Auto Save SRAM feature

[FeelsDuckMan]

Is there any way to implement this feature so that it writes to the SD card whenever it detects a write to the SRAM address rather than having the 'auto save' just write at timed intervals. I've lost saves more than 3 times now because the auto save feature isn't frequent enough and I forget to do it manually even though auto is on. Would really appreciate this feature be changed if possible. I don't know if there is some sort of limitation not allowing it to detect a write to the SRAM address, but if there isn't would this be possible to implement then? Thanks.

[MottZilla]

It should save when you press the MiSTer Menu button. When you have saved in the game just bring up the MiSTer menu and it should write your SRAM to the SD Card.

[FeelsDuckMan]

Okay. There's no indication of this, I just assumed auto save ram meant it would auto save. I mean what's the point of calling this autosave, why even have the menu option to save to SRAM when having this on and pressing the menu does it anyways. It's misleading and then after you realize what it does, seems redundant to have the save to SRAM option there...

Would still just prefer it to detect a write and save to the SD card the same way the SD2SNES does.

[Lemonici]

SD cards don't handle excessive writes very well. I'm not sure if this applies to the SNES library, but some carts use SRAM as regular ol' RAM so you'd be writing every time you accessed the menu. Though, I agree it'd be nice to have it write on detected change at least as an option that can blacklist games that write more than 3 times in 5 seconds or something.

[MottZilla]

There was already a thread about this. This is the way things work right now. Just keep that in mind and you'll be fine.

[FeelsDuckMan]

There was already a thread about this. This is the way things work right now. Just keep that in mind and you'll be fine.

You're right. Suggestions and improving things, who needs that? Comments like this don't really add anything as it's obvious this is how things are.

[rhester72]

I think the point being made is that this very topic was already raised and discussed to death. There was no need for a second thread, only for a search where you'd have seen it all and understood why nothing's being done.

[MottZilla]

The topic is here. viewtopic.php?f=18&t=670

I don't know why you're offended. I informed you of how the MiSTer and the core currently handle saves. I guess I didn't comment on your comment that auto save sounds misleading which I can see what you mean. What it means is that it will auto save when the menu comes up instead of having to manually select the option to backup your save data which is still useful. It saves you extra steps as you just hit 1 button and then you can power off after that.

Auto-save like the SD2SNES is a nice feature and something like that might come to the MiSTer SNES core someday. But it's not there now.

[Shinianess]

An interesting discussion. I've just got the Mister and had the same saving problem. Pls correct me if I'm wrong. The problem is that the SNES ROM we are loading is only a data container but not a cartridge. It lacks a corresponding function that a cartidge has. As my understanding, in the real SNES hardware, the cartridge is the one that processes the save data, following the saving command sent from SNES hardware when the player saves the progress in the game. Therefore, we need to emulate a cartridge, which is running outside of SNES core, taking the responsibility of game-saving. The implementation of SNES hardware solely could not appropriately deal with the in-game save as it doesn't care about the following work after sending the save command out. In conclusion, In-game save is only acting correctly when Mister has both SNES core and SD2SNES core running parallel.

[jdeberhart]

On a real SNES, the console maps the SRAM to a memory address and when the game tells it to save the game, it writes the appropriate data to that address. On MiSTer, that's handled perfectly fine, but the save itself is not written to the SD card until the menu is opened and/or when you explicitly pick the save option in the core menu. When auto-save is enabled, you still have to open the core menu to actually *write* the save to the SD card, otherwise it'll be lost. This is done partly because some games use their SRAM as general RAM and not just for saves, so for those sorts of games, the SD card could be written to nonstop.

On the console cores, when there's save data to be written, the green User LED lights up, then when picking the save option in the core menu or just opening the menu if auto-save is enabled, the light goes out once the save has been written to the SD card.

[Psygho]

Well that is handy information!