Homebrew GBA Virtual Console Save Conversion

[crazygamer721]

I am going through and replaying Minish Cap. I have extracted my save from my system using Saviine and wanted to convert it so that it may be used on an emulator on my PC while I'm not at home. The files that were dumped came in .bin extensions and VBA uses .sav. Is there anyway to convert it?

 

[SlimPortable]

I'm looking for help on this too. I dumped my Wii U copy of Medabots GBA and got 2 .bin files in the save folder using DDD Dumper.

I'm trying to convert it to use with the 3DS GBA VC Injects though. Anyone had success with either of conversions?

 

[bootmonster]

What are the file sizes of the bin files?

Open them in a hex editor and compare them with a save file from vba

 

[bootmonster]

So... a while back Nintendo released Super Mario Advance 4 for the Wii U's Virtual Console in the U.S. which finally had all 38 of the e-Reader levels officially in English for the first time.

However... the VC release only added the e-Reader levels themselves and none of the other e-Reader features such as the e-Switches or being able to use the Cape or the Blue Boomerang outside of World-e among some other things as these features needed to be scanned through the e-Reader to work.

However, once the kernel exploit was able to be used on 5.5.1 I was able to make use of Saviine to dump my own SMA4 VC save and after looking around to see if anyone had done any research on the file structure and found nothing I decided I'd poke around in the hex editor HxD to see if I could find anything in the decrypted save file.

After comparing a normal 128 kb save file to the 145 kb data_008_0000.bin file that I obtained from Saviine I discovered where the save in the VC Save file was located.

Specifically in hexadecimal it starts at offset 4080 and ends at offset 2407F at the end of the file.

I then copy pasted a save file with e-Reader stuff into the data_008_0000.bin file with HxD and after deleting the data_012_0001.bin file as that was probably the suspend point data and would cause it load the previous save file instead of the injected one, I used Saviine to inject the save file and it loaded up successfully.

Unfortunately I'm not a programmer so as much as I'd like to make a tool to not have to use a hex editor for the save file extraction/injection I sadly can't, but perhaps someone who can might be interested in doing so.

Anyway I have attached a zip with two save files for anyone who would like to play through the game with the additional e-Reader stuff but would prefer not to use a hex editor.

Both saves are basically the same but with one important difference, the one in the folder labeled Red Switch has the Red Switch e-card scanned in which makes the game slightly harder but gives you double points.

Seeing as Saviine decrypts the save file these saves should work on any Wii U but please inform me if they do not.

I'm not sure if other VC Gba games also use this save file format as I didn't dump any other Gba saves but I'm sure that can be looked into if someone is interested for some reason.

From another thread, should help you do what you need.

 

[SlimPortable]

From another thread, should help you do what you need.

I tried doing this but with the hex editor I used I wasn't finding the hexadecimal beginning and end he mentioned so I guess it's game specific?