game saves

[TechWarrior]

I have various emulation programs that work great. My question is....when I am ready to save my progress in a game using an emulation program, is it best to save it with the emulation program (save game state), or use the actual game save in the game itself? I ask this because I think sometimes it wont correctly save the game if you use the save game option in the game itself.

[tomaversa]

i would save it with the emulation program...i dont know if there are problems with saving it to the actual games, but i always save to the emu program with my emulators and i havent had any probs with it.

[Tets]

Most mainstream emulators for any platform will be able to handle native saves properly, and I think you're better off using them. Savestates are normally fine, but using them extensively can have a negative effect.

It's possible for garbage data to build up in memory due to inaccuracies in emulation, and a savestate will preserve that data with everything else. It also is not uncommon for a savestate to not save or restore the memory perfectly. Either of those can cause unexpected effects like crashing or freezing. The former is more common with problematic games like the poorly coded Golden Sun for GBA (fantastic game, but the code is just awful). Using the game's own saving facilities, the so-called "native saves" I mentioned, will effectively flush out problems like that since you start over with a clean slate every time you load a rom image. The game then loads its own saved data and there's no garbage data in memory to break it.

The most common problem people have with native saves in emulators is that some of them don't write save data until exit. I know that gpSP does this by default, but you can change that setting. This is normally done to save write cycles in flash memory. Check the memory stick LED on the left side of your PSP to see if data is being written while the game is saving. If it isn't, then exit through the emulator's menu instead of using the home button to ensure that it gets through.

[TechWarrior]

well thanks for the input. I'm going to save games in the emulator program then. Especialy for the old roms I have.

[atown2662]

where do iget emulation games, i have snes emulator

[dr.aiyoku]

>>atown2662

Correct me if I'm wrong but I do not believe that SNES roms are in the public
domain yet, despite being obsolete for two decades . Ergo, you are requesting
piracy links, as stupid as that may sound. Sorry.

(someone may PM you a link though, since it's such an old system and nobody's losing money)

[dr.aiyoku]

It's possible for garbage data to build up in memory due to inaccuracies in emulation.

I sure wish I would have seen a post like this about a year ago. I was using a PS2 emu
and ran into just such a problem with savestate. It couldn't fix it so I ended up losing
over 50 hours of Metal Saga game data.

[cheema201]

Most mainstream emulators for any platform will be able to handle native saves properly, and I think you're better off using them. Savestates are normally fine, but using them extensively can have a negative effect.

It's possible for garbage data to build up in memory due to inaccuracies in emulation, and a savestate will preserve that data with everything else. It also is not uncommon for a savestate to not save or restore the memory perfectly. Either of those can cause unexpected effects like crashing or freezing. The former is more common with problematic games like the poorly coded Golden Sun for GBA (fantastic game, but the code is just awful). Using the game's own saving facilities, the so-called "native saves" I mentioned, will effectively flush out problems like that since you start over with a clean slate every time you load a rom image. The game then loads its own saved data and there's no garbage data in memory to break it.

The most common problem people have with native saves in emulators is that some of them don't write save data until exit. I know that gpSP does this by default, but you can change that setting. This is normally done to save write cycles in flash memory. Check the memory stick LED on the left side of your PSP to see if data is being written while the game is saving. If it isn't, then exit through the emulator's menu instead of using the home button to ensure that it gets through.

Listen to Tets because the man knows wat he is saying... savestates can easily become corrupt.. i use savestates religiously but i also save games properly incase of such an error occuring.. also it is a good idea to save more than one state and always exit the savestate menu and go bak to the game before exiting (as tets mentioned with gpSP)