High Scores not saving in FinalBurnAlpha

mitu

@impman66 Which folder are you using ? arcade or fba ?

Impman66

@mitu I am using Arcade, do I need to put all my roms for fbalpha in the fba folder, and would deleting the *.state and *.state.auto file help, as I think previously I setup retroarch to save autosave on exit.

mitu

@impman66 Ok, so if you have the ROM in the arcade folder, the .hi file should be found under arcade/fba. I don't think the save file (or the auto-save) should impact this.

Impman66

@mitu said in High Scores not saving in FinalBurnAlpha:

@impman66 Ok, so if you have the ROM in the arcade folder, the .hi file should be found under arcade/fba. I don't think the save file (or the auto-save) should impact this.

Hi Mitu, thanks for this, have just obtained a couple of hi scores on different games and neither one has saved a .hi file in the location stated, I thought that pacland was a game that saved hi scores, I also did Pooyan, previously the hiscore for this produced a file in the bios/fba folder, I know as I deleted it along with pacland as this (reading other threads) could have become corrupted.
So I know both should produce a ,hi file but aren't doing so. Could there be a config conflict causing issues?
I have a couple of .hi files in MAME2003, yet those games are in the Arcade folder too,

mitu

@impman66 When did you last update lr-fbalpha ? Did you update from source or binary ? The fix for hiscore location was pretty recent (https://github.com/libretro/fbalpha/issues/171), it might not be included with the binary update. I updated from source - before that the .hi file was saved along with the hiscore.dat, in the BIOS folder.

Impman66

@mitu I updated from source as a few have recommended to do so. I will shut-down the pi completely and go again. I have deleted the state and state.auto files just in case.
I will also move the Pooyan rom to fba folder and test to see if that works, all this may hopefully help others. Fingers crossed.

Impman66

OK put Pooyan rom in FBA folder within Arcade folder first - no .hi file was created. However, after getting a couple of high scores, it did create a new fba folder that had nothing in it.
I then tried putting it directly into the fba folder within the ROM directory. Again no .hi file produced but a new fba folder was created, with nothing in it.
Knocking it on the head tonight as it is getting late.
Thanks for all help @mitu

dankcushions

@impman66 said in High Scores not saving in FinalBurnAlpha:

I think previously I setup retroarch to save autosave on exit.

i would turn that off whilst investigating this issue

barbudreadmon

@impman66 lr-fbalpha is storing .hi files in the same folder than .nv and .fs files, which is the fba subfolder of what is defined as savefile_directory in your retroarch.cfg (default to the rom folder if nothing is defined, i don't recommend this), the folder is created by the core if it does not exist.

I guess you made sure hiscores are enabled in the core options so if the folder/files are not created, the only think that comes to mind is that you don't have the write permissions for that folder. What's the output for "ls -l path/to/the/folder" ?

Impman66

@barbudreadmon Ah, really don't know to tell the truth, as I say I am a complete beginner, how do I enable hiscores in the core options, and how do I find the output for "ls -l path/to/the/folder" . Hopefully, these posts that you and @mitu have been helping me with will help lots of others.
Thanks in advance

BobHarris

@impman66 If all else fails, you can just use a savestate to store your highscores. I actually quite like it; for example in Street fighter iii i keep several savestates for sets of highscores on different challenges (difficulty,number of rounds stuff like that).

Impman66

@bobharris Thanks Bob will see how things go.

mitu

@impman66 Hiscores should already be enabled (they're enabled by default), but you can check by pressing Select + X while in-game and this will open up the menu for RetroArch. The setting is under 'Options' (I think).
As for checking the permissions - you need to execute the command

ls -l /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/fba

from a command prompt. Either plug in a keyboard and exit Emulationstation, or use SSH to connect to the RetroPie. The output should be something like

pi@retropie:~ $ ls -l /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/fba
total 20
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 128 Jan  4 19:22 1944.nv
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 128 Jan  7 20:28 ddonpach.nv
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  94 Jan  8 19:16 gngt.hi
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 612 Jan  7 20:33 redearth.fs
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 412 Jan  7 20:43 sfiii.fs

Impman66

@mitu That's great thanks will check a bit later, and get back to you all. Again thank you so much

Impman66

@mitu said in High Scores not saving in FinalBurnAlpha:

@impman66 Hiscores should already be enabled (they're enabled by default), but you can check by pressing Select + X while in-game and this will open up the menu for RetroArch. The setting is under 'Options' (I think).
As for checking the permissions - you need to execute the command
ls -l /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/fba
from a command prompt. Either plug in a keyboard and exit Emulationstation, or use SSH to connect to the RetroPie. The output should be something like
pi@retropie:~ $ ls -l /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/fba
total 20
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 128 Jan  4 19:22 1944.nv
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 128 Jan  7 20:28 ddonpach.nv
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  94 Jan  8 19:16 gngt.hi
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 612 Jan  7 20:33 redearth.fs
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 412 Jan  7 20:43 sfiii.fs

Did the check and got
total 8
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 128 Jan 11 19:57 1944.nv
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 88 Jan 11 20:01 galagao.fs

That's it, also checked the options file and hiscore is enabled. May be Pacland and Pooyan are not hi-score enabled.
Will play another and see what happens.

mitu

@impman66 said in High Scores not saving in FinalBurnAlpha:

May be Pacland and Pooyan are not hi-score enabled.

They are. Try disabling auto save on exit, as @dankcushions suggested, then get a hiscore and exit the emulator normally. The .hi file is written when you exit the game.

EDIT: just checked by loading the pacland.zip ROM file and the pacland.hi file was created ok in the arcade/fba folder, even without getting a hiscore.

Impman66

@mitu Odd that,

I am now updating Retroarch by source as I deleted a number of config files.
Downloaded, redid the configurations of the gamepads.
Now retroarch has reverted back to the old style green lettering instead of the modern look, also the *.hi files ARE saving only in the BIOS/FBA folder. Also, the high score tables are all corrupted - an issue that should be cured by replacing the hiscore.dat file with the one mentioned in other threads. did this and it still goes in BIOS folder. Nearly midnight here so will have a go tomorrow, thanks for all help! Night

barbudreadmon

@impman66 Are you sure you updated the core to the latest version ? What does it say in the bottom left corner when you open the retroarch menu (i want the commit) ?

Impman66

@barbudreadmon said in High Scores not saving in FinalBurnAlpha:

@impman66 Are you sure you updated the core to the latest version ? What does it say in the bottom left corner when you open the retroarch menu (i want the commit) ?

Sorry don't know how to get a commit. But version says 1.6.9 - No Core

Will update again from binary just in case

After updating from binary still showing same version

barbudreadmon

@impman66 you get the core version with its commit in the bottom left corner, but you need to load a core for this.