Memory Cards Now Working On the PlayStation Core

[Xbytez]

Another brilliant update from Robert, memory cards are now working on the PlayStation core!

[MostroW]

That's awesome!
For the people who had memory card backup utilities is the file format compatible or does it need conversion?

[FoxbatStargazer]

I don't see anything in the menus? How do you use this feature?

[blacklistedcard]

I don't see anything in the menus? How do you use this feature?

Grab the latest nightly build...

[Akuma]

Do we have to use this empty memory card or can we just create one like this?

Code: Select all

dd if=/dev/zero bs=8192 count=16 of=memcard.mcd

[pgimeno]

You can create one like that, but it needs to be formatted. In my experience some games allow you to format it, e.g. Sentinel Returns.

[pgimeno]

Are there plans to support writing to memory cards on the fly, as if they were hard or floppy disks, rather than using autosave or the like? (if that's possible at all)

[MostroW]

Would be nice if there's a possibility to automatically write memorycards if you're using a hdd or ssd instead of the sd card?

[FPGAzumSpass]

The problem is that writing memory card to sdcard will interrupt CD transfer with HPS. It is just too slow to do both at the same time, so i have to pause the core to make it work.

[MostroW]

ahhhh ok that explains a lot ofcourse, is it the same for USB interaction on an external drive?

[pgimeno]

Thanks for the explanation. What a paradox, that writing 16 KB (8 KB directory + 8 KB data) at such a slow speed as a memory card write doesn't fit on the bus.

[FPGAzumSpass]

Oh, it's even less, just 128bytes per block.

The problem is, that a real memcard is written on the fly: every byte that comes in is written directly to memcard.
The time it requires to write onto the flash is within the transfer time (~450 clock cycles), so it can do that.

On mister i can only send the whole block at once, when the whole block was written by the game.
However, the game may already write the next block shortly after.

So i only have time to send all 128bytes while the next header bytes are received. So I only have less than 5000 clock cycles to tranfer all 128bytes to HPS.

Now, if the CD has requested a block(2352bytes) from the HPS at the same time, this does not work and the memory card cannot take the next data and must stall.
However, the games know that the memcard never needs to stall and assume the card is broken.


This is nothing theoretical, i really tried it, even with implementing a double buffer in the memcard interface, but CD read, e.g. when doing a seek before, can take so long on the HPS, that memcard WILL fail randomly.

[yoshi41]

Now since sound works, time to play the 1st PSX game, Ridge Racer JAP.

If you want to try the black car, here's my memory card save from the 90s.

ridge_racer_jap.zip

(1.33 KiB) Downloaded 296 times

ridge_racer_jap_black_car.png (477.47 KiB) Viewed 13264 times

[thorr]

Is this working for people? I have played several games, saved along the way, and I think I can restore during that day. I come back the next day and there are no games to restore from the memory card. Also, do I need a different memory card for each game? I would prefer not to use save states because it is too tempting to save a lot more and restore anytime I make a mistake and it takes the fun out of the game. Thanks!

[Lightwave]

Is this working for people? I have played several games, saved along the way, and I think I can restore during that day. I come back the next day and there are no games to restore from the memory card. Also, do I need a different memory card for each game? I would prefer not to use save states because it is too tempting to save a lot more and restore anytime I make a mistake and it takes the fun out of the game. Thanks!

The core will save to a different memory card per game by default (though it is possible to select a specific memory card if you wish).

If you want to keep the saves, you need to open the MiSTer OSD and select “save memory cards” after saving in-game. You can also choose autosave, which just requires opening the OSD.

[McNutts]

Now since sound works, time to play the 1st PSX game, Ridge Racer JAP.

If you want to try the black car, here's my memory card save from the 90s.

Thanks for this. I'm going to try this out tomorrow.

[pgimeno]

I also had trouble when mixing regions. When you run the same game with a disc from a different region, the icon looks right in the MC but it won't load.

[Jason X]

Just started experimenting with this core today and so far it's great, but I'm running into two issues with memory cards:

1. How do you import saves? I'd really hate to have to redo all of the unlocks for games like Resident Evil. Is it possible to take a Dex Drive save from GameFAQs and convert it to work on MiSTer?

2. Since each game gets its own memory card, how would you import a Suikoden save into Suikoden II?

[FPGAzumSpass]

You can just copy and rename files. The supported ending are sav and mcd, but any raw 128kbyte card will work when renamed.

To keep saves across games, either have them in the same directory or load the card in slot 2 by hand (and maybe copy to card 1 with the BIOS copy tool if you want)

[Jason X]

Think I've figured it out, thanks!

[throAU]

You can just copy and rename files. The supported ending are sav and mcd, but any raw 128kbyte card will work when renamed.

To keep saves across games, either have them in the same directory or load the card in slot 2 by hand (and maybe copy to card 1 with the BIOS copy tool if you want)

So what should the filnames for the cards be called?

I've called one of them the same name as the game files and it seems to work for slot 1, when i try to mount in the OSD i can't select anything though. But i've only tried slot 1?

Complication is that i'm running everything from a NAS, but AFAIK looks like if you mount a CIFS share it just replaces the games folder that's normally on the SD card...

[johhenrik]

Here's a tip for anyone that want to play with save games.

https://github.com/Pezz82/MemCard-Pro-P ... laystation

Pezz82 has done a great job here, collecting save game files for a ton of games. Just get the MemCard Pro Pack Mister zip.