Emulator

To sum this up, he's requesting to save the frame buffer in the save state so that it can return to the frame buffer upon loading the save state.

It is not clear what the actual issue is. The description describes the solution, but what is the solution for? If the first frame is missing (under what situation?), saving a screenshot would work around that (at what IR?).

If the actual problem is that the framebuffer state isn't being saved into the save state, remember that the GameCube uses a GPU, unlike a NES which has a simple framebuffer. Saving the GameCube's complete GPU state into the save state file is a huge undertaking.

The problem is if you load a save state while emulation is paused, the screen will not update to reflect the change until after a frame advances.

So... a screenshot would technically work?

It shouldn't be difficult to embed a PNG or JPEG screenshot into a save state.

A screenshot is better than nothing.

Is this the idea:

On save state:

1. Take a screenshot at current IR and embed into savestate file.
2. Continue game.

On load state:

1. Check if game is paused.
2. Load state.
3. If game is paused, load the screenshot and put it on the screen, stretched if IR has changed.
4. If game is not paused, do nothing.
5. Continue game from loaded state.

Could this make the save state file less portable across PC's?

That's the idea, yeah. I don't see how it would make it less portable. It might be a bit odd to load a state and have the quality of the image suddenly change, if you're loading someone else's save state, but that's not really a big deal.

Since adelikat said it would be a lot slower for people who aren't TASing, I think there should be a setting to turn on screenshots on savestates, so people who aren't TASing (most people) don't have big savestate file sizes and slow loading savestates.

I don't think that's a serious concern here when save states can already be upwards of 50 mb.