MiSTer FPGA Forum

I have a bunch of old saves stored on a stack of memory cards. I also own the PlayStation memory card adapter I bought back when the PS3 came out.

I found a program that lets me read and save the save files from my cards using the adapter. I'm just at a loss as to how to convert them to a format that MisTer can use. The program I found saves the memory cards onto my computer with a .mc extension. MiSTer uses a .mcd extension so I assume it's a different file type.

Does anyone know how to go about doing this?

I just want to rip the save files off of a memory card and then use those save files when playing a game with MiSTer.

So I’m a moron.

I just added a “d” at the end of the “.Mc” file extension, copied the file over to my MiSTer SD card and it worked perfectly.

I’m now able to load up all of my save files from my 10+ memory cards. I love this project so much!

cool that it's that simple! I wonder if this site would just append the d for you https://savefileconverter.com/#/mister Could be useful for other consoles and games

I recently received the RetroCastle PSX SNAC adapter, which accepts my PS1 memory cards. Really cool to be able to use my save games from back then. It is also possible with other PSX adapters in combination with a multitap adapter.

I use the PS2 with uLaunchELF's embedded file browser to copy saves from the memory card to a USB stick. It's more involved because they are individual saves, not full memory card dumps, so you have to find a way to update the block with the directory as well, but that works for me.

pgimeno wrote: ↑Tue Dec 06, 2022 9:22 pm

I use the PS2 with uLaunchELF's embedded file browser to copy saves from the memory card to a USB stick. It's more involved because they are individual saves, not full memory card dumps, so you have to find a way to update the block with the directory as well, but that works for me.

Is there any way you could walk me through how you do this? I have my raw save files from uLaunchELF on a USB stick and I have tried converting them to .mcd format with MemcardRex. I boot the corresponding game on MiSTer and mount the .mcd file and when I try to load my save in game it says "memory card not formatted". Am I missing a step here? Thanks for any help you can give.

mindleftbody wrote: ↑Tue Feb 14, 2023 5:40 am

Is there any way you could walk me through how you do this? I have my raw save files from uLaunchELF on a USB stick and I have tried converting them to .mcd format with MemcardRex. I boot the corresponding game on MiSTer and mount the .mcd file and when I try to load my save in game it says "memory card not formatted". Am I missing a step here? Thanks for any help you can give.

The easiest way is to use a memory card file that already contains a save for that game. Then you only overwrite the block(s) which contain the saved data.

So, create a memory card file, run the game and make a save, using a name (if the game requires it) suitable for the save you want to put in its place. Then check which block it is in. I've written a utility to list the details of the memory card, here (you need to install love2d to run it): https://love2d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=94130

Now you have to patch the memory card file with the save that you got from uLaunchElf. The Linux command 'dd' can do that:

dd if=<game_blocks_file_from_uLaunchElf> of=<memory_card_file> bs=8192 conv=notrunc seek=<block_number_to_save_to>

If the game is saved on an empty card, the block number will be 1, but you can check for sure with the utility mentioned above. For example if your game save file is called "BESLES-02211-DINO1" and your memory card file is called "Dino Crisis (PAL).sav", and it only contains the save that you made, then the command would be:

dd if="BESLES-02211-DINO1" of="Dino Crisis (PAL).sav" bs=8192 conv=notrunc seek=1

The quotes are necessary to prevent spaces and parentheses from being interpreted as special characters. They're not necessary for the first file in this case, but depending on the name of your saves, they may be, so just add them too if unsure.