Hi Score Competition

[celly]

Im hip on this and really am excited about throwing down some scores. Would this be a high score off one credit? My other question is, some of the later 80's early 90's games let you continue with the high score with a credit. How would you be able to know which is off a single credit and which isn't? I play honest, not all of us do. Sometimes....

[MNMax21]

Well, I think it should be one credit/coin, seems the best way and the truest to the classics. I guess there really is now way to truly make sure this is 100% honest. I just think its a friendly competition and we can hope everyone would keep it honest. I think it's up for any game that people would want, just keep it one credit and no cheats. Again, relying on honesty of people involved. If someone posts a world record beating score, then we'd probably safely assume they're up to something... Haha

[Draco1962]

I say to keep it simple at one credit. Nothing saying you can't play over and over to try to better your score. Hopefully, all participating will be honorable and play "vanilla" with no cheats or hacks.

[GimmeClassics]

Hi celly, when using a screenshot only you can don't know if more than one credit has been used. 1-credit only should be a rule. This is also a general rule twin galaxies is using for their official records.

If you want to be able to check if one credit is used we should use something like wolfmame and submit the recorded INP-file together with a screenshot of the hi-score attempt. The INP-can be played back with mame.

But I don't know if the majority wants to use this procedure...? It would be more fair and have a less risk of cheating. I'd love to hear your opinion

GC

[celly]

Whatever would keep it true i guess. Its not asking tok much to post a legit copy and screen. I got some Galaga scores that are unbeatable, look out!

[GimmeClassics]

When posting a INP-file everyone should use the same wolfmame-version to be able to load and watch the recorded video in wolfmame

That is, if the majority wants to use this method which again is very easy and has much less risks of cheating compared to just submitting a screenshot of your hi-score.

GC

[Draco1962]

I think most are in favor of using their existing MAME version as opposed to Wolfmame if I am reading the responses correctly. I know that I would prefer to not have to install another version at present when MAMEUI64 compiled with Highscore and no-nag diffs is serving me well.

[GimmeClassics]

The majority decides of course. I'd love to hear the final opinion of everyone interested in competing amongst each other for the GameEx Hi-score competition

Everyone can read the + and -/- of both options reading this topic. So i'm interested in the final verdict

GC

[GimmeClassics]

@Draco: I actually think you're 100% right

I think the majority of those who want to join our hi-score competition want to use their current version of Mame and use Mame with GameEx as a frontend. When you want to record your game by creating a INP-file you cannot use Mame with GameEx but you would have to use Mame standalone - outside of GameEx. And that's not ideal

So - as long as GameEx cannot be used to submit and organize scores - I think submitting a screenshot of you hi-score screen is the best option. Sorry for changing my mind so often

Like Draco is saying: “We just have to assume that all participating will be honorable and play "vanilla" with no cheats or hacks”

So I think we have to come up with a set of rules. My suggestion:

1) Everybody has to use the default dip-switch-settings of Twin Galaxies when playing a Mame-game (see post #23)

The nice thing of following the Twin Galaxies settings is you can compare your own score to the "official" Twin Galaxies scores. A great extra benefit I think. And everybody uses the same settings when submitting their Mame-scores of a particular game.

2) You're allowed to only use 1 credit per game

3) You have to submit a screenshot of your hi-score screen

> optional: also submit a screenshot of your dip-switch-settings. See below:

Love to hear what you think of these rules.

And how do we go from here? Should there be a specific forum section for uploading your hi-scores (like MNMax is suggesting)? That would be very cool. A set of 10-12 specific games or 1 game per month? I'd like to hear what your ideas are ?

Thanks in advance,

GC

[Draco1962]

Since someone can change their dipswitch settings, take a pic, then change it back, I don't think this will be necessary. Keep it simple.

[GimmeClassics]

That's absolutely true. Keep it simple is the best. I agree.

Love to hear what you think of the other rules and how to go from here

[DazzleHP]

1) Everybody has to use the default dip-switch-settings of Twin Galaxies when playing a Mame-game

Great idea and i'm all for this! Not only does it make it easy to decide what settings we should use we can see how well (or more likely how bad) we are compared to the best.

2) You're allowed to only use 1 credit per game

100% agree - i'm a shmupper and in my realm a run isn't really considered legit unless it's a 1-cred run

3) You have to submit a screenshot of your hi-score screen

It's the easiest solution and as mentioned a million times most people here and interested in this little comp are probably honest and honorable so this suits me fine. I'm still gonna record mine in case i'm disputed

In all honesty though i suck at pretty much everything apart from shmups lol so i doubt i'll be much of a contender but i'll give my dam best at whatever game is chosen

[hansolo77]

I'm on board for this if we can get something started. I agree with a lot of what's being said here too. Where using wolfmame would be a good idea to prevent cheating, I agree with Draco that installing another version of MAME just for that purpose seems a bit much. I wish I knew if my version of MAME was compiled with highscores. I did it myself from what I remember, to get rid of nag but I don't remember if I included the highscore addon.

I also agree with the whole 1-credit approach. Sure, it's easy enough to keep adding coins to the game and play indefinitely, but that's not the point. Anybody could best a high score that way. So there's really no point in trying.

Anybody know what the keystroke is for MAME to take a screenshot? I'll have to load my GUI up and see if there's a command for it and some way to configure a save path. Then I can go and try to make some scores and get easy to find screens for it.

[MNMax21]

Not sure on a screenshot option, but that'd be sweet. I'm not sure if you need the option with high scores even for MAME. If you just don't restart or exit out of the game, I think it would just stay until you close. I believe the add on for high scores just makes you be able to exit the game and return with the scores still there. I actually used a MAME build I found on the Internet that had built in high scores. That building MAME was a bit more than I wanted to tackle at the time.

[MNMax21]

Not built in high scores, it has the ability to keep your high scores. It had the generic scores which were easy to beat. Thus the need for competition!!

[hansolo77]

Yeah I loaded up the first Mario Bros. on my MAMEUI list. Played a game, set my name as HAN (only 3 letters). Exited, reloaded the same game, and it was still there! So I guess I did add the high score add on. Cool beans. I then loaded up GameEx and tried to run it from there. At first, it didn't have it. Then I realized I had loaded the first listed option in GameEx which was the Japan version. So I tried the next one, US ver E. It didn't have it either. But the next one, US ver F, did. So even running MAME through GameEx did load my previous high scores. Awesome. Now I just need a game to play.

As for making the screenshot, I just hit PRINTSCREEN on my keyboard when the top 10 list was up, then I pasted in a new photoshop image. Unfortunately the image is all black. Probably because of the rendering mode/method. I don't see how this is going to work. I need a surefire easy way to make a screen grab without needing to do a lot of work.

[MNMax21]

Well, if you have a smartphone just download the tapatalk app. I can take a pic to upload right in the app itself. Should we roll with Mario Bros. for a little while as a test run?

[hansolo77]

Something else I just noticed.. GameEx DOES parse the high score data if it's present and presents it in a menu. It's 3rd from last if you scroll down the menu lists (at least it was for Mario Bros...)

Play This Game

Request NetPlay (we really need more people doing this.. maybe build some kind of lobby with a built in chat room so we can decide what game to play?

Marquee

Flyer

Panel

Cabinet

Title

PCB

Manual

View Controls

High Score (<- Shows at least the top 5 for Mario Bros)

More...

Add to Favorites

info etc...

[hansolo77]

I remembered I can post a screenshot of GameEx while its in window'd mode.. so here's my current Mario (just 2 play thru's... the top is actually my first play through )

[hansolo77]

Well, if you have a smartphone just download the tapatalk app. I can take a pic to upload right in the app itself. Should we roll with Mario Bros. for a little while as a test run?

Heh that's part of my problem. I dont' have a smartphone, or any cell phone. I have an iPod (3rd gen) without a camera, and a Kindle Fire that only has front facing camera for Skype. I DO have a $900 dSLR camera though, but it's a pain to set up on a tripod and all just to take a quick snap.

I'm game for some Mario if we wanna give it a go.

[MNMax21]

Ok, I started another topic dedicated to Mario Bros. for high scores.

[Draco1962]

You could always use a screen capture of the screen in windowed mode with Greenshot (free image capture software similar to Snag-It.... did I say free?) or capture and clip from video using FRAPS.

[hansolo77]

Don't have those.... There should be an easy internal way though. A lot of emulators have a key command like SHIFT+F12 to save a screenshot. MAME should have something like that somewhere. At least the PrntScrn button works in window'd mode for GameEx. Funny though, I ran a game of Tempest and set a highscore, but it doesn't list High Scores in the GameEx menu like Mario Brother's does. I wonder what the difference is? I checked, and it does save the score I set. Weird.

[Draco1962]

You can have those - you would have to download and install.

[hansolo77]

According to http://strategywiki.org/wiki/MAME/Special_Keys if you press F12 it will save a screen capture. Only problem is, it saves it in the MAME\snap path, which should be setup to most of as having all the screen art for use in MAME (unless you're also using AVI Snaps.