Highscore with HiToText

[GimmeClassics]

Hello everybody,

I have a compiled version of Mame (v 0147) with highscore support and the files "HiToText.exe" and "HiToText.xml" are present in my main GameEx-folder. GameEx shows the menu-option High Score within GameEx for my Mame-games but not for all.....

See picture:

I know there are some issues about which version of Mame you're using and which games are being supported by HiToText.

This link is showing which games are/were being supported when "Fyrecripts" was still working on the HiToText-utility.

To give an example > looking at the above link 1943 is supported by the HiToText-utility.

Nevertheless GameEx doesnt show a the menu-option "High Score" within GameEx for that game after setting a highscore and entering my name. The 1943.hi is created in my hi-folder, but it doesn't show within GameEx....? As you can see in the attached picture it does work with Donkey Kong. 1943 doesn't show this menu-option.

My goal: using a MAME-version which shows the most highscores using the high score menu option within GameEx....Can anyone point me in the right direction or give me some tips?

My motivation: I'm a huge fan of classic arcade games. Playing these games with and against my friends and competing for the best score is what makes it a lot of fun! So highscore support is very important to me....

I hope somebody can help me out in creating a setup where as many high-scores as possible are being shown using the higscore menu option within GameEx (see picture) .

Thanks!

[Draco1962]

Unfortunately, there may be less and less high score saving as more ROMs become active through MAME and even compatibility with older ROMS changes with the newer code. HiToText support stopped at 0.139 per this post. It doesn't appear that anyone has picked up the source (if available) with any interest in continuing the project.

[GimmeClassics]

Hi Draco,

what do you mean by: ...as more ROMs become active through MAME ?

[nullPointer]

Hi Gimmeclassic

I believe Draco is referring to how ROMs themselves are updated as MAME goes through the process of incremental updates. As opposed to ‘standard’ emulators where ROMs are (relatively) static and unchanging, MAME ROMs are living breathing entities that change over time. For this reason your version of MAME is rather inseparable from the version of ROMs running within it. It’s the same reason it’s always a good idea to run ROM auditing software to insure your version of MAME is compatible with your ROM versions.

In short it’s likely that any ROMs that have been updated since the last version of MAME supported by HiToText, may or may not currently work with HiToText since the affected ROMs and/or ROM sets may have been may have been updated in the meantime.

Here's a bit more info to that end.

[GimmeClassics]

So disappointing there is no one who was/is able to and interested in continuing Fyrecripts HiToText-Utility

Classic-Arcade gaming and setting highscores and sharing them with friends and competing to beat a highscore is - in my opinion - one of the most important things and is what creates the most fun in playing Mame-games or classic games in general. I guess a lot of you agree....(?)

I hope someone with programming-skills will once continue this project....

>> Question: I guess I have to compile mame 0.139 and have to get the corresponding mame 0.139 roms to get the most out of the highscore support.

Can someone point me to a compiled version of mame 0.139 ? (I'm not asking for the roms)

Hope to hear from you.

[headkaze]

Well actually it's not so much about Fyrecrypts continuing work on HiToText per se but the data file that goes along with it. Anyone can provide the data for a game to add hiscore support and there were several main contributors to this such as bLAZER, Cananas, dna disturber, NOP and Wob.

The main HiToText thread can be found here and I believe there are instructions on how to add support for more games if you're willing to give it a try.

That being said I did work on some of the early boiler plate code for HiToText but it has changed ALOT since then and I have very little time these days. Fyrecrypts has done a great job implementing the data file interpreter which makes it much easier to add games. Before that it was all hard coded in the executable and required a new compile and release for each new game added.

[GimmeClassics]

Reading the replies in this topic I understand the following:

* there may be less and less high score saving as more ROMs become active through MAME and even compatibility with older ROMS changes with the newer code

* MAME ROMs change over time and the version of MAME is inseparable from the version of ROMs running within it.

Headkaze is stating anyone can provide the data for a game to add hiscore support and there are instructions on how to add support for more games.

Let's say I would somehow be able to add highscore support for my compiled MAME 0147 and matching 0147 MAME Roms. When I change my Mame-version and ROM-set to 0148 and so on, it's very much possible that some or many ROMS woud no longer have highscore support and you would have to start all over again for these games. I would like to hear from you if this is true?

This would mean that you can spend time in adding highscore support for a Rom-set (let's say v.0147) but you shouldn't change to a new version of Mame, because this would mean that you again would have to start over again for a lot of ROMS...

Hope to hear from you if all of this is true...

[Draco1962]

Unless they made a major coding revision, then it would probably be manageable, but hard to say. It is probably more manageable on a system for someone that does not have to have every ROM ever created installed but, instead, just the ones you know you will play, might play, or are likely to play.

I think that some ROM sets are pushing 10K+ now, but when I think about it, realistically, even with trimming out the mechanical ROMs, adult and casino and other crap ROMs, I might be really play about 100 regularly, might play another 200 or so at some point, and likely to play maybe about the same. So once I trim things down to 500+ ROMs, likely very manageable.

[GimmeClassics]

Hi Draco, thank you for your response.

You're absolutely right. I am not really interested in having all of the Mame-roms, so having about 100-200 roms would make it manageable.

But my question remains: let's say I would have 200 roms of the 0147-rom set with highscore support and I would update my Mame-version and roms to version 0148. Does this imply that many Roms after the update would no longer support saving high scores and you actually shouldn't change your rom-version?

[Draco1962]

That is difficult and impossible to answer. I would say that while running the latest MAME version is probably preferable for most, if you get a setup that works, as the saying goes - if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Some may remain untouched while others may break. I believe that the MAME devs keep a log of the changes on their site for each release of what ROMS were added, removed, changed, etc.

You may find that a ROM is fixed that was previously not working that you absolutley have to have, and that is when you may have to take that leap and upgrade your MAME version.

[headkaze]

The latest official Hiscore.dat file that works with HiToText is available on the Hiscore.dat-astic! website. I believe development was stopped after MAME 0.139.

So what you could do is use CLRMamePro and MAME 0.139 to audit your ROMs and it will tell you which CRC's have changed. Check the hiscore.dat file so see if the actual ROM is supported. From that you can deduce which games are likely to have been broken.

Keep in mind that just because a ROM changes, the memory locations for the hiscore data may still be the same, so the only definitive way to find out is to test the actual game.

[GimmeClassics]

Thank you for replying.

I guess it's trial and error.

@Headkaze: I guess your strategy of using CLRMamePro and Mame 0.139 and auditing your roms will show which ROMS will likely not work. But I understand that although a ROM may change with every version of MAME the memory location for the hiscore date may stay the same.

Conclusion: trial and error is the only way to go.

I guess a good strategy would be.....:

I would start with MAME 0147 and test the ROMS I would like to have highscore support. The games that don't work can be fixed by adding highscore support using the HiToText thread that can be found here and using the instructions for adding support.

When I would update to MAME 0148 I first keep my 0147-setup and test the new 0148 roms for highscore support. The games that don't work can again be fixed by using the above instructions.

This would be a strategy that could work when having a select group of MAME-games of about 100 to 200. Which is my goal.

The only setback is the worries I have about my skills in adding highscore support for games that previously didn't have this support....I really hope the instructions in the above HiToText thread is sufficient for me to accomplish this

I'd love to hear what you think of this.

[greatstone]

Hi guys,

I am currently spending some time to resurrect hitotext.
I am rewriting it from scratch (code+xml=>hi2txt), as a hobby and for my personal purpose (learning Java, XML modelization, manipulation at byte level), as it seems to be no more maintained.
Feel free to test/use it and give some improvements idea: contributions to add more games are also are welcome!
Huge thanks for Fyrecrypts and all contributors of original hitotext!
Home of hi2txt: http://greatstone.free.fr/hi2txt/hi2txt.html

[DazzleHP]

Hi guys,

I am currently spending some time to resurrect hitotext.

I am rewriting it from scratch (code+xml=>hi2txt), as a hobby and for my personal purpose (learning Java, XML modelization, manipulation at byte level), as it seems to be no more maintained.

Feel free to test/use it and give some improvements idea: contributions to add more games are also are welcome!

Huge thanks for Fyrecrypts and all contributors of original hitotext!

Home of hi2txt: http://greatstone.free.fr/hi2txt/hi2txt.html

I see you've added support for a lot of the more recent Cave titles - good job!

[greatstone]

Thanks! That's my favorites games

As said in the previous messages above by Draco, adding all mame games is only a dream.

So, selecting first some favorites can drastically reduce the amount of job to do.

I am also accepting request to decode specific games high scores if there is an interest.

[GimmeClassics]

Hi guys,

I am currently spending some time to resurrect hitotext.

I am rewriting it from scratch (code+xml=>hi2txt), as a hobby and for my personal purpose (learning Java, XML modelization, manipulation at byte level), as it seems to be no more maintained.

Feel free to test/use it and give some improvements idea: contributions to add more games are also are welcome!

Huge thanks for Fyrecrypts and all contributors of original hitotext!

Home of hi2txt: http://greatstone.free.fr/hi2txt/hi2txt.html

...As said in the previous messages above by Draco, adding all mame games is only a dream.

So, selecting first some favorites can drastically reduce the amount of job to do.

I am also accepting request to decode specific games high scores if there is an interest.

Wow. That's great news !! Thanks in advance greatstone for your effort

If you're interested you're also more than welcome to join our GameEx Hi-score competition ! I've sent you a PM with info about our comp

~ GC

[greatstone]

A new release (1.1@20140809) today for hi2txt ;D

=> huge focus on toaplan games and a contribution from William L. (Pang).

What's new?

new games supported:

V-Five, Grind Stormer, Vimana, Vanguard II, The Amazing Adventures of Mr. F. Lea

Jin, Metal Soldier Isaac II, Vapor Trail, Kuhga, Spac Force, Meteoroids,

Armed Police Batrider, Battle Bakraid, Battle Garegga, 1945 Part-2, Dogyuun,

FixEight, Ghox, Knuckle Bash, Kingdom Grandprix, Shippu Mahou Daisakusen,

Sorcer Striker, Mahou Daisakusen, Pipi & Bibis, Whoopee, Teki Paki, Truxton II, Demon's World

Pang, Pomping World, Buster Bros. [xml from William L. => Thanks!]

better format@formatter possibilities

new 'txt' element for better XML readibility

minor fixes

Grab it here: http://greatstone.free.fr/hi2txt/index.html

Regards,

G.

[DazzleHP]

A new release (1.1@20140809) today for hi2txt ;D

=> huge focus on toaplan games and a contribution from William L. (Pang).

What's new?

new games supported:

V-Five, Grind Stormer, Vimana, Vanguard II, The Amazing Adventures of Mr. F. Lea

Jin, Metal Soldier Isaac II, Vapor Trail, Kuhga, Spac Force, Meteoroids,

Armed Police Batrider, Battle Bakraid, Battle Garegga, 1945 Part-2, Dogyuun,

FixEight, Ghox, Knuckle Bash, Kingdom Grandprix, Shippu Mahou Daisakusen,

Sorcer Striker, Mahou Daisakusen, Pipi & Bibis, Whoopee, Teki Paki, Truxton II, Demon's World

Pang, Pomping World, Buster Bros. [xml from William L. => Thanks!]

better format@formatter possibilities

new 'txt' element for better XML readibility

minor fixes

Grab it here: http://greatstone.free.fr/hi2txt/index.html

Regards,

G.

Well done man! Some GREAT shmups added in there - YES! I'm starting to think you're a bit of a shmup fan Either way bravo

[greatstone]

A new release of hi2txt (1.2@20140901), a little bit shmup oriented...

And yes, DazzleHP, shmup is definitively my preferred genre

What's new?

new games supported:

Guwange, DonPachi, Fever SOS / Dangun Feveron, Fire Shark,

Hellfire, Same! Same! Same!, Rally Bike, Truxton / Tatsujin,

Zero Wing, Battle K-Road, Gunbird, Gunbird 2, Samurai Aces / Sengoku Ace

Tengai, Strikers 1945, Strikers 1945 III / Strikers 1999, Space Bomber

Sol Divide, Tetris The Absolute The Grand Master 2/+, Gunbarich

note: for guwange, it was a great pleasure to learn sokuon, youon, dakuten,

handakuten, Hepburn romanization and the Iroha poem

games updated for hiscore.dat 2014-08-22:

Espgaluda, Nightmare in the dark, Major Havoc, Ketsui, Dazzler, V-Five

XML engine improved, for easier 'hi/nvram' files description:

japanese Hiragana defined as entities

add pre-defined charset for number

new operation 'uppercase' is supported for format

new operation 'shift' is supported for format

new attribute 'skip-first-bytes' and 'skip-last-bytes' for loop

different groups of 'case' are supported inside the same format definition

new attribute 'empty' and 'consume' for prefix and suffix operations

minor fixes

Grab it here: http://greatstone.free.fr/hi2txt/hi2txt.html

Have a happy scoring time!!

GreatStone

[greatstone]

And now, it's time for a release of hi2txt (1.3@20141004)!

What's new?

54 new games supported!

Puzzle Uo Poko, Puzzle Mushihime-Tama!, Gyrodine, Planet Probe, Repulse/'99: The Last War,

Dimahoo/Great Mahou Daisakusen, Air Gallet, Air Assault, Battle Chopper/Mr Heli,

The Battle-Road, Cosmic Cop/Gallop Armed Police Unit, Demoneye-X, Dragon Breed,

Gunforce, Gunforce II/Gep Storm, In The Hunt, Lethal Thunder/Thunder Blaster, Ninja Spirit,

R-Type Leo, Tiger Heli, Wardner, Mars Matrix, Darius, Acrobat Mission, Saint Dragon,

P-47 The Phantom Fighter, P-47 Aces, Wiz, Stinger, Darius II, G-Darius, Scion, Rug Rats,

Hot Chase, Warp & Warp, Vulgus, Ultraman, Vulcan Venture, Hard Puncher, Tutankham,

Tumble Pop, Toypop, Libble Rabble, Top Speed, Plump Pop, Insector X, Dr. Toppel's Adventure,

Chuka Taisen, Bells & Whistles/Detana! Twin Bee, Super Contra, Thief, Gemini Wing,

The New Zealand Story

XML engine improved, for easier 'hi/nvram' files description:

new format operation 'divide_round'

new format operation 'round'

new format operation 'capitalize'

new format operation 'lowercase'

new format operation 'loopindex'

new @direction="both" for format operation 'trim'

lot of new implicit format syntaxes

minor improvements and fixes

As usual, everything (including full documentation), is here: http://greatstone.free.fr/hi2txt/hi2txt.html

Any comments? or request?

GreatStone

[Adultery]

I would like to make a plugin for this that adds global leaderboard support sooner or later. Nice work!

[greatstone]

Thanks Adultery.

It's also my dream One day, perhaps...

[greatstone]

I was working hard to improve the current engine, add some games and also create/maintain a native C# version, additionally to the Java one.

So, it's time to release hi2txt 1.4!

What's new?

18 new games supported + many clones!

Play Girls 2, Palamedes, Fighting Hawk, Pirate Pete, Gun & Frontier, Liquid Kids,

Metal Black, Super Space Invaders '91, Space Invaders '95: The Attack Of Lunar Loonies,

Bubble Bobble II, Bubble Symphony, Grid Seeker: Project Storm Hammer, Ray Force,

Kyukyoku Tiger II, Raiden DX, Raiden II, Tiger Road, Kamikaze [xml from Piergiorgio G.]

games updated for hiscore.dat 2015-07-01: many!

games updated for hiscore.dat 2015-01-31: many!

hi2txt general improvements:

a native C# version exists!

output customization and filtering, through command-line parameters (see doc for more information)

-score-grouping, -score-grouping-separator, -score-grouping-size

-keep-field, -keep-table-value, -keep-first-score, -keep-first-table, -hide-field

-max-lines, -max-columns

support Unicode characters

all XML can be stored inside a hi2txt.zip file

unknown clone is extractable if at least one games of the same family (see hiscore.dat content) is supported

XML engine improved, for easier 'hi/nvram' files description:

multiple <structure>, <output> and link between them can be defined for the same game, to support different versions of hiscore.dat

As usual, everything (including full documentation), is here: http://greatstone.fr...txt/hi2txt.html

Feedback is welcome as well as game support request

GreatStone

[Adultery]

Thank you for this! It's great to see this being updated!!!

[greatstone]

Work in progress for the next release...

2015-09-20 game: support "Change Air Blade" (cairblad)

2015-09-20 game: support "Dyger" (dyger, dygera)

2015-09-19 game: support "MX5000" (mx5000, flkatck, flkatcka)

2015-09-19 game: support "Fire Battle" (firebatl)

2015-09-16 game: support "Final Star Force" (fstarfrc, fstarfrcj)

2015-09-15 game: support "Nebulas Ray" (nebulray, nebulrayj)

2015-09-15 game: support "Operation Thunderbolt" (othunder, othunderu, othunderj, othunderuo)

2015-09-14 game: support "Operation Wolf" (opwolf, opwolfb, opwolfu, opwolfa, opwolfj)

2015-09-13 game: support "Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom" (ddtod, ddtodu, ddtodhr1, ddtodjr1, ddtodj, ddtodur1, ddtodjr2, ddtodd, ddtoda, ddtodar1, ddtodr1, ddtodhr2, ddtodh)

2015-09-13 game: support "Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara" (ddsom, ddsoma, ddsomar1, ddsomr1, ddsomjr1, ddsomj, ddsomur1, ddsomu, ddsomb, ddsomr3, ddsomr2, ddsomud, ddsomh)

2015-09-13 game: support "After Burner", "After Burner II" (aburner, aburner2, aburner2g)

2015-09-13 game: support "Armored Warrior" (armwar, armwaru, armwara, armwarar1, armwar1d, armwarr1, armwaru1, pgearr1, pgear)

2015-09-13 game: support "Dragon Spirit" (dspirit, dspirit1, dspirit2, dspirito, dspirita)