Seeing as there is no ROM talk on the official forums, I suppose this would be the best place to ask.Â
Certain games seem to either not save properly, or revert to an older save (or a non-save)
These are covered on the Compatibility wiki such as Hotel Dusk and Custom Robo Arena... is there anything I can do about it however? I will be playing for hours, go to save, turn it back on, it saves the EEPROM data, I go back into the game, and then I am at the beginning...
Here are my conclusions about the save corruption problem on the DS-X.
The cause is the "EEPROM contents to .SAV file" writting routine (EEPROM message at bootup) is just half-baked for at least the FLASH-type saves. For some FLASH 2 Mbit games (like Mario Kart and Metroid PH) the current DS-X routine correctly writes EEPROM contents to a .SAV file and the result is a WORKING .SAV file.
However for other FLASH 2 Mbit games (Pokemon Ranger and Pokemon D/P) the routine creates CORRUPTED, NON-WORKING .SAV files, there's no such "after you play other ROM" corruption cause, the .SAV is simply created in a corrupted state.
Now some of you will say: but if I keep playing Pokemon Ranger without playing other ROM, my saves work. The answer is no. Each time you see the EEPROM message a corrupted .SAV file is being created. What happens is that the (working) EEPROM contents are not being completely flushed (cleaned) when the .SAV file is create so when you go back and continue your Pokemon Ranger game it reads the EEPROM contents, not the recently created .SAV file. However if you play other ROM, EEPROM contents gets replaced. When you come back to Pokemon Ranger now it can't read from the EEPROM so it tries to read from your .SAV. But your .SAV has been created corrupted (not corrupted by playing other ROM), so that's why you get the corruption message in Pokemon Ranger.
This also happens to Pokemon D/P, the DS-X is also creating corrupted .SAV files. But for some reasons these games "fill" the DS-X EEPROM in such a way that their data is not lost when playing another ROM. So as long as they can read from the EEPROM contents you don't have save problems. I've not tested Custom Robo Arena but that "my progress revert to an old state" my be well due to that old state being the only availabe on the EEPROM and the current being lost or saved to a corrupted .SAV file.
To check this I performed the following test: I played Pokemon D for about 1 hour 15 min. The last in-game save I made was repeated 4 times in a row just to be sure the EEPROM only contained data pertaining to that save. The EEPROM message appeared and my .SAV file was updated. BEFORE loading again Pokemon D, I copied (not cut) the .SAV from my DS-X to my HD. Then I played again Pokemon D. No problems.
Then I deleted the .SAV from my DS-X and loaded Pokemon D. As many have already experienced, you can continue to play even without that .SAV present, a proof it is reading EEPROM contents. I loaded again Pokemon D, but this time at titlescreen I used UP+SELECT+B to ERASE any trace of my progress. This effectively flushes the EEPROM because next time I load Pokemon D it directly starts a new game.
Ok then: I perform the erasing process again but I don't start a new game. I just shut down my NDSL and copy my backup .SAV to the DS-X. Know what? The game says my save is corrupted (remember it was suppossedly working whan I backuped it and before doing all that erasing stuff).
To eliminate all possible interaction I performed then a more extreme test: reflash my DS-X firmware. I know this effectively flushes ALL EEPROM contents. Also I low level formatted the card. The idea was to be sure there was no trace of Pokemon D.
The result is: while restored backup .SAV files for Mario Kart and Metroid PH are working after all this, the Pokemon D .SAV is not recognized and the corrupted message appears.
As I said the corruption problem for some FLASH-type saves is caused by a half-baked FLASH save writting support in the DS-X.
Hope this and MANY other ROM issues/annoyances get fixed FIRST, before releasing a new and unnecessary bells & whistles GUI and more useless SkinApps. And please, DS-X team test your firmware before release and I mean test it seriously.
