Hacking understanding RTS

path · Dec 13, 2008

Im trying to see if Ive understood Real Time save correctly. My understanding was any ds game in the middle of play Id be able to save the state and later restore to exactly where I was. Potentially saving in the middle of a boss battle?
1) I saw posts in the m3 forum where complain about the chrono trigger game not letting them save. Given RTS why would this be an issue. Have I misunderstood the utility of RTS
2) A lot of posts comparing flashcarts also say RTS is not very useful. Why do people think this. Is it from the point of view that RTS babies players? or is there something else?
thanks

skyman113 · Dec 13, 2008

AXYPB · Dec 13, 2008

What is it about RTS that keeps its terminology separate from save states? From what I know about them, they're identical in concept.

skyman113 · Dec 13, 2008

AXYPB said:
What is it about RTS that keeps its terminology separate from save states? From what I know about them, they're identical in concept.

Real Time Save is what the feature is actually called. Save states are what the individual RTS files are called I believe, but I dunno.

Searinox · Dec 13, 2008

1) RTS is a pretty extreme feature -- freezing the whole game and doing a full dump of the memory isn't something all games will be able to do in a stable fashion. 95% of games will work just fine with RTS. If they don't you can expect a future firmware update to fix them.

2) That's just something people who don't have RTS say.

Yes, given that the feature works correctly, you can save at absolutely any given moment in a game. Then you can go back to that moment whenever you want. The size of one such save is about 4MB. Also it takes a few seconds for the saving to complete.

Bri · Dec 13, 2008

The drawbacks of RTS is that the dumps take up a lot of space on your microSD card, that most games have perfectly adequate save features, and that many people consider it "cheating" since some games use save points as part of the game design.

Flash carts that have RTS either have other drawbacks to consider (for example, might have a sluggish menu system) or are more expensive than other flash carts that don't have it. So the question is simply whether having RTS is worth the extra cost or living with other problems.

-Bri

path · Dec 13, 2008

thanks a lot. I understand and sympathize with the cheating aspect and atleast when playing in the comfort of home with the luxury of time I absolutely would consider not using it. But if its to use the ds on public transport and in other places where I might have to stop suddenly at any point, this feature seems awesome

DeMoN · Dec 13, 2008

If you need to stash your DS then you can just close the lid and resume play later.

Real Time Save is mainly for hard games or games with few save points. For example, in Final Fantasy 4 you can't normally save anywhere in dungeons which can be extremely annoying especially if you get owned by the boss. With RTS, you can save anywhere, making the game much easier. (Let's say you lose to a boss, you can just start the boss fight over again instead of having to do over the entire dungeon).

And yes the drawback to RTS is that it's not fail-proof (try using it for Castlevania when there's a lot of junk happening on the screen), and it takes up a lot of space; it's 4.7 MB per save for the Cyclo.

Toni Plutonij · Dec 14, 2008

Searinox said:
2) That's just something people who don't have RTS say.

I own both M3 Real and CycloDS, I can use RTS on any of them, but I never use it.....I don't know why, I like having the feature if it's ever needed, but I prefer plying game in it's original form..

And PharaohsVizier, I never knew that GBA RTS is so unstable, I use it a lot with my Micro on M3 Perfect Lite, and so far, I never experienced corruption!
But you kinda frightened me now a little......Everything I tried to Real Time Save so far, worked perfectly!

Joe88 · Dec 14, 2008

never got any corruptions either
its always worked fine for me besides messed up sprites but they fix them seleves

path · Dec 14, 2008

DeMoN said:
If you need to stash your DS then you can just close the lid and resume play later.

Orly? I didnt know this. So closing the lid will pause the game and let me continue. But how long does the battery last. So can I resume a day or so later? Does it forget where I am when the battery is drained or is there some hibernation type system (I doubt it)

Hacking understanding RTS

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