Emulators not saving?

[cloudhaacker]

Hey all! First off, great project! Very easy to setup and get running, and I can’t wait to show it off! My only problem seems to be an input output error of some sort. I had issues when trying to ftp into retropie to put roms, I put one in to test and that worked, then tried to put more in and it wouldn’t write. I also couldn’t delete the first one I put in. It took a few times of rebooting and it finally worked again. Then I tried out a couple of games, and while everything works smoothly, It almost seems like it’s not saving my progress. For example I tried Donkey Kong Country 1 and I’m pretty sure that as soon as you make a profile it saves. I played a couple of levels to test it out, exited the emulator, then went back in and my save wasn’t there. The sd card I used has worked fine for Raspbmc, and I fully wiped it before loading Retropie on it so I’m not sure what the issue could be? Also couldn’t get Doom to load, it just boots back to menu. Controller doesn’t seem to work for Duke Nukem either. But Cave Story no problem!

Also, what format do I need to have my PSX games in? I can re-rip them from my discs, but I have some already done, and I only tried 1 so far but I think it was in .img, not sure I’d have to check. It didn’t play.

Thanks again for all the awesome work, hopefully someone can help me out!

[karloss]

Not to sure on saves, I was trying to work this out myself…

PSX games have to be in bin format, I ripped mine using imgburn..

[shadowedice]

I remember reading a blog talking about retropie and they said that you had to hit ESC in order to save your game.

[karloss]

i think its something along the lines of “quitting properly”, esp between reboots, if you don’t “shutdown” you loose your save, I believe..

[jplaj]

By default, the save files update when you cleanly exit the emulator. You can save the game in-game all you want, but unless you hit the exit emulator combination and it goes cleanly back to the emulation station menu, the progress won’t be recorded.

If this is the case, there’s an easy fix. Get into the retroarch.cfg file (where you set up the controller inputs) and look for:

# autosave_interval =

This will cause the save file to update on an interval of however many seconds you input. Change it to something like:

autosave_interval = 5

This will update the save files every five seconds. The only downside is, if you want to shut down immediately after saving, you’ll have to wait five seconds to make sure it’s updated. So don’t put anything too large in there, or you’ll have to wait three minutes or so.

[cloudhaacker]

Hmmm…that makes sense, but I thought I was cleanly exiting the emulator. I’ll have to double check when I get home, but I thought I had my controller setup so when I push select & start it exits the emulator and takes me back to emulation station. Does the autosave_interval work during emulation, or is it after you exit the emulator itself? And I guess while we’re on the subject of saves – when you’re running psx, is it the same or is there memory card emulation? I guess I can experiment later, I’m at work now so can’t really check! Thanks everyone for the answers though, I love this kind of community where we’re all excited about the project and everyone helps out! It’s been really smooth setting up, just gotta figure out these little kinks – I haven’t really messed with Linux for a while so I’m a little rusty, once I get things setup I tend not to mess with them! Thanks again, we’ll see what happens tonight!

[jplaj]

Sometimes if you play one game for more than a half hour or so, you can hit start and select, but it won’t exit cleanly. The question is, does the exit emulator bring you back to the emulationstation menu (clean exit) or a black screen with a white dot in the center (failed exit)?

Yes, the autosave interval works within the game and does not require a clean exit.

Unfortunately, I can’t help you with PSX since I’m still trying to get my controller setup working right. However, if anyone else knows about this, I’d be interested to learn, too.

[cloudhaacker]

Okay, messed with mine a little tonight. I couldn’t figure out why Chrono Trigger would save but Donkey Kong Country 1 wouldn’t. I forgot that you have to get to Kandy’s save point! Duh…. Anyway, so regular saving in the games is working fine for me, the autosave interval didn’t seem to work, but I’m editing the config over ftp through Filezilla, so that could be the problem. I did get Brave Fencer Musashi to work on PSX, but it didn’t recognize the bios I added, I put it in 3 different places but it didn’t seem to see it. The audio was a little choppy, especially when there was a lot going on onscreen, but then after I put out the fire in the tower and used the teleport, it locked up on a black screen. BTW, when I use the start select exit I programmed in, it cleanly exits back to emulation station, so that’s a plus! Are save states supported at all? If so, how do I implement them? I would love to make a key combo for my controller for it to save and load.

[jplaj]

Hmm… that’s an interesting scenario. See if you can edit the retroarch.cfg file directly. If you can, read through it; not only can you set up save states, but there’s a long list of neat things you can do, including screenshots and recording videos. You’ll just have to bind them to hotkeys (I have mine bound to select + L, for “load”, and select + R, for “remember”(save)):

input_enable_hotkey =
input_save_state =

input_enable_hotkey =
input_load_state =

Also, I’d have to check this later, but I think you need to add _btn or _axis to each of those functions to tell them whether they’re using buttons or the D-pad.

While you’re there, could you copy and paste your autosave line to this thread? I’d like to see what might be the problem.

Finally, I’m not sure what you mean when you say you got Brave Fencer Musashi working, but it wouldn’t recognize the BIOS. Could you describe your problem in more detail? If PSX doesn’t recognize the BIOS, the game shouldn’t work at all. However, I’ve found that “No BIOS found” doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a problem with the BIOS.

[moorens]

@jplaj

Would you share that exact part of your config with me?
I would like to get this setup on the NES emulator, with my NES controller!

Thanks!
http://nicholasmoore.net/2013/09/29/retroconsole-with-custom-music-rev3-1/

[roquen]

is it possible to set the game to save when the game attempts to save to the cartidge? so that you can have multiple saves like you would have if you were using a cart?

or does this require a change to the emulator itself?

[jplaj]

moorens –

Not sure what the NES button mapping is, but you can change the numbers from mine:

input_enable_hotkey_btn = 8
input_save_state_btn = 5

input_enable_hotkey_btn = 8
input_load_state_btn = 4

I have it set up so I can hold “select,” and then press “R” for saving (R for Remember) and “L” to load. If you want to use the directional pad instead, just change the “btn” extension to “axis.”

roquen-

I don’t know of any way to sync game saves with emulator save file updates. If you set the autosave interval to a short enough time, though, you won’t notice any difference. I have it set to update the save file every 3 seconds.

[moorens]

hey thanks I will take a look at it and see.

This is my config mappings:

input_player1_joypad_index = 0
input_player1_b_btn = 2
input_player1_a_btn = 1
input_player1_start_btn = 9
input_player1_select_btn = 8
input_player1_l_y_plus = -1
input_player1_up_axis = -1
input_player1_l_y_minus = +1
input_player1_down_axis = +1
input_player1_l_x_minus = -0
input_player1_left_axis = -0
input_player1_l_x_plus = +0
input_player1_right_axis = +0

input_enable_hotkey_btn = “9”
input_exit_emulator_btn = “8”

___________________________________

Save = Select + A
input_enable_hotkey_btn = 8
input_save_state_btn = 1

Load = Select + B
input_enable_hotkey_btn = 8
input_load_state_btn = 2

Test and worked. Thanks for the idea guys..

[roquen]

I might be doing something wrong but I’d like save states to be seen by the game itself. I don’t just simply want to resume where I left off, I want to have my game progress seen by the game.

IE: Super Mario Brothers has 3 save slots (or 5, I think 3) and I think it would be really nice to be able to set the emulator to see when saves are being made and have the game see them as well.

[jplaj]

Moorens:

I’m not sure what these lines are for:
input_player1_l_x_plus = +0
input_player1_l_y_plus = -1
input_player1_l_y_minus = +1
input_player1_l_x_minus = -0
I don’t have them in my config files (the lines ending in _axis are all I need for the directions), but at the very least they shouldn’t hurt any.

It looks fine, but of course the only real test is whether or not it works when you try to play the game.

Roquen:

I think I may have misunderstood you last time. We may have gotten our wires crossed over the difference between save states and game save files.

Save States are what the emulator does to record your game–like taking a snapshot of what’s going on at any particular moment so it can start from there next time.

Game Save Files are read by the game itself, and function the same as if you were playing with a console and cartridge. The problem many people have is that with RetroPie, you can save in-game, but the Game Save File (should be created in the same folder as the Rom, unless you’ve designated otherwise) won’t be created or update unless you cleanly exit the emulator, which RetroPie has trouble with. This can be fixed using the autosave function, which doesn’t actually save the game, but it does update the Game Save File. This should let you play the game normally, like you want.

However, don’t test this using a Super Mario World or Mario All Stars. There are weird quirks with those two Roms (they often change between player1 and player2 inputs for my controllers between the maps and the levels, for example), and I can’t guarantee that they’ll work properly, even with a short autosave interval.

[kakaost]

Hello

can you guys help me out?

i’ve tried both the:

"autosave_interval = 5"

and

"input_enable_hotkey_btn = 8
input_save_state_btn = 5

input_enable_hotkey_btn = 8
input_load_state_btn = 4"

but the game won’t save… I have it setup so if i press Select and start it will shutdown. And it’s a clean exit.

When are you suppose to use the “load_state” combination? is it when i just entered the game or what?

any ides?

[vcolombo]

I had to enable autosaving in the Retroarch config file before this worked (from the retroarch sample conf):

# Automatically saves a savestate at the end of RetroArch’s lifetime.
# The path is $SRAM_PATH.auto.
# RetroArch will automatically load any savestate with this path on startup.
# savestate_auto_save = false

So adding ‘savestate_auto_save = true’ to ~/RetroPie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg will tell retroarch to automatically save the SRAM when exiting.

-Vince

[jplaj]

kakaost,

Just like you can save states at any time during the game, you can load states at any time as well, as long as the rom is running. I’m not familiar with the savestate_auto_save function that vcolombo mentioned (it might be something from a release I haven’t worked with), but at the very least you should be able to do this manually during the game.

Before trying to troubleshoot the autosave_interval problem, I just want to check to make sure we’re looking at the same thing. The function is a little deceptive; it doesn’t actually save your game. All it does is, if there is an option as part of the game to save to the cartridge, it records that data periodically, rather than waiting until shutdown. So assuming it works correctly, you’ll have to use an in-game save point, record data, wait five seconds, and then it should be saved. If that doesn’t work, let us know exactly what happened.

[vcolombo]

The setting I mentioned automatically saves the game’s SRAM when exiting Retroarch, so if the game had built in saving capability ( like Super Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, etc.) and you perform a save within the game, then that save will be retained by Retroarch and loadable in-game the next time you run that game. This is different than Retroarch’s built in saving, which allows you to save whenever and wherever you are in the game, and regardless of whether the game itself ever supported saving.

For me, I was playing Super Metroid and saved within game. The first time I resumed after doing this, I realized my saved game was gone and I hadn’t saved via Retroarch. Found this setting, and now I’m able to save and resume within the game.

-Vince

[kakaost]

After adding “savestate_auto_save = true” to the retroarch.cfg file it worked like a charm! thank for the help both of you! this has been bugging me for weeks!

– Simon

[kakaost]

Now when i have the save function working i got another problem.

Now when i enter a game it’s exactly where i left off. Lets say i’m playing singelplayer Donkey Kong on Snes and want to start a multiplayer game instead. But i can’t get to the menu because it automatically resumes me to where i left off. how do i get to the start menu?

I do apologize if i’m missing something really easy, but it’s my first time playing with a Raspberry.

– simon

[vcolombo]

So, it turns out I had a typo in my configuration file and the “savestate_auto_save = true” was not actually doing what it was supposed to be doing. Now that I fixed it I am seeing the same thing as you, games are saving at the exact location I exit Retroarch rather than simply saving from where I saved in-game.

How are you exiting Retroarch? This discovery has me rather confused, as it would seem to imply that Retroarch actually was saving my games properly without any change to the configuration file.

[Floob]

[quote=6093]Now when i have the save function working i got another problem.
Now when i enter a game it’s exactly where i left off. Lets say i’m playing singelplayer Donkey Kong on Snes and want to start a multiplayer game instead. But i can’t get to the menu because it automatically resumes me to where i left off. how do i get to the start menu?
I do apologize if i’m missing something really easy, but it’s my first time playing with a Raspberry.
– simon
[/quote]

It sounds like you have
savestate_auto_load = true

Try changing that?

[fran008]

Hello. I am excited with this collection of emulators and I’ve been using them for a long time in my Raspberry Pi. I found a problem, though. When I save a state in Neo Geo –with Retroarch, not Gngeo or others– it crashes when I load it. The only way of avoid the crash is loading it WITHIN THE SAME SESSION, but whenever I boot the Pi or restart the EmulationStation session, it crashes if I try to load that same savestate.

It’s important to say that in SNES games it always works great and retrieves my saved states when I load them, and it uses the same Retroarch config.

I have tried with the latest version of RetroPie, in my Raspberry Pi 2, and it crashes too. I have googled this, and I have found a bug in MAME which I think it’s related to –in fact, is the same that I have described:

http://mametesters.org/view.php?id=5429

If someone got his Neogeo savestates loaded with RetroArch please let me know how. Thanks in advance.

[fran008]

Solved by myself:

I have recompiled the libretro-fba project from the repository:

https://github.com/libretro/libretro-fba (2015-04-15)

And Neogeo savestates work flawlessly on Raspberry Pi 2.

[Floob]

[quote=94989]Solved by myself:

I have recompiled the libretro-fba project from the repository:

https://github.com/libretro/libretro-fba (2015-04-15)

And Neogeo savestates work flawlessly on Raspberry Pi 2.
[/quote]

The default in RetroPie is fba-libretro
https://github.com/libretro/fba-libretro

as opposed to libretro-fba

A bit confusing, but there you go.

Discussion on it here:

FBA Retroarch core – coin controls

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