FBNeo high score saving trouble

WeirdH

Some of my FBNeo games (launched from the arcade folder) don't save high scores, even though they are present in the hiscore.dat file.

Two such offenders are Turbo Outrun (toutrun.zip) and A.B. Cop (abcop.zip). But Donkey Kong (dkong.zip) and Dig Dug (digdug.zip) for instance, save their scores just fine, so it's not core wide.

I have encountered this problem before in Mame2003-plus and solved it by copying over another version of hiscore.dat, but I have already tried three different ones for FBNeo to no avail.

I also tried various things found in other threads, like disabling auto save config in RGUI. All hiscores settings in Retroarch core options are also set to 'enabled'.

What am I missing here?

Pi Model: 3B+
Power Supply used: 5A
RetroPie Version Used: 4.5.13

barbudreadmon

@WeirdH said in FBNeo high score saving trouble:

What am I missing here?

In which hiscore.dat file did you see abcop ? This one appears to be missing from official's, probably because the game keeps track of hiscores & credits through nvram anyway, meaning it doesn't even require a hiscore.dat file to keep hiscores.

dankcushions

the presence of them in the hiscore.dat does not mean that FBN has them marked as supporting hiscores. a flag needs to be set in the code. https://www.fbalpha.com/view/138/

i’m guessing if you look in the code for these games you will see the flag is not set.

WeirdH

@barbudreadmon said in FBNeo high score saving trouble:

In which hiscore.dat file did you see abcop ? This one appears to be missing from official's, probably because the game keeps track of hiscores & credits through nvram anyway, meaning it doesn't even require a hiscore.dat file to keep hiscores.

None, it turns out. Must have had that one confused with another one I tested. Still, A.B. Cop doesn't save scores. There also isn't a .nv file for it in the roms\arcade\fbneo folder, only a .fs.

@dankcushions said in FBNeo high score saving trouble:

the presence of them in the hiscore.dat does not mean that FBN has them marked as supporting hiscores. a flag needs to be set in the code. https://www.fbalpha.com/view/138/

i’m guessing if you look in the code for these games you will see the flag is not set.

Ah, I didn't know that. Could very well be. I don't know how to look in the code, however. Is there some sort of compatibility list for those flags?

barbudreadmon

@WeirdH The abcop.fs file is the "nvram", actually the term "nvram" might be misleading, fbneo's "nvram" can be either .fs or .nv, the .nv files are dumps of the eeprom, while the .fs files are actually minimalist savestates where we only store things like the backup ram. It's weird that it's not working for you, it's not keeping the number of credits either when you exit/relaunch the game ? Does it say "EEPROM successfully loaded" in logs ? What's the size of your .fs file ? 3180 bytes ?

I confirm toutrun doesn't implement hiscores in FBNeo atm, i wrote the code to add support yesterday but i need to confirm something with FBNeo dev buddies before committing it (probably not before monday).

WeirdH

@barbudreadmon said in FBNeo high score saving trouble:

@WeirdH The abcop.fs file is the "nvram", actually the term "nvram" might be misleading, fbneo's "nvram" can be either .fs or .nv, the .nv files are dumps of the eeprom, while the .fs files are actually minimalist savestates where we only store things like the backup ram.

That clears things up.

Does it say "EEPROM successfully loaded" in logs ?

Well, rats... I went to create and check a log and suddenly credits and scores are being saved! Problem solved, I guess.

I confirm toutrun doesn't implement hiscores in FBNeo atm, i wrote the code to add support yesterday but i need to confirm something with FBNeo dev buddies before committing it (probably not before monday).

Okay, good to know, thanks for checking up.

WeirdH

@WeirdH said in FBNeo high score saving trouble:

But Donkey Kong (dkong.zip) and Dig Dug (digdug.zip) for instance, save their scores just fine, so it's not core wide.

Despite my earlier claim, Dig Dug appears to NOT save high scores. Must've gotten that one mixed up as well... Is it also one of the games for which the flag isn't set in the code?

barbudreadmon

@WeirdH said in FBNeo high score saving trouble:

Is it also one of the games for which the flag isn't set in the code?

Nope, it seems hiscore support was somehow broken in the galaga driver when xevious support was added, no idea what's wrong though, i'll have to rely on fbneo dev buddies for this one. I'll commit the outrun driver hiscore support later today.

WeirdH

@barbudreadmon said in FBNeo high score saving trouble:

I'll commit the outrun driver hiscore support later today.

Hi, has this been committed yet? I just updated from source and Turbo Outrun still doesn't save score for me.

barbudreadmon

@WeirdH nope, it appears toutrun emulation is a bit broken (it's what we call a "barry harris driver"), my PR is fixing hiscores in other games from the same driver though. Since i can't figure out what's wrong, dink told me he would take a look when he has time, but tbh it's low priority.

digdug hiscores are fixed though.

WeirdH

@barbudreadmon Alright, that's good to know. Thanks for replying and all the work is still very much appreciated! Also, I don't know who Barry Harris is.

mitu

@WeirdH said in FBNeo high score saving trouble:

Also, I don't know who Barry Harris is.

It's the former FBAlpha project member that decided to - illegally - license the emulator to Koch Media for the Capcom Home Arcade and caused all the other developers to fork the project as FBNeo.

WeirdH

Ah, thanks for that! Google only turned up a 90 year old jazz pianist. :D

barbudreadmon

@WeirdH we finally figured out the issue with the toutrun hiscores : for some reason, the second memory zone for this game (@:maincpu,program,60909,1,09,09) must be removed/commented from hiscore.dat. The hiscore i provide at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/libretro/FBNeo/master/metadata/hiscore.dat has been updated & patched

WeirdH

@barbudreadmon Hey, I only just had the time to check it out. It works flawlessly, thanks a lot! Now if I could only improve my Outrunning skills to match...

WeirdH

@barbudreadmon said in FBNeo high score saving trouble:

The hiscore i provide at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/libretro/FBNeo/master/metadata/hiscore.dat has been updated & patched

Just noticed this for the first time, but am I correct in stating FBneo doesn't save hiscores for Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man?

barbudreadmon

@WeirdH said in FBNeo high score saving trouble:

am I correct in stating FBneo doesn't save hiscores for Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man?

No, those games should support hiscores.

WeirdH

@barbudreadmon Well, crap. Something is off then. Any idea what might be the cause? I only just copied over the .dat from your earlier post...

barbudreadmon

@WeirdH said in FBNeo high score saving trouble:

Any idea what might be the cause?

No, i just tested, it works for me. One thing that can throw off hiscores is readahead, maybe you enabled it for those games ?

NB : those games don't save name, only highest score to show it at the top

WeirdH

@barbudreadmon said in FBNeo high score saving trouble:

NB : those games don't save name, only highest score to show it at the top

I know, but even those aren't saved.

Afaik I don't have runahead enabled. Is there anything in Retroarch or core options that could affect the functionality?