How to save high scores in mame

RetroArch Windows devices
#1

Hi, I am having trouble getting the high score saving feature of mame to work. This is what I have done, according to the info I’ve gathered here and there:

  • First, I have Retroarch 1.3.6 and mame2014 core, both are otherwise working flawlessly
  • I created the retroarch/system/mame2014/ folder
  • I downloaded hiscores.dat from: http://highscore.mameworld.info/download.htm (the link saying “pre mame v0174”) and copied it into the above folder

and that’s it. Did I miss anything? I browsed the retroarch menu and there is a cheats menu option but I didn’t see anything about high scores.

#2

I wondered if this works also…not really lookes into it.

Can you confirm a game that does/should save highscores as I remember that not all games actually save highscores because they didnt have an internal battery in the hardware originally or something.

Drop a couple of game rom names so people can test the same thing for continuity. :slight_smile:

#3

Well to be honest I only tested with Donkey Kong :slight_smile:

I did know about not all games were compatible, but I inspected hiscores.dat contents and there is indeed a dkong: entrance, so I guess it should work, right?

But you’re right, I’ll test it with some more games and put my results here.

So far:

Donkey Kong (dkong.zip): not working

#4

I’d suggest using the MAME 2014 hiscores.dat from the github repository: https://github.com/libretro/mame2014-libretro/tree/master/metadata

That will probably not change the results you are getting so far with high scores not saving but at least you will be using the same version of the hiscores.dat that other MAME 2014 users have.

#5

Thanks, I’ll change to that one and test it.

#6

You need at last to enable it within mame.ini.

#7

I am using the mame2014 libretro core, not regular mame. Where should I look for that file?

By the way, I changed hiscores.dat to the one pointed by markwkidd but still no results. Games tested: Donkey Kong (dkong.zip), Pac-Man (pacman.zip), Galaga (galaga.zip).

#8

Ok. Old mame use a patch to enable hiscore (mkchamp). It was include in mame2014 but does not seem to work for me. Newer mame use lua script to enable hiscore and work for me.

#9

There is a list of unsuported games. From highscore.mameworldinfo

http://www.mameworld.info/highscore/download.htm

#10

@r-type whats needed to enable this in mame git?

I have read/write configs on in core

System/mame/plugin.ini with hiscore enabled within

Not workjng on dkong3

Also copied my normal mame hi folder with dkong3.hi over and its not read. (System/mame/hi)

I will try putting that in saves/mame/hi next

#11

You can look here it works for me in linux

tested with dkong

Starting Donkey Kong (US set 1)

hiscore: found hiscore.dat entry for dkong

…

[libretro INFO] ChangeAV: w:1600 h:900 ra:1.777778.

hiscore: scores read

But my plugin.ini is in system/mame/ini/ hiscore.dat in system/mame/hi

edit: sorry i have an old hiscore.dat in sys/mame/ini but it’s not needed the good one is in sys/mame/plugins/hiscore/

#12

Uhmm i will try again with fresher eyes.

Moving my plugin ini did not work. Hoefully i will get it configured correctly soon

#13

I ll try today on other computer with fresh install to see what is really need to setup. Also with a windows build.

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#14

I don’t have opportunity to try on a windows today. But i tried on an other linux with 0.190. I just take the mame folder from official windows build ,copy them in my systemdir/mame and configure mame.ini and plugins.ini in ini folder. Hiscore working fine then. I ll try to find a windows tomorrow. Maybe the pb is win only

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#15

After lots of tries i got this one working in mame 0.192 core. I did the following:

  1. copy over complete mame official build as described above.
  2. copy over plugins.ini and mame.ini to retroarch/system/mame/ini folder
  3. set ALL paths in mame.ini. Mine look like this: Pastebin
  4. in plugins.ini set highscores to 1
  5. DELETE mame.exe
  6. Play game. Make Highscore and close Retroarch normally.

With this settings i got it to work. Highscore .hi-Files are stored under /retroarch/hi/.

Strange is the following. Without mame.exe i get the following message from mame on booting up a machine, e.g. dkong.zip: “Error: Failed to open File or Load Operation” But Highscores saved fine. After rebooting the game theyre all there. If i keep mame.exe in system/mame/ directory i get message “… Loaded Successfully” but highscore save won’t work.

Dont know why this happens but I will investigate :wink:

1 Like
#16

modjo, could you share your plugins.ini file? I can’t have mine working under win 10