What are the various methods to save arcade high scores using RetroArch?

[PurpleTentacle]

I know of a few, but I'm not really satisfied by any of them...

 

1. Write it down (obvious, but kind of takes away from the fun of an automated leaderboard).

2. Use the MAME 2003 Plus & enable high scores within RetroArch (works, but only for certain games, and I'm not really happy with the quirks of the 2003 Plus core, but admittedly, I don't have much familiarity with it, nor do I fully understand what makes it so different).

3. Enable auto savestate on exit, and autoload on startup (simple, and you get to skip the machine setting itself up, but if you need to or accidentally reset the game, there go your high scores). 

4. Register & use RetroAchivements (don't think this actually even works with MAME emulators, but if you're interested in using it for a select few consoles, this is an option, and there are built in achievements you can go for. Seems like it would be fun, but given how limited it is, I don't quite feel like bothering, tbh). 

 

So far, option #3 is my favorite, but it's still not ideal. Are there any I'm missing before I potentially set that up? I just want to weigh my options. 

[damageinc86]

I wish the retroacheivements people could strike up a deal with the major emulators to have their code be included in official releases. 

 

The hi-score issue is why I have stayed with standalone MAME.  I got a hiscore.dat and then enabled it in the gui (still old mameuifx) and it works great.

[PurpleTentacle]

43 minutes ago, damageinc86 said:

I wish the retroacheivements people could strike up a deal with the major emulators to have their code be included in official releases. 

 

The hi-score issue is why I have stayed with standalone MAME.  I got a hiscore.dat and then enabled it in the gui (still old mameuifx) and it works great.

It is unfortunate because my main intention in using RetroAcheivements was simply to be able to track my high scores for arcade games (before I knew that the platforms/emulators were limited).

 

I'm hesitant to setup standalone MAME as my main emulator for arcade games because I intentionally chose RetroArch to try & unify the UI and controls for the emulator end of things. That, and I also don't like working with MAME's interface (given the number of systems it emulates, I understand why it's not simple, but I prefer to avoid it). 

 

In the end, I just wish all the various MAME cores in RetroArch allowed for saving high scores, but at the moment, I'll trade that away for the ease of use of RetroArch (and the fact that I already have that all setup within Launch Box anyway).

[damageinc86]

Interesting.  I've never found mames on screen settings menu to be complicated at all.  I've always been able to map my controls quickly.  That is, for regular type joystick and buttom games.

[neil9000]

21 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

In the end, I just wish all the various MAME cores in RetroArch allowed for saving high scores

You do realise that not all Arcade games even saved the scores right? So if the original Arcade game didnt save then you cant save in retroarch or mame.

[PurpleTentacle]

2 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

You do realise that not all Arcade games even saved the scores right? So if the original Arcade game didnt save then you cant save in retroarch or mame.

Yeah, I'm aware of that. That's obviously a hard limit that MAME can't get around (I mean, I don't know if it's theoretically possible or not, I just mean in the real world sense of what's currently available). I wasn't looking for RetroArch to be able to save all high scores, just to be able to do what standalone MAME can do, whatever that may be.

 

As a disclaimer, I should add that I'm not complaining, since I know that it's easy to say, "Software should be able to do this!", but without actually working on it, I have no idea if there's a technical or legal reason why RetroArch cores don't save arcade high scores (outside of MAME 2003 Super, dunno if there's any others). More than anything else, I'm grateful that people develop/maintain/update these various cores & emulators, and that people are also working on making sure that future generations will be able to play these games.

[DOS76]

In the retroarch system folder is there a MAME entry? and if so does it have a plugin folder? I don't know if its possible or not but if you were to put the proper file in that directory set to use HighScore it might be worth a shot.

[PurpleTentacle]

8 minutes ago, DOS76 said:

In the retroarch system folder is there a MAME entry? and if so does it have a plugin folder? I don't know if its possible or not but if you were to put the proper file in that directory set to use HighScore it might be worth a shot.

There is a systems folder, yes (I actually made my own folder called "Bios" for storing the BIOS files in, I forget if system is still used for anything). There are individual folders for the various MAME versions within my Bios folder (which is where the hiscore.dat file is stored for MAME 2003 Super), but there aren't any plugin folders.  The regular MAME folder has an ini folder in it with "ui.ini", but no options for hiscore. I'll try messing around with it, just to experiment. 

[DOS76]

" Someone may correct me but if I'm not mistaken you need a "Hi" directory in your Mame folder. Within Mame\Ini\Presets\ I have a plugins.ini which simply has a line that says "hiscore 1". Also in your Mame\Ini\Presets\Mame.ini I have a line that says "plugins 1" and "plugin hiscore". "
quote is from this link

I've never used the high score dat personally I just set it up using the plugin in MAME itself.

T

[DOS76]

"

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 205
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"
 

Maybe this will help also

[PurpleTentacle]

20 hours ago, DOS76 said:

"

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 205
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"
 

Maybe this will help also

Oh, weird! That's pretty nice. I'll test it out on the 0.212 core of MAME for RetroArch, and see if it works on that, too (I'm not at my main computer at the moment, but next time I am).

[PurpleTentacle]

22 hours ago, DOS76 said:

"

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 205
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"
 

Maybe this will help also

hmm, well, I messed around with it, and RetroArch doesn't seem to acknowledge anything with high scores for me. When I use MAME within my RetroArch/Bios folder (I changed the default directory to Bios instead of System, which I think was recommended somewhere, but I don't think this should matter since I changed all the paths in the ini to the Bios directory), I can get the high scores to save. But RetroArch isn't saving high scores, so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I even tried installing it in the /system directory, and using both the 32 bit & 64 bit versions of MAME. I'm pretty sure I got the paths right, so... I'm not sure what the issue is. Only other thing I can think of is that this trick doesn't work with 0.212 for some reason, but I doubt that's the case...