Troubleshooting MAME High Scores

[Jason Carr]

I'm in agreement with pretty much everybody here. It's worth noting that it is straight up impossible to prevent 100% of the cheating due to the nature of emulation. Anybody could alter the emulator, alter the ROM, or any number of things, so it's never gonna be 100% cheat-proof. That said, I agree that we should do whatever we can to prevent casual cheating, so that at least it's difficult. But again, we're limited as to what MAME allows us to do.

Per the .cfg files, at this point I don't think we can just delete them on startup. However, I will examine the contents of the files to see if there's any way I can modify them to remove only certain customizations, to see if that helps things.

[Jason Carr]

I've only tested a couple of games, but it looks like every time a dip switch is adjusted for a game in MAME, the line in the .cfg file looks like this:

<port tag=":DSWA" type="DIPSWITCH" mask="48" defvalue="48" value="16" />
<port tag=":DSWA" type="DIPSWITCH" mask="192" defvalue="64" value="0" />

So in theory, all I have to do is parse the .cfg file and remove any port tags that contain type="DIPSWITCH". So that may be a good solution. The only question I have is whether that will affect anyone's controls or other important configurations.

Also, does anyone use dip switches for changing anything other than cheating-related things?

[ItchyRobot]

10 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

I've only tested a couple of games, but it looks like every time a dip switch is adjusted for a game in MAME, the line in the .cfg file looks like this:

<port tag=":DSWA" type="DIPSWITCH" mask="48" defvalue="48" value="16" />
<port tag=":DSWA" type="DIPSWITCH" mask="192" defvalue="64" value="0" />

So in theory, all I have to do is parse the .cfg file and remove any port tags that contain type="DIPSWITCH". So that may be a good solution. The only question I have is whether that will affect anyone's controls or other important configurations.

Also, does anyone use dip switches for changing anything other than cheating-related things?

I can't answer that question, but it does remind me that I set my default.cfg to 'read only' due to MAMEs annoying default to wreck your controller settings if you unplug a controller when in MAME, or start up without the correct controller attached.

The only reason I bring that up is because I was thinking someone could just set their cfg files to 'read only' to keep you from changing them. Or, maybe it changes them temporarily to allow you to play, but does not overwrite the file....?

[Jason Carr]

3 minutes ago, ItchyRobot said:

I can't answer that question, but it does remind me that I set my default.cfg to 'read only' due to MAMEs annoying default to wreck your controller settings if you unplug a controller when in MAME, or start up without the correct controller attached.

The only reason I bring that up is because I was thinking someone could just set their cfg files to 'read only' to keep you from changing them. Or, maybe it changes them temporarily to allow you to play, but does not overwrite the file....?

In that case, we can just refuse to upload the high scores.

[Underoath13]

4 minutes ago, ItchyRobot said:

I can't answer that question, but it does remind me that I set my default.cfg to 'read only' due to MAMEs annoying default to wreck your controller settings if you unplug a controller when in MAME, or start up without the correct controller attached.

Thought about this too. I also do the read only thing, which I'm sure a lot of people do. You can still delete read only files though. Not sure how editing them would work.

[Underoath13]

2 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

In that case, we can just refuse to upload the high scores.

Good to hear ?

[Jason Carr]

I don't think we need to worry about default.cfg, just the game-specific cfg files. Maybe it would still be possible to cheat using default.cfg though? Not sure.

[neil9000]

23 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

Also, does anyone use dip switches for changing anything other than cheating-related things?

Turning on freeplay in some games, not that its really needed with infinite credits, but some games do still have it as a option.

[Jason Carr]

3 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Turning on freeplay in some games, not that its really needed with infinite credits, but some games do still have it as a option.

I see, good to know. I don't think that's a deal breaker though.

[Underoath13]

4 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

I don't think we need to worry about default.cfg, just the game-specific cfg files. Maybe it would still be possible to cheat using default.cfg though? Not sure.

default.cfg doesn't appear to be able to store any dip switch stuff, I was just worried about people settings game cfgs to read-only

[GreatStone]

3 hours ago, Underoath13 said:

@GreatStone

First off want to say I love your work and greatly appreciate what you do!

So I was wondering about contacting you, does hi2txt at free.fr really mean hi2txt@free.fr like an email address? Because I'm not sure how to contact you.

@Underoath13

That's the right email address  And thanks for the appreciation!

[GoGoGuy]

Just to add something else to the mix. There’s also the issue of people continuing. Some games add a digit to the score when continuing so this could be easily validated but others like Smash TV and Buck Rogers don’t. Looking in the dip switches finds no way of turning Continue  off. 

[Jason Carr]

32 minutes ago, GoGoGuy said:

Just to add something else to the mix. There’s also the issue of people continuing. Some games add a digit to the score when continuing so this could be easily validated but others like Smash TV and Buck Rogers don’t. Looking in the dip switches finds no way of turning Continue  off. 

Yeah, there's nothing we can do about that. Those games are and always were pay-to-win. So we're not going to be able to ever solve that problem. The good news though is that those games are relatively rare.

[EndersW]

Is there a certain forum section you want us to post games not uploading that are on the should work list?

 

[Gaelion]

On 4/17/2020 at 12:44 AM, Jason Carr said:

If you enable saving high scores, it disables save states, because of course that enables all kinds of cheating. You should be able to use save states again if you disable uploading high scores.

Is there an option to disable uploading high scores on a per game basis so i can still use savestates on some games? Maybe a command line option?

I don't want to disable it globally because there are indeed many games in which I like to upload my highscores. 

[Jason Carr]

2 minutes ago, Gaelion said:

Is there an option to disable uploading high scores on a per game basis so i can still use savestates on some games? Maybe a command line option?

I don't want to disable it globally because there are indeed many games in which I like to upload my highscores. 

Not currently. We may add something like that in the future, but unfortunately we have more priority things to tackle for the high scores currently.

[Jason Carr]

49 minutes ago, EndersW said:

Is there a certain forum section you want us to post games not uploading that are on the should work list?

This topic was originally designed for that, though it's been a bit all over the place. Please read the first post of this topic though, if you haven't already.

[Gaelion]

19 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

Not currently. We may add something like that in the future, but unfortunately we have more priority things to tackle for the high scores currently.

Thanks for the quick reply.
Hope it gets added at some point
In the meantime I can still launch the game directly from MAME for those games where I prefer using savestates over uploading highscores.

[MadK9]

I personally don't see the DIP Switches as cheats though, they are an integral part of the actual arcade machine. I get why they may need to be looked at, but they are not cheats and should not be classed as.

Having worked in the industry for a number of years, we changed dips on a regular basis, machines that were popular normally had their DIPS set high, and vice versa for poor performing machines, during quiet times games had dips lowered as it was more locals playing than tourists. 

While i get the need for a fair and level playing field for the leaderboards, the machines themselves have this option, it's not an external addition needed to invoke them. 

This is my personal view on it, but i respect any decision that may or may not be made about them.

 

[Jason Carr]

54 minutes ago, MadK9 said:

I personally don't see the DIP Switches as cheats though, they are an integral part of the actual arcade machine. I get why they may need to be looked at, but they are not cheats and should not be classed as.

Having worked in the industry for a number of years, we changed dips on a regular basis, machines that were popular normally had their DIPS set high, and vice versa for poor performing machines, during quiet times games had dips lowered as it was more locals playing than tourists. 

While i get the need for a fair and level playing field for the leaderboards, the machines themselves have this option, it's not an external addition needed to invoke them. 

This is my personal view on it, but i respect any decision that may or may not be made about them.

It doesn't really matter whether dip switches are cheating or not. What matters is a level playing field, which unfortunately isn't really possible while allowing dip switch changes.