Hacking Problem restoring save file on DS with Hyperkin Game Genie

[SW4J]

So like the title says, I bought a bit ago a game genie (mostly for the novelty and nostalgia of another game genie) for the DS to back up and restore saves to my physical carts. I was playing Pokemon White 2 on my DSTwo while I waited for the physical copy to arrive. The save files for the DSTwo however do not restore games with the Game Genie, however save files backed up by the Game Genie do work just fine. On further investigation I found that that save file sizes are different. It seems the .sav files from the DSTwo are 512 kb in size, while the Game Genie makes them 513 kb in size, which I'm guessing is why they're incompatible (the game genie gives an error about no savechip being found).

My question is, is there any way to reconcile these differences or am I SoL with getting the Game Genie to work with my DSTwo save files? If that's the case, is there a better alternative that will work with the DSTwo save files?

Thanks guys

 

[Latiken]

Congrats on becoming a new GBATemp member!

I've never actually used a game genie. Try using a .sav converter to 512 kb. Just google it.

 

[SW4J]

Congrats on becoming a new GBATemp member!

I've never actually used a game genie. Try using a .sav converter to 512 kb. Just google it.

Thank you! I figured if anyone could help me with this problem it would be you guys. Long time lurker but first time poster

My problem actually is that the Game Genie uses 513 kb save files, so my 512 kb save files are useless. It's not that I need to convert its 513 kb save files to 512, it's the reverse. I'm hoping there's a solution that would work around having to buy an AR to get this to work. I've looked up a popular online converted, but all of the output formats seem to lack an option that's 513 kb.

 

[Latiken]

Well I googled it. I didn't get good results. Apparently, there is no way to convert .sav files to and from 513 kb to 512 kb.
The only solution I can think of is buying an ARDSi.

 

[SW4J]

Well I googled it. I didn't get good results. Apparently, there is no way to convert .sav files to and from 513 kb to 512 kb.
The only solution I can think of is buying an ARDSi.

I see, thank you for your help! Hopefully someone around here has a bit of personal experience with the Game Genie and knows a workaround, but I have the bad feeling that my only option is the AR. I've heard some bad things about it in terms of breaking down if it's so much as sneezed at, another reason why I went to the Game Genie.

 

[Latiken]

Maybe one of the reasons there is no known solution is because the game genie isn't exactly popular.
Hopefully a solution may be found in later days

 

[SW4J]

Maybe one of the reasons there is no known solution is because the game genie isn't exactly popular.
Hopefully a solution may be found in later days

Thank you. And the DSi AR can restore save files to the game cart as well, right?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002N73PEQ

That's the only model of AR that does this, correct?

 

[evandixon]

Send me some Game Genie save files, and I may be able to make a converter.

The ARDSi with a microSD card slot isn't made anymore, so there's no guarentee you can buy one.

 

[Deleted-236924]

I'm going to have to assume that the extra 1kb is some kind of header added by the Game Genie.

(You should just have bought an EZ-Flash 3in1 to backup/restore save files with savegame_manager.)

 

[Latiken]

Well I've went through about 3 AR DSi's. Yes they could restore/backup and use game saves. But, Unfortunatley they dont make the micro sd version anymore

 

[SW4J]

Well I've went through about 3 AR DSi's. Yes they could restore/backup and use game saves. But, Unfortunatley they dont make the micro sd version anymore

Yeesh, that's right in line with what I've heard about the durability of the AR DSi :/ Is there any other known alternative for backing up saves to a cart? The Game Genie, while poorly known, is at least durable enough from my brief experience with it so far. It's a shame the save files come out changed like this.

 

[Latiken]

Well theres the R4i Dongle that could back up and play game save to and from game cards. However, you would have a real heck of a time finding a reseller
EDIT: forgot to add that it has a USB port so it saves to your PC.

 

[FAST6191]

Backing up saves
It got a bit broken in the forum upgrade but http://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-dump-your-own-3ds-ds-games-saves.274290/ has some good info. You can do it via a piece of custom hardware like the NDS-Backup-Adapter-Plus (not worth it in my opinion), via wifi (saves are OK, games take ages), a 3 in 1 (OK again but not ideal for games, you can also try for even older methods with older carts but let us not go there right now) or a GBA slot device with DLDI (these days mainly the EZ4).

513K does sound awfully like a header (might be a footer as well, some of the earliest save dumping tools from action replay and such did similar things. Whether http://shunyweb.info/convert.php works for it is a different matter.
Most DS games have something resembling an identifiable save but it is not mandatory from what I have seen so these save dumping tools that are not software tools like the ones in the first link I gave will tend to include a game serial, some info on the save and maybe a checksum for the save and some other pointless stuff (a magic stamp saying it was from an AR was fairly popular). Removing it turns it quite happily back into a proper save (and if it was a footer it would be ignored the whole time anyway).

I should also note at least the first black and white titles had interesting things thanks to the pokewalker sitting on the save bus, I am not sure what goes with the "sequels".

 

[SW4J]

Backing up saves
It got a bit broken in the forum upgrade but http://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-dump-your-own-3ds-ds-games-saves.274290/ has some good info. You can do it via a piece of custom hardware like the NDS-Backup-Adapter-Plus (not worth it in my opinion), via wifi (saves are OK, games take ages), a 3 in 1 (OK again but not ideal for games, you can also try for even older methods with older carts but let us not go there right now) or a GBA slot device with DLDI (these days mainly the EZ4).

513K does sound awfully like a header (might be a footer as well, some of the earliest save dumping tools from action replay and such did similar things. Whether http://shunyweb.info/convert.php works for it is a different matter.
Most DS games have something resembling an identifiable save but it is not mandatory from what I have seen so these save dumping tools that are not software tools like the ones in the first link I gave will tend to include a game serial, some info on the save and maybe a checksum for the save and some other pointless stuff (a magic stamp saying it was from an AR was fairly popular). Removing it turns it quite happily back into a proper save (and if it was a footer it would be ignored the whole time anyway).

I should also note at least the first black and white titles had interesting things thanks to the pokewalker sitting on the save bus, I am not sure what goes with the "sequels".

Thank you for the detailed reply! Shuny was the site I tried earlier and...well simply nothing there works with the strange Game Genie settings. I think the extra kb is due to the system asking for "save file details" after the name, meaning I could write a (very) short blurb about that particular save. I really wish I knew how to add on that short bit just to get this stupid save onto the actual cart! It really shouldn't be this hard, I feel like I'm just missing something extremely obvious. Then again it's also pretty involved to get GCN saves onto a computer from a memory card and that has been an issue for considerably longer.

I should also note that I tried the Game Genie saves with other games (Castlevania: OoE and Trauma Center), and for some reason for both of those the save files were absolutely miniscule: 9 kb. Ultimately at this point I'd just like something reliable to move my save files to the carts, but also able to back them up for safe storage on my PC (with my other save files from my GB, GBC, and GBA carts).

I don't care about backing up games really all that much, which device would you recommend (hopefully one that's reasonably affordable) for simply backing up and restoring save files?

 

[Latiken]

Well theres really only one but its like 50 dollars. go to amazon and search "ds back up game save" one should pop up. unfortunatley its out of stock but you can look that device up on eBay for something.

 

[jimmyemunoz]

the r4i save dongle is what you need and it's extremely cheap...less than $12 dollars shipped.
http://r4i-sdhc.com/SaveDongle.asp
http://www.deal4days.com/Latest-Save-Dongle-Crack-3DS-NDSi-NDS-Game-Cart-s219735.html

 

[FAST6191]

If you upload a handful of saves someone could take a look and see. Failing that then get your original game and make a backup and then make a save on the supercard and figure out roughly what is different. I imagine the seed values and more for pokemon will have changed but the broad strokes will remain the same and it should be enough to figure it out.
Assuming there is no checksum you can probably work around it on an individual game basis via a bit of copy and paste/insert (or indeed copy /b if you really want*).

*the general idea for copy /b is
copy /b file1.file+file2.file newfile.file
Here file1 would probably be the premade header, file2 would be the save and newfile would be the file it spits out. Replace names and extensions as appropriate.

As for backing up saves- I still have a selection of various EZ4s and don't play pokemon on a real cart so I go with that. What I would do if going from scratch and assuming I did not want an EZ4 (and they are awesome for GBA games so it is not like you are losing out) then possibly wifi. It would probably depend upon how much I cared to have saves, how much I wished to spend and how much hassle I would be willing to put up with and the answer to any one of those fluctuates with temperature.

 

[SW4J]

If you upload a handful of saves someone could take a look and see. Failing that then get your original game and make a backup and then make a save on the supercard and figure out roughly what is different. I imagine the seed values and more for pokemon will have changed but the broad strokes will remain the same and it should be enough to figure it out.
Assuming there is no checksum you can probably work around it on an individual game basis via a bit of copy and paste/insert (or indeed copy /b if you really want*).

*the general idea for copy /b is
copy /b file1.file+file2.file newfile.file
Here file1 would probably be the premade header, file2 would be the save and newfile would be the file it spits out. Replace names and extensions as appropriate.

As for backing up saves- I still have a selection of various EZ4s and don't play pokemon on a real cart so I go with that. What I would do if going from scratch and assuming I did not want an EZ4 (and they are awesome for GBA games so it is not like you are losing out) then possibly wifi. It would probably depend upon how much I cared to have saves, how much I wished to spend and how much hassle I would be willing to put up with and the answer to any one of those fluctuates with temperature.

Thanks for the help! UniqueGeek was able to get a tool working for the Pokemon games but...it seems the device handles that differently than just about every other game (makes some sense given all of the variables a Pokemon game would have to keep track of). Any non-Pokemon game that I've tried has been a measly 9 kb in size.

 

[FAST6191]

That could just be that the save itself was of a different type- the DS has Flash and EEPROM type saves with the smallest being 4 kbit or half a kilobyte- 64kbit or 8 kilobytes is really common. The only reason we have 256 and 512 kilobytes saves is because it is hard to detect save type from the ROM itself (if you have the cart there it is trivial) and most flash carts (the EZ5 with the savelist for the sizes of all the games and maybe the DSX which had compression for the older carts and not a lot of newer ones being the only real exceptions) copied the R4 method of just making a 256 kilobyte (and then 512 when that came around in later games) for every title.

If it still adds an extra kilobyte then 8KB (or 9 as it comes off the device) is very much a valid size. To that end you might still be able to remove or add headers as necessary and trim or pad out the saves to the size your cart wants.

 

[SW4J]

That could just be that the save itself was of a different type- the DS has Flash and EEPROM type saves with the smallest being 4 kbit or half a kilobyte- 64kbit or 8 kilobytes is really common. The only reason we have 256 and 512 kilobytes saves is because it is hard to detect save type from the ROM itself (if you have the cart there it is trivial) and most flash carts (the EZ5 with the savelist for the sizes of all the games and maybe the DSX which had compression for the older carts and not a lot of newer ones being the only real exceptions) copied the R4 method of just making a 256 kilobyte (and then 512 when that came around in later games) for every title.

If it still adds an extra kilobyte then 8KB (or 9 as it comes off the device) is very much a valid size. To that end you might still be able to remove or add headers as necessary and trim or pad out the saves to the size your cart wants.

Thanks for that explanation, though to be honest as I'm sure you've guessed by now I'm pretty useless with the technical aspect of things. Thankfully Uniquegeek was able to help me with the Pokemon save file, but for any other I'm probably SoL as I really don't even know how to do what you're talking about. I do know that another user here posted this item:

http://www.deal4days.com/Latest-Save-Dongle-Crack-3DS-NDSi-NDS-Game-Cart-s219735.html

And I'm wondering if anyone has experience with the store (if it's reliable/legit) and with the item (if I'll have the same problem with file conversions as the Game Genie, or if it is the same file sizes as the DSTwo and will work flawlessly).