Emulation Goomba Paletted 2.40 Settings?

[Bart Lemming]

Just wondering if anyone can help. I've got an EZ-Flash IV and I use Goomba Paletted 2.40. The problem I have is that the program never remembers my palette and border settings (yes, even when I save the settings! ). It always defaults back. It's nothing game breaking but it's bloody annoying! Thanks in (GB)advance, P

 

[kuwanger]

Well, that's a litte odd. AFAIK, I've never had problems with the palette and border settings being saved on my EZ-Flash IV. So, I'd like to ask a few diagnostic questions. What's the full name of your Goomba compilation? Do you have a proper matching save file in the saver folder? Do SRAM/save states work? Is the issue that palette/border settings aren't saved at all or that they're the same for all games in a compilation? Are you using "Exit" from the L+R menu and allowing your EZ-Flash IV the time to write out your save?

Yes, I know all the above question probably have obvious answers. I just want to double check all the obvious stuff because it seems like the sort of thing to check out first. After that, hopefully we'll have a better idea of what the trouble is.

 

[Bart Lemming]

Boy, that's a lot of questions. Seriously though, I've called it goomba.gba. Yes, there's a matching save file. However, rather than being named goomba.sav it's actuall named goomba.s.av (Note the spurious extra full stop).

SRAM and save states seem to work fine. The palette and border settings just aren't saved at all. It doesn't matter whether I exit through the menu or switch it off and on and allow the save file to be written.

Oh, I actually notice there's quite a few files in the Saver folder called the same thing (goomba.s.av). There's, in fact 22 of them and they're all 0 bytes in size...

So, I presume that's the problem. Why would the goomba save files be named in such a strange manner? Is that fixable, at all?

Thanks for your interest in helping out a struggling geek.

 

[kuwanger]

Well, the EZ-Flash IV has a buggy FAT library. It can't create files properly, has issues with overwriting files a multiple of the cluster size, and probably other problems I'm not aware of. So, odds are good that at some point, one game didn't have a .sav file, the EZ-Flash IV created a .sav file for it, that corrupted the saver folder, and now you're seeing wonky behavior. The usually suggested fix is to backup the memory cart, reformat it, then copy everything back. Obviously, this is rather bad as the saver file is corrupt. I've personally been lucky enough to see that *nix's fsck.vfat seems to fix all the problems I've ever encountered without requiring such drastic effects. Still, I try to regularly backup my saver folder anyways, just because.

In any case, until you have that problem sorted out, it'll be hard to tell if the problem is really goomba specific or not. :/

 

[Bart Lemming]

After formatting a copying everything back things seems to be good now. Sorry for blaming Goomba.

I love my EZ-Flash IV but I wish it was a little more stable. The EZ Client just randomly crashes and the FAT lib is a bit rubbish. Some company needs to go back and make a 'super' GBA flash cart... Maybe krikzz will step up to the plate!?

Seriously though, thank you for your help.