Auto-save SRAM (game saves in general)
Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2016 3:51 pm
Ok, this question is fairly complicated, but boils down to this: I'm having trouble with game saves in SNES9x. I am running this with the Maximus arcade frontend, which I think may be getting in the way of something, but the problem exists without it. Here goes.
When I boot up a game with a built-in save feature (Let's say, FFIII), when I arrive at a save point, I save my game, and I close the ROM and also shut down SNES9x. When I bring it back up, there is no save game for the ROM to see. My first thought is that something isn't configured correctly, so I head over to Emulation -> Settings, and there's a field there for "Auto-save S-RAM." It wants "seconds after last change." I'm not sure what this field does, and I can't find any documentation on it. So, I set it to 5 (thinking maybe there's a delay built in between when I save in-game and when SNES9x builds an .sram file. Why would there be a delay here? Who knows? I might be wrong), and make sure that the SRAM and Saves directory are both pointed at "Saves." (they already were) It's at this point that I notice there is an existing .sram file called "Final Fantasy III.sram" in the roms folder of my SNES9x directory. I think this is odd, so I copy it, and go to paste it into my SAVES folder, and notice that there is an .sram file in there called FINALF~1.sram. Curious. I paste the file in there anyway, and fire up SNES9x again. There is no save data in the game. So, I walk Terra and the Star Wars boys through Narshe, get to a save point, save the game, count to five slowly, and then exit SNES9x again. Fire it up one more time, and THIS TIME it recognizes the save. I can pick up my game. So, I change the fullscreen setting back to on, Alt+F4 out of the program and fire up my Frontend (Maximus Arcade 2.10).
I choose SNES, Final Fantasy III, and now there's no save game. WTH. Terra and the boys kill a few more Narshe guards, save at the sparkle, count 5, and exit. Choose FFIII again. Now it works. I can re-join that game. Close everything, restart MA, start up again, and the save is still there.
Ok, now with all that, it's question time: What the hell is going on here? What does that Auto-save S-RAM setting do, and is Maximus dumping saves into a different directory than SNES9X, even though MA is just calling that emulator and should be using those settings?
If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear 'em. Please note: this question does not pertain to save STATES, I'm not there yet.
PERTINENT INFO:
I am running this system in a Windows 7 PC, using Maximus Arcade 2.10 as a frontend. SNES9x is v1.53, and I am controlling all of this with a control panel that's joysticks and buttons, mapped using a Xin-mo controller. Let me know if you need anything else.
When I boot up a game with a built-in save feature (Let's say, FFIII), when I arrive at a save point, I save my game, and I close the ROM and also shut down SNES9x. When I bring it back up, there is no save game for the ROM to see. My first thought is that something isn't configured correctly, so I head over to Emulation -> Settings, and there's a field there for "Auto-save S-RAM." It wants "seconds after last change." I'm not sure what this field does, and I can't find any documentation on it. So, I set it to 5 (thinking maybe there's a delay built in between when I save in-game and when SNES9x builds an .sram file. Why would there be a delay here? Who knows? I might be wrong), and make sure that the SRAM and Saves directory are both pointed at "Saves." (they already were) It's at this point that I notice there is an existing .sram file called "Final Fantasy III.sram" in the roms folder of my SNES9x directory. I think this is odd, so I copy it, and go to paste it into my SAVES folder, and notice that there is an .sram file in there called FINALF~1.sram. Curious. I paste the file in there anyway, and fire up SNES9x again. There is no save data in the game. So, I walk Terra and the Star Wars boys through Narshe, get to a save point, save the game, count to five slowly, and then exit SNES9x again. Fire it up one more time, and THIS TIME it recognizes the save. I can pick up my game. So, I change the fullscreen setting back to on, Alt+F4 out of the program and fire up my Frontend (Maximus Arcade 2.10).
I choose SNES, Final Fantasy III, and now there's no save game. WTH. Terra and the boys kill a few more Narshe guards, save at the sparkle, count 5, and exit. Choose FFIII again. Now it works. I can re-join that game. Close everything, restart MA, start up again, and the save is still there.
Ok, now with all that, it's question time: What the hell is going on here? What does that Auto-save S-RAM setting do, and is Maximus dumping saves into a different directory than SNES9X, even though MA is just calling that emulator and should be using those settings?
If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear 'em. Please note: this question does not pertain to save STATES, I'm not there yet.
PERTINENT INFO:
I am running this system in a Windows 7 PC, using Maximus Arcade 2.10 as a frontend. SNES9x is v1.53, and I am controlling all of this with a control panel that's joysticks and buttons, mapped using a Xin-mo controller. Let me know if you need anything else.