There is no way to detect turbo controllers, they look exactly like someone pressing the button fast.

Just for the record... The AVS looks badass and the scoreboard is pretty sweet, too.

It's pretty awesome feature to be able to compare scores and put them online.

I mean, in terms of exploiting the system and what not if it's possible for a game (which it seems to be highly possible) then so be it, whatever. If you want to cheat, then that's your prerogative.

I think on a game by game basis, scores can be identified and people can dispute it if they want, I suppose.

If there are no rules for each game, then the fact that there's no way to tell if someone is "cheating" is somewhat irrelevant anyways. Most games would require rules and what not... so if no one cares about the rules, who cares if you use the turbo function? So whatever.... it's a really cool funtion of the AVS so leave it at that.

So it should be judged on the merit of what it is, and what I gather it to be is a fun way to have a scoreboard and compare scores. So be it.

  I think you're going to have to play it a bit longer to max out Super C.

I was attempting to max out Super C myself. I played for 15.5 hours before I accidentally knocked my system and wrecked my game (score was 9M+). The person who beat my score (RIP) must have played for 24 hours (score 14M+), by my calculations.

If you can just keep playing and keep the system on... if no one cares about you sleeping, or taking breaks from the game. You're looking at quite a lot of gaming.... There's spots to wait in the game, so you don't have to worry about pausing the game.

But as far as I know... I'm not sure what the Max out for Super C is or if there is one. The other thing is, the game doesn't increase in difficulty (so there aren't more guys coming at you) and you get fewer points per loop so it takes longer.

Game on! It'd be interesting to know what the Max out score on Super C is.

Also, I was unemployed at the time so I had nothing to do, haha. Getting jobs, meh, haha... Not in a basement, though.

I had thought that the score maxed out at 9,999,990 since the game displays 7 digits. I was aware that the game does not get anymore difficult, the challenge comes down to how long your willing to play for.
 

Yeeeah right, you did it last week in your parent's basement....where you live.

 

Well... I was hoping I would get there but not quite, haha...

Yeah, it's a battle of will power.... and thumb power.
Haha, well I wish... maybe my parents would give me an allowance. I could save up for some more video games.

Would this be a possibility in the future? That would be a great function to be able to keep track of what you've completed. If that's possible, also wondering if it would be possible to implement a function to keep track of time spent/in-game progress (%).

Time spent in game would be tracked by a simple frame counter. Game clear could be detected by scanning for memory flags. Just like score occupies a register in RAM, game clear triggers an event which could be recorded by software. Combine that with frame counter and you essentially have an any percent clear with time indicator. Only games which use SRAM to save your progess would be ineligible, since the counter would only operate since boot. Software could also scan for other events such as death count, etc...

Maybe I'm overanalyzing things but if the software Scoreboard software can scan for a certain value in RAM, more data can be tracked besides just high scores.

 

Probably highly dependent on the game.  Finding the identifier for game ending will take far more work than finding the score.  Would also mean I need a way to get near the end for each game for dev and testing     For "progress" some games like SMB it would be easy to show the world/level the game ended on.  That is more of a UI problem than a technical one.  

Time is already tracked in the app as part of cheating detection.  High score in 5 seconds = fake.  Storing and displaying the time on NA is high on the todo list.  Bug Dain   

Awesome you can record completion time. If someone plays a game for like a week then rolls the score, well it would be obvious he was point farming, and very likely taking long breaks...

Any way to detect the use of save state powermappers? That could be another potential issue crop up with Powerpak use.

If only the AVS had a built in fib detector.

While I doubt it's default behavior, seems like it would be straightforward for the AVS to know that such a thing was used...
 

Flag in what RAM, and caused by what?

The only "flag" that happens in something like Contra, is that your player now has 30 lives.

There is no reason the game would tote around some permament flag that the event occured.



That said, known life and level select codes could PROBABLY be detected on the AVS, on a per-game basis if you knew what memory location to observe and specifically what you wanted to detect as "invalid" (i.e. an instant jump from 3 lives in reserve to 30 lives, or levels played in some kind of invalid sequence)


But that would be a ton of effort and knowledge to figure it out in any kind of exhaustive way...

 

It would be more trouble than it's worth... but since you have timing information, you could detect sustained "inhuman" levels of periodic input.

But there would be no practical way to detect slower turbo use, unless you simply had the system recognize "too perfect" periodic inputs over a longer period of time.  (i.e. nobody is going to generate a perfect square-wave input, probably ever)

 

As indicated in the mail AVS thread I'm excited about the scoreboard functionality, but In this day and age it should be implemented in a PI. Silent, small and low wattage, plus you can use it to get wifi and supply the AVS with electricity.

Thought it a better idea to post it here once I found this thread 😃

Word. Someone could go as far as to install a sweep filter to gradually speed and slow down the turbo timing or otherwise add random variances so that even an algorithm that hunts for perfectly even timings would fail. Also food for thought, most textbook variety 555 Astable timer solutions aren't 50% duty cycle, though there are variations of the schematic that provide this, either by adding bypass diodes or disconnecting R1 and using the logic output to pin 7. Assuming the 555 timer is used in a Turbo controller using the textbook schematic, R1 will ideally be low value and R2 will be a pot paired with a fixed value resistor. This will generate a duty cycle slightly above 50%, which because NES is signal negative, translates to button presses of slightly shorter duration than non-presses.

But if someone were to go through that much trouble to "cheat," they could simply build and NES bot and play back existing TAS movies.

Off topic, but I recently rebuilt my NES Arcade controller, removing the convoluted "four speed 30Hz/15Hz/7.5Hz/3.75Hz digital turbo" DP4T switch, 74xx161 4-bit counter and 555 one-shot (to hold trigger input for like 2-4ms for games that poll the controller multiple times) leaving just the CD4021 and 555 timer in Astable configuration (and a 74LS157 to use as a Turbografx pad, not yet implemented). Last time I attempted to rebuild that digital turbo schematic, it gave me fits. I also removed a pair of 7400s previously used to invert the 555 one shot and combine logic signals from the turbo and standard buttons, instead utilizing the rarely used Normally Closed microswitch inputs on the A and B buttons to pass signal to the CD4021 whenever the discrete turbo buttons are pressed. New breadboard is half the size of the old one LOL!

Now the arcade controller has a 555 timer running in Astable mode with a 2.2kohm for R1, series 33kohm + 100kohm linear pot for R2, and a 1uF bipolar electrolytic cap, for an approximate 5Hz-20Hz turbo fire rate and a duty cycle close to 50%. That's a pretty good usable range. It works well and I plan on using the currently disconnected 74LS157 chip for Turbografx with an external 8-pin DIN connector and a Male-Male DIN8 cable. I'll need to add 10kohm pullups to the input pins on the CD4021 and 74LS157 so they don't run out of spec when not in use, once I get around to adding the Turbografx socket.

where do I download the scoreboard app?
 

In the post pinned above this one
http://vintage.nintendoage.com/fo...

Thanks. I was looking all over for it. Just a suggestion, might want to put a direct link to the software on the front page. The AVS is probably going to bring new visitors to the site looking for it just like me. The score board absolutely rocks! Thank you guys.

Please ignore anyone talking about implementing anti-turbo functions and other such nonsense. Turbo/autofire is a staple of competitive gaming whether people want to accept it or not.

And slo-mo controls for those few games that work well with them...  

Turbo pause/slo-mo is still cheating but I imagine there would be a (would be case by case, probably non-trivial) way to check for pause abuse. If they pause a certain number of times within a given time period then their score is invalid. You get the idea.

Actually some games check for this internally. For instance, if you use a slo-mo controller with Ms Pacman (Tengen), about halfway through the stage the NES will ignore the start button and you will be unable to pause for the remainder of the game.

Other games that play a sound byte upon pause or use the pause menu for map, inventory, or other use, tend to not work well with Slo-Mo. Some ignore A/B inputs if the button is pressed while the game is paused. Galaxian is one example where sometimes shots will fire and sometimes they won't. 

Is it normal that every rom I load from my powerpak shows zero scores when I check top scores on scoreboard after loading it up? Checked Mario 3 several different times and also TMNT 2. I load up the ROM, use my button combo to return to the menu and check scoreboard like the thread suggests and it always says "0" and no one listed
under "Top Gamers".

edit: Submitted on anyway for TMNT II. Looks like I'm tied with you for 1st Benihana  

I think this is a known bug (Dain's fault!)  If you have no score for the game yet it will show nothing.  Once you add a score everything should work.

 

If you haven't already added it. There should be a prompt when you can submit a score. Also, do you have to plug it into the computer while you play to submit the score? Or can you archive the score and do them all at once. That's what you should have did.