16 replies to this topic

[blur]

Latest FPLaunch has support for showing high scores and replay levels in exit menu for ALL tables - EM, SS and originals!

 

How is it done?

 

EM tables and originals without ROM

 

For EM tables and originals without ROM it is done according to thread: http://www.vpforums....topic=23143&hl=

 

Protocol is this:

 

Every EM or original table author has to save hiscore.txt file in vp\user directory on table init and I will show it on the screen in exit menu.

Table author can do it or you can edit table your self following easy instructions in the thread linked above.

 

It will look like this:

 

The idea is to put replay levels and high scores, but you can actually write what ever you want - script will show it.

You don't have to write first line - table file name - I'm writing that from fplaunch script.

Naming conventions may differ - someone will call it replay levels, someone replay scores, someone will say high score, or highest score, or high scores or highest scores - depending on how many hi scores table keeps - one or more. We can vote for naming convention - but in the end author has to put it in, and will put what he prefers.

 

SS tables and originals with ROM

 

For SS tables - this is done with great pinemhi utility - which now supports only high scores but could include replay levels also - in some future release.

Since finding place where replay levels are saved in nvram for all roms is tough job - any help regarding posting locations of replay levels in nvrams is welcomed and will help dna to include it faster to some of the next pinemhi releases.

 

I will post some examples how you search where are replay levels in nvrams later.

Edited by blur, 01 March 2013 - 04:56 PM.

[blur]

Here are instructions how you can find where are replay levels and high scores in nvram.

 

In short:

- find instructions for setting replay levels for your table

- set ONE replay level or high score to 0 and exit

- copy nvram

- set score to something else

- check with hex diff where are differences.

 

Example for Gottlieb System 1 and System 80:

- while you are in game press key 7 until you get to replay levels or high score.

- press 1 to set it to 0, when score is 0 go to next score with 7, otherwise first one will not be saved

- exit from VP (you can do all this from vpinmame setup tester also but some keys might be different - 7 might be 8) so nvram can be save and copy nvram

- open VP or vpinmame setup again and set this replay level/hiscore to something else - again by pressing 7 till you get to this score and by longer press on 1, press 7 to go to other scores but don't change them

- exit VP or vpinmame setup

- check with hex diff.

 

For hex diff I'm using notepad++ with hex editor plugin installed.

Edited by blur, 01 March 2013 - 11:49 AM.

[blur]

Here are results for The Amazing Spiderman 6-digits (all Gottlieb System 80 are same):

Replay scores are: 310 000, 430 000 and 590 000, hi score is 963211 (i changed last 00 to 11 manually in hex editor)

And offsets i found for them on are:

310 000 is from 36 to 3b backwards - meaning i see 00 00 00 00 01 03 in hex editor

Next replay score is 430 000 - it is from 3c to 41 - again backwards 00 00 00 00 03 04

And last replay score is from 42 to 47 - 00 00 00 00 09 05

Hi score is next one - from 48 to 4d - 01 01 02 03 06 09

 

This is just first occurrence of these numbers in nvram - they are repeated three times and if you want to change them manually in hex editor - you have to change at least two of them - third one will be changed automatically.

 

Since you just read it first occurrence is enough, i used to change them to see that i've got right locations.

Edited by blur, 01 March 2013 - 12:20 PM.

[blur]

Spiderman 7 digits hack - again same 6 positions are used for hi/replay score, only last position is always 0f - so first five positions make the score - and you have to multiply them by 10 or add 0 at the end.

 

for example first replay score 300.000 is 00 00 00   00 03 0f - on same positions as above

 

probably all 7 digits hacks use the same method.

[blur]

Gottlieb System 80a - like el dorado (used on jps's great eldorado EM/SS mod)

It's all the same as system 80 except - el dorado is 7 digits machine, and only first 6 digits are saved in hi score/replay score - so you have to multiply them  by ten or add 0 at the end of every replay/hi score

 

Gottlieb System 1 - like Sinbad, Pinball Pool, Genie, Totem, ...

It is even simpler - every address coresponds to the number that you see in setup menu (7, 8, 9 and 10)

 

so addresses are:

70 - 75 - first replay score (backwards - same as above)

80 - 85 - second

90 - 95 - third

a0 - a5 - highest score

Edited by blur, 01 March 2013 - 03:14 PM.

[DnaDisturber]

Hi blur,

I'm working on adding the replays in pinemhi.
Although i foresee one little problem concerning the newer games.

You have either auto replay or a number of fixed replays.
You can choose between them using the operator menu.

As pinemhi can't find out what is being used, you could get the wrong information about the replay score.
Best way would be to choose the bytes that hold the auto replay value as this is probably the default.
People could also change it in the ini if they know the location of the bytes.....
Maybe we can add the two entries , setting one on comment....

But that's for later....i guess.

I was wondering if you know the maximum number of replay levels you've come across?
The newer ones seem to have 4....stern potc etc and mm for instance, looking at the manuals...
Need to know how much i should program...

Edited by DnaDisturber, 01 March 2013 - 07:14 PM.

[blur]

great news dna - tnx for your hard work on pinemhi and pinemhi leaderboard

 

i never saw more then 3 on replay score cards - but if you know some with 4 you should maybe go for 5 possible scores just in case.

 

did you saw new pinemhi.ini with tables sorted by name and then "The" moved to the beginning of the line - it's in fplaunch wip 10 thread

 

about these new games - yup they are always complicated - more config lines would be great

Edited by blur, 01 March 2013 - 10:17 PM.

[DnaDisturber]

great news dna - tnx for your hard work on pinemhi and pinemhi leaderboard
 
i never saw more then 3 on replay score cards - but if you know some with 4 you should maybe go for 5 possible scores just in case.
 
did you saw new pinemhi.ini with tables sorted by name and then "The" moved to the beginning of the line - it's in fplaunch wip 10 thread
 
about these new games - yup they are always complicated - more config lines would be great

Thank you for your great work on fplaunch !

No didn't see the pinemhi.ini yet but i'm happy that you altered it.
I extracted the names using vpinmame , there is an option for that , except there was a mismatch between the descriptions and the real names.
Hope you don't mind if i steal it for he next release

I' ll let you know when i have a working version of pinemhi with replays.
I made an extra ini file where people can put the replays in
Then it only needs to be filled

Edited by DnaDisturber, 01 March 2013 - 10:44 PM.

[ta2686]

i never saw more then 3 on replay score cards - but if you know some with 4 you should maybe go for 5 possible scores just in case.

 

If I may interject here....

 

I know for a fact that you can set 4 replay levels on Bally/Midway/Williams WPC DMD tables.  You usually won't see that information on the scorecards as that is usually seen in the DMD (if I recall correctly).  However, usually those games are set for auto replay instead of fixed but even with auto replay for these tables you can set up to 4 replay levels.

 

There may be other tables that have more than 3 levels.  Someday I will get my replay level tutorials back up here.  Those tutorials detail how many replay levels can be set for a certain set of tables (by MPU).  It is just that right now I have more pressing personal matters to take care of.

[blur]

tnx guys, with replay levels in separate ini file and replay levels tutorials - we are good to go to start searching for replay levels in nvrams!

[blur]

DNA here is another idea.

 

Instead updating pinemhi with replay levels loading from ini file why not just make general update to load ANY data from nvram file - so that people can extend it with whatever data they found in nvram - and put whatever text they want on screen

 

Like this - you open another section in pinemhi.ini

[romdata]

and put in something like this:

 

romname.nv="REPLAY LEVELS\n$70-75\n$80-85\n$90-95\nHIGH SCORE\n$a0-a5"

 

this would be for all gottlieb system 1 tables which have:

70 - 75 - first replay score (backwards)

80 - 85 - second replay

90 - 95 - third

a0 - a5 - one high score

 

but for example - someone could check where is the number of played games in nvram and add it to the end, or someone could remove buy in high scores beacuse he doesn't use buy in button (he doesn't have it on a cab)

 

system 80A which has multiplication by 10 would be:

romname.nv="... ($36-3B)*10 or something like that

of course instead $ you can use anything that fits better, and for address we can use 0x36 instead of 36 if it makes parsing easier

 

when romdata is found you can even omit hiscores and let the parse string pull out everything - if there is no romdata found you can print just hiscores as before to make migration faster and easier, or in parse string we can have one special sign that means - ok, now put hi score data as before

 

oh and i forgot to say - dna you can use my fixed pinemhi.ini in next release, that's why i did it

Edited by blur, 03 March 2013 - 10:13 AM.

[DnaDisturber]

DNA here is another idea.

 

Instead updating pinemhi with replay levels loading from ini file why not just make general update to load ANY data from nvram file - so that people can extend it with whatever data they found in nvram - and put whatever text they want on screen

 

Like this - you open another section in pinemhi.ini

[romdata]

and put in something like this:

 

romname.nv="REPLAY LEVELS\n$70-75\n$80-85\n$90-95\nHIGH SCORE\n$a0-a5"

 

this would be for all gottlieb system 1 tables which have:

70 - 75 - first replay score (backwards)

80 - 85 - second replay

90 - 95 - third

a0 - a5 - one high score

 

but for example - someone could check where is the number of played games in nvram and add it to the end, or someone could remove buy in high scores beacuse he doesn't use buy in button (he doesn't have it on a cab)

 

system 80A which has multiplication by 10 would be:

romname.nv="... ($36-3B)*10 or something like that

of course instead $ you can use anything that fits better, and for address we can use 0x36 instead of 36 if it makes parsing easier

 

when romdata is found you can even omit hiscores and let the parse string pull out everything - if there is no romdata found you can print just hiscores as before to make migration faster and easier, or in parse string we can have one special sign that means - ok, now put hi score data as before

 

oh and i forgot to say - dna you can use my fixed pinemhi.ini in next release, that's why i did it

 

The replayscore-system is ready....only need to put some in the ini-file , (gottlieb bytes you posted for instance)

And add the roms that were added in vpinmame 2.5

 

The suggested method above would take quite some time to make it work smoothly....so I'll just leave it at the replays for now.

I can always add other stuff later on if there's demand for it.

 

I already took care of the buyins after i saw the post from Aurich. It's now an option to have the buyin scores also in the output.

 

 

p.s. The byte-adressess are in decimals in the ini-file......so if you have some other examples it would be nice to get the offsets in decimals (mostly you can easily change the view in your hexeditor to decimal

 

Edited by DnaDisturber, 05 March 2013 - 12:48 PM.

[blur]

great, tnx dna!

[DnaDisturber]

PINemHi version 1.2 released (for use with fplaunch)

 

Added  90 ROMS
Total Number of ROMS supported is now :      1142
Total Number of VP-Games supported is now : 388
Total Number of FP-Games supported is now :   All (standard top ten hiscore table)

replayscores support using an ini-file (added all roms from Gottlieb in pinemhi_replays.ini) (more will follow of course)
selection for VP whether to have the hiscores only , replayscores only or both on.
selection for VP whether to have the buy-in hiscores displayed
These selections can be configured within the pinemhi.ini file

romfind fixes for games that start with 'the" in pinemhi.ini - thanks blur
added 107 entries (new ones from vpinmame 2.5) to the romfind section in pinemhi.ini

Fixed Starship Troopers rom (startrp) not showing Conquered Klendathu
Fixed Rollercoaster Tycoon rom (rct600) not showing the right scores and initials
Fixed Who Dunnit rom (wd_03r) not showing the right initials
Fixed trucksp2 and trucksp3 not showing the right initials and scores - thanks freezy
Fixed tag-team pinball to display right scores in tag team mode as well
 

You can download it from http://www.pinemhi.com

 

 

Dna Disturber

[Whitecrow]

no more buy in scores, awesome. Thank you!!!!

 

star trek table still shows officers club but q continuum is gone, I think this is backwards but no biggie. Keep up the good work, much appreciated

[DnaDisturber]

no more buy in scores, awesome. Thank you!!!!
 
star trek table still shows officers club but q continuum is gone, I think this is backwards but no biggie. Keep up the good work, much appreciated

As i'm not that familiar with star trek it could be that i switched them.
Maybe someone can confirm that it's he other way round ?

[DnaDisturber]

Hi whitecrow,

Checked out a rules page and sure enough , honor roll is the buyin list.
Never should have doubted you of course...

I'll fix it , thanks for reporting it to me

Edited by DnaDisturber, 05 April 2013 - 01:03 PM.