Save State

[Bonks]

Jeff,

In regards to saving and save state, just wanted to put a post on why i REALLYYYY think it would be a good idea here on Castaway, just wanna hear your views (and try to convince ya )

See a long time ago most of us here were kids, we had our Amiga's and our Atari's and enjoyed shut off from outdoor lifestyles of comming home from school and having the ability to play games like Dizzy, Turrican or shadow of the beast for hours and hours, and on many of occasions, we'd beat them, i actually have the claim of completing every single Dizzy game made, complete without guides (i never saw sun as a kid, i know ), loved em so much i wanna play em all again.

Anyway, now were older, we just CANT put in that ammount of time to play these games, as much as i really wish i could, but im still drawn to playing them and i really want to... for example take Spellbound Dizzy on Frodo, its a slightly different version to what id played (Amstrad 464/Amiga) and im dying to play it, but i wont/cant cause theres no way i have hours to spend on a single session to complete it.

Then theres the battaries issue.

without a save state, a lot of great games go to waste, people will say there fantastic, its great to play them, but i bet most of those that do only actually play it a bit then never touch it again, times have changed, we just cant

All i can do is wait for The HiVE's spectrum (cause i know he supports it) to play my Dizzys but the Atari ones were good.

oh and Gobliiins is a pain cause it uses passwords, another reason i would kill for save state

just my 2c, whadya think?

 

[ldaneels]

100% agree, save state would be Heaven... I have plenty of time, but I am unwilling to go through the overly frustrating lack of saves in some games. Saving only at save point (or not being able to save at all ) is an artificial way of making the games longer (welcome to the console world). A good game shouldn't need that kind of trick. I will enjoy a game even more if I don't have to take that freaking jump a 100 times to get it right (welcome to Rick dangerous, which is awesome, but the lack of saves is particularly frustrating - I can't believe I finished the game when I was younger...). I like challenge, but there is a limit.

 

[skeezix]

100% agree, save state would be Heaven... I have plenty of time, but I am unwilling to go through the overly frustrating lack of saves in some games. Saving only at save point (or not being able to save at all ) is an artificial way of making the games longer (welcome to the console world). A good game shouldn't need that kind of trick. I will enjoy a game even more if I don't have to take that freaking jump a 100 times to get it right (welcome to Rick dangerous, which is awesome, but the lack of saves is particularly frustrating - I can't believe I finished the game when I was younger...). I like challenge, but there is a limit.

I'll add to the list to look into; I'm not sure how much state woudl need to be saved. ie: I could make a state save that dumps the entire ST RAM to SMC, plus the name of the disk image you used, etc. Then when you start up again, it woudl just launch that state. But I get the impression you'd weant multiple save states..

So having 1MB states aroudn would get to be cumbersome fast.

So the real question then becomes.. can it be avoided to save 1MB to SMC? I suppose the RAM could be zipped as you save it out (weird , which could help a lot.

ie: On an arcade emu, to save state is "easy".. you identify the RAM regions it can use, and then write 'em out, plus all the CPU states, random number gen states, etc. But an ST is a general purpose machine.. it coudl use any and all of its ram, the fdc buffers, keyboard buffers, etc. I used to stuff code in the keyboard buffer all the time

*shrug*. So I can look into it.

You'd want a per-disk save state, or multiple save-sattes per disk even?

jeff

 

[stickofjoy]

I can see the need for this.

However, instead I shall cry about the current incompatability of the greatest game ever made - Sensible Soccer. :wacko:

 

[dan miracle]

i agree with the need for a save state option (there should be one in every emulator!)


they're so perfect when you're playing a game and you've got to a specific point (and you don't really wanna have to go through ALL the hard work again to get there ) and then suddenly your batteries begin to die or you have to turn your machine off for whatever reason....if the exact state position was saved you could resume where you left off

i like the way it's done in the UAE (the Amiga emulator) - for instance you can save the state of Turrican 2 half way through level 5, then the next time you load the emulator up, just load the state and continue EXACTLY where you left off...the save states in UAE don't even require you to reload the rom again, it just instantly goes back to where you left off (also defeating the long loading times of disk based machine when you're trying to play in a hurry )

Castaway is virtually pefect in every way apart from the lack of this option (and if it can't be done then so be it as it's already better than i ever imagined it would be....but if it can be, then it really would be THE ICING on the perfect cake )

 

[ldaneels]

Hi, one save state per disk should be enough, although multiple would be nice.
One thin, though, is that the saves need to be in a separate directory. As it stands right now, the save option saves in the main directory, which can be cumbersome...
Being able to reload the state automatically when you start a rom can be a problem when you just want to restart from the begining, but already have a save...
Thanks,

Loic

 

[Bonks]

yeah just the one would be enough, its all i use for any other emu that lets you save out

An option for multiple would be nice but not required id imagine

as for how it works, ill leave that in your capable hands to see what you can do, some emus (ePSXe) you just hit save and it saves to a file using your selected 'slot', then load reloads it when you hit load (with multiple saves in a switch where you select which 'slot')

Id imagine the easiest way would be to completely write out the entire RAM, so when you hit load it just loads it all back in from the saved file and continues.... yeah ok, im no programer, but it sounds good

Thx for looking at it anyway

 

[Axeman]

(repost from the other thread)

I'd find savestates useful too...

My main use for them would be in work, where I've got limited break time and so want to be able to save the game and carry on where I left off in my next break.

That is way up on my personal wishlist. Of course, it'd be up to the individual user to make sure they didn't fill up their SMC...