MiSTer FPGA Forum

I'm pretty happy with the state of Arcade cores in MiSTer these days, but one glaring omission I find is high-score saving in Jotego's cores.

There are quite a few good arcade cores that currently lack this, and the discrepancy really stands out when switching between arcade games that do retain their tables. After all, most older classic games are all about score.

I'm not a Patron of Jotego's Patreon so I'm not sure the current status, but can anyone comment on whether he has ever addressed this, and if this feature might be coming to his cores sometime in the future?

Doesn’t seem to high on the priority list. As a long time subscriber I’m a bit weary of it all at the moment.

It's not that simple to implement, as there's no one-size-fits-all approach to saving high scores. I wouldn't call it an "omission" as much as it's probably prioritization.

I'd love to see high scores saves in Jotego/all arcade cores, but I'll take what I get and appreciate the hard work being put into (new) cores and fixing bugs.

dazzer69 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 2:45 pm

Doesn’t seem to high on the priority list. As a long time subscriber I’m a bit weary of it all at the moment.

This is great feedback and perhaps will help. As a subscriber and supporter your voices should be heard.

I am an ex-subscriber of Jotego's and I gotta say, if high score saving would be implemented I'd be back and do a six month block as that is something I would love.

Was Jimmystones not someway involved with highscores on Jotego's cores, was there not a conversation about a year ago ?

Perhaps I am making things up - but I vagely remember that.

Jimmystones did the awesome high score saving for Rally-X and New Rally-X, that was a coffee well worth paying for !

Reg wrote: ↑Sat Dec 23, 2023 11:38 pm

Was Jimmystones not someway involved with highscores on Jotego's cores, was there not a conversation about a year ago ?

Jimmystones has done a fantastic job adding high score saving into classic arcade cores.

Here's what he had to say regarding Jotego's cores:

jimmystones wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:50 am

Unfortunately Bubble Bobble is a Jotego core, and getting high score support into those is a job for the man himself, at least for now. I've been in discussions with him about it and he has a plan, but I don't think it is a priority at the moment.

jimmystones wrote: ↑Fri Aug 27, 2021 7:45 pm

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.

Those quotes are over 2 years old now at this point, so it would be nice if one of his patrons could ask Jotego for a status update on this.

If Jotego would be able to create a generic solution for highscores, I think it should be pretty high on the priority list, as highscores are an important element of arcade games.

LamerDeluxe wrote: ↑Sun Dec 24, 2023 9:23 am

If Jotego would be able to create a generic solution for highscores, I think it should be pretty high on the priority list, as highscores are an important element of arcade games.

I totally agree, I think this is most likely getting a lower priority simply because Jotego's patrons seem to prefer new cores over QoL features. I'm sure Jotego himself as a fan of classic arcade games would like to see this feature in his cores, but unfortunately his hands may be tied due to the nature of his Patreon.

Could be, I've seen that happen before with other projects, where 'boring' useful additions were neglected in favor of exciting new features.