Hacking importing/exporting game saves

[ralamzull]

I searched and found somewhere on here that someone was having problems getting gba game saves from their 3-in-1 to vba and back again... well me too...

The difference is that they're .sav file was too big for vba.... my game .sav is too small for my 3-in-1.

The game is Tactics Ogre. I've save patched it, trimmed it, and reset patched it with gbata 7.sumthing, played it and saved just fine with the 3-in-1. Backed up my sram save... plugged it into my computer... copied the rom file to vba's rom directory, started it, imported my 3-in-1 .sav, Hacked, cheated, and otherwise defaced the game. Saved. Went to move my new .sav file onto my sd card... stopped quick when I noticed the .sav was only 64kb in size... ALL my 3-in-1 .sav's are 128kb. I double checked VBA real quick and It was set on SRAM type save with flash 128kb selected... I didn't wanna try to just... slap it in there and replace my real .sav with this... smaller .sav... so I decided to post and see what people thought of my perdicament...


BTW~ for those who care... the 3-in-1 isn't nearly as confusing as it sounds when you have nothing to base it on.

 

[kazumi213]

I'm not sure about the effects of all those patching (I've never used a 3-in-1), but the clean ROM uses 64 kbytes saves. If you now have a 64 kbytes save but your 3-in-1 requires a 128 kbytes one, just open your 64 in an hex editor, go to the end of the file and add 65 536 bytes of 00. That will convert your save to a 128 kbytes one.

To be sure, open in a hex editor your unhacked 128 kbytes save (from your 3-in-1, before hacking it on VBA) and check that the second half of your save is either all 00 or all FF. Then the above will work.

 

[BurlyEd]

I finally figured it out and tested on Ruby.
You have to run a patched .nds file on 3in1, an unpatched .nds file on VBA and import/export the saves.
(Or rename the saves.)

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=560...65&#entry716665
for details

 

[ralamzull]

So the .sav that is already in my 3-in-1 is garbage then? Since your method I have to start a new game in vba, hack cheat ect, then send that to 3-in-1... or can I import the .sav from the 3-in-1?

NVM, I got it.

I went ahead and forced it through... Loaded the patched rom via vba, took my 64kbit save, renamed it.... loaded it on card and restored it to sram... and it worked... no problems... dont know if the 3-in-1 set it back up as 128kb yet as I haven't removed my card.