Using a Savekey or Atarivox with Harmony Encore.

[RamrodHare]

Ok, I may be asking a really simple question, that's probably been answered before, but I did a search and couldn't find an answer. I have a savekey (Thanks to CPUWIZ) and I'm trying to get it to work with the Harmony Encore. I know what games it works with and I've tried it on a couple of them, but I'm apparently not doing something right. So far I haven't managed to pull up even one saved high score. I'm guessing I'm just doing something dumb. I think some games you need to hold the fire button when you power the system on, but that gets a little confusing, since the power is already on when you start a game from the Harmony Cart. I feel like an idiot because I know this is something simple that I'm missing here.. As an example, let's try Go Fish! Can someone just tell me what I need to do to save and then load it?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Usually you don't have to do anything. Just plug it into the (right) port. Maybe the game ask for your initials, when saving, but that's all.

 

Maybe your SaveKey is broken? Try e.g. Scramble which will display on the initial screen if the SaveKey is detected.

[RamrodHare]

I tried it on Scramble and it's not showing that it's found it. It did work on Strat-o-gems, but so far, that's the only game it's working on. CPUWIZ just made this savekey for me a few days ago so I'm pretty sure it's alright. I figured that there was some trick to getting it to work with the Harmony Encore. I tested it on my 2600 and my 7800. Strat-o-gems score and replay are working, but no other games I've tried are saving anything.

Edited June 15, 2017 by RamrodHare

[RevEng]

It's plugged right into the second port, right? i.e. There's no joystick extension cable or anything between it and the console.

 

SaveKey is a really simple device, so I'm leaning away from it being defective. But power supplies, bus noise, dodgy pins on the port can all be factors.

 

Have you tried saving a score in Man Goes Down?

[RamrodHare]

 

 

Have you tried saving a score in Man Goes Down?

Ok. Plugged into port 2, yes. Straight in, no extensions or anything.

 

Man goes down is working.

Strat-O-gems is working.

Scramble is saving the "novice" setting, but it's not displaying that it found the savekey at the beginning and it's not saving the score.

Go Fish isn't doing anything.

 

I have the newest versions of all the games and I've tested them on the 2600 and on the 7800. As far as I know, there are no issues with the ports on either machine.

It's got me stumped.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

If it works on one game, I cannot see any reason why it shouldn't work on all.

 

In the store, there is a (incomplete) list of games which support the AtariVox and/or SaveKey. Maybe you give them all a try and report back which work and which don't.

 

Start with Three.s, please. That my own code.

Edited June 15, 2017 by Thomas Jentzsch

[RamrodHare]

Ok, I tried it on what games I had on my SD card already.

 

Here's the list of what worked.

 

Elevators Amiss

Fall Down

Juno First

Lead

Man Goes Down

Omicron

Strat-O-Gems

Palomino

Wall Jump Ninja

 

Here's the list of ones that didn't work for me..

 

Astar( did nothing)

Go Fish (did nothing)

Scramble (scramble seems to be saving the "novice" setting when I go back to it, but it's not keeping my score.)

 

I tried Thrust+ ( I was so bad at it that I couldn't get any points.)

Edited June 15, 2017 by RamrodHare

[Thomas Jentzsch]

That looks much better.

 

I could be wrong, but maybe the ROMs you are using are not the latest ones, or the SaveKey support is only for carts but not in the ROMs released (like Thrust).

[RamrodHare]

At least I know my savekey is working.

 

I'm fairly sure the roms are the latest, but I'll recheck them later today to be sure. I'm happy that most of them are working, but I'd be happier if Go Fish! was saving. If the roms I have do turn out to be the latest, I may go back to some older versions to see if the savekey works.

 

I don't understand Scramble though. Without the savekey, it always says "ARCADE", but with the savekey, it keeps the setting at "novice". So it's clearly seeing the savekey, but it never says "savekey found" on the Atari Age screen and it isn't saving any scores. I know I have the latest version of it, because it's part of the rom name.. Maybe I'll have better luck with an older version of it..

 

If I can't figure out why Go Fish! won't work, I'll try contacting the developer and see if he can help me out.

 

As far as Thrust+ goes, it might be working. I'm just not good enough at it to score any points.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I don't understand Scramble though. Without the savekey, it always says "ARCADE", but with the savekey, it keeps the setting at "novice". So it's clearly seeing the savekey, but it never says "savekey found" on the Atari Age screen and it isn't saving any scores. I know I have the latest version of it, because it's part of the rom name.. Maybe I'll have better luck with an older version of it..

Are you sure you got the latest version (scramble_20160106.bin). I only test in Stella (have to use game properties first to tell Stella that it uses the SaveKey).

 

If I can't figure out why Go Fish! won't work, I'll try contacting the developer and see if he can help me out.

Good idea. Thought he is usually very, very busy.

 

As far as Thrust+ goes, it might be working. I'm just not good enough at it to score any points.

Thrust is a game that people either love or hate. It requires patience and quite some practice.

[RamrodHare]

Are you sure you got the latest version (scramble_20160106.bin). I only test in Stella (have to use game properties first to tell Stella that it uses the SaveKey).

 

Good idea. Thought he is usually very, very busy.

 

Thrust is a game that people either love or hate. It requires patience and quite some practice.

That's the version of Scramble that I have.

 

I'll try the other versions of Go Fish! before I contact the developer. No point bothering him if I don't have to.

 

I played Thrust+ Platinum v1.26 and I managed to get 900 points, but it didn't save it. I think with some practice, I'll like Thrust. I'm just really tired right now, I'm sure after I get some sleep I'll be better at it, my reflexes aren't too good when I'm this tired.

 

Is high score saving enabled on the Thrust+ Platinum v1.26 rom or is it just on the cart? I wasn't sure from reading your comment earlier.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I have only implemented SaveKey support for the cart. A minimal incentive for those who paid for the game.

 

Regarding Scramble: I just realized that I have a newer ROM from the developer.

Edited June 15, 2017 by Thomas Jentzsch

[RamrodHare]

I have only implemented SaveKey support for the cart. A minimal incentive for those who paid for the game.

 

Regarding Scramble: I just realized that I have a newer ROM from the developer.

I respect your decision on saving that feature for people who buy the cart. I really like the look and concept of Thrust+, I'm just having a hard time getting the hang of it.

 

I did finally get Scramble to save my score. It turns out I just wasn't getting enough points. once I hit 10,000, the saves started working.

As for Go Fish!, I ended up trying one more version and that did it. I tried 3 different ones that didn't work and then I saw one more version that I didn't think I had tried yet. It turned out to be the one that works!

 

From what I can tell, every game I have that is supposed to save is now saving correctly. Some games just had too many versions out there. It was a lot of trial and error finding the ones that worked.

 

I have to say though, this savekey is amazing. I keep coming back to the same games and p[laying them over and over to beat my high score. I really don't see why there aren't more games out there with this feature.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Good to see you go this working and resolved! Just a quick thing to note. I was having nearly the exact same issue as you but it was really only not working with a few games. I eventually tested using one of my H6 consoles and everything worked great. So in the end I found that my RIOT was apparently going bad or was semi bad on my 7800 and that was causing the issues. I pulled the RIOT from another parts 2600 4 switcher and then everything was golden. So.. it would seem that some games seem to use the highscore setup a bit differently since the bad RIOT was working with some games but not all and swapping it out took care of the issue.

 

Also, I wasn't using a savekey, I was using my Avox+ but essentially the same.