Question on SRM vs SAV on N8 Pro

[kid_Charlemagne]

Hi All,

Maybe I am being a bit dense but how do I create a srm on the N8 Pro? All of the guides I see for this are for the N8 but even though it seems like the N8 Pro has the capability I can't seem to figure it out.

Thanks in advance!

[nuu]

Save files should be created automatically when a game using backup RAM is played. I don't think the Pro is any different.
Doesn't saving in the game (normal saving, not "save states") work?

[kid_Charlemagne]

Hi - thanks for the reply, I'm worried that I am missing something - can you point me to step by step directions (apologies if that I missed this in an obvious place)? Here's what I am doing:

-open rom (in this case Castlevania)
-play to a part and open the in game menu
-I have the following options: Save State, Load State, Slot, Reset Game, Exit Game
-so if use save state that saves to whatever slot is currently selected

Otherwise, when I open the main Everdrive menu I have the usual options: Cheats, Maps, Save, Snap. In Save I have nothing. Everything else is working correctly so I don't think I have a corrupted card or anything. My main idea was create SRMs of particle points of interest to practice, load one of those from a SRM and then use the SAV (snapshots) as my disposable save states.

At the moment I'm just using the snapshots (SAV) which is working fine but I'd like to use the method I outlined above. Maybe I am just misunderstanding how others were using the older Everdrive?

Thanks again - also I've tried using a SRM created on the older Everdrive but that doesn't load and I've heard/read that you can't transfer them.

[nuu]

It sounds like you are talking about save states? You have to check the manual for that.
Download here: https://krikzz.com/store/home/57-n8-pro.html

Isn't the SNAP the same thing as a save state though?
You obviously can't create an SRM file using the in-game menu wherever you want. Normal saving is done at the point in the game where it's designed to save to a SRAM chip inside the cartridge. Castlevania doesn't have a SRAM chip (and isn't programmed to be able to save even if there was one). The FDS version of the game can actually save though since it's on a writable disk media and is programmed to be able to save between stages.

[kid_Charlemagne]

Alright looks like I am confused then- thanks a bunch!

[Richardragon87]

Alright looks like I am confused then- thanks a bunch!

The best way to describe it is your N8 pro likely creates a SAV file each time you play any rom even if it had no save feature, for example you played Mario Bros and went to which ever directory the recently played game list was showing. Did you ever wonder how the device always remembers the last game you played or the most recent ones you played, well there you have it as the device creates a save data bank file so that you can quickly access it again.

You'd be surprised how many SAV files you have in your N8's main directory folder which is where you'd get confused why their are so many games that you never saved before as the device always creates these as a back up and their is no way to turn it off.

[kid_Charlemagne]

Got it - so basically I was looking for a way to set aside saves, rename them via the computer, and then for lack of a better term load specific ones into the snapshots (sav) files. This way I could progress with practicing specific parts - changing the savs when needed and still have the other main saves set aside. I don't know if that makes any sense but basically I am learning to speed run Castlevania 1, I was asking about SRM files because other runners have created them for Castlevania 1 to practice off of, but this was with N8 - not the pro. Appreciate the clarification - right now I am getting by with the 100 slots just wanted to see if it was possible to do it in the same manner the top level runners were with the N8.

Thanks again!

[nuu]

Save state and snapshot are just two terms for the same thing.

I checked a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QguxPfeKXuU) about this SRM trick and now I understand what you are talking about. Basically the N8 saves save states in its SRAM memory so you can abuse this to save multiple save states by forcing a different SRM file to a game (even if the game doesn't normally use SRAM). It seems that you can just take any 8kB SRM file from any game and load it into the game you are speedrunning, then make a save state which will be written to the SRM file due to how the N8 works. By making multiple copies of the SRM file you can effectively make multiple save state slots this way.

But since the Pro already supports multiple save state slots, there is probably no reason to do this on the Pro.
If you want to try it anyway, just create a normal save file from any cartridge game like the NES version of Zelda. It should be created automatically when loading Zelda I think. Otherwise just register a new name in the game. You could probably also just create a new empty 8192 byte large file in a hex editor and name it .srm.


Richardragon87 got his own idea on how things works which doesn't necessarily reflects how it works in reality, so take what he says with a grain of salt. The OG N8 doesn't create save files for games like Mario Bros that doesn't save (whether a game can save or not is specified in the header of each NES ROM image file), and the N8 Pro evidently doesn't either (since your SAVE folder is empty despite you having played Castlevania). And the most recent games list (if there even is one on the Pro?) probably doesn't have anything to do with save files at all. Why would it?

[kid_Charlemagne]

Aha! Thats the video the other runners were sending to me, but I was missing the first part hence posting here. Thanks! I'll give that a try! By the way the recently played list is populated so there is some sense of that on the Pro, I think I was just missing the taking of a srm from another game.

[kid_Charlemagne]

So I tried this out:

-created new folder outside of EDFC folder with my CV1 rom
-created a srm from Zelda 1 (registered a name, went and got the sword, died, hit save in game, exited game)
-copied that srm from the Save folder to the CV folder and renamed it to Level 1-2 - Watch Force.srm
-selected the CV rom and started the game
-played to the point I wanted the save point and used the in game combo to create a save in slot 00
-then held reset to get back to the Everdrive menu
-did "save ram to file"
-at the same menu did "select only" from the rom
-same menu did "file to ram"
-hit start

This brings me to the main game screen but even after starting the game it does not bring me back to the state. Now I can use the in game button combo to load slot 00 and it loads just fine but from the Everdrive menu it doesn't seem to load the srm.

The other thing I tried was to copy a sav file from one of the snap shots to another folder, rename it but without the srm extension it doesn't pull up the load file to ram prompt. So unless you see something I am missing it's either not possible for some reason or I have a corrupted card (which I wouldn't think since everything else is working fine) or me renaming files and moving them via macOS is screwing this up ever so slightly. Shouldn't be the case but to test I copied the same Zelda srm file into CV folder and did not rename it. Then I booted into the game created a save in slot 00 again, reset back out to the Everdrive menu and then did ram to file, afterwards I did file to ram and hit start and still just took me back to the start screen.

I also found this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laCwKoswNYo

So since this runner does run Castlevania and mentions this working on the Pro - I'll see if they're around on the Discord for that game. Thanks for everyone's time greatly appreciated!

[kid_Charlemagne]

By the way - I'm after this way to organize because its the method I was using with an emulator system I was playing on before, so I had my main starting saves but then had a "quick save" option that I could use and mess around with, without screwing up the other saves. Sorry thought I'd add context here. Thanks!

[nuu]

If you want to rename and put save state files aside you can probably do that on the Pro as well without messing with SRM. But you might have to rename them again before you can use them again.
The recent play list is unrelated to saving. It will always be populated with the last games you played as a quick way to load them.

Yes you better ask the people that has done this.

[kid_Charlemagne]

Thanks again @nuu - super helpful!

[barbarahansen]

Save files should be created automatically when a game using backup RAM is played. I don't think the Pro is any different.
Doesn't saving in the game (normal saving, not "save states") work?

In my case it doesn't seem to work right, Super C is glitched graphically on the Everdrive for some reason.

[nuu]

Super C doesn't use a battery.