Preserving Arcade Core High Scores

[jimmystones]

Every core is a different challenge - I did give Food Fight a go before but there was the added complexity of it being 16-bit, and I've only successfully done 8-bit machines so far! Having said that, it's a Mister-X core so is mostly Verilog which means I might be able to get a sim of that going as well, which gives me a fighting chance

Thanks RE the new core - should hopefully be another one in the not too distant future, of similar vintage!

[ruicunha]

so you just run updateall and for any of the games in the list you just go to options and select highscores?

[jimmystones]

Yeah, if you have latest version of the cores by whatever update method you prefer, just turn Autosave Hiscores on in the OSD - then everytime you open the OSD after that it will auto save your scores if they have changed.

Also I forgot to mention that Centipede hiscore save is done (had some unrelated issues with thr core along the way which made it take a bit longer!)

[muthuxmut]

cough-e bought
cheers mate

[netbeui]

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

I think this was working previously but high score saving in Galaga 3 doesn't work anymore. I don't see the autosave option in the menu, I also tried manually saving settings but the high score was gone after I restarted the core

[jimmystones]

Galaga should work but Galaga 3 (and Gaplus) are a different core and don't have support yet. I do have a work in progress version languishing, but it is too buggy to release, and I had rather forgotten about it!

[netbeui]

Galaga should work but Galaga 3 (and Gaplus) are a different core and don't have support yet. I do have a work in progress version languishing, but it is too buggy to release, and I had rather forgotten about it!

Ahh gotcha! Sorry I thought Galaga 3 was an alternative. If you add screen flip to Galaga 3 I promise I won’t bug you about high score saving

[TLPD-AVW]

I've been playing Pengo recently, trying to crack through the default high score barrier of 20,000 points. I noticed that after reloading the core it does indeed load your saved high scores, but only the top entry keeps your initials. Positions 2-5 display the default name values of KKK, III, RRR and AAA.
Is it working as designed?

[jimmystones]

I've been playing Pengo recently, trying to crack through the default high score barrier of 20,000 points. I noticed that after reloading the core it does indeed load your saved high scores, but only the top entry keeps your initials. Positions 2-5 display the default name values of KKK, III, RRR and AAA.
Is it working as designed?

Honestly I can't remember, but that doesn't sound right - I am incredibly bad at that game and may have failed to test it thoroughly due to finding it very hard to beat the scores though! I will have a look after work.

[TLPD-AVW]

I was going to recommend using Set 2 version of Pengo for testing instead of Set 1C as it has default high score values set to zero, but it seems that alternative versions don't save high scores at all.

[jimmystones]

My saved scores still had my name in multiple times, but when I loaded Pengo set 1 and then opened the OSD it saved over scores 2 to 5 like you say It must have worked before, or my save wouldn't have had those initials still in.. I will investigate further (aandd probably add the autosave capabilty to the alts, which I must have missed before).

[jimmystones]

I was going to recommend using Set 2 version of Pengo for testing instead of Set 1C as it has default high score values set to zero, but it seems that alternative versions don't save high scores at all.

Pengo set 1 has just been updated with a fix - please give it a go and if all is well I push it over to the alternatives.

[TLPD-AVW]

Pengo set 1 has just been updated with a fix - please give it a go and if all is well I push it over to the alternatives.

After one grueling play session I have managed to fill the high score table with my initials on all positions. Resetting the core kept them all in their places! Thanks for resolving this problem so quickly!
Now, if you please, I really want to play something else.

[jimmystones]

Good work! No problem anyway, I'll patch the alts when I get a minute

[metalfacemark]

any chance of a Hyper Sports/Track n Field high scores save?

[Aspie]

Hyper Sports/Track n Field already save high scores. Check the DIP settings to make sure it's turn on

[metalfacemark]

Oh really? I thought I tried and they didn’t save

[Aspie]

Have you tried running an update? New versions were released a few weeks ago. I was having the same problems, it would just reload with jumbled letters and numbers. But it is all ok now

[netbeui]

I noticed today that my Pac-man highscore was blank. I tried playing a game and the blank high score was filled but not saved. I noticed the core menu doesn't have an Autosave Highscores option. I tried deleting the nvram for Pac-man but it didn't make any difference. Any idea what I'm missing?

[jimmystones]

I noticed today that my Pac-man highscore was blank. I tried playing a game and the blank high score was filled but not saved. I noticed the core menu doesn't have an Autosave Highscores option. I tried deleting the nvram for Pac-man but it didn't make any difference. Any idea what I'm missing?

If the Autosave option isn't there it sounds like you have a wrong/broken MRA somehow?
I just ran an update and tested with the current version and it's all working fine.

Can you attach the MRA you are using?

[netbeui]

I noticed today that my Pac-man highscore was blank. I tried playing a game and the blank high score was filled but not saved. I noticed the core menu doesn't have an Autosave Highscores option. I tried deleting the nvram for Pac-man but it didn't make any difference. Any idea what I'm missing?

If the Autosave option isn't there it sounds like you have a wrong/broken MRA somehow?
I just ran an update and tested with the current version and it's all working fine.

Can you attach the MRA you are using?

Weird.. I didn't touch the mra so I'm not sure how it got corrupted. I've attached it for your reference. I deleted it and ran update_all which re-downloaded it and now everything's working properly

[jimmystones]

Weird indeed! That MRA looks like the one from April 2020

[thorr]

Any chance for Crystal Castles? I just completed my trackball control panel for my new arcade cabinet and I love this game!

[jimmystones]

The core author @enceladus does mention it's on his todo list in the readme, so no harm pinging him a DM to let him know there are people who'd like to see the feature

I could give it a crack at some point if not, but my limited spare time at the moment is all being consumed by my new core project!

[Theenemy]

Please add high saves to the cave 68k core.

Many thanks

[nebulasleuth]

Ok, I must be dense.

Robotron is shown to have autosave support for high scores. I don't see any option to enable/disable in the in OSD. If I save settings then high scores are saved, but otherwise high scores are lost. What am I missing?

[LamerDeluxe]

Ok, I must be dense.

Robotron is shown to have autosave support for high scores. I don't see any option to enable/disable in the in OSD. If I save settings then high scores are saved, but otherwise high scores are lost. What am I missing?

If I'm not misremembering, that was the way highscore saving worked initially. Later on an auto-saving option was added to a number of cores, but apparently not all of them yet.

[jimmystones]

It's supposed to have auto-save - it's in the code at least.. It's been 3 years since I did it so the memory is fuzzy though

I will give it a try when I'm back home and see if it's something silly. you'd think someone would have noticed in the last 3 years!

[jimmystones]

Yep, the option has been broken for ages! I never noticed because mine had autosave turned on at some point before the option disappeared when I tried to hide the option for the one game on that core that doesn't have NVRAM and messing it up somehow

I've raised a PR with a fixed version and quick framework update, just got to wait for that to be merged...

[nebulasleuth]

Yay I'm not dense!

Thanks for looking at it. I can't believe nobody noticed. I bought a Mister setup 95% to just play robotron.

Best game from the era IMHO!!