Hacking Confirm if your retail dump and .sav worked

[Quicksilver88]

I have seen conflicting reports on this with some people saying that their cartridge dump and .sav dump worked together when transferred to Gateway others that said no.

I suspect a few variables are the cause, including newer games that use 6.x save keys but that Emunand still uses the 4.x keys. Obviously we are talking about only EEPROM games.

I dumped my Luigi DM_USA cart and save and the .sav file was only 128KB, and it didn't work. I suspect if it could be 'injected' into a 512kb file maybe it would work as Luigi uses the 2.x save keys.

So without modification Luigi .sav is not working.....anyone else please post here if your dump/.sav worked.
PS...I tried to see if it would let me restore the Luigi.sav to the Gateway eeprom and it wouldn't as the Gateway does not present the proper cartridge ID

I know some people don't care about this issue, but those of us with large retail libraries, or significant time invested in a game like FE or SMT moving retails to .sav is a big deal.....

 

[Deboog]

Mario Kart 7 worked for me, even online. Remember to rename the .sav to the titleid.

 

[Quicksilver88]

Going to try SMT IV now.....I presume MK made a 512kb .sav file when you dumped it?

 

[tjexp]

Going to try SMT IV now.....I presume MK made a 512kb .sav file when you dumped it?

Yeah its 512kb

 

[kyogre123]

You may want to make sure you renamed your games to 3dz? I just realised this was the problem here.

 

[Deboog]

Going to try SMT IV now.....I presume MK made a 512kb .sav file when you dumped it?

Yep.

 

[kyogre123]

This is weird, but only my games with online support worked. Games like Ocarina and 3D Land are not accepting the save file... am I doing something wrong?

 

[Quicksilver88]

No....check the file size as I know for sure Zelda OoT uses 128kb save and I suspect Mario 3D does as well. That was the same problem I had with LuigiDM and Pilot wings which both used 128kb save size. Like I said in OP I think someone just needs to make a tool to inject/extract the 128kb retail .sav file into a 512kb file. Looking at both a Gateway save and a retail save from one of these 128kb eeprom games might be of use to someone who knows what they are looking at.

 

[kyogre123]

You are right. Both save file are 128kB but after the game creates its own save data by itself, the file ends up being 512kB. This was not a problem with Kid Icarus and Mario Kart, since these were natively 512kB from the dump.

 

[Quicksilver88]

I would take a look at both .sav files (the 128KB retail one and the 512kb one Gateway creates) in a Hex editor and see what it looks like. You would think Gateway file would have a lot of null data in it and then the actual 128kb required for the save. That's why I think someone who knows more than me could create a little tool that converts a 128kb to 512kb and visa versa. I think the location of the data in the 512kb Gateway file is all that needs to be deduced and adjusted.

I actually got curious about Pokémon (which uses Nand save). I dumped my Pokémon X (that I had played on Gateway emunand) and when putting it on Gateway the save was corrupt. Now with the new 'online activation' feature I wonder if I dump the rom again and rename it .3dz if my save will work. So dumping Pokémon X now and then will do SMT IV later.....

 

[gamesquest1]

yeah pokemon will work

general rule is here

saves dumped from a retail card can be used on gateway if shared with the unique cart ID but this one is where it gets most confusing firstly for 6.x crypto saves this only applies if the game was run in emunand only, also the saves have to be from a game that usually uses either nand saving OR a 512kb save chip i.e mario Kart will work if dumped from retail and shared with unique cart ID but ocarina of time will not as its save chip is 128kb and gateway only uses 512kb for all games

 

[MGS1980]

I would take a look at both .sav files (the 128KB retail one and the 512kb one Gateway creates) in a Hex editor and see what it looks like. You would think Gateway file would have a lot of null data in it and then the actual 128kb required for the save. That's why I think someone who knows more than me could create a little tool that converts a 128kb to 512kb and visa versa. I think the location of the data in the 512kb Gateway file is all that needs to be deduced and adjusted.

I actually got curious about Pokémon (which uses Nand save). I dumped my Pokémon X (that I had played on Gateway emunand) and when putting it on Gateway the save was corrupt. Now with the new 'online activation' feature I wonder if I dump the rom again and rename it .3dz if my save will work. So dumping Pokémon X now and then will do SMT IV later.....

Your Pokemon save will work if you are redumping it and renaming it since you have been playing it on emuNAND already. I did an experiment trying that out yesterday.

Just of note for others who may actually read this, if you have been playing your cart on a normal (non Gateway), the save will show up as corrupt no matter what you do.

Edit: ninja'ed

 

[redkeyboard]

NSMB2 didn't work, it's 128KB

 

[Reecey]

yeah pokemon will work

general rule is here

saves dumped from a retail card can be used on gateway if shared with the unique cart ID but this one is where it gets most confusing firstly for 6.x crypto saves this only applies if the game was run in emunand only, also the saves have to be from a game that usually uses either nand saving OR a 512kb save chip i.e mario Kart will work if dumped from retail and shared with unique cart ID but ocarina of time will not as its save chip is 128kb and gateway only uses 512kb for all games

So basically just start your game again with the .3DZ file, its so much less hassle!

 

[gamesquest1]

well if you have only played your games in emunand, all you need to do is check if the save is 512kb if it is rename the save to the title ID of the game and its all good,

even easier with pokemon/animal crossing if you only ever played on emunand, just rename the dumped rom to .3dz and it will work straight away

 

[soaresden]

So you notice that it's a size problem ^^
I agree with you so, the R-E Revelations save that I Own is 512ko

So like you @, here 3 others games that ****ed up because I played these before all Gateway's adventure :

MGS 3DS
RE Mercenaries
Zelda : Ocarina 3D

I hope we can create a file or change it's size to 512 !

PS : Maybe comparing our saves with a freshly formatted by the game ?

 

[Quicksilver88]

That's what I recommended was comparing a retail 128kb save with a Gateway 512kb save from a game like Mario, or LuigiDM. I think if we can find the start/end location in the 512kb then we should be able to cut/paste the retail 128kb data into the 512kb file.

So your RE revelations save worked, and I assumed you started the save file before Gateway came along on OFW?

 

[soaresden]

So your RE revelations save worked, and I assumed you started the save file before Gateway came along on OFW?

Yep' !
But figuring what's going on with all that, testing things, I don't remember exactly how I made it lol ^^

This **it is making me crazy, about 3 times attempting to do the MGS3DS backup, and even transfering the .3D0 .3D1 the console keep laughing at me with a "Fragmentation Error" WTF seriously !?

I'm done for this tonight !

 

[Zananok]

What is meant by "rename the sav to game title ID"?
Is the ID of the new header used on the 3dz file?


Btw, just defrag the SD card, and you wont get the error anymore. Any time you get that error, just defrag the SD card. A small pain that is totally worth for using GW
https://www.piriform.com/defraggler


Regards,
Zananok

 

[Tybus]

I used retail Paper Mario Sticker Star header on Resident Evil Mercenaries and Worked! --- Got save file corrupted
But i used the same header (Modifying the 90 hex to 98) on Animal Crossing and didnt work, save file didnt get corrupted (maybe cuz its nand saved)

---Edit ---
Wait a second, i didnt rename the Animal Crossing to .3dz , i will update when i try it
--Edit2---
Just renamed it save file got corrupted gotta wait till i can tell if i can go online
---Edit3---
Internet is working now , awesome... Just save file issue