Let's help Skeezix & b_o_b add games to Compo4all MAME


Mr_Loon

Can't Remember
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Skeezix has requested help from the community to add games to Compo4all MAME

The request was made in this post, here's how it works (initial instructions from Skeezix, now slightly edited) :

________________

b_o_b is now the master of games as per this thread.

________________

From Panmame

i) Try each game someone wants, and verify that if you register a score, and then quit panmame, and try it again, is your score is still there? if so, make a note of the score you acheived + the name you entered on the hi score chart, then quit Panmame

ii) Browse to appdata/panmame/hi and remove the relevant hiscore  file from this directory (will be called gamezipname.hi, or possibly .dat), place the file you removed in a directory called c4ahiscore (or some other obvious name)

iii) After you have removed the file with the hiscore restart panmame and run the game in question, let it boot ; then quit without playing, quit Panmame, and remove the .hi file without your hiscore, place this file in a directory called c4vanilla (or some other obvious name)
 

iv) Create a text file that shows the zip name of the game you played, your score & what you entered as your name.

v) Zip the directories c4ahiscore & c4vanilla and the text file with the scores + names and attach the zip to a post in this thread (you may need to click full reply options to attach a file)

What should be in the text file : 

Zip name of game played +
Name entered on hiscore table (if applicable)
Score achieved

For example playing zaxon.zip

If the table has:
50,000
30,000
10,000

And you score 12200 & enter A1Z, then let me know :

Game : zaxon.zip, Name : A1Z, Score : 12200

Those items will let me (skeezix) add new games quick.

__________________________________________________

It seems to make sense to have a dedicated thread for this to avoid duplicated effort and make it nice & easy for Skeezix to find the list of games to be added.

So if people could post the following for games to be added it would be great :

Name of game, e.g Frogger (Sega Set 1)

Name of Zip, e.g Frogseg1

and then attach the untouched Dat File & the Dat file with the high score to the post using the attach files function under the reply box.

@ Skeezix, if you'd rather do this a different way / have the .hi files submitted directly to you, then no worries, just tell us how you want to do it.
 
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I've just done a quick few -

Berzerk (berzerk.zip)

Battlezone (bzone.zip)

Centipede (centiped.zip)

Crazy Balloon (crbaloon.zip)

DigDug (digdug.zip)

Frogger (frogger.zip)

Gravitar (gravitar.zip)

Millipede (milliped.zip)

all proved to have persisting high scores, attached zip has two folders with the same save files - one has the defaults, one has the files containing a single high score I entered.

(apologies for the zip's extracting path, once again used Squeeze to zip it and it always seems to retain the added folder's path.. I'm not overly familiar with it obviously ;) )

EDIT: Tried Crystal Castles, it's scores didn't persist.

EDIT: Added extra attached text file with my score info for comparison

PanMameSaves.zip
 

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A couple more

Black Tiger : blktiger.zip : 21050 : AAA
Flicky : flicky.zip : 39300 : AAA

compo4allgames.zip
 

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In the 'Release' thread, there is a long set of instructions, but I think the quick points above probably sum it up just as well :)

The trick for me is..

- knowing that the mame hiscore stuff is working, to save me screwing aroudn only to find it isn't (and I've not the time to be hacking on mame right now..)

- having a vanilla file (I use that to send down to c4a client, so you've got a clear table each tiem you fire up a game.. makes it much easier to detect new scores, than when I was sending down generated tables full of existing scores from other people.)

- having a scored file -- so I can find out how your score went in there.

Now ideally, put in initials A1Z (say), so I can see the character set in use. I forgot to mention that.. maybe update top post.

Also, ideally, let me know the score you achieved.. so if the table has:

50,000

30,000

10,000

And you score 12200, thjen let me know 'my name is A1Z and scores 12200', then I can go hunting for that stuff in the dat file. But even comparing the vanilal to a scored file usually gives me a good clue :)

I'm pretty tied up the last little while (sick babies :eek: )m, so havek't had much forum time .. so yeah, keep at this stuff, it'll be a great help.

Otherwise I end up having to play the games, achieve a score (which can be hard!), and then do the analkysis.. eats up a lot more time :)

Thanks guys,

jeff
 
...


maybe update top post.


... 

Edited the top post, hope it was correct to change dat files to .hi files, couldn't find any dat files.


Will edit scores + name on the post above for my submissions.


Hope the kids get well soon & thanks again for bringing back that feeling of having a local arcade full of classic games.  :D
 
Edited my 1st post to add the extra info (attached text file has my scores noted)

@Mr Loon - it seems to be game related whether a .hi or .dat is created - some games do one, some the other, might be best to leave them as is?
 
OK, Ill move my list so far over here...

PanMAME game list here of games that retain high scores....

10-Yard fight (not a good candidate since there is a Dip Switch setting for invulnerability)
1941 - Counter Attack
1942
1943: The Battle of Midway
1945k III (an excellent thousand-bullet hell game)
4-D Warriors (just weird)
Act-Fancer Cybernetick Hyper Weapon (another weird one)
Aero Fighters
Air Buster
Air Duel
Airwolf
Aliens
Anteater
Arbalester
Armed Formation

Ashura Blaster

Asteroids Deluxe (can't make regular Asteroids work on PanMAME)

Bank Panic

Battle Bakraid

Battle Garegga

Berzerk

Black Hole

Black Widow

I'm embarrassingly unable to verify Arkanoid, just not good enough at it with the Pandy controls.
Same goes for Arkanoid 2 - Revenge of DOH.
I tried to verify R-Type but I can't. Embarrassingly, I am not good enough at it to get on any scoreboard.
I CAN confirm Frogger works.
Can't confirm Scramble, can't make the controls work...aren't you supposed to be able to fire forward as well as drop bombs in that game?
I do not possess AD&D Towers of Doom
Happily, I can verify Time Pilot. It works. Even better, Time Pilot '84 works!
Now, for Gradius, you need to use the ROM for "Nemesis" and it does work.
Road Blasters would not work at speed on my unit, so I don't have it on there.
 
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....

@Mr Loon - it seems to be game related whether a .hi or .dat is created - some games do one, some the other, might be best to leave them as is?
Not seen one .dat file yet, will edit the OP though

@ Skeezix : I've tried to streamline / clarify the instructions a little, do they look OK?

@ Kumaki : It might be better to provide the .hi files for one or two games you really want to see as there is still quite a lot of work to be done once it is proven that a hi score can be saved. From the blog :

There are Single-score games (Galaxian, Ms Pacman) versus Multi-score tables (most games). Do they store things in row-blocks (score, initials, stage for row1, then repeat for row2) or do they stripe-it (score1, score2, score3, initials1, initials2, initials3), or something else?  if a game stores a single score, its pretty easy to figure out… there is probably just a block of 20 bytes somewhere… a score, and some initials, and maybe a stage-reached, or how long it took to get to. For high score tables, it can be messier, but usually they’re fairly easy to spot. Especially with some quick fiddling… the MAME guys have done an awesome job of saying ‘where the high score is, roughly’, but have not decoded it. But you run a game, wait for the attract mode to cycle and show the table, and you pause and write it down. 50,000, 40,000, 30,000… okay, look for those encoded one way or another in a block of RAM. When you find it, you’re gold.

Decoding… is it BCD (binary coded decimal), or pure byte value? Big or little endian? Or display-wise (where 30,000 is 5 bytes in a row, for each character) ? Are letters using ASCII like many modern games, or using a game-specific sequence? i.e. byte value 0-9 for numbers and 10-36 for English uppercase? What about punctuation? Or some other scheme?

Once I’ve got the vanilla untouched table, and a couple modified (scored on) tables, I can generally figure it out; the server needs to have these untouched scores on its side, so it can compare to incoming scores to figure out whats changed, and to send down the untouched (or generated or live streaming) scoreboards.
 
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A few more done, same as before - zip has both vanilla high score files and ones with my score entered, also text file with the relevant info.

Defender (defender.zip)

Mappy (mappy.zip)

Amidar (amidar.zip)

Galaga (galaga.zip)

Final Fight (ffight.zip)

Ladybug (ladybug.zip)

Asteroids (asteroid.zip)

The New Zealand Story (tnzs.zip)

There are a few others I tried with odd results - Robotron works (ie it keeps my high score) but creates no file of any kind in the hi folder...

PanMameSaves2.zip
 

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Where do I find these hi files?

Sorry, but I only know to play a game, get on a scoreboard, then go out and come back and see if the score is still there.  If it is, then I put it on my list.  If not, then it stays off my list.

Sorry, I just don't know to do more than that.
 
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The hi files shoukd be in panmame appdatA in the 'hi' directory, named after the rom


The instructions up top look great.


Try to use initials A1Z if you can .. Knowing A and Z tells me how they encode the letters, and knowing 1 tells me for the numbers :) AAA is pretty good too so no need to redo


This is great .. I'll cherry pick a few :) and grow support iver time. You guys doing the footwork will make it 5x faster!


On my phone, will try checking in later


I'd like to client update soon, maybe handle offline mode


Long term I'm going to rewrite the server to be more robust soit can handle multiple leagues, multiple devices (like desktop), etc.. So maybe add a pile more games, then rest it a bit while i redo to graphical client and robust server..


Then the new server will let you post desktop results (say), and website can let you pick which league and which platforms to show.. So you could see pandora, or pandora+desktop, or r-pi, etc..


Jeffphone
 
So do I upload files here or what?

And how do I actually do that?

Sorry, but I a real idiot when it comes to this stuff.

Never mind, I see the Attach Files button.  Sheesh...
 
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Bad news.

Centipede does not seem to save,  Nutz.

But here are Bomb Jack, Bosconian and Burger Time.

NUTS!!!

It won't let me upload the damn files.  It says I am not authorized!!

I have the damn files.  Now how do I get them up here?!?!?

Also, City Connection seems to work...and I REALLY LOVE this game!
 
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Bad news.

Centipede does not seem to save,  Nutz.

But here are Bomb Jack, Bosconian and Burger Time.

NUTS!!!

It won't let me upload the damn files.  It says I am not authorized!!

I have the damn files.  Now how do I get them up here?!?!?
Centipede does retain highscores, at least it did for me - it's in one of the batches I submitted above!

Maybe the board doesn't let you upload files with certain extensions (or actual folders, if that's what was tried), so best to zip them first (you can do that with squeeze that is part of the Pandora's accessories). If you open one of the zips I posted you'll see the way I've separated the two clean/with score files and added a text file with the details, then just used squeeze to zip the folder all that is in and attached it to the post.

@Skeezix - I'll use A1Z from now on, if you want a redo on any of the above just say..

and these done moments ago (not A1Z name registered!)

Pengo - pengo.zip

Burgertime - btime.zip

Lode Runner 4 - ldrun4.zip

Tried Q*Bert, it retains it's scores but doesn't create a .hi file

PanMameSaves3.zip
 

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Yes, calm down and try Asmos solution.
No need to get all mad with caps lock and a ton of ? and !

For a mod you are very impulsive. ;)
 
I can try that.  but I'm not too hopeful about the possibilities of succeeding, I really suck at all this high tech stuff, really.  There was a time when I was good before the technology moved past me.
 
In case a high score name of AAA is more useful (A1Z is tricky - most games don't allow numeric characters!) I've redone all the games I already submitted above. Maybe having duplicates with different names in the table might also help. The one or two games that don't record a name are also new, not repeats.

Berzerk (berzerk.zip)

Battlezone (bzone.zip)

Centipede (centiped.zip)

Crazy Balloon (crbaloon.zip)

DigDug (digdug.zip)

Frogger (frogger.zip)

Gravitar (gravitar.zip)

Millipede (milliped.zip)

Defender (defender.zip)

Mappy (mappy.zip)

Amidar (amidar.zip)

Galaga (galaga.zip)

Final Fight (ffight.zip)

Ladybug (ladybug.zip)

Asteroids (asteroid.zip)

The New Zealand Story (tnzs.zip)

Pengo - (pengo.zip)

Burgertime - (btime.zip)

Lode Runner 4 - (ldrun4.zip)

PanMameSaves_1-3_redone.zip
 

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