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Strange interaction between native saves.

bgn

New member
I've recently been playing several games at once, switching between as it strikes my fancy. Several times upon booting a game (specifically, this has happened with Mega Man 64, Jet Force Gemini, and Majora's Mask), my save file seems to have mysteriously vanished. I checked my saves folder, and the saves are there. Other games (like Mario 64) still work, so the saves directory is correct. Each of these times I've managed to get them back by some voodoo magic combination of restarting PJ64, trying different games, rebooting Windows, or some such. I don't recall any useful details.

Most recently, it happened again, with all 3 of the above mentioned games simultaneously. The in-game native saves didn't load, but there were files with the correct names in my saves folder. This time the problem stubbornly refused to fix itself, so I set about experimenting so I could report any findings.

I first made backup copies of Mega Man 64.fla and JET FORCE GEMINI.fla. I opened Jet Force Gemini, started and saved a new game, switched games and back, and the new game was still there. I opened my saves folder in Windows Explorer to observe. I closed PJ64 and--this is bizarre--I could swear I saw the Mega Man 64 file in the file list update. I reopened PJ64 and JFG and my OLD save file (the one that had stubbornly vanished) was loaded!

As you can imagine, I was thoroughly confused, but you'll never guess what happened next!

I got a strange gut feeling, and made another copy of my backup Mega Man 64.fla, renamed it to ZELDA MAJORA'S MASK.fla, and copied it over the active ZELDA MAJORA'S MASK.fla in my saves folder. I booted up PJ64 and MM and, wouldn't you know it!, my save file was there!

I would hazard a guess that switching games in an active PJ64 session sometimes doesn't switch native save files or something. I had played MM sometime in the middle of all this, so that would explain that. It would also seem significant that the games that this happens with all happen to save to .FLA files. No .EEP or .SRA files have been affected, to my knowledge.

I've recreated it twice by doing the following:

1. Make sure Mega Man 64.fla and JET FORCE GEMINI.fla DO NOT EXIST in your saves folder.
2. Boot PJ64 and load Mega Man 64 (U) [!].z64
3. Quickly finish the first dungeon, talk to Data the monkey (with Down-C) and save.
4. While Mega Man 64 is still running, open Jet Force Gemini (U) [!].z64 (I used the recent ROMs list in the File menu, if it makes a difference).
5. Start a new game. After the (long) cutscenes, pause and press Z to save.
6. Quit PJ64.

At this point, my saves folder contains one new file: Mega Man 64.fla, which contains the save data for Jet Force Gemini. If I load Mega Man 64, I get junk. If I rename the file to JET FORCE GEMINI.fla and play JFG, it loads fine.

Random details:
PJ64 v1.6 / RDB v1.6.016
Jabo's D3D8 v1.6 / Jabo's DSound v1.6 / NRage v1.83
Windows XP Professional
Athlon XP 1600+ 1.58GHz / 256MB RAM
NVidia GeForce FX 5200 (with latest drivers from NVidia's site)
Verified Good ROMs (with [!] marks), each in a ZIP file
Each affected ROM uses Flashram for native saves
No cheats

If you need more info, ask. I'm gonna go sulk about my hosed 10-hour Mega Man file. :'( (I'd just started the Main Gate! Waaaaaahh!)
 

Tre

Oops. Died again.
We seem to be running nearly identical systems and plugins... and oddly enough I have had a very similar error occur with saving games. When I would play a game and save it, then quit out of PJ64, sometimes the save file would not be updated to reflect the save when I played it later (this was the case with OoT and MM).

I found that the only way (for me) to get the games to save 100% of the time AND load correctly next time I wanted to play, was to do the following:

1: Save your game (natively) and end the game normally
2: End the emulation of the game (use the end emulation key)
3: Close PJ64 normally (either the "x" or from the menu)

This kept me from losing saves 100% of the time. I don't know what causes lost saves, and figure it's likely just some glitch that happens to the few unlucky ones like us. I'm sorry you lost your MM64 data... that's nasty. I lost my OoT data after getting to the half-way point, so I know how you feel.
 

squall_leonhart

The Great Gunblade Wielder
This occurs because saves are written to memory and only written to file after the emulator has been closed (atleast in my own experience it does...)
 

Tre

Oops. Died again.
So that would be the reason that my little "trick" (stop the emulation of the game after a save, and then close PJ64 before playing a new game) keeps me from losing my save files. I guess it's lucky for me I don't play multiple games in one session.
 

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