Cart change and Saves questions

[aaale]

Hi all 

I've got a couple of questions for you:

A) What's the correct process for cart changing? Eject Retrode, change cart, wait for the drive to appear OR eject retrode, disconnect usb cable, change cart, reconnect usb cable, wait for the drive to appear? I'm asking this cause when i remove a cart without unplugging the usb cable i notice the led status flashing a couple of times and i'm afraid of a possible cart damage.

B) Whenever i save during a game (i try Shining in the darkness, Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario All Stars) save files are note wrote in the cart but in default emulator folder despite i changed [sramReadonly] to 0 in RETRODE.CFG
Is there a way to avoid this?

My configuration is:
iMac OSX 10.6.8
SNES Emulators: Zsnes or SNES9x
Mega Drive Emulator: Kega Fusion

I've got also a Windows XP SP3 laptop with exactly the same emulators.

[hedwards]

You can hotswap, the main risk is corrupting any saved games you have. Personally I hotswap because I don't have saved game on any of my carts as I play ROMs only and my carts were previously owned.

It's a bit like any other time that you swap memory cards or what not, you run the risk of corrupting stored data. The ROM itself shouldn't be effected by it.

BTW that information is in the little manual that came with the unit.

[Matthias_H]

Have you set the correct path for RAM/.srm files in your emulator? Also, please note that this will only work with battery-backed on-cart saves, and NOT with save states (memory and CPU status dumps) that are specific to the emulator.

[aaale]

Thanks for all suggestions.

After a sunday afternoon of tests i want to share my results with you

ROM READING:

It simply WORKS ! in Windows and OSX, with all emulators (kega fusion, gens, snes9x, zsnes)

JOYPAD COMPATIBILITY

This worked out of the box too except for the Kega Fusion emulator under OSX (it's a know problem already discussed in this thread http://forum.retrode.org/index.php/topic,11.0.html)

SRM SAVES

This took most of my time.

SNES

On OSX i wasn't able to get it to work.

ZSNES doesn't let me input the correct path of the Retrode unit (/Volumes/RETRODE) cause it doesn't recognize character like / and other.
SNES9x let me set the correct path but it creates a rom_name.srm.ooops when i save.
I think it's for this problem http://www.retrode.org/documentation/troubleshooting/troubleshooting-saving-files-to-the-retrode-does-not-work/ I didn't try the cat thing but it probably works.

On Windows SNES9x saves worked out of the box (Donkey Kong Country and Super Mario All Stars) configuring the correct retrode path.
I saved and started the game on a real SNES ... it worked.

Mega Drive

On OSX i didn't test anything.

On Windows i wasn't able to get it to work with both Kega Fusion and Gens.
I try to save the game directly to the cart but saves weren't recognized when i plugged it on a real Mega Drive.
Same result when i saved to the disk and then manually copied the file on the retrode unit.
Games tested were: Wonderboy 5 in Monster World, Shining in the darkness, Shining Force I.
Carts are not broken cause when i play and save them using a real Mega Drive they work fine.

If someone has suggestions for the Mega Drive saves it will be really appreciated !

[Matthias_H]

I will try to get my hands on some of the titles you mentioned, and investigate the problem.

Cheers,
Matthias

[aaale]

FYI Matthias last firmware fixed my saves problem, except for Wonderboy 5 in Monster World but only because it saves in a non standard place (EEPROM):

http://www.tototek.com/store/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2849&highlight=&sid=8f06cb288f552a3bfee14b6b32526b53

Cheers

[Matthias_H]

EEPROM is currently not supported but I hope to add it at some point.

Good to hear about your success with the latest firmware, though! Since I could only develop the Sega SRAM support with exactly one title (Sonic 3), I'd be very interested in learning more about your testing procedure. So you only tried Wonderboy 5 and the two Shinings, but what exactly did you try?

[aaale]

I plugged Shining in the darkness in the Retrode, fired up Kega Fusion on my Windows XP laptop, configured SEGA joypad and started the game.

I created a new adventure, gave hero a name, talked with king who gave me 200 golds, went to the village, bought a new sword and sold a knife that left me with 75 golds.

At this point i went to the shrine and saved the game, closed emulator, safely removed Retrode, and hooked up the cart on a real SEGA Mega Drive.

When i started the game i found the game saved and my 75 golds intacts.

I went to the labyrinth, i killed a couple of monsters who gave me a couple of XP points and golds, returned to the shrine and saved.

I inserted the game again in the retrode, fired up Kega Fusion and i found my XP points and golds gained a few minutes before.

Exactly same story with Shining Force I.

[Matthias_H]

Awesome, thank you for your thorough testing. Did you choose the 16-bit mode for the SRAM?

[Muzer]

Could you explain what the two different modes do? Does one of them pad every other byte with a 0 or something?

(Too excited, mine will be coming soon, I hope!)

[aaale]

Awesome, thank you for your thorough testing. Did you choose the 16-bit mode for the SRAM?

Exactly, before that mode, no Mega Drive saves worked for me. 

I'm real happy, if you make a better compatibility with the Mac world i will be happier than a child on christmas day

[Matthias_H]

Ah well. I just spent considerable effort removing the "keyboard mode" from the codebase, since the HID game controllers seemed to work perfectly. I guess it will have to go back in for v.17d

[madmonkey]

hehe, only sonic3? technically, it's not even sram, though interface is the same.
you might find the attached info useful, it's a list of all roms that support saving to the cart.
sizes are counting even bytes for md and 32x, not counting for sms.
32x list might be incomplete, and sms list is most certainly incomplete.

[Muzer]

Yeah, Sonic 3 used FRAM, didn't it? Always wondered why it hasn't caught on - is it too expensive/physically large to make with larger storage capacities?

[Zerker]

Per my other thread, I tried three Genesis games with Saveram other than Sonic 3:

Phantasy Star 2
Beyond Oasis
and Light Crusader

Of those three, only Phantasy Star 2 worked. The other two games have valid saveram (confirmed on physical Genesis both before and after trying with Retrode), but it was not interpreted properly by the emulator after copying via Retrode.

Which is weird, because according to Madmonkey's list, they should all have identical sram sizes.