Preserving Arcade Core High Scores

[jimmystones]

Unfortunately Vulgus is a Jotego core, so it's out of my scope really - I believe he does intend to tackle it eventually, but in a more unified all-at-once way, which is possible due to the way all his code is structured and linked, as opposed to the one by one approach that is necessary on the offical MiSTer repo.

If there is anything else in the offical cores that isn't covered in my wiki link above that you think would begood though, do shout - I've basically done all the games I have a particular fondness for already!

[LamerDeluxe]

If there is anything else in the offical cores that isn't covered in my wiki link above that you think would begood though, do shout - I've basically done all the games I have a particular fondness for already!

I'm voting for Q*Bert and Gorf

[Robgus]

This is truly amazing, thanks for all the work!

Just to clarify, when autosave is on, I just need to open the osd menu when I have a highscore to save?

Thanks again!

[jimmystones]

Yep, when the 'Autosave Hiscores' option is On, opening the OSD will save your scores, but it'll only do it if they have changed - you'll see a saving message if so.

[Robgus]

Brilliant, truly brilliant!

Thanks!

[muthuxmut]

In the Galaga core, if I run one of the (two) fast shoot alternative cores and I turn AutoSave ON, the next time the core loads the sound is scrambled/distorted.
I can delete the NVRAM for the cores, but obviously then the high score is wiped out too.

I havent tried this on other cores, but can someone confirm this issue on their setup please

Thank you
mut

[jimmystones]

In the Galaga core, if I run one of the (two) fast shoot alternative cores and I turn AutoSave ON, the next time the core loads the sound is scrambled/distorted.
I can delete the NVRAM for the cores, but obviously then the high score is wiped out too.

I havent tried this on other cores, but can someone confirm this issue on their setup please

Thank you
mut

That's a bit confusing - the Autosave option shouldn't appear on any of the alternative games for Galaga, as I haven't configured them for highscore support at all! What do names do the nvrams that cause the problem get saved as out of interest?

[muthuxmut]

Well that explains why its a bit broken
Im at work right now, Ill grab the details later tonight

Is there any scope for the high score mechanism to work on the alternatives ?

[muthuxmut]

File contents

'real' galaga with a poor high score of 55k

Code: Select all

š4hÑ¢Dˆ"EŠ(Q£GŽ:uêÔ©S§Ož=zõëÖ­[·oÞ½zõëÖ­[·$$$$$$

fast shoot midway

Code: Select all

¿%G/áràN&‘û]wŽù;—
æ`ÛؼušÚ~n4Ú³Ą̀ԯóì¦[l:+óã

[jimmystones]

I don't understand why it is saving .nvms for those alts, the <nvram> tag in the MRA is supposed to be blank, so it shouldn't even try!?

Can you attach your MRA for the set 1 fast shoot one?

[zakk4223]

I don't understand why it is saving .nvms for those alts, the <nvram> tag in the MRA is supposed to be blank, so it shouldn't even try!?

Can you attach your MRA for the set 1 fast shoot one?

It isn't blank though: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Arcade- ... 0hack).mra

It looks like ALL the MRAs in the alternative directory have an nvram section.

I think whoever added those over the summer just carried over the nvram and rom entries from the base MRA

[jimmystones]

... I was looking in the alternatives repo, not in the Galaga one specifically, as I thought they had all moved out to there!!

Interestingly, I don't have those ones on my MiSTer, I only have the set from the alternatives repo.. Did you grab them manually or via scripts?

[zakk4223]

Mine have empty nvram entries. It looks like both the downloader and old update script should pull from the Alternatives repo.

But clearly someone didn't get the memo; all those Galaga alternatives were added to the Galaga repo AFTER they were added to the Alternatives_MiSTer repo.

If someone doesn't want all the mess of every Alternative, but they care about a single game they're probably going to go to that core's repo and see all those MRAs in _alternative and just grab them. Probably needs removing for now. I would argue that once the new downloader is improved and becomes the default the alternatives should probably move into the individual core repos to prevent this sort of confusion. But that's just me telling other people what to do.

[jimmystones]

I agree.. I don't personally know why there is an alternatives repo, but it is what it is! So I've submitted PRs to move the alts into the alts repo, along with updating and fixing the hiscore config. Once those are approved I'll drop another message here so interested parties can update

[zakk4223]

I assume it is like that because otherwise the update script would be terribly slow having to download hundreds of alternative MRAs individually. The Alternatives repo lets it just download one big zip with all the MRAs in it

[jimmystones]

That does make sense, and hopefully you are right and the new downloader means things can be merged back in to their original homes, would make life a bit easier for the devs if nothing else!

[jimmystones]

Galaga alternatives should now be up to date with highscore autosave support (in the https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/MRA-Alternatives_MiSTer repository)

[netbeui]

Hi jimmystones, I noticed Frenzy is saving high scores if I manually save but it's not doing the auto save like some of the other games. It's not a huge deal but would be nice if it worked liked the other games that have high score saving. Thanks for all your contributions to the MiSTer project!!

[jimmystones]

Frenzy, Beserk and other Williams games, as well as the various MCR cores are next up on my list - I had to write a new version of the autosave code as they operate differently (the original hardware had NVRAM based saves) and I'm just testing it on Defender at the moment. Won't be long!

[dazzer69]

Any chance you could look at resolution of the Robotron core? Last release was changed for some reason and won’t scale to 720p.

[jimmystones]

Any chance you could look at resolution of the Robotron core? Last release was changed for some reason and won’t scale to 720p.

I'm doing autosave on Robotron next, so will take a look. I did the last update to fix the vertical centering on the core, so I probably screwed it up in the process!!

[muthuxmut]

Galaga alternatives should now be up to date with highscore autosave support (in the https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/MRA-Alternatives_MiSTer repository)

all alternatives working as they should. awesome work. thank you so much
much appreciated

[jimmystones]

Any chance you could look at resolution of the Robotron core? Last release was changed for some reason and won’t scale to 720p.

Latest Robotron release should in theory fix your resolution issue - please give it a test and let me know

[dazzer69]

Cheers, Jim. It’s sorted. Fills the whole 1080p panel at 720p integer scaled. How can a game nearly 40 years old be so good?

[Aspie]

Scramble isn't saving high scores now. I now have two versions on my list, the original Scramble and Scramble Stern version 1. Both have automatic saving switched on, but neither save their scores.

[jimmystones]

Scramble isn't saving high scores now. I now have two versions on my list, the original Scramble and Scramble Stern version 1. Both have automatic saving switched on, but neither save their scores.

Hmm, ok. 2 questions then:
- Have you got the latest Main update (or at least 20210825)?
- If you save manually using the old Save Settings method do the scores save then?

Also if you have an MRA just called Scramble then that is out-of-date and should be removed - it sounds like you might want to clear out your arcade MRAs and do a re-update to get rid of any confusing duplicates.

[Aspie]

Thanks Jimmy.

I managed to get the Stern version to save. I opened the menu, turned off autosave, then saved settings, then reset. Then turned on autosave, saved settings, then reset. It was saving the scores after that.

I'll delete the old version as I tried the above solution with it and it didn't work.

[Aspie]

When you say I should clear out my arcade MRAs, do you mean delete whole lot of them?

[jimmystones]

When you say I should clear out my arcade MRAs, do you mean delete whole lot of them?

Unfortunately yes, the updater doesn't know to remove out of date files so the only way to make sure you have a good set is to delete them all and then get the updater to do a full re-sync.

[Aspie]

Ok I'll try that because I have had problems with old versions of Galaga and Defender, and all the alternatives of Crazy Kong that have stopped working