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libretro / mupen64plus-libretro-nx

Improved mupen64plus libretro core reimplementation
GNU General Public License v2.0
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Streamline/Improve the User Experience (UX) for people who ripped their own games and saves #248

Open philou-felin opened 4 years ago

philou-felin commented 4 years ago

Disclaimer: I'm an enthusiastic end-user. Also, I previously used Project64.

OK. I know this is very niche, but I encountered some troubles when I decided to add copies of my original save files in "AppData\Roaming\RetroArch\saves" (Windows 10 x64), and I want to share my experience, hoping someone can improve the end-user experience.

I ripped my N64 cartridges with a Retrode 2.0, using the method explained here. I got the following save files:

Apparently,

SRAM (.SRA) and FlashRAM (.FLA) save files need to be saveswapped to be used in Project64 (PJ64) and other emulators.

I can confirm that this is true with both PJ64 and Retrode. (I used saturnu's ED64-Saveswap.)

Tonight, I learned that I had to somehow convert my files into ".srm" format, which was more complicated then expected because the documentation on Retrode wasn't complete. I ended up using pj64tosrm (from a OneDrive) and it worked fine.

What I'm suggesting here is to automate the conversion process from, ".sra", ".fla", ".eep" to ".srm" OR to make Mupen compatible with those format.

Also, writing useful how-tos with hosted tools on GitHub could be a simple makeshift solution. (I could write such documentation, but I'll need help with GitHub because I never used it.)

m4xw commented 4 years ago

Sure it was on my todo eventually, for ref thats how its formatted https://github.com/libretro/mupen64plus-libretro-nx/blob/develop/libretro/libretro.c#L1428-L1435

philou-felin commented 4 years ago

Sure it was on my todo eventually, for ref thats how its formatted https://github.com/libretro/mupen64plus-libretro-nx/blob/develop/libretro/libretro.c#L1428-L1435

Thanks! :) Will this work with raw files or will we still need to use ED64-Saveswap first?

m4xw commented 4 years ago

I will get to this over the next weeks! Just restored my own save :P

philou-felin commented 4 years ago

I will get to this over the next weeks! Just restored my own save :P

Thanks for the follow-up! (Also, if you saw my "😕" reaction emoji, know that it was supposed to be a "👍". 😅) Take your sweet time.

EDIT: Oh! I thought that was the other issue I created about User Interface. That's even better then, because importing saves is a bigger feature.

philou-felin commented 2 years ago

I'm curious... Has anyone investigated? Was my own Majora's Mask save an anomaly or is this really an issue with mupen64plus-core? I tried loading my original save (at least... I think...) again today on a Mupen64Plus distro and had to byte-swap and word-swap the file with saturnu's ED64-Saveswap again. I had no problem with "TheLegendOfZelda.CZLE.sra".

m4xw commented 2 years ago

Fwiw when I manually dumped my oot sram contents, they were wrongly aligned as well, but all data was there. I think there generally might be something inconsistent going on when it comes to the repr of the actual saveram informations, but i will build that bridge when I implement save restore. Also still didnt get to pick up my MM cart from my parents house, so no way for me to currently test :/

philou-felin commented 2 years ago

What does "repr" mean? 😅🤔🤭

m4xw commented 2 years ago

representation