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Troubleshooting MAME High Scores


Jason Carr

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14 hours ago, Elhora said:

The "Hi" directory in Mame remains empty

Most MAME games save their high scores in the ../mame/hi/ folder.  There are some that save them in the ../mame/nvram/ folder.  And a couple that use both.  

Air Gallet (agallet) saves them in the hi folder (agallet.hi).  If your hi folder is empty, then for some reason MAME is not saving them.  When you restart Air Gallet, does you high score (308000) still appear in the game?  [I'm guessing not]

Since your hi folder is empty (which is not normal [after playing a game(s)], play a few different games and see if any hi files appear.  Note: there are a few games that require you make an actual high score 1st before it'll save it.  agallet is not one of them.

If no hi files are appearing, look in your ../plugins folder for a 'hiscore' folder and for the files it has.image.png.2ef2602f3a3a6c5e21507b73a180ebda.png 

I presume the version of mame64.exe and your roms are the same.

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So  i have checked, and you're right, my hi score have disappeared from inside the game and the Hi folder is still empty, but i have  a lot of game folders in my nvram with some "eeprom" files in it.

In fact,  can see there all the games where i made a hiscore after my fresh install in the nvram folder (mslug, agallet, 19xx, dspirit, arkanoid, etc....) .

So the thing is all the game i make a hiscore are saved in nvram folder, but not in Hi folder, and not uploaded for saving ! :(

All the files in the plugin/hiscore are present and yes, my romset and mame64.exe are both 0.225 :(

Edited by Elhora
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@Elhora I see this error in the log file:

ERROR: unable to find a structure from the xml definition that matches size and hiscore.dat definition' for game 'agallet'

It looks like there's some kind of conflict here between what hi2txt is expecting and what MAME is delivering. I would guess it's because of a version conflict, but it might be worth reporting it to @GreatStone. Please see the first post of this topic for instructions on how to report issues to GreatStone.

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5 minutes ago, Elhora said:

the nvram folder

Most, if not all games will create a folder in here.  And the EEPROMs don't necessarily store high scores but do store game settings and info [in computer lingo].

Try this... rename the agallet folder that's inside ../mame/nvram/ to something else ("111agallet" or what ever).  Play Air Gallet for a little bit (it's not necessary to get a high score). Exit. Quit MAME.  This will create a 'new' agallet folder in ../nvram/.   And is supposed to create a ../mame/hi/agallet.hi file.

Another presumption is you're playing the parent rom (agallet) and not a clone (agalletu). Which doesn't matter. The whole series saves high scores in the hi folder. but using the respective file name. 

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If there's no "agallet.hi" file, there's nothing for hi2text to read.  Just tested using the ../ThirdParty/hi2text/  exe/zip files (9/30/2020) and MAME 0.225 and it can read the "agallet.hi" file.

@Elhora is the hiscore.dat file in you ../plugins/hiscore folder dated August 16, 2020 or later?  (possibly more like September 29, 2020)

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15 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

Keep in mind that a lack of an .hi file does *not* necessarily mean that high scores are not being saved.

Absolutely correct.  That's why I mentioned about the nvram folders.  I did do a hi2txt command line test on both agallet.hi and the agallet folder.  The hi file showed expected results whereas the latter threw an error ("No XML description found for ROM").  But then you got me thinking... So I looked inside hi2txt.zip at agallet.xml and it's only looking for the hi file.  

I've seen other hi2txt xml's that will actually scan both the hi file the nvram folder.  This one doesn't.  That's why I'm fairly confident there's an issue with Elhora's MAME setup.  The problem is, it's probably going to be one of those forehead slap, simple - overlooked things. ;) 

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I’ve been meaning to post about this for a long time but it looks like their is a faulty high score on Dig Dug. The high score is like 1,515,101 or something close to that. I remember when high score feature first came out a few games were posting this for some reason and it was a glitch in on the LB side. Just wondering if this score can be corrected or removed. I don’t think it was malicious.

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10 hours ago, coreyhustle said:

I’ve been meaning to post about this for a long time but it looks like their is a faulty high score on Dig Dug. The high score is like 1,515,101 or something close to that. I remember when high score feature first came out a few games were posting this for some reason and it was a glitch in on the LB side. Just wondering if this score can be corrected or removed. I don’t think it was malicious.

As best I can tell, this looks like it was a faulty score. I went ahead and removed the score.

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On 10/11/2020 at 4:56 PM, neil9000 said:

You dont have to have cheats downloaded for them to be enabled. Check your mame.ini and see if there is a 1 after the cheats, 1 is enabled 0 is not enabled.

image.thumb.png.b592f89a51856435c0d87e3e991d45c4.png

What about the cheat and cheatfind settings in the MAME plugin.ini file?  Both of those are set to on.

Edited by Rombo Deadfish
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Hi, struggling to get a couple of games working.  Most of my games are working fine, reporting the hi scores as you would expect, so I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with my setup.  Specific games include Mr Do's Castle and Crazy Kong.  I've attached the log file specific to Do Castle in the spoiler below.  I've tried deleting the cfg file and the hi file, but to no avail.  I'm scoring over 20k so it would definitely be appearing in at least the weekly scores list.  If I play one of the alternative versions the hi scores are recorded in my profile, but not the original game.  I've tried a different rom file.  Help!!!  Most likely something really stupid and obvious, but this is doing my head in :D

 

Spoiler

2020-10-21 11:27:49 AM Unbroken.LaunchBox.Windows.Desktop.ViewModels.MainViewModel.window.Activated Start
2020-10-21 11:27:49 AM Unbroken.LaunchBox.Windows.Desktop.ViewModels.MainViewModel.window.Activated Before JoystickTimer Enabled Set
2020-10-21 11:27:49 AM Unbroken.LaunchBox.Windows.Desktop.ViewModels.MainViewModel.window.Activated Before Resume Video
2020-10-21 11:27:49 AM Unbroken.LaunchBox.Windows.Desktop.ViewModels.MainViewModel.window.Activated Before Check Already Focused
2020-10-21 11:27:50 AM MameHighScores.Parse: Running the following hi2txt command:
"C:\Users\bigba\LaunchBox\ThirdParty\hi2txt\hi2txt.exe" -trace -r "C:\Users\bigba\Dropbox (Personal)\Kevin Cloud\Games\MAMEv22\hi\DOCASTLE.hi" -hiscoredat "C:\Users\bigba\Dropbox (Personal)\Kevin Cloud\Games\MAMEv22\plugins\hiscore\hiscore.dat"
2020-10-21 11:27:52 AM Processing hi2txt output for DOCASTLE:
TRACE: working directory: C:\Users\bigba\LaunchBox
TRACE: hiscore.dat: C:\Users\bigba\Dropbox (Personal)\Kevin Cloud\Games\MAMEv22\plugins\hiscore\hiscore.dat
TRACE: game high score: C:\Users\bigba\Dropbox (Personal)\Kevin Cloud\Games\MAMEv22\hi\DOCASTLE.hi
TRACE: game detected: DOCASTLE
TRACE: potential file containing hiscore: C:\Users\bigba\Dropbox (Personal)\Kevin Cloud\Games\MAMEv22\hi\DOCASTLE.hi
ERROR: No XML description found for ROM 'DOCASTLE'
2020-10-21 11:27:52 AM MameHighScores.Parse: No new scores found to upload!
2020-10-21 11:27:52 AM GameDetailsViewModel AttachView LoadVideoMusic Start
2020-10-21 11:27:52 AM GameDetailsViewModel LoadVideoMusic MusicNotPlaying Start
2020-10-21 11:27:52 AM Music.Prepare Start
2020-10-21 11:27:52 AM Music.Kill Start
2020-10-21 11:27:52 AM GameDetailsViewModel LoadVideoMusic MusicNotPlaying Complete
2020-10-21 11:27:52 AM GameDetailsViewModel AttachView LoadVideoMusic Completed
2020-10-21 11:27:52 AM Music.Kill Finished
2020-10-21 11:27:53 AM GameDetailsViewModel.Dispose: Begin...
2020-10-21 11:27:53 AM Music.NotifyTrackList Start
2020-10-21 11:27:53 AM GameDetailsViewModel.Dispose: Star rating faded nulling...
2020-10-21 11:27:53 AM Music.NotifyTrackList Invoke WPF
2020-10-21 11:27:53 AM GameDetailsViewModel.Dispose: Video control dispose...
2020-10-21 11:27:53 AM GameDetailsViewModel.Dispose: Video control nulling...
2020-10-21 11:27:53 AM GameDetailsViewModel.Dispose: Invoking UI thread...
2020-10-21 11:27:53 AM GameDetailsViewModel.Dispose: Nulling out all image sources...
2020-10-21 11:27:53 AM GameDetailsViewModel.Dispose: Marking disposed true...
2020-10-21 11:27:53 AM GameDetailsViewModel.Dispose: Completed.
2020-10-21 11:28:04 AM Unbroken.LaunchBox.Windows.Desktop.ViewModels.MainViewModel.window.Deactivated Start
2020-10-21 11:28:05 AM Unbroken.LaunchBox.Windows.Desktop.ViewModels.MainViewModel.window.Deactivated Before Pause Video
2020-10-21 11:28:05 AM Unbroken.LaunchBox.Windows.Desktop.ViewModels.MainViewModel.window.Deactivated Completed
 

 

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In your MAME "hi" folder, is your "docastle.hi" actually being saved as "DOCASTLE.hi"?   Or is your MAME rom file called "DOCASTLE.zip"?  (Caps vs lowercase)

3 hours ago, bbk70 said:

ERROR: No XML description found for ROM 'DOCASTLE'

hi2txt is case sensitive when it comes to looking for the corresponding xml files.  That is, it'll find "docastle.xml", but not "DOCASTLE.xml"

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43 minutes ago, JoeViking245 said:

In your MAME "hi" folder, is your "docastle.hi" actually being saved as "DOCASTLE.hi"?   Or is your MAME rom file called "DOCASTLE.zip"?  (Caps vs lowercase)

hi2txt is case sensitive when it comes to looking for the corresponding xml files.  That is, it'll find "docastle.xml", but not "DOCASTLE.xml"

Thanks Joe, you're an absolute hero!  I had to muck around a bit before I realised that I had to change the file name AND the extension (bloody Windows!) and then change the launch file name Launchbox as well (as Windows IS case sensitive!).  Now just got to go back and get that high score again :(

Cheers, much kudos!

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1 hour ago, Rombo Deadfish said:

I think that I solved my cheats enable issue.  It was already disabled in the MAME settings file but enabled in the Plug In settings.  I disabled it but am still having an issue.  Please review the attached log file.

 

Debug 2020-10-25 02-58-26 PM.log 46.74 kB · 1 download

Says in the log:

ERROR: Wrong STAGE value (0x0F) encoding detected: it can be due to a temporary corrupted .hi or nvram file
2020-10-25 03:54:39 PM MameHighScores.Parse: No new scores found to upload!

Might try moving to a temp location outside MAME or deleting these two files (I would try the nvram first):

  • C:\LaunchBox\Emulators\Mame\nvram\digdug\earom
  • C:\LaunchBox\Emulators\Mame\hi\digdug.hi

 

Edited by sundogak
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24 minutes ago, sundogak said:

Says in the log:


ERROR: Wrong STAGE value (0x0F) encoding detected: it can be due to a temporary corrupted .hi or nvram file
2020-10-25 03:54:39 PM MameHighScores.Parse: No new scores found to upload!

Might try moving to a temp location outside MAME or deleting these two files (I would try the nvram first):

  • C:\LaunchBox\Emulators\Mame\nvram\digdug\earom
  • C:\LaunchBox\Emulators\Mame\hi\digdug.hi

 

The is no digdig.hi file.

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