Hacking Help with Saves on Supercard Mini DS

[twistywizard]

Got my patched NDS Lite today, flashed with flashme.

Also a MiniSD Supercard.

I have run the software and patched a ROM (New Super Mario) it created my file and also the SAV file. Copied them both to my SD card and Mario runs fine.

I am confused though. Can I just save via the game itself or do I have to use a button combo to save state? Or can I do both? Bit confused

Also what is the button combo for saving if there is one?

Cheers Guys

 

[legendofphil]

Mine saves by itself, i'm not sure if its an option I chose in the patching program.

 

[twistywizard]

How do you mean Saves by itself? What at varying intervals?

 

[legendofphil]

I mean it saves automatically on the mini-SD card.

 

[twistywizard]

I see so you basically treat the NDS rom as if you had a NDS cart plugged in and just save when the game allows.

I think from having a read the button combo is for GBA games

 

[legendofphil]

I believe you do with GBA games (L+R+A+SELECT when you playing a game.) but its different with DS games.

 

[twistywizard]

Yep having a good read has revealed this

Cheers

 

[lazyman]

I think I read somewhere that the DS game saves are written to SRAM in the supercard when you use the games own saving interface. Apparently the supercard copies that to the appropriate .sav file on the removable memory card only when it gets back to the main menu. I could be wrong though, and my info could be out of date.

Can anyone clarify?

 

[MC DUI]

I think I read somewhere that the DS game saves are written to SRAM in the supercard when you use the games own saving interface. Apparently the supercard copies that to the appropriate .sav file on the removable memory card only when it gets back to the main menu. I could be wrong though, and my info could be out of date.

Can anyone clarify?

You definitely don't have to go back to the main menu in order to have DS games save, I just turn off my DS after having saved in game. (Has SupercardSD)

 

[lazyman]

You definitely don't have to go back to the main menu in order to have DS games save, I just turn off my DS after having saved in game. (Has SupercardSD)

Arr but that's the thing: when you do eventually turn your ds on again that is when the supercard writes the save game to the memory card. Up until that point, from what I understand, the save game is just sitting in battery powered SRAM in the supercard. If it is then I would guess that if you left it too long before turning your ds back on your save game would actually be lost, however I have no idea how long that would be.

 

[faceless]

the Supercard saves DS savegames directly to the SD/CF Card

 

[Alastair]

You definitely don't have to go back to the main menu in order to have DS games save, I just turn off my DS after having saved in game. (Has SupercardSD)


Arr but that's the thing: when you do eventually turn your ds on again that is when the supercard writes the save game to the memory card. Up until that point, from what I understand, the save game is just sitting in battery powered SRAM in the supercard. If it is then I would guess that if you left it too long before turning your ds back on your save game would actually be lost, however I have no idea how long that would be.

20 seconds.

I don't know about with DS but with GBA you have to manually save it to the save state.
You can do it in-game (a habit of mine before turning it off) with L+R+Select+A
OR
You can turn the DS off and on within 20 secs. then go right to 'Saves' and manually save it.

I'm yet to get a DS though...

If it auto-saves for DSs that would be amaaaazing

 

[MC DUI]

You definitely don't have to go back to the main menu in order to have DS games save, I just turn off my DS after having saved in game. (Has SupercardSD)


Arr but that's the thing: when you do eventually turn your ds on again that is when the supercard writes the save game to the memory card. Up until that point, from what I understand, the save game is just sitting in battery powered SRAM in the supercard. If it is then I would guess that if you left it too long before turning your ds back on your save game would actually be lost, however I have no idea how long that would be.

20 seconds.

I don't know about with DS but with GBA you have to manually save it to the save state.
You can do it in-game (a habit of mine before turning it off) with L+R+Select+A
OR
You can turn the DS off and on within 20 secs. then go right to 'Saves' and manually save it.

I'm yet to get a DS though...

If it auto-saves for DSs that would be amaaaazing

It does indeed autosave with DS games.

 

[lazyman]

I'm sorry to keep dragging this up, but it concerns me and I still haven't found any definitive info. In the M3 adaptor Vs Supercard article on this very site it says:

Save data is held in the SRAM until you turn off the DS and turn it back on. Then it will backup to the .sav file it already created. (This is assuming you left the Saver patch option in the client software enabled (default setting)).

You can't have more than one physical .sav file per ROM. But that's not really a problem as you shouldn't need to anyway...
And at least you can backup and share .sav files easily, as they're written in a RAW format and are compatible with any other device that supports RAW DS saves (NeoFlash and Magic Key 2 for example).

There are still some compatibility issues when it comes to saving in certain DS ROMs. A very select few will not be able to save properly, save with limited functions, or not save at all, or at least; save the "old-school" way by saving directly to the DS card you have inserted into your PassMe/DS slot.

This seems to be saying that the DS save games arn't written to the flash memory card immediately. If this info is out of date can someone point me towards some better info?

 

[meangreenie]

With Supercard, saves must be writing directly to the memory card because most Supercards have no battery to hold the save data in saver memory.

And there are no save issues with Supercard (I know I have one) on any game apart from 'Madagascar' (fix is save to a DS cart or patch it with wrg-loadme and use the QPC method.."for SC without battery"... to save)

 

[Nocturno]

all supercards have a battery, at least the miniSD ones, if yours doesn´t have a batery them it is a fake supercard..

now I have a question, I just got a supercard, and I´m testing it playing the new mario game, I played a few worlds, then I saved the game, turn the DS off and on, started tha game again and the save was right there,, them I went to the supercard menu again,, there´s a SAVER menu, and if I press A on a save archive a message appears,
"Do you save to SD? A--yes B--no"
if I press A, the menu freezes with weird colors and if I start the game again, my saves is lost..

Why is that?

 

[Smiths]

I have a feeling the "Saver" and the "Do you save to SD" is if you didn't patch a game to "save to SD" in the SuperPass application.

I haven't tested this theory, but I think it's like if you didn't select that option, then your ROM will save to a DS Cart in the DS slot.
So when you do the "Saver" option i think it takes the save of a DS cart and writes it to the save file on the SD?

Again, I have no clue about this. But I know I lost my Mario 64 save by accidentally selecting "Saver" and doing "Do you save to SD?" for Slot 1. The SAV file it wrote was 256KB of 00s.

Thankfully there was an ARMax game save with a similar amount of stars to what I had, so I used their program to download it, and then converted it to the SuperCard .SAV format using a command line tool.

Still was pissed to lose my save over a random option I have no clue about. Now I just avoid the "Saver" menu.

 

[CatScam]

I did the same as you newbie, & lost a save because of that save section.
I should read up, on it but because everything works great I have not bothered.
But I did see some ware that the save section is for GBA games only, if you don’t
use the save button combo.

 

[xxx_boy]

when u convert your rom, choose real time save.
and you can go to supercard's help, it shows how to save

 

[DcJack]

Does a fake Supeprcard mini-Sd give corrupt data when you try to save? Mine alteast does and im not happy about it the seller will send a real one atleast. I need to learn to write correct English.