Hacking Questions about Save Files

[retrospect]

Here's what I think I know so far:

When I play a game off a cartridge or from the Gateway SD card, the save file is a .sav file on the 3DS SD card. This can be copied to Windows and restored to the 3DS after changing the SD card, using just copy-paste

What I don't know is how the CIA saves work, and how to back-up and restore those, and how to convert between the two types. Google isn't helping.

Can anyone link to an article or guide? Cheers

 

[aenoch]

Savedatafile for cia saves

 

[retrospect]

OK, Savedatafile shows 3 tabs: User, Ext and SD. User has lots of files, including some that it says are broken. I can export any to SD to that's self-explanatory.

What's the difference between User and Ext? Is there an index somewhere that tells me which game is which ID? Cheers

 

[aenoch]

some games save data to ext i believe thats where street pass is ect http://3ds.essh.co/ search the id from savedatafile on that site it will tell you what save is what ones you export they will be in a folder called file on the sd card

 

[vinnyboiler]

OK, Savedatafile shows 3 tabs: User, Ext and SD. User has lots of files, including some that it says are broken. I can export any to SD to that's self-explanatory.

What's the difference between User and Ext? Is there an index somewhere that tells me which game is which ID? Cheers

User is the save files attached to the game itself, say like a cartage save, Ext I believe is data attached from the game that goes on the SD card (even if it's a cartage game) and SD is the data you import to the CIA (which is inside a folder called "filler" on your SD card)

 

[aenoch]

also for the future when installing with big blue menu the game id will be there just write it down

 

[retrospect]

User is the save files attached to the game itself, say like a cartage save, Ext I believe is data attached from the game that goes on the SD card (even if it's a cartage game)...

I'm not sure I followed that. I did find this though for the IDs: http://3ds.essh.co/

 

[vinnyboiler]

Sorry I was in a rush when I wrote that.

The User tab is the save data for all the games you have on your system as if they would be if you simply had them saved on a cartage. For example, if you had Smash Bros 4 installed on the system then it appear in the list (as a 5 digit code). Ones that say broken either haven't had any data saved on them or saves data elsewhere.

The Ext tab is where all the data that wouldn't be saved on the cartage would go. For example for some reason Smash Bros saves replays to the SD card regardless if you are playing on a cartage or as a game installed on the home menu.

The SD tab is the interesting one. The other 2 tabs allows you to export the data on them to the SD Card in a folder called "filler" which you can access on your computer. Any files found in that folder gets displayed on the SD tab, and pressing the "A" button on any of the options on that tab transfers the saves to your system.

The files you put in this "filler" folder on your SD card is unencrypted, for example my Smash save data is in a folder called "00000ee0" and have two files "account_data.bin" and "system_data.bin" and not just the .sav file that Gateway uses. I'm not sure how to convert them though I think someone on this forum wrote a guide or something? I don't know.

But if you manage to convert it all you would need to do is make a folder inside that filer folder on your computer and drop the files in.

Sorry if I still come off as confusing, I'm not good at explaining things.