saturn save converter

[saturn32beats]

Hi guys! I have been trying to use the save converter to transfer a save from Yaba sanshiro 3.4.2 to SSF without sucess. The description of the programm doesnt say much so I dont know if this app is meant to be used with own save-states of the different emulators or if, on the contrary, it is for converting the saturn internal memory of certain emulator to a different emulator.

I have tried to drag and drop the bkram.bin of the local folder of yaba sanshiro but I dont know what I am supossed to do next. Should I rename the outcoming file to the same name found in SSF's folder (DRACULAX_01)? But I have three games files in SSF internal backup, namely DRACULAX_01, 02 and 03. I think I am missing knowledge of how yaba works with the saves.

If anyone knows how to use it, please share it 🙂

Cheers,
M

 

[hitomi2500]

What converter are you talking about? Is this the one? (your version might be without fancy button pictures).

This one is mine, and i can help you with it. If it's something else, please post the screenshot.

Regarding formats. iirc yabause uses a single image for all saves. The exact image filename is set in settnigs, but BEWARE! Yabause silently deletes all the data within the image when you select it, so you should close yabause, overwrite the file with the backup (you made one, right?)and restart yabause again.

As for SSF, i don't remember exactly, but it's probably saves each save in a different file. At least i have SSF mode in the parser :

So to do a yabause-to-ssf transfer, you open yabause image, set SSF extract mode in setup, and extract every save you want into whenever SSF holds its save data.

 

[saturn32beats]

Hey Jameson!

Thanks for your input. My post refers to the recent tool developed by Knight0fdragon (Saturn Save Converter). Its a drag & drop app so I cant make an screenshot 😛

I dont know how to use yours cause I am barely following what u say but if you tell me where to download it I can give it a try. I didnt find it in Resources. And just to be on the same page: I want to convert the internal memory for a certain game from yaba to SSF. If what it converts is the emulator save state instead, it works for me aswell.

Thanks man anyway for ur nice explanation. Your app looks fancy!

 

[saturn32beats]

On the left the memory of the yaba sanshiro as a single file as u mentioned. On the right several bin files corresponding to the different games saved in the internal memory of the SSF saturn. If I understand this right, what I want is to convert from left to right.

 

[Knight0fDragon]

SSF is weird. You can't use a hook save, which is what you have. You need to change the settings to use the regular internal save (Do not ask me how to do this, I have no idea)

 

[hitomi2500]

Hey Jameson!

I dont know how to use yours cause I am barely following what u say but if you tell me where to download it I can give it a try. I didnt find it in Resources. And just to be on the same page: I want to convert the internal memory for a certain game from yaba to SSF. If what it converts is the emulator save state instead, it works for me aswell.

It's there in the resources, but maybe not the latest release. You can get a fresh one from github: Release 0.9.6-windows · hitomi2500/ss-save-parser

Unfortunately my SSF experience is very limited, so i'm not sure if it needs additional magic, but from the looks of it, you should open bkram.bin in the parser, and extract every DRACULAX_0x save into the "Internal backup" folder, overwriting the existing files. And before doing that, you should go into setup, and change the extract mode to SSF.

If it fails, let me know, i might try to debug it. The SSF support was done years ago, and the format could've been changed.

 

[saturn32beats]

SSF is weird. You can't use a hook save, which is what you have. You need to change the settings to use the regular internal save (Do not ask me how to do this, I have no idea)

I dont know what u mean. SSF already loads the internal memory from the folder I posted the pic. There is no much options in SSF itself on the other hand. Have you converted save games from internal memory sucessfully from Sanshiro to SSF before?

 

[saturn32beats]

It's there in the resources, but maybe not the latest release. You can get a fresh one from github: Release 0.9.6-windows · hitomi2500/ss-save-parser

Unfortunately my SSF experience is very limited, so i'm not sure if it needs additional magic, but from the looks of it, you should open bkram.bin in the parser, and extract every DRACULAX_0x save into the "Internal backup" folder, overwriting the existing files. And before doing that, you should go into setup, and change the extract mode to SSF.

If it fails, let me know, i might try to debug it. The SSF support was done years ago, and the format could've been changed.

Jameson, thanks dude!

I missed the save parser cause I thought I would find your name next to it. Thanks for the direct link.

So I downloaded and it loads fine the bkram.bin and I see a similar image to the one you posted with all the games, blocks, clusters, etc. I went to setup and both Insert and Extract were already set up to SSF. So I selected the 3 files regarding SoTn and click extract on the right side. I got 3 files with the right name, but those files are no .bin files so SSF dont recognize them when I start the game. Indeed the files have no file type. Windows says: "File type: File"
I did the same clicking on Extract XML instead but same result.

I have the feeling I almost got it!

Btw I dont know what you mean that SSF support is done years ago. I believe there was never support. SSF is anyway still in development by the boss-sensei Shima. A last version was released on December and it might go soon open source. The files in the newer versions of SSF have the same file type. You can just copy & paste both internal memory and SSF save-states files between versions without issues.

 

[hitomi2500]

I was talking about SSF support in my parser, not the SSF itself 🙂 Sorry for confusion.

Regarding the export, try simply adding ".bin" to the file names when extracting them. There should be a question about overwriting existing files, if it appears. then you're probably doing it right. And don't forget to backup just in case.

XML export is an experimental feature, it does not work with SSF at all, so don't use it.

 

[privateye]

If you still can't get the save file to work in SSF after following what @Jameson said, then please post the original save file and I will have a go at converting it 🙂

 

[Knight0fDragon]

I dont know what u mean. SSF already loads the internal memory from the folder I posted the pic. There is no much options in SSF itself on the other hand. Have you converted save games from internal memory sucessfully from Sanshiro to SSF before?

that is not an internal save. That is a hook file. These are two different things. Hook files are individual saves that SSF look for and rebuilds into an internal save file on the fly.

Internal saves are 1 file that have all of the saves combined. The default setting for SSF is to use hooks. I do not support those yet. My SSF is also configured to not use hooks for development purposes, but it has been a long time since I have played with the settings that I forgot how I did it.

 

[saturn32beats]

I was talking about SSF support in my parser, not the SSF itself 🙂 Sorry for confusion.

Regarding the export, try simply adding ".bin" to the file names when extracting them. There should be a question about overwriting existing files, if it appears. then you're probably doing it right. And don't forget to backup just in case.

XML export is an experimental feature, it does not work with SSF at all, so don't use it.

Jameson you are the boss! !

Thanks man. After I renamed and added .bin to the extracted files they got recognised by SSF and the game was loaded.

privateye thanks to you too for offering your help.

And Knight0fDragon, I didnt know that about SSF. Its interesting though. The settings for SSF could for me be aswell in chinese and I would understand the same.

 

[saturn32beats]

@Jameson, I dont need it right now but Im curious about it and it might be useful in the future. Would it be possible the conversion the other way around? From the SSF bin file or files to an unique yaba .bin file? I have tried to convert back those castlevania files (also tried other saves) but the parser doesnt load them. it shows an error:

 

[privateye]

@Jameson, I dont need it right now but Im curious about it and it might be useful in the future. Would it be possible the conversion the other way around? From the SSF bin file or files to an unique yaba .bin file? I have tried to convert back those castlevania files (also tried other saves) but the parser doesnt load them. it shows an error:

That's easy enough:

1. Open Yaba Sanshiro's bkram.bin file in Sega Saturn BRAM parser.
2. Click the Insert button and select the save file(s) that you want to insert. Make sure that the insertion mode is set to SSF in the Options menu (that's the default setting, so it should already be set to that).
3. Click the Save button and overwrite bkram.bin.

The save file should now be detected when loading the respective game in Yaba Sanshiro.

 

[saturn32beats]

That's easy enough:

1. Open Yaba Sanshiro's bkram.bin file in Sega Saturn BRAM parser.
2. Click the Insert button and select the save file(s) that you want to insert. Make sure that the insertion mode is set to SSF in the Options menu (that's the default setting, so it should already be set to that).
3. Click the Save button and overwrite bkram.bin.

The save file should now be detected when loading the respective game in Yaba Sanshiro.

yesss, baby!! Thanks a lot privateye . Indeed it is too logical, I wish I had figured it out myself.

 

[dibz]

Don't suppose anyone knows how to get fenrir exported backup ram converted to a yabause/yabasanshiro-usable file? Attached a dump.

Tried playing with the cluster size, but it seems like I can't quite get it right (noting the split grandia saves), I have a feeling fenrir must be doing it's own thing.

 

[hitomi2500]

@dibz, it's probably funny date/times and broken allocation tables why yabause skips them.

I tried to extract them for further inserting into a clean image, but suddently found that parser 0.9.7 is broken and cannot extract at all. I will fix that degradation asap and will retry a bit later.

 

[privateye]

Fenrir BRAM dumping is seemingly broken in firmware 2021/02/07. A while ago, Ced shared a beta firmware with me that sometimes freezes right at the start of the dumping process... but, if it doesn't crash, then it always produces a valid dump. Once Ced is done with his work on the 21-pin version of Fenrir, then hopefully he will improve things further and make a public firmware release with fixed BRAM dumping.

 

[dibz]

Fenrir BRAM dumping is seemingly broken in firmware 2021/02/07. A while ago, Ced shared a beta firmware with me that sometimes freezes right at the start of the dumping process... but, if it doesn't crash, then it always produces a valid dump. Once Ced is done with his work on the 21-pin version of Fenrir, then hopefully he will improve things further and make a public firmware release with fixed BRAM dumping.

I had that same problem w/ the crashing on the latest public firmware. The other problem I had was sometimes the dump process would complete and claim success, but then there would be no dumped file present afterwards; that I resolved by just switching cards.

If Ced wants I could play with that a bit more, the new card was also exfat as formatted from factory while my normally used card is fat32.

Unrelated-semi-related maybe we should see if Ced would be willing to work with slinga to get Fenrir support into his save tools, that'd be neat.

 

[privateye]

I had that same problem w/ the crashing on the latest public firmware. The other problem I had was sometimes the dump process would complete and claim success, but then there would be no dumped file present afterwards; that I resolved by just switching cards.

Yeah I've also experienced the "file dump missing" issue on a few different microSD cards.

If Ced wants I could play with that a bit more, the new card was also exfat as formatted from factory while my normally used card is fat32.

I don't think the file system has much to do with it, because I have experienced problems with both exFAT and FAT32 (e.g. the dumped file is 31744 bytes instead of the expected size of 32768 bytes)

Unrelated-semi-related maybe we should see if Ced would be willing to work with slinga to get Fenrir support into his save tools, that'd be neat.

@cafe-alpha was working on integrating a Fenrir Save Data Manager into Pseudo Saturn Kai and Fenrir Loader Kai, which would allow you to export the whole of BRAM and individual save files. However, that project was suspended once we realized that save dumping is broken in the firmware itself. I look forward to returning to that project with @cafe-alpha once Ced releases a fixed firmware. And yes, it would be cool to have Fenrir support in @slinga's tools too 🙂