PinMame NvMaps

[HorsePin]

While making this scoring system I have to create new maps for roms and this is fairly time consuming and it's pretty boring and it's getting in the way of other work.

I added Cheech & Chong which also covers Harley Davidson yesterday, but probably spent most of the evening doing stuff around that one game and Sorcerer.

Sorcerer that I added (System 9) this game doesn't have last scores, but I have hacked around that using the Digits (Reel values) so I would say every game will be supported even if it comes down to a hack like that.

So, after all that and the practice I've had in creating mappings searching for scores in the ram I had to make a UI, which should save an enormous amount of time because I was also hand writing these mapping files.

The mappings can also do adjustments / audits, but I haven't been worried about those yet and will more than likely add to this UI in the long run. I'm just interested in mapping the last game played and high scores.



This is the main branch for map files but doesn't seem interested in take the pull requests. There's going to be hundreds more coming so it's whatever, they are on my fork anyway along with a different parsing library.

GitHub - tomlogic/pinmame-nvram-maps: The goal of this project is to document the contents of the `.nv` files PinMAME uses to store the contents of a game's non-volatile RAM.

The goal of this project is to document the contents of the `.nv` files PinMAME uses to store the contents of a game's non-volatile RAM. - tomlogic/pinmame-nvram-maps

github.com

I just need to finish a few more things with this auto mapping score search, then maybe some of you would like to test a rom or two.

 

[HorsePin]

Added a decent enough release. This should help get through the Stern and later Williams games quicker than it has been. Will probably add some more to it after I try some Gottlieb and some other different games.

There is a included example ripleys mapping that shows how I got the score addresses. The only thing I had to do after searching there is set the top score address. It will pick the last one found by default but that had to be set to 7714. This is easy to spot anyway when you have the other scores so close.

Releases · horseyhorsey/PinMAME.NvMaps

dotnet parsing nvram from json mappings. Contribute to horseyhorsey/PinMAME.NvMaps development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Guide here:

PinMAME.NvMaps/src/PinMAME.NvMaps.Win at main · horseyhorsey/PinMAME.NvMaps

dotnet parsing nvram from json mappings. Contribute to horseyhorsey/PinMAME.NvMaps development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[HorsePin]

Making it a bit easier to do the adjustments and can use these after a game has been posted online for more information on the game played.

 

[HorsePin]

Here she is in action. The only thing I really want to take extra to put in the database for now is BallsPerGame, TiltWarnings & Extra Ball settings, just so these can be filtered.

You can view all the adjustments anyway when you drill into a game played.

This tables so bad compared to the real thing, lol. That mist magnet is way too strong, re-catching the ball after you've knocked it, it moves across the table way too fast. I may have to make some adjustments before patching. but trying to not let it worry me too much for now. You can ignore the actual score, that's me just draining and testing that 4 balls were picked up.

A williams game of this era isn't that bad to do. It's when you do a game like Grand Lizard it gets tougher, even though the ram size is much smaller there is less to go through but still a bit tricky. I'm only really bothered about the BallsPerGame though and the others from the top so to make a game compatible then they should have at least those values on server.

 

[HorsePin]

Prefer it like this so you compare the default rom settings.

 

[HorsePin]

Last post for the day, lol. Yeah that mist magnet needs sorting out. Should be a 4 billion game in that time, at least....

 

[HorsePin]

I think I'm done for now making this application. I did not expect to add all these other options in at all, I was just looking to get the score addresses to start with because it's much faster than looking through the bytes.

I should clean up all the roms I've added so you know which ones haven't been done, I've made quite a few over last few weeks, mainly my favourite games and testing some older games. Doing so has led us to find common stuff which makes easy as you can reference a game that is from a same system or or year.

All you need to do is drop an nvram file into the UI then enter the scores that are saved and it should find the addresses. If you want to contribute some maps then I would do it through github and put them into Toms repository, if you need help with that just let me know or I can put them on for you, but put your name inside the mapping which you can do in the UI before exporting to json anyway.

To make them compatible with FlippingFlips then I think I should at least grab the BallsPerGame, TiltWarnings, ExtraBalls, BallSaveTime. These are pretty straight forward which I also added a guide how I do this in the UI.

Windows actually comes with a binary diff check so you can load a rom, exit to save the NV, make a copy of that, then change the ballspergame and run diff check and you should see that address pretty easily as they are usually towards the end of the print out anyway, or just find the first adjustment, change that and usually you can find the next addresses as they will be set lengths. The length depends on system but you can reference those as I've tried all, apart from really old Stern games.

 

[HorsePin]

Quick demo of the frontend for flips.