How to save high scores in MAME2016

Hi all, I’ve searched on Libretro forums. But they all use MAME2013 plus. Does any one knows how to save high scores in RetroArch with cores “MAME2016”?

Thanks a lot.

It should de sufficient to place the hiscore.dat file from here: https://github.com/libretro/mame2016-libretro/tree/master/metadata in your /system/mame2016 or folder.

I know this works on mame2003 and mame2003-plus, but it should work on mame2016 as well.
Only the newest mame core needs a different configuration:

It seems that mame2016 uses the new lua plugin system and therefore this guide should work:

I will test this soon and report my findings later

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It will save to gamename.hi automatically using mame2013-plus core. I try every ini files and hiscore.dat to any path. It doesn’t work using mame2016. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Answered in the guide thread. A bit of annoying this thread-jumping

Thanks a lot!! I will try it again.

Also will this work on any other cores?

So mame2003 saves hi scores automatically?

I’ve tried mame2013-plus with Retroarch. It will be saved hi-score automatically.

@Fishman MAME cores bevore 2016 needs only the appropriate hiscore.dat in the /system/mame(xxxx)/ folder and it should work. (search for them on the https://github.com/libretro/your_core page)

mame2016 and newer has the lua plugin system and therefore you have to follow my guide.

[EDIT] atm of writing i was not able to make hiscores work in mame2016. I will continue to test again.

[EDIT2] mame2016 gives me some lua errors and i don’t know how to fix them:

[LUA ERROR] D:\RetroArch\system\mame2016\plugins\boot.lua:7: module 'json' not found:
        no field package.preload['json']
        no file 'D:\RetroArch/plugins/json.lua'
        no file 'D:\RetroArch/plugins/json/init.lua'
        no file 'D:\RetroArch\json.dll'
        no file 'D:\RetroArch\..\lib\lua\5.3\json.dll'
        no file 'D:\RetroArch\loadall.dll'
        no file '.\json.dll'

@pogolin do you mean mame2003-plus? AFAIK there is no mame2013-plus core.

@ImnoTapLumber Sorry! yes, I mean mame2003-plus core. Thanks for your help

@ImnoTapLumber I had download the source of mame2016. I found json/init.lua in plugins folder.

Yes, i know, but it doesn’t work like the current mame core.

So either mame2016 isn’t build with lua support, or it needs different configuration, what i haven’t figured out yet.
The mame2015 core gives me headache as well. It should work with the hiscore.dat but it seems not even to save the normal *.cfg files. If i create the necessary folders manually the *.cfg files are created, but i was not able to make hiscores work.

I know, it is not the sollution you are looking for, but is using a combination of mame2003-plus, mame (currently 0.215) and fbneo a option for you? Have you a complete 0.174 romset or only a few roms you want to play?

@ImnoTapLumber Thanks for your help. I downloaded the source of mame2016. It seems it will load lua engine. I will check why it doesn’t load hiscore plugin. If I have any updates, I will post it on this discussion. Thanks again.

I write a simple front-end to load libretro cores. And for mame games, I use mame2016. Because some rom can’t run on mame2003-plus.

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@ImnoTapLumber I found how to enable hiscore using mame2016. The following steps are what I do. Step1 : add a ini file. plugin.ini. for my retroarch. this file will place into ./system/mame2016/ini. The content of this file. data 1 hiscore 1

Step2: copy plugin files from below link

mame2016 plugin Please copy both json and hiscore plugin. place them in ./plugins

Step3: copy hiscore.dat from “.\plugins\hiscore” to “.\system\mam2016\hi”

Step4: modify the init.lua in ./plugins/hiscore folder. …

function hiscore.startplugin()

local hiscoredata_path = ".\\system\\mame2016\\hi\\hiscore.dat";
local hiscore_path = ".\\system\\mame2016\\hi";

If your score is higher than current high score, it will write a hi file(xxx.hi) in .\system\mam2016\hi. You can modify this hi file in hex mode.

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Nice find @pogolin.
I didn’t thought to put the hiscore.dat in the /hi/ folder.
I tried to put it in the /system/mame2016/ like in mame2003 but not in the /hi folder.

Do you had to created a mame.ini as well, or has RA detected the location of the plugin folder automatically?
As i noticed in my mame guide, the default paths are different on Windows and Linux

Hello, I’ve tried the method outlined by @pogolin, but it doesn’t seem to work. No matter what I do, MAME2016 does not seem to recognize the plugins at all. Any tips?

Your instructions are not clear enough @pogolin. Is that for Linux? Windows paths use / instead of \\ I thought. And is data 1 hiscore 1 on one line or two? Is plugins supposed to be in retroarch root or the mame2016 system folder root?

We really need a guide for this, as I can’t find any information on it at all - doesn’t anyone use MAME 2016? No highscore support is crazy considering scores have been a feature of MAME for over 20 years.

All this time, I thought it was saving my scores, but it’s not. Tf.

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@pogolin Could you please give me more details? Especially the paths. Is system /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS? I can’t get this to work. I have retropie with lr-mame2016. The game: 1943 (the battle of midway - EURO)