MiSTer FPGA Forum

So I made a thread over on Reddit asking about this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MiSTerFPGA/com ... eature_to/

New MiSTer Pi owner here and I just learned that Mister can't auto save data the same way RetroArch (and OG consoles) can due to risk of corrupting the SD card (I know the details of why, no need to explain it) and was hoping if there was any update to this or if some kind of work around was found. Was planning to do some cool TapTo setup for the niece & nephew but due to risk of them forgetting to hit OSD and losing data I might just go the MiniPC Batocera route instead (TapTo is working on a windows build).

Should I make another ticket on GitHub? I know it's been asked before: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/issues/789

The opening of the menu to save is the defined behaviour. Sorg wrote on that ticket why. Its not going to change.

Personally I've always found it to be a non-issue; just enable auto-save on each core and just get into the habit of using the OSD when you're changing games/cores or powering down.

That said, I'm sure I read Zaparoo were working on triggering saves when NFC cards were removed. It might even be implemented already.

Can_ISS wrote: ↑Wed Jan 15, 2025 12:10 am

was hoping if there was any update to this or if some kind of work around was found. Was planning to do some cool TapTo setup for the niece & nephew

AngelicLiver wrote: ↑Thu Jan 16, 2025 9:14 am

I'm sure I read Zaparoo were working on triggering saves when NFC cards were removed. It might even be implemented already.

As mentioned, with Zaparoo you can now add actions when exiting a game, including opening the OSD (thus triggering a save if autosave is enabled in a core). This is probably the best workaround for now.

As others have mentioned, the Zaparoo workaround is probably the way to go. Having seen your post the other day, I agree with you that when you're setting up MiSTer for someone else or for kids, the way it works currently is not ideal.

I doubt Sorg would go for it, but I do wonder why there can't just be an INI only option (that has to be added manually to the INI) for forcing automatic saves with a bold disclaimer about it potentially being bad for your SD card and what not.

ItalianGrandma wrote: ↑Thu Jan 16, 2025 2:47 pm

As others have mentioned, the Zaparoo workaround is probably the way to go. Having seen your post the other day, I agree with you that when you're setting up MiSTer for someone else or for kids, the way it works currently is not ideal.

I doubt Sorg would go for it, but I do wonder why there can't just be an INI only option (that has to be added manually to the INI) for forcing automatic saves with a bold disclaimer about it potentially being bad for your SD card and what not.

Because someone will write a script that turns it on and people wont see the warning message in the ini then be pissed their SD card craps out. No amount of warnings ever work people just find ways to ignore them

Also not a big fan of changing things as-is because on rare occasion I don't want to commit to the virtual memory card and would rather just bail out.

rhester72 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 16, 2025 7:08 pm

Also not a big fan of changing things as-is because on rare occasion I don't want to commit to the virtual memory card and would rather just bail out.

It should be a third option in the core menu. This way people can toggle Manual Save→Save When Opening OSD→Write to SD Automatically based on their needs. I also like to turn off auto save sometimes when I just want to check a game out briefly so I know where you're coming from.

Also for what it's worth the OpenFPGA cores on the Analogue Pocket write to the SD without any safety mechanisms in place and I haven't heard anyone complain about it messing up their SD card