

[DazzleHP]

I know it’s intimidating at first, but I’d seriously consider researching how to compile your own patched version of MAME. Forum member (and all around code superhero from down under) headkaze has written a utility that takes the guesswork out of compiling and makes the whole experience easy and seamless (Mame Compiler 64). He provides all the instructions you need, and if you follow them carefully you should be golden. It worked just fine for me the first time I ever tried it. Really the worst that can happen is that your build process errors out, at which point you can just start over again; no harm done.

Naturally we’re here to help if you run into difficulties. Collectively we have a lot more knowledge about compiling MAME than we do about the huge multitude of unofficial MAME builds floating around out there.

+1 to everything nullPointer said and once you have you compiled your own (i have a feeling you will ) make sure to create a folder called hi in the main MAME directory ie:

\MAME\hi

as the highscore patch requires it. Good luck and of course many people on this forum will gladly help out should you come to any hurdles - i still do

[rtkiii]

Well I was able to get a High Score version going correctly. Which is cool...but I have a new issue now. Opening a different ticket. Thanks for the advice guys. I think I see a light...at the end of this tunnel. I truly had no idea how much work this takes. I have been working on this for about two weeks 4 or 5 hours on my days off and 2-3 hours each day after work. this is about as much time as it takes me to make my short films. I think I spent about 80 hours on my last film, Insomniac...and this project here as taken close to 20 or 30 already. I have not even found my Cab yet or purchased controls...this is all PC side.

www.youtube.com/rtkiiiprod