Flashram games can't save (most can now save, but saves are initialized on accidental power-offs)

[riggles1]

All of these flashram games save correctly on the original chinese clone firmware.

Some of these will retain the save if you restart after a reset, but will be deleted after a second poweroff.
Pokemon Snap and Paper Mario can't retain a save at all and will be deleted after reset saving and starting again (without poweroff), so these are the quickest games to test with, Paper Mario saves as you create a profile, Pokemon Snap let's you save after a quick talk with Professor Oak.

List of affected games, affects all regional versions:

Command & Conquer
Dinosaur Planet (prototype with fan enhancements)
Jet Force Gemini (you'll want to use the dextrose patch [f1] (sram) version, it bypasses RARE's save deletion, using sram instead)
Ken Griffey Jr's Slugfest
Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The (this one actually saves it seems, but only song of time, not owl statue quick saving)
Megaman 64
NBA Courtside 2 featuring Kobe Bryant
Paper Mario
Pokemon Puzzle League
Pokemon Snap
Pokemon Stadium
Pokemon Stadium 2
Starcraft 64
Tigger's Honey Hunt
WWF: No Mercy

[mastercheff]

I think it's a well known issue, btw newest maintained(?) fork is this one :

https://github.com/Suprapote/Altra64

[riggles1]

It is, however this fork has issues open for submission.
So I've gathered all known issues here, so that it's all documented in one place.

[L10N37]

I gave up on RE2 because of this . and goldeneye . saves just disappear . ED64 smells

[riggles1]

What firmware were you using? The saves don't just disappear unless they're flashram, or the three RARE games with AP protections (where you need the sram hacks).

Those games don't use flashram (sram and eeprom) and don't get their saves deleted at random using regular alt64. Had one of these carts since like 2017 (granted without much use as it's not my main flashcart), saves are still there today.

[L10N37]

the saves stay but the game stops seeing them.

…

On Fri, 19 May 2023, 8:47 am riggles1, ***@***.***> wrote: What firmware were you using? The saves don't just disappear unless they're flashram, or the three RARE games with AP protections (where you need the sram hacks). Those games don't use flashram (sram and eeprom) and don't get their saves deleted at random using regular alt64. Had one of these carts since like 2017 (granted without much use as it's not my main flashcart), saves are still there today. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#8 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AUYALNHHW4NCHMIIYQHGMLLXG2RGPANCNFSM6AAAAAAYG3JOPY> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[riggles1]

Not sure what you mean by that (save on the SD, but not read?), knowing the firmware you used (alt64, clone chinese firmware or altra64) would be helpful. It could be an issue with the SD card used, or a fault with the cart you have since I and others haven't experienced the same as you have.
Either case it's unrelated to flashram as that only affects games that use flashram saving, which is what this issue is about.

These are cheap carts anyway, I wouldn't suggest people to buy them as it's an inherent risk (best to wait for open source alternatives) but since there's a lot of them floating around since forever it's nice if they can be improved and used rather than become e-waste.

[mastercheff]

I played through RE2 and Paper Mario on stock firmware, zero issues.

Alt(ra)64 comes in handy for such titles as f-zero expansion, or more elaborate romhacks

[L10N37]

Not sure what you mean by that (save on the SD, but not read?), knowing the firmware you used (alt64, clone chinese firmware or altra64) would be helpful. It could be an issue with the SD card used, or a fault with the cart you have since I and others haven't experienced the same as you have. Either case it's unrelated to flashram as that only affects games that use flashram saving, which is what this issue is about.

These are cheap carts anyway, I wouldn't suggest people to buy them as it's an inherent risk (best to wait for open source alternatives) but since there's a lot of them floating around since forever it's nice if they can be improved and used rather than become e-waste.

I've tried a few different revisions, last was updated basically the month I started using it and that was within the last 6 months or so. It has being forked quite a few times.

What I mean is, the saves only seem to work if you play just that game and nothibg else? at least that's conclusion I've drawn with the logic of the situation at hand. My saves will be there on goldeneye for example and working... once I load a new ROM, though the goldeneye saves are still on the SD card, the game can no longer see them there. This happened to me on a few play throughs of RE2 back when I had more spare time than current and wanted to see how the 64 version compared to other platforms I've played it on. The game saves seem to persist on the SD card ,the game just won't read them in and present you the option of loading / continuing with them. TBH the freshly modded and re-shelled 64 at hand has gathered dust since.

[Firas-Dhouibi]

not sure about u but for me it saves normaly and its been days, everything is fine so far

[ariahiro64]

Altra64 doesn't include any auto patches that bipass anti-piracy. both Krikzz's menus including the hacked one that ships with the ed64+ does. with that said there's also a 64mb rom size bug on clones that the actual rom bleeds into the sram memory location explaining resident evil 2. i have zero idea how official everdrive firmware gets past this. conker's bfd works because the eeprom data is in pif ram so the game cant bleed into that area. with that said the new menu in the pin has slightly more success in that field (saves persist after a cold boot if they persist after a reset in my testing).

[ariahiro64]

so i tested this on the newer firmware and unallocating 1 megabit at the end fixes dinosaur planet but I only tested file 1.

[ariahiro64]

also other drm mesures dont trigger on my cart with a ultracic so i think thats not the issue.

[ariahiro64]

latest commit should fix flashram across the board

[ariahiro64]

OS64P.zip
@riggles1 @mastercheff @L10N37 @Firas-Dhouibi
report back to me if this build fixes flashram on your end.
im going to close the issue when i get confirmation it works.

[ariahiro64]

i also specifically backported this first because it was affecting so many users

[riggles1]

Will do : D give me a couple of days to test. Gonna make some noise for this too as I know a bunch of people who've ended up with those clones in discords and forums. I suspect a lot of people also just have these laying around gathering dust. Thanks!

[riggles1]

A quick test and it doesn't between full power offs, just retains the save between resets. Pokemon Snap and Paper Mario tested.
Will redownload and redo the test tomorrow to rule out there being an mistake on my end.

[ariahiro64]

that behavior tells me its not touching the save so thats disappointing. unless your talking about just powering off the game during gameplay. if thats the case i cant fix hardware through software. but if its retaining the save if you are resetting then powering it off and then it retains the save thats intended. and if not thats something i will fix.
please add clarification and ill try to make a decision on what to do next for this feature.

[ariahiro64]

paper mario retains the save. it may be my n64 is ntsc and this is a pal issue?

[riggles1]

Ok so here's the deal. It's really close it looks like.

So flashram does retain saves*, but with some exceptions.
Pokemon Snap doesn't retain a save no matter what (continue should appear as long as you've selected save once, this game saves with the china firmware).

*The problem with other games such as Paper Mario and Smash Bros, is that while it retains the save if you reset, if you were to accidentally turn off the system/bump into it/power outage. Your save is completely wiped, rather than just not save like it would in other cases. (alt64 just loads your last save where you properly reset before poweroff, instead of nuking all your progress).

But as long as there's no poweroffs without a reset first your save is safe.

I could test more flashram saving games if you want to see if they act like Pokemon Snap and don't save at all.

[ariahiro64]

if you accidently crash or power off and dont want to loose your save dont power on but insert it into pc and delete the last rom file whuch is located in the ed64p folder

[riggles1]

Yeah, that method works fine, if there's plans to fix it then that's great. Not the best for new users or people with kids for example.
Alt64 (certain) and I believe the Chinesium firmware too roll back to the last correct save.

[ariahiro64]

that feature can be turned on in the config. its just disabled by default.