Emulation Saving Goomba Color

[Cartoni]

Hi,

Yesterday I played pokemon trading card game on a microSD EZFlash IV (kernel 2.01) through the patched goomba color on my NDS lite and everything worked fine. However, when I just started it, my save state was gone (10 hours of playing). Since the real save functionality has never worked for me, I already used the save states but now..... I don't know what happened, there is still a .sav file in the saver folder.

Can anybody help me or explain to me what the correct way of saving is on Goomba Color? Because this is really pissing me off.

PS @EZ-Flash2 I don't know whether you make use of the patched goomba color, posted on GBAtemp, but this would be a serious issue for the EZFlash Omega.

 

[Ashes]

I have same save problems with Goomba color in my NDS, with ezflash reform (ezflashIV 2.05). I use goomba color lastest version, and also EZ4-64 and GBATA to reduce issues, but problem remains.

With GBC roms: In the case of Metal Gear GB, goombafront creates a blackout in the intro that freezes the game. And when i intent to take the elevator (third stage), game freezes too, so i can´t continue. Deactivate GSS (L+B) doesn´t matter. With Zelda link´s awakening DX save problems (new entry and save has gone).

With GB roms: Works fine but i have save problems and after few entries game saves disappears or corrupts (with EZ4-64 and GBATA this corrupt issue ends).

 

[romanaOne]

I have same save problems with Goomba color in my NDS, with ezflash reform (ezflashIV 2.05). I use goomba color lastest version, and also EZ4-64 and GBATA to reduce issues, but problem remains.

With GBC roms: In the case of Metal Gear GB, goombafront creates a blackout in the intro that freezes the game. And when i intent to take the elevator (third stage), game freezes too, so i can´t continue. Deactivate GSS (L+B) doesn´t matter. With Zelda link´s awakening DX save problems (new entry and save has gone).

With GB roms: Works fine but i have save problems and after few entries game saves disappears or corrupts (with EZ4-64 and GBATA this corrupt issue ends).

I don't know about the specfic problems with Metal Gear, but there is no reason to be using gbata on goomba gba files. Using gbata to SRAM patch them will probably mess them up.

Probably more than you want to know about goomba save files:
https://www.lakora.us/gba/goomba/

Hi,

Yesterday I played pokemon trading card game on a microSD EZFlash IV (kernel 2.01) through the patched goomba color on my NDS lite and everything worked fine. However, when I just started it, my save state was gone (10 hours of playing). Since the real save functionality has never worked for me, I already used the save states but now..... I don't know what happened, there is still a .sav file in the saver folder.

Can anybody help me or explain to me what the correct way of saving is on Goomba Color? Because this is really pissing me off.

PS @EZ-Flash2 I don't know whether you make use of the patched goomba color, posted on GBAtemp, but this would be a serious issue for the EZFlash Omega.

How did you quit the game? After you save in-game, you need to press L+R to pop up the goomba menu and exit for the .sav file on the SD card to actually get updated. At least that was how goombacolor worked on my Revo K101+...I think.

 

[Ashes]

I don't know about the specfic problems with Metal Gear, but there is no reason to be using gbata on goomba gba files. Using gbata to SRAM patch them will probably mess them up.

Probably more than you want to know about goomba save files:
https://www.lakora.us/gba/goomba/

Ok, i will take your advice . Maybe between games i didn´t exit properly and that cause problems with the saves. Always exit through goomba menu, by blood and fire XD.

Unfortunately, Metal gear problem remains.

 

[kuwanger]

Use the EZ IV patched emulators, update to kernel 2.05 so you can use KEYSET.CFG, and follow the instructions on the second page of that link for what to add to avoid the auto-patcher repatching emulation compilations. If you use the patched emulators, Exit in the L+R menu will reset to the EZ IV menu which should eliminate any worries about saving.

Metal Gear Solid/Ghost Babel is broken in Goomba Color AFAIK. I do recall Dwedit worked on it some, but I don't recall if he ever got any version working in any version of Goomba or Goomba Color.

Saves with the built-in Goomba Color emulator for EZ-Flash Omega seem to work fine. You'll probably still have to use the prepatch any compilations you make and choose "Clean Boot" when loading one. Certainly, the compilations I made for EZ4 work on the EZ Omega.

PS - Although I doubt it's the problem, make sure the total filename + extension is 53 characters or shorter for your compilation. Beyond that and the EZ4 might get confused about the proper sav filename--I haven't checked if they ever fixed that on the 2.x kernels.

 

[Ashes]

Metal Gear Solid/Ghost Babel is broken in Goomba Color AFAIK. I do recall Dwedit worked on it some, but I don't recall if he ever got any version working in any version of Goomba or Goomba Color.

What a shame. Thanks for sharing this

So with ezflash iv no one can play Ghost Babel, right?

PS - Although I doubt it's the problem, make sure the total filename + extension is 53 characters or shorter for your compilation. Beyond that and the EZ4 might get confused about the proper sav filename--I haven't checked if they ever fixed that on the 2.x kernels.

Still happen. Some japanese gba roms names make me aware of the subject. Shorten the name works.

 

[kuwanger]

So with ezflash iv no one can play Ghost Babel, right?

As far as I'm aware, yes. Put another way, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Goomba/Goomba Color aren't perfect.

 

[Cartoni]

How did you quit the game? After you save in-game, you need to press L+R to pop up the goomba menu and exit for the .sav file on the SD card to actually get updated. At least that was how goombacolor worked on my Revo K101+...I think.

Oh shit man, I did not know that that was the way to save on Goomba, feel like such a noob right now. Tried it and it works perfectly. It is only not an answer why the save states in Goomba worked perfectly even without this method....

PS - Although I doubt it's the problem, make sure the total filename + extension is 53 characters or shorter for your compilation. Beyond that and the EZ4 might get confused about the proper sav filename--I haven't checked if they ever fixed that on the 2.x kernels.

And this might also be a problem for me, since the name is far longer than the 53 characters that you mention here. Tnx for the info and for your work on these emulators!

Saves with the built-in Goomba Color emulator for EZ-Flash Omega seem to work fine. You'll probably still have to use the prepatch any compilations you make and choose "Clean Boot" when loading one. Certainly, the compilations I made for EZ4 work on the EZ Omega.

Only one last question, since I'm currently waiting for my Omega to be delivered: What do you mean with "using the prepatch"? Do they not work as a "put original file on sd-cart and play from Omega"-kind of way? Do you have to do the concatenate (mac user) with the goomba-color GBA files?

 

[kuwanger]

Only one last question, since I'm currently waiting for my Omega to be delivered: What do you mean with "using the prepatch"? Do they not work as a "put original file on sd-cart and play from Omega"-kind of way? Do you have to do the concatenate (mac user) with the goomba-color GBA files?

Sorry, I meant if you want to use any version of Goomba [Color], PocketNES, SMSAdvance, etc that's not built-in or the version you want. If it's NES or Gameboy [Color], then yea you can just put the .nes or .gb/.gbc on. Some games (Lufia) for Goomba Color are a bit graphically garbled on the latest version of Goomba Color, so I personally use a compilation for it. Similarly I use Goomba Paletted for Gameboy games so I can use my custom colors/borders pack.

 

[Cartoni]

Sorry, I meant if you want to use any version of Goomba [Color], PocketNES, SMSAdvance, etc that's not built-in or the version you want. If it's NES or Gameboy [Color], then yea you can just put the .nes or .gb/.gbc on. Some games (Lufia) for Goomba Color are a bit graphically garbled on the latest version of Goomba Color, so I personally use a compilation for it. Similarly I use Goomba Paletted for Gameboy games so I can use my custom colors/borders pack.

Ah alright, then I understand. Does the Omega not include your custom colours/borders pack? Since that has made Goomba (Color) a whole lot prettier

 

[kuwanger]

No. For a while Dwedit was working on his fork of Goomba Color, and at the same time I decided to separate work on adding borders and more palettes. I never tried to merge the changes because it didn't seem worth the effort--you had to make a compilation either way. Later someone asked Dwedit if he would merge the changes, but I think he felt the same way. He did, however, add a bunch of palettes from the SGB, and Goomba Color supports loading Super Gameboy borders for games that support it.

I can understand why EZ-Flash didn't decide to add my fork of Goomba Paletted. They would have had to choose which borders/palettes to include, and it would taken up a lot of space in their kernel. That's why I hope in the future they support external emulators and the like so we can just build our own collections.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Oh shit man, I did not know that that was the way to save on Goomba, feel like such a noob right now. Tried it and it works perfectly. It is only not an answer why the save states in Goomba worked perfectly even without this method....

That's easy enough to explain. When you use save states, the save is written to SRAM immediately, since that's an emulator feature.
But when you save in game, the save is written to the emulated SRAM first, and the emulator doesn't detect when the emulated SRAM has been changed, so you need to exit the game for it to be written to the real SRAM.
Many homebrew emulators and even flashcarts work like this (including the EZ4 itself AFAIK) but flashcarts use the battery backed SRAM so you won't lose your save if you power off unless the battery is dead.
On PCs where there's more processing power this is rarely the case, saves are written to disk as soon as they're changed by detecting the change.
GBA doesn't have much processing power, so I guess checking in the background all the time would have slowed down emulation.