Save file sizes

[CrackTiger]

I don't know if this is common knowledge, but Order Of The Griffon lets you delete files when there isn't room to save, which happens pretty quick since OOTG's saves are friggin huge.

The thing I wanted to remind people of is that the game actually shows you the size of your Saves. This is effing priceless if you play a real Duo system.

/order2.jpg

Other than the obvious reason, this is a big deal because save sizes are all over the place.

Back in the day, I got up to 3 screens of Save files on my TG-CD(I don't know if it has more room than a Duo).  

Once you get this high though, you start to get some phantom saves, often words with X values, ie: COSMIC_X instead of COSMIC_1 to COSMIC_4. Or just plain jibberish. My real files were never lost or damaged though.

Anyways, the thing is, there are a lot of Saves that take up all or like 3/4 of the back-up ram and if I remember correctly, too often they're for less desirable games.

With OOTG you can weed out the fatties so you can cram in more Tengai Makyo saves.

[GUTS]

That's cool, kinda like the N64 games that let you hold start while powering up and see what was on the memory cards.

[Keranu]

Pretty neat stuff there. Another neat thing to add about TGCD/Duo save states is that if you have a saved game in "Exile" and go to your TGCD/Duo memory, you will see "XZR" as the save state for Exile and we all know that XZR is the name of Exile in Japan ever since the original MSX game. ;)

GUTS: I never knew about the N64 thing, I'll have to try that out sometime!

[akamichi]

Certain CD games have a pretty neat built-in backup save manager.  The one that comes to mind right away is Valis IV.  Just press select at the title screen.

There's a lot of options compared to the standard system card.  It shows the file sizes as well as total free and total used IIRC.  There's also an undelete function, but it should be more like an "undo" function because nothing is actually done until you exit the utility.  

Other Telenet CD games (and possibly others) have the util, but Valis IV is all I remember because it's the easiest to access.

[esteban]

thanks CrackTiger and aki for pointing this out.



Here's a sobering thought: I have two tennenoke bank hucards with a bunch of save states. they've maintained they're integrity for years.



BUT what do I do when the batteries fail? This never occurred to me before: how do I make a more "permanent" back-up, considering that tennenoke cards will not last indefinitely?



And while I have heard of folks replacing batteries on carts (i.e. NES and Gameboy carts), I've yet to hear of anyone replacing the battery in a HuCard (are Populous and Tennenoke the only HuCards with batteries?)



Somebody here has Powerbase 128 -- how does that work? Perhaps replacing the battery in that thing would be a lot easier than messing with tennenoke.



note: i never can remember how to spell tennenoke.

[CrackTiger]

Certain CD games have a pretty neat built-in backup save manager.  The one that comes to mind right away is Valis IV.  Just press select at the title screen.

There's a lot of options compared to the standard system card.  It shows the file sizes as well as total free and total used IIRC.  There's also an undelete function, but it should be more like an "undo" function because nothing is actually done until you exit the utility.  

Other Telenet CD games (and possibly others) have the util, but Valis IV is all I remember because it's the easiest to access.

Thas awesome man.

I remember finding one or two other games that listed file size in some way or other, but can't remember which.

Anyone else know of any other games that let you edit saves or list file sizes or anything?

[Nutribrain]

BUT what do I do when the batteries fail? This never occurred to me before: how do I make a more "permanent" back-up, considering that tennenoke cards will not last indefinitely?

Is the Tennokoe using batteries at all? I thought those backup games like Populous etc. and also the Tennokoe use permanent RAM which isn't getting deleted when you turn off the power.

[VestCunt]

thanks black tiger and aki for pointing this out.

Here's a sobering thought: I have two tennenoke bank hucards with a bunch of save states. they've maintained they're integrity for years.

BUT what do I do when the batteries fail? This never occurred to me before: how do I make a more "permanent" back-up, considering that tennenoke cards will not last indefinitely?

And while I have heard of folks replacing batteries on carts (i.e. NES and Gameboy carts), I've yet to hear of anyone replacing the battery in a HuCard (are Populous and Tennenoke the only HuCards with batteries?)

Somebody here has Powerbase 128 -- how does that work? Perhaps replacing the battery in that thing would be a lot easier than messing with tennenoke.

note: i never can remember how to spell tennenoke.

Yeah, this thought has been lurking in the back of my mind for a while now .
a Duo can't save much and if my tennokoe bank goes i would only really be able to play one or two big save games at a time.  if it doesn't use a battery that would be sweet.
Does anyone have any experience opening up and tinkering with Hucards?
I made one failed attempt with a used copy of Double Dungeons that kept freezing up on me.  I was unable to play for more than 10 minutes so i finally opened the thing up and comlpetely ruined it.   apparently those little warnings about not bending Hucards are serious!
It would be really nice to get at the battery without wrecking the tennokoe bank.  does anyone have a battery that has expired yet?
The memory base 128 is great for the games it's compatible with.  you can keep your Emerald Dragon, Popful Mail, Brandish and Magicoal files from cluttering up your tennokoe bank.  it very easy to replace the batteries and you don't lose your files when you do it.  i wish they had made it sooner so more games used it.  i explained in detail how the M128 works in a post a while back.
(anyone have an extra loose copy of double dungeons?)

[CrackTiger]

Yeah, this thought has been lurking in the back of my mind for a while now .
a Duo can't save much and if my tennokoe bank goes i would only really be able to play one or two big save games at a time.  if it doesn't use a battery that would be sweet.
Does anyone have any experience opening up and tinkering with Hucards?
I made one failed attempt with a used copy of Double Dungeons that kept freezing up on me.  I was unable to play for more than 10 minutes so i finally opened the thing up and comlpetely ruined it.   apparently those little warnings about not bending Hucards are serious!
It would be really nice to get at the battery without wrecking the tennokoe bank.  does anyone have a battery that has expired yet?
The memory base 128 is great for the games it's compatible with.  you can keep your Emerald Dragon, Popful Mail, Brandish and Magicoal files from cluttering up your tennokoe bank.  it very easy to replace the batteries and you don't lose your files when you do it.  i wish they had made it sooner so more games used it.  i explained in detail how the M128 works in a post a while back.
(anyone have an extra loose copy of double dungeons?)

Well, Tennokoe Banks are dirt cheap now, so if you'd like to try some surgery there's really only a small financial risk.

[_Paul]

Cosmic Fantasy 4 chapter 2 has one of these Backup Ram utilities as well. Just push Select at the load game screen.

[Keranu]

Popful Mail does as well with Ten no Koe bank card features.

[CrackTiger]

Awesome. I want to try to keep a list of games that do.

[CrackTiger]

thanks black tiger and aki for pointing this out.

Here's a sobering thought: I have two tennenoke bank hucards with a bunch of save states. they've maintained they're integrity for years.

BUT what do I do when the batteries fail? This never occurred to me before: how do I make a more "permanent" back-up, considering that tennenoke cards will not last indefinitely?

And while I have heard of folks replacing batteries on carts (i.e. NES and Gameboy carts), I've yet to hear of anyone replacing the battery in a HuCard (are Populous and Tennenoke the only HuCards with batteries?)

Somebody here has Powerbase 128 -- how does that work? Perhaps replacing the battery in that thing would be a lot easier than messing with tennenoke.

note: i never can remember how to spell tennenoke.

Well, I'm guessing that the Tennokoe's use something other than a cheap watch battery. And hopefully they'll last such a long time before wearing out so that once they do, current technology will make it easy to fix.

Just think back ten years ago when the last PC Engine games were being released. Did you think that we'd get emulators, hardware mods, homebrew games and flash cards so soon?

Imagine what things will be like another ten years from now.

[esteban]

BUT what do I do when the batteries fail? This never occurred to me before: how do I make a more "permanent" back-up, considering that tennenoke cards will not last indefinitely?

Is the Tennokoe using batteries at all? I thought those backup games like Populous etc. and also the Tennokoe use permanent RAM which isn't getting deleted when you turn off the power.

Ahhhh, I could be mistaken. I'm not too well-versed in the technical aspects of these HuCards

Vestcunt! You were the one who has the Memory Base 128. I forgot that MB 128 only works with compatible games. DAMN! Would it have been too hard to make MB backward compatible to the older file save system? Seriously, that breaks my heart.

CrackTiger: Well, I've heard about card-readers (the devices used to dump HuCard ROMS, if I'm not mistaken). Perhaps a HuCard <-> PC interface could be developed to back-up our save files from a Tennokoe Bank. Of course, someone would have to write a utility to do this, as well as make the hardware. Someone out there might be crazy enough to do this

[CrackTiger]

BUT what do I do when the batteries fail? This never occurred to me before: how do I make a more "permanent" back-up, considering that tennenoke cards will not last indefinitely?

Is the Tennokoe using batteries at all? I thought those backup games like Populous etc. and also the Tennokoe use permanent RAM which isn't getting deleted when you turn off the power.

Ahhhh, I could be mistaken. I'm not too well-versed in the technical aspects of these HuCards

Vestcoat! You were the one who has the Memory Base 128. I forgot that MB 128 only works with compatible games. DAMN! Would it have been too hard to make MB backward compatible to the older file save system? Seriously, that breaks my heart.

Black_Tiger: Well, I've heard about card-readers (the devices used to dump HuCard ROMS, if I'm not mistaken). Perhaps a HuCard <-> PC interface could be developed to back-up our save files from a Tennokoe Bank. Of course, someone would have to write a utility to do this, as well as make the hardware. Someone out there might be crazy enough to do this

I wouldn't be surprised if within 5 years someone publishes a new Hu Card game and possible a new Tennokoe Bank like tool.

[soco]

i think you could possibly use the Tototek flash cards for that purpose.

an interesting side note is that populous will attempt to use the cd unit's ram, if it's own fails for some reason. (or at least, if reading from it's own fails). you can see this in emulators that don't implement it's own battery backed ram at 0x40.

[esteban]

i think you could possibly use the Tototek flash cards for that purpose.

an interesting side note is that populous will attempt to use the cd unit's ram, if it's own fails for some reason. (or at least, if reading from it's own fails). you can see this in emulators that don't implement it's own battery backed ram at 0x40.

Wow, that is pretty kool: the folks designing Populous had enough foresight to integrate it with the CD save system.

If only the Memory Base 128 designers had such foresight and made it backwards compatible.

[CrackTiger]

i think you could possibly use the Tototek flash cards for that purpose.

an interesting side note is that populous will attempt to use the cd unit's ram, if it's own fails for some reason. (or at least, if reading from it's own fails). you can see this in emulators that don't implement it's own battery backed ram at 0x40.

Wow, that is pretty kool: the folks designing Populous had enough foresight to integrate it with the CD save system.

If only the Memory Base 128 designers had such foresight and made it backwards compatible.

That is very cool.

I just bought this game the other day(eBay). I can't wait for it to arrive.

[CrackTiger]

Just a heads up to anyone who doesn't want their evening ruined like mine just was.

Cosmic Fantasy 3 apparently also has some sort of save file manager. I don't know which button I hit at the title screen, but I wound up in the file manager screen.

I tried (I think)the first option to see if it would return me to the game or select a file to delete... but instead it wiped out all my saves.

I just leveled up the main character for a long time while figuring out what to do next. But I was still near the beginning and my other saves were just transfered from Tennokoe Bank so its not a total loss.

[esteban]

Just a heads up to anyone who doesn't want their evening ruined like mine just was.

Cosmic Fantasy 3 apparently also has some sort of save file manager. I don't know which button I hit at the title screen, but I wound up in the file manager screen.

I tried (I think)the first option to see if it would return me to the game or select a file to delete... but instead it wiped out all my saves.

I just leveled up the main character for a long time while figuring out what to do next. But I was still near the beginning and my other saves were just transfered from Tennokoe Bank so its not a total loss.

Damn. If I'm not mistaken, you "formatted" the entire thing. Damn. I'm glad you didn't lose too much stuff, though