Hacking How to use DIOS MIOS GC save folder?

[Elliander]

I have DIOS MIOS working correctly with USB Loader GX and can load Gamecube games from USB backup now. I also have all the paths configured correctly with the save folder pointed to correctly on the SD card. Unfortunately, when I load up a game it tells me it cannot read the

On the one hand I am a bit relieved that I can still use my old gamecube memory cards with this, but how do I tell it to use a folder instead? On that note is there a way to transfer all my old saved games to the SD card or do I have to start over with them? Can the saves be (later on) transferred back to a gamecube memory card for use in games like Tales of Symphonia where you can transfer save information from Gamecube to Wii versions?

...

Also, I noticed something very strange. The games I previously ripped to ISO back when DIOS MIOS was in an early Beta will load as far as the DIOS MIOS gamecube screen and then it all goes black. If I re-rip them directly from the Wii it works, but each disc takes at least 15 minutes to rip and I already have them ready to go on my hard drive. Is there something wrong with the old method now? I converted them with fstfix and then used discex to create the folder containing the game.

 

[Elliander]

Still having trouble:

I used Gamecube Memory Manager to extract save files from my memory cards and put them in the "gcsaves" folder and enabled "DML NMM Mode" and tried a few games that previously worked fine. Everything instead loaded just a black screen. When I turned it off it worked again. So then I tried turning on "Devo MemCard Emulation" and games would load, but no saves were recognized in any game. Finally I checked the compatibility list to see what games are confirmed to work completely and found "Starfox Assault" on that list so turned "DML NMM Mode" on under the settings for just that game and of course just that game would only play a black screen while on.

The thing is though I can't seem to find any guides anywhere about how to properly set this up. I don't know if I am putting the saves in the right folder or if they are even in the correct format. I also don't know what to do with duplicate names (from same memory slot of a game) on different cards, or how limited saves are handled (such as 3 in Mario Sunshine). I made sure of course to keep my memory cards out of course.

Can someone please shed some light on this?

 

[Elliander]

I made some progress: I figured out that if there is any disc in the drive (Wii game or GC game) the game will load with "DML NMM Mode" turned ON. Unfortunately, the games still cannot detect the save files.

EDIT: I finally found some information. Turns out I need to be using a raw dump of the memory cards. Going to test it out now to see if it works for me.

Part 5b: Using An Emulated Memory Card
If you have a real GameCube memory card and it works you are free to skip this step. Emulated memory card is only really needed if your memory card is lost or damaged, however, if you choose to use Emulated Memory purely for convenience that is fine as well. This section will teach you how to import all your saves from your real GC memory card onto an emulated memory card for use with Devolution. If you did not insert a memory card the first time you loaded a game, Devolution will have generated a EmuMemory Card for you. This means if you had no usable GC memory card to begin with you are done, those who do have one and want to extract their saves from it keep reading.

Plug your GameCube memory card into slot A and load GCMM v1.4 from the Homebrew Channel. You will be asked to choose either SD or USB (I chose SD but it's up to you if you want to use USB instead). Use A (for SD) or B (for USB) to make your choice and you will now see a screen detailing which buttons preform what functions. In order for Devolution to read the memory card you need a raw dump, so press B & - (minus) at the same time. Now select the slot your memory card is plugged into by pressing A and wait for the program to work its magic. Once it completes Press A and then Home to exit to the Homebrew Channel. Plug your SD card into your computer, navigate to the "MCBACKUP" folder on the root of the card and look inside for a file named something like "1019b_2013_01Jan_09_14-37-17.raw". In order for Devolution to read this file properly you must rename & convert it first, don't worry though it's incredibly easy to do. All you need to do is navigate to your memory card raw on your SD card or USB drive and rename it to memcard.bin, be sure that the file type changes from .raw to .bin so Devolution will be able to read it.

Now take your newly generated memcard.bin file and copy it over to USB/apps/gc_devo as that is the only place Devolution will be able to find it. Now safely eject your USB device, plug it and your SD card back into your Wii, launch USB Loader GX and choose a game you have a save for that is also set to load with Devolution. Now go into the games individual settings, click Game Load and scroll down to "DEVO MemCard Emulation" click on it till it says ON. Save the settings and press B till you see the games banner, click start to load the game. It should now load your save that was on your memory card. It is important to note that this ripped memcard.bin will equal to the size of the card it was ripped from, so if your physical card had only 251 blocks that is what this one will have as well.

EDIT 2: Since I learned that only one memcard.bin file can be in the gc_devo folder I took my 3 memory cards and copies all the games from each onto a brand new 64 MB card which I just bought just to do this. Only one game could not be copied normally, but I was able to copy that game to SD from one card and then restore to another with GCMM before creating the raw file with GCMM.

I then installed Devolution and went into USB Loader GX. Under Global Loader settings I turned "DML NMM Mode" off and turned on "DEVO MemCard Emulation". I then loaded up "Starfox Assault" as a test (with a Wii game inserted) and it did not detect the memcard.bin file. I then restarted and had the original disc in the drive to see if that would make a difference. It didn't.

Next I tried turning "DML NMM Mode" back on, kept "Devo Memcard Emulation" back on and kept the original game disc for "Starfox Assault" in the drive while running it from USB Loader GX. This time it asked me if I wanted to create a save file - progress! - unfortunately, there is already a save file on the memory card which means it doesn't see my old save files. I then tried turning off "Devo Memcard Emulation" and surprisingly it still worked, but couldn't see my save games.

Finally I loaded Mario Sunshine with the Starfox disc still in (kept settings as they were) primarily because the save files are more obvious on this game and... it asks me if I want to create a save file

So what do I have to do in order to get it to recognize the memory card I extracted?

 

[bm123456]

http://gbatemp.net/threads/how-do-y...cal-gamecube-memory-card.339664/#post-4502977

 

[Elliander]

http://gbatemp.net/threads/how-do-y...cal-gamecube-memory-card.339664/#post-4502977

Thank You! That was what I was missing! Now it works! Best part is I was able to put the individual save files onto the SD card to avoid corruption due to the USB hard drive powering down even though the games are on the USB hard drive!

So anyway, for those who read this thread later with a similar problem I just had extract the saves to .gci with NMM and then convert them into folders with Nmm2gci v0.2 (one at a time) and then copied the folders to the games directory of my SD card to get individual saves to work. Also, by following the steps I figured through above I was able to get the gamecube games to load without a black screen even without a disc inserted.

Gci to NMM or vice versa with Nmm2gci v0.2 by suloku here: http://www.mediafire.com/?3rs90wo9hu0bjb4

GCMM 1.4 by suloku Game cube memory manager here http://code.google.com/p/gcmm/downloads/detail?name=gcmm_1.4.rar&can=2&q=

So take your NMM save convert it to Gci format place in MC backup folder on your SD card or Usb , GCMM will allow you to tranfer it to either slot.

 

[Elliander]

Ok, scratch what I said about it loading my saves. I must have been tired because I actually left one of the memory cards in when I loaded it up after. When I took the card out it did NOT load the saved games. Since was obviously an issue of WHERE it wants the files to be I loaded up "Mario Sunshine" and said that it could create a save file for me (thinking I could then just track down the file location) and... the game freezes. So I then try the same with "starfox assault" and... it freezes. I try Mario Sunshine again and apparently it only froze because it was creating the save file because it allowed me to select "new" game. I played through far enough to save and quit and it appeared to have frozen, but after about a minute or two it saved. (not an encouraging sign of speed).

Anyway, I looked through the files on the hard drive and found a "saves" folder with the folders created. I then copied into it all the folders and moved the "saves" folder to SD (hoping it would work), but after I did that all the games loaded a black screen. When I moved the "saves" folder to USB everything works. The games load saves from USB, no disc in drive, no memory card in slot.

So now I have a new problem: how do I get the saves to save to SD? The problem with USB hard drive is that it has a power saving feature. Half the "saving" time is likely related to that, but I couldn't find a "custom paths" for DML Gamecube saves.

 

[johneem]

just to add my experience, I downloaded a full save file for Luigis Mansion which when restored to my original gamecube MC didn't work

I really wanted the full game save so I tried this and it worked....

• A) played luigis mansion ISO through wiiflow up to first save point - saved game
• B) backed up the save file onto USB with GCMM
• C) Formatted GameCube MC so it was totally empty
• D) On my PC I took the downloaded (full) save file and renamed it with the name of the save file (the one saved in stage A), I discarded the save file on the USB and replaced it with the downloaded Save File with the new name.
• E) I replaced the USB in the wii, fired up GCMM through HBC and restored the new file to the GCMC
• F) I then fired up wiiflow and proceeded to load Luigis mansion ISO, the save file was present with FULL ACCESS to all levels

Please leave a comment if this worked for you too

 

[WaryLouka]

I recommend using Devolution if you are not a pirate, and that your Wii supports the GameCube hardware.