HiToText (Hi score support)

[Fyrecrypts]

With the inclusion of hi score support in GameEx, thought it might be a good idea to explain a little of the hi score project, how to incorporate it into GameEx, and how to update to the new versions that occur almost weekly now.

The hi score project was started a few months ago with the idea that it would be nice to be able to view hi scores for games outside of MAME. I wanted to be able to see my friends' scores and even share scores so that if my brother 100s of miles away beat my 1942 score, I would see it in 1942 when I play. That project came to be known as HiScanner, and a spin off of this was HiToText.

HiToText is a front end friendly command line application that allows reading and writing of hi score files (and now nv files as well) in an easy to parse string format.

Note: HiToText is written in C#, and therefore the .NET framework is required. If you do not already have the .NET framework installed, you can get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

We have a thread on the BYOAC forum that you can check out if you'd like more information about the hi score project: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=83614.0

If you'd like to help get a game supported that is not on my list, please look at the above post for instructions on how you can help, even if you have no coding experience you can still help! Others already have!

First, right now to see any hi scores in GameEx, your version of MAME must have hi score support. If you're not sure if your version of MAME has hi score support, it doesn't, and I would highly recommend you read this thread at the BYOAC forum that does a great job explaining how to compile MAME with hi score support. This version will even remove MAME nag screens, which feels so much nicer in cabinets.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=64298.0

Second, now that you have your hi score enabled MAME up and running, you'll want to play some games that are supported by the hi score project (list of supported games are below). Most hi scores can only be read by the .hi files that MAME will generate in the hi folder in your mame.exe directory. These files will only be created after a game has been run, so just because you have 1942, unless you've played it and MAME generates a .hi file, you will not see any scores in GameEx.

Third, download the HiToText.exe application (download below) and place it in the same directory that GameEx.exe is located.

Congratulations! Now GameEx will show all of the hi scores for supported games!

New versions of HiToText occur pretty frequently to include newly supported games and their clones, I have been updating the thread on BYOAC, but I will also update this thread with new versions of HiToText, and an updated list about supported games, and the games that are on their way to becoming supported.

HiToText is completely open source, so I will include a copy of the source on this thread as well. In addition, as I've gone through certain games, I've discovered a few errors in the hiscore.dat file that have been fixed. So please, use the hiscore.dat file I've attached here or on BYOAC to ensure that HiToText works correctly for all supported games on your machine.

A Google spreadsheet is listed here that shows information about what games are deciphered, what games people are working on, and what games we need help with to decipher.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=r1a...amp;output=html

If you'd like to have access to edit this spreadsheet, as you'd like to do work without someone duplicating it, or have information about a particularly difficult game to decipher, please post here or e-mail me and I will give you access to modify the spreadsheet.

HiToText_2009.06.19.zip

hiscore.dat_2009.06.19.zip

[Visitor Q]

Welcome to the forum Fyrecrypts.

[fRequEnCy]

Thank you for your explanation and your involvement in this project. It has been a great addition for us.

[headkaze]

Thanks for the info Fyrecrypts and welcome to the forum

We have alot of talented people here and it would be great to see more people involved in the hiscore decyphering.

[IMBerzerk]

Fyrecrypts,

Welcome, and thanks for the posting all this great info on the HiToText project. It's a greast idea and no doubt makes it more 'interesting' to have users are look at the high score list while scoping out a game to play. I remember back in the day we used to sign sheets with our names and high-scores, then tag the machines with them. If the Arcade owner was cool, he'd leave the lists active hainging on the machines... this was WAAAAY before games saved high-score lists.

As far as recompiling MAME, I found HeadKaze's Compiler and methold a lot esier to use than the one you posted, this coming from someone who has ZERO programming skills. Here is the link: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=71845.0 I originally tried to use MKChamp's method and messed it all up, again.. without a GUI... I'm useless. It's all me, don't take it personal.

The latest version of GameEx has some kind of support for showing High Scores on certain games, is this the same as HiToText? Will they conflict at all?

All the best

[headkaze]

The latest version of GameEx has some kind of support for showing High Scores on certain games, is this the same as HiToText? Will they conflict at all?

GameEx uses HiToText to display the hiscore table

[Visitor Q]

Yup... What is posted here is what in currently implemented into Game Ex.

ps. Bring on Mr. Driller hi score support!!

[Fyrecrypts]

Welcome to the forum Fyrecrypts.

Thank you!

Thank you for your explanation and your involvement in this project. It has been a great addition for us.

Glad you enjoy it, this was a goal of mine, it's very nice to be on a path to completion.

Thanks for the info Fyrecrypts and welcome to the forum

We have alot of talented people here and it would be great to see more people involved in the hiscore decyphering.

Thanks headkaze, I totally agree, and am very glad the project is starting to pick up some more followers.

Fyrecrypts,

Welcome, and thanks for the posting all this great info on the HiToText project. It's a greast idea and no doubt makes it more 'interesting' to have users are look at the high score list while scoping out a game to play. I remember back in the day we used to sign sheets with our names and high-scores, then tag the machines with them. If the Arcade owner was cool, he'd leave the lists active hainging on the machines... this was WAAAAY before games saved high-score lists.

As far as recompiling MAME, I found HeadKaze's Compiler and methold a lot esier to use than the one you posted, this coming from someone who has ZERO programming skills. Here is the link: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=71845.0 I originally tried to use MKChamp's method and messed it all up, again.. without a GUI... I'm useless. It's all me, don't take it personal.

The latest version of GameEx has some kind of support for showing High Scores on certain games, is this the same as HiToText? Will they conflict at all?

All the best

headkaze said it best, but yes, GameEx uses HiToText for it's current hi score support, and because there are constantly new games being added it will most likely be your responsibility to keep HiToText up to date, hence the information above. =)

Yup... What is posted here is what in currently implemented into Game Ex.

ps. Bring on Mr. Driller hi score support!!

Workin' on it. Driller is a tough one for me.

[IMBerzerk]

Thank you!

Glad you enjoy it, this was a goal of mine, it's very nice to be on a path to completion.

Thanks headkaze, I totally agree, and am very glad the project is starting to pick up some more followers.

headkaze said it best, but yes, GameEx uses HiToText for it's current hi score support, and because there are constantly new games being added it will most likely be your responsibility to keep HiToText up to date, hence the information above. =)

Workin' on it. Driller is a tough one for me.

Thanks for the reply, sorry for my silly question, I didn't realize it was already part of GameEx. Most of the time I do updates and never read what has been updated...

Add to the list...

Anything by Williams (noted MP and Defender are there): Stargate, Joust, Robotron

Front Line

Jungle Hunt

Jungle King

Elevator Action

Asteroids

Asteroids Deluxe

Space Invaders

[greatflash]

Thanks for the reply, sorry for my silly question, I didn't realize it was already part of GameEx. Most of the time I do updates and never read what has been updated...

Add to the list...

Anything by Williams (noted MP and Defender are there): Stargate, Joust, Robotron

Front Line

Jungle Hunt

Jungle King

Elevator Action

Asteroids

Asteroids Deluxe

Space Invaders

Fancy mentioning Asteroids and not Tempest - I know someone who can get a bit cross about that,... now what was his name???

[Tempest]

I have to tell you, I noticed that even before I read your post.

[IMBerzerk]

I have to tell you, I noticed that even before I read your post.

[iMB falls down on his knees like Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes]

Damn you! Damn you all.... did you have to notice that!! It was only a mistake.... !!! aaarggg!!

[Visitor Q]

If Driller was easy, I guess someone whould have already done it so thanks.

It's a fun game for sure!

[Fyrecrypts]

New version out this morning, added about 6 new games (Defender, J.J. Squawkers, Crystal Castles, Gunsmoke, Elevator Action, and Jungle Hunt/King) give or take some clones. Defender, a big one! I'm currently only using the nvram file for scores, since "all-time" greatest seems more important than "today's" greatest. I have deciphered the .hi file which is today's greatest as well, however I'm not sure how I want to handle 2 different sources for one game yet...

I also discovered that despite some games using the same format in the hiscore.dat file, the bytes actually can represent something different. Ali Baba and 40 Thieves is the only example I've found so far, and it will be an easy fix. It is currently lumped in with pacman/mspacman, but will need to be in its own file.

Thanks for the reply, sorry for my silly question, I didn't realize it was already part of GameEx. Most of the time I do updates and never read what has been updated...

Add to the list...

Anything by Williams (noted MP and Defender are there): Stargate, Joust, Robotron

Front Line

Jungle Hunt

Jungle King

Elevator Action

Asteroids

Asteroids Deluxe

Space Invaders

Williams games are not easy, most are difficult (Joust, Defender). So the easy ones will come sooner than others, but they're on the list. =)

Fancy mentioning Asteroids and not Tempest - I know someone who can get a bit cross about that,... now what was his name???

Speaking of Tempest, I need someone who's good at Tempest to send me their .hi file, and a screenshot of the scoreboard, I don't have a spinner (yet) so it makes the game a little tough for me to crack the hi scores. I'll get tempest in ASAP once I get that information.

The same goes for Moon Patrol actually, I need someone's .hi file who's beaten the game. I know getting screenshots of the best times probably isn't going to happen, but maybe just the names of the 20 stages/sections that times are saved? This one's been on my list a while, and I suck too much at it to get more than half way through in any decent amount of time.

And thanks for the compliments guys, really helps keep me going. =)

[fRequEnCy]

Thanks for the update Fyrecrypts! Keep up the good work!

[Tempest]

Speaking of Tempest, I need someone who's good at Tempest to send me their .hi file, and a screenshot of the scoreboard,

And thanks for the compliments guys, really helps keep me going. =)

Sorry, we don't have anyone like that here!

I hope it's ok just to upload the stuff here...

And before somebody downloads my stuff, and asks if it's the best I can do...

I can do this:

And This :

(yep, that's me getting killed, it sucks trying to reach F12 on the keyboard )

Tempest.7z

[Fyrecrypts]

Sorry, we don't have anyone like that here!

I hope it's ok just to upload the stuff here...

And before somebody downloads my stuff, and asks if it's the best I can do...

I can do this:

And This :

(yep, that's me getting killed, it sucks trying to reach F12 on the keyboard )

Tempest.7z

Thank you, that should help me out quite a bit, I would expect Tempest to be in the next update. =)

[Fyrecrypts]

New version out, added: Tempest, Special Criminal Investigation, Up N' Down, Mr. Do's Wild Ride, and moved Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves to its own game. I decided it wasn't worth making and uploading a compiled version so I just stuck a copy of the HiToText.exe from the bin/debug folder into the main directory. Now there's only the one zip.

A note about Tempest, I had to modify the hiscore.dat file to fix what previously existed for tempest. The person who originally put it in there the way it was didn't realize that although the nvram does contain the first 3 scores, changing the nvram does not actually change the scores, and in fact just screws up tempest. It overwrites the nvram based on the memory in CPU #0 anyway, so I just extended and patched up the tempest portion. So, basically, old tempest.hi files are completely incompatible. Luckily you have a tool to put them right back in! Just screenshot the scores, delete the old .hi file, run Tempest with the new hiscore.dat (in main post, if you open it up in notepad it should be version 0.3), and use HiToText to write in all your scores (e.g. HiToText -w tempest.hi NLA 234500).

Still not completely sure how I want to handle games like Centipede, I might ask the FE guys what they think would be best for the input they want to put into HiToText, and the output they want back.

[Fyrecrypts]

New version out with lots of changes. First, a thank you to redhorse who contributed to one of the new games supported now: Slap Fight! He gave it to me before Christmas, but I've had some issues to work out before I could release. Other new games added are Space Invaders and some clones, 1943, Phoenix, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, and Columns. Columns required a rewrite of what was in the hiscore.dat, so yet again for this version to work correctly you will need an updated hiscore.dat provided above in the hiscore.zip file attached to the main post. Again, this will mean deleting your current columns .hi file, so if you want to keep your Columns scores follow my instructions a few posts up when you had to do this for Tempest.

In addition to that, HiToText temporarily is only supporting looking for .hi or .nv files in your actual MAME directory, this shouldn't really affect anyone as most people only use HiToText for GameEx, but I'm saying it should you encounter an expected error experimenting with HiToText. The next version of HiToText I'll ensure this issue is fixed. The reason this happened though is so that GameEx could see hi scores from .nv files without having to change a thing, so you can now see Nightmare in the Dark, and Defender scores.

I've also put in a change that will allow me to easily show scores from games where the hi scores are split between .nv and .hi files. Games like Centipede, which I'm hoping will be in the next release.

And finally, I've reorganized all the games to use a similar format, instead of basing the order on the order of the hi score table, I'm giving almost all games the RANK field (which now starts at 1 for every game), and that will always be followed by the SCORE and NAME fields, then whatever other fields are stored in the order they are displayed on the hi scores screen for each game. The only games that did not get a RANK field were games where only one score is kept like Pacman, Space Invaders, Elevator Action, Super Dodgeball, etc... They will continue to only show the SCORE field.

With headkaze's suggestion, I've also compiled the binary (what most of you care about) as a release in visual studio. This means less debug code in the executable and more optimizations so it'll work faster. As the list of games climb, I'll probably have to do more optimizations to ensure a quick speed.

Anyway, I think I covered everything, enjoy!

[Fyrecrypts]

New version out, with new games including one that many of us have been wanting for a while: Mr. Driller! Thanks go to Cananas for discovering where the hiscore table was, and with that I added support for it in the hiscore.dat file, and in HiToText. Other games added: DJ Boy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Turtles In Time, Dragon Blaze, Asteroids, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Pacmania, Do! Run Run, Commando (also thanks to Cananas for decoding that).

Between this release and the last release Leezer released a new hiscore.dat. He did not incorporate the running changes I've been making, but he probably didn't know I was. I've merged his changes with mine, and uploaded it in the main post. I had to modify Do! Run Run and Meteorites (a clone for Asteroids) to work correctly. In addition, I forgot to mention that 1943 in a previous release also required modification.

Enjoy!

[Tom Speirs]

Thanks Fyrecrypts

[Visitor Q]

Mr Driller!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hunk_4TH]

I love this feature! Though in the Pac Man/Mrs Pac Man menus Hiscore isn't an option though on games like Galaga and a few others that are supported the option is there. Any ideas?

[Fyrecrypts]

New version out today with loads of new stuff, mostly concerning what I call alternate scores. This is used mostly with secondary scores like Track and Field's individual event records, or Moon Patrol's checkpoint record times. I don't believe any FE has made use of these yet, but at least there's now a process that can be used to incorporate these scores into HiToText.

There are new commands that use the alternate scores: -ra which reads the entire hi score table, including alternate scores and displays that. NOTE: -r will work the same and only show the main hiscore table so FE devs don't need to worry about this version breaking their hi score features. -wa will write an alternate score using the same basic format as -w however it takes an additional parameter that is the name of the alternate score table you wish to modify. -fa will display the format for these alternate scores so you can have the parameters necessary to write an alternate score. I suggest using a -ra first so you can see the displayed format as well.

I've added new games as well: Darius Gaiden - Silver Hawk (missing nice looking zone data though), Outzone, Track and Field, Centipede, X-men Vs. Street Fighter, Crazy Climber, Millipede, Moon Cresta, Moon Patrol (Finally! Although sill a little incomplete, more on that below), and Arkanoid. In addition I modified Phoenix to use Cananas' new hiscore.dat entry.

Crazy Climber, Moon Cresta, Phoenix, and all their supported hacks/clones all use Cananas' new hiscore.dat entries as well, so if you have scores for those games and want to save them, be sure to have a screenshot or jot down the scores first, then delete the old .hi file for that particular game. Rerun that game with the new hiscore.dat in place, to generate a new .hi file. Then use HiToText to reinsert those scores.

Moon Patrol is missing some alternate scores because I just am not good enough at the game, and don't have enough time to decipher all the checkpoints. This won't matter much to you right now if you only use HiToText in FEs until they start to use alternate scores.

Darius Gaiden - Silver Hawk has an interesting display for showing the stages you've visited, and I'd like that to show up as shown in game, however I have not cracked the algorithm used yet, and certainly haven't found the time to find every single combination of zone routes yet. So it'll just show zones as the actual byte value found in the .hi file.

I've also fixed a minor bug with Ghosts N'Goblins where the rank was displaying incorrectly.

The new HiToText, and new hiscore.dat will be uploaded shortly in the main post. Enjoy!

[Visitor Q]

Would be cool to see some more puzzle game support, they are on pretty heavy rotation for me.

Bust A Move

Puzzle Bobble

Tetris

Stuff like that.