Bug 10 Billion Point Rollover

[PinMike8666]

10 Billion Point Rollover (Xbox 360)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR_cb4wTiZU

This guy gets up to 10 Billion points on the Xbox 360 version of this table and the score rolls over and doesn't count his 10 Billion+ points.

 

[thejake01]

STOP THE ROLLOVERS!!!! Please fix. I got 1.4Bil on MM on PHOF and basically stopped playing for fear of nearing the top then either quitting or getting nerfed and not getting the #1 spot. Destroy the glass ceiling!!!

 

[Bowflex]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR_cb4wTiZU

This guy gets up to 10 Billion points on the Xbox 360 version of this table and the score rolls over and doesn't count his 10 Billion+ points.

Is this bug only on the Xbox 360 or is it in other versions as well?

Apparently it's on the actual table. From what Farsight has posted, it's part of the ROM's original coding (or lack thereof).

 

[PinMike8666]

Yeah I said it the wrong way; the issue isn't with the game code. I think FarSight's own post-game score displays should recognize score rollevers, which they currently don't.

 

[Bowflex]

Word. Just because a rollover occurs doesn't mean it shouldn't be able to capture the score for the leaderboards. After all, there was a bug giving people like 80billion points on Theater of Magic. So the boards are capable of displaying it. Just a matter of capturing the score.

 

[PinMike8666]

I just ruled out the iOS version; someone pointed out to me that there are scores over 10 Billion points on the iOS leaderboards and sure enough there are. I changed the thread title.

 

[Ammonitida]

Apparently it's on the actual table. From what Farsight has posted, it's part of the ROM's original coding (or lack thereof).

If there's a broken element to the original ROM, it should be fixed for the virtual game. Fix all the rollovers, and fix the Genie battle, harem multiball glitch in TOTAN (this apparently gives unlimited balls). Farsight should take this opportunity to fix and improve upon the original games. All gamebreaking glitches should be stamped out!

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

If there's a broken element to the original ROM, it should be fixed for the virtual game. Fix all the rollovers, and fix the Genie battle, harem multiball glitch in TOTAN (this apparently gives unlimited balls). Farsight should take this opportunity to fix and improve upon the original games. All gamebreaking glitches should be stamped out!

They're trying to fix the 10B rollover on ToM (for the leaderboards, not the DMD), but the table stores its scores in a weird way and when they tried the obvious way of fixing it, it caused problems.

The unlimited-ball part in the final Genie battle on TotAN is supposed to happen (the DMD even announces "Unlimited Balls Until Someone Wins" once that part begins) - the table turns off most if not all of the rest of the scoring targets until the Genie battle is decided one way or the other. The glitch is that Harem is not supposed to be able to be active during the unlimited-ball time.

 

[FurVid]

Managed this today for the first time (360). Was wondering if I should tilt out of my last couple balls to stay under, but figured I'd roll it at least once to see what happens (not much, except you do appear to get a shot at another extra ball the second time you pass 600M). Now need to try to get there again so I can have a respectable score on the leaderboard. I imagine stopping close to the limit is going to be a bit tougher than it was on games like Robotron.

Surprised that the ROM can't handle this, considering that System 11 games (have a High Speed in the next room) were smart enough to record scores of 9,999,999 and that was ten years earlier.

In any case, gives me another goal and an excuse to keep playing it - like I need one.

 

[Fungi]

I've rolled over the score on Firepower in the PHOF and the leaderboard kept track. Why can't it be done with TPA?

 

[RetroDude]

PHOF didn't use ROM emulation. TPA does.
As I understand it, the rollover issue is actually replicating the actual physical machine perfectly.

 

[Fungi]

PHOF didn't use ROM emulation. TPA does.
As I understand it, the rollover issue is actually replicating the actual physical machine perfectly.

Ack. If that's the case, bummer.

 

[Squid]

It usually takes alot to upset me. This shouldn't be one of those times. I just had the game of my life only to end up with 7million points. Aarrgghh!! Why are mobile devices able to keep their 10+ billion scores? I think I will take some time to do some target practice to relieve my anger on this matter. (don't worry. I'm not gonna hurt anyone or my PS3. I run a gun range.)

 

[lazmama]

Farsight, any news when this might get fixed?

 

[WilliamPorygon]

Yeah, I've also been affected by the 10B rollover issue a couple times... my actual best score is 15.4B but my best non-rolled score on the leaderboard is just under 9.1B. Makes me wonder how the list would look and where I'd be on it if 10B+ scores were recorded properly.

I'm not really a professional programmer, but I do know some basics... I imagine there'd have to be ways to deal with it so rolled scores are noticed/counted by the game and the score for high scores and leaderboards could be adjusted properly.

 

[Mike Reitmeyer]

We tried implementing a fix awhile ago that kept track of rollovers and and modified the score on the leaderboards. Problem is every once in awhile it would give a false positive. We've found a solution and it'll be in all the next updates.

The local high score table will still be rolled over, because we haven't found a good way to handle that since the ROM can't. If we kept track of your real scores and then tried to push them into the emulator they would get truncated and the high score table would get out of order. For example, an 11 billion score would show up as 1 billion but be ahead of a score that was 9 billion.

The one thing I can't figure out is why a higher scoring table like Theater only handles less then 10 billion, but a table like Tales will handle scores up to almost 1 trillion.

As for the question about Firepower. We didn't emulate that table, so we had an internal score value that kept track of your points reguardless of what was on the display. When emulating a ROM that's much harder to do.

 

[RetroDude]

Mike,
Thanks for the info.

I'm a software developer myself. It can't be a whole heck of a lot of fun trying to "fix" bugs in the original ROM code.

For those not developers, it's not exactly an easy fix. The code in the ROM chips is designed for very specific hardware. This includes the memory holding the score. You can't simply change the number of bits of memory that holds the score without modifying the programming stored on the ROM.
Modifying the code on the ROM will result in bits of the program code being in different memory locations, causing other issues.

As I believe was mentioned, fix one thing, breaks something else entirely unrelated.

The gist of it is this.
We want accurate representations of the physical machines.
That's exactly what we got!

Does it suck that high scores roll over?
Yep.
I'd rather have FarSight use their resources on other things, though.

Frankly, I'd rather have more machines developed, physics improvements to allow good drop-catches, the improved lighting for all of the machines, and mostly the PC version to be released.. with enough options and features to allow multiple monitor cabinet builds.


Keep up the good work Mike, and all else at FarSight.
You don't get thanked enough to cover all the *****ing you are subjected to.

Oh, and as far as why some machines handle higher scores?
Simply different people designing the hardware and software. Memory and chip size is cheap now. It wasn't always.
It wasn't THAT many years ago that every bit of memory had to be allocated carefully.

 

[bavelb]

Personally I don't think there's a lot of *****ing going on here, I find the bug and issue-reports rather objective. The FB-crowd however is as dense as a brick, and I don't wish anyone the obligation to have to deal with that, and for that they deserve a lot of credit.

 

[RetroDude]

Personally I don't think there's a lot of *****ing going on here,

I meant in total, which includes the nightmare posts on facebook.

 

[Squid]

Hindsight is truly 20/20. (I think my last post came off a little harsh)
I now realise that the issue is one with the table, not FarSight.
FarSight has demonstrated their commitment to bringing real and accurate representations of the real deal. Good Job! I accept the challenge. (no sarcasm is implied, inferred or intended)

That being said, my heart sank and my jaw dropped when I was robbed of 10 billion points. It was all fun in the end.