Emulator Issues #9458
open
Memcard doesn't work properly when imported during game
0%
Description
Game Name?
Paper Mario RPG (Should also happen with Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, which is the English version of the game)
Game ID? (right click the game in the game list, properties, info tab)
G8MJ01 (Should also happen with G8ME01)
MD5 Hash? (right click the game in the game list, properties, info tab, MD5 Hash: Compute)
bec52fb8c1912bc6f8014801b6281422
What's the problem? Describe what went wrong.
Imported .gci file is not loaded properly
What steps will reproduce the problem?
Get to the file select screen and then import a different .gci file to the memory card, go back to the title screen, and then back to the file select screen. Doing this is supposed to reload the memory card, but doing this with and after version 4.0-2632 causes this to not work. What actually happens is that the previous file that was on the memory card is loaded. Viewing the memory card in the memcard manager will also show that the previous file is still there.
Which versions of Dolphin did you test on? Does using an older version of Dolphin solve your issue? If yes, which versions of Dolphin used to work?
All versions after and including 4.0-2632 have this bug.
What are your PC specifications? (CPU, GPU, Operating System, more)
Intel Core i3-3227U @ 1.90 GHz
Intel HD Graphics 4000
Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
(Should also be noted that this same bug has happened to someone else that I know, and that has much more up-to-date hardware than mine.)
Updated by JMC4789 over 8 years ago
- Status changed from New to Won't fix
This is probably due to safety precautions so people don't corrupt their memory cards. I think instead of doing something like this, you should just turn off the game before importing a different GCI file to the memory card, or maybe use gci folders instead. I don't really care to support this use-case.
Another developer can feel free to override me on this.
Updated by Zephiles over 8 years ago
Forgot to mention that ending the emulation and then importing the .gci file will work perfectly fine.
Updated by Zephiles over 8 years ago
Well the thing is that it takes longer to do that, and that I am also switching between save files a lot.
Updated by JMC4789 over 8 years ago
- Status changed from Won't fix to Questionable
Why are you switching with save files so often? Can't you just switch memory cards? Or is there something else going on? Speedrunning? Testing issues?
Updated by Zephiles over 8 years ago
I am part of a speedrunning community, and have custom save files made, so I use them a lot.
Updated by JMC4789 over 8 years ago
The thing about doing this is that it's a bit of an issue of corrupting the memory card accidentally. What I'd really recommend is using Dolphin's GCI folder feature, and just swapping them in/out of there and seeing if that works. Also, turning the memory card off/on should get it to reload the savefiles as well. Turn off memory card, import, turn memory card back on.
You could technically get twice as many saves by having 1 save on the memcard and a different on in the GCI folder, and just switch between them.
Updated by JosJuice over 8 years ago
- Status changed from Questionable to New
- Relates to usability changed from No to Yes
We won't let you change the contents of a memory card while a game is running, because games don't expect that at all and might do something weird. The current behavior sounds odd, though. Instead of it seeming like the import works while it actually doesn't, Dolphin should be clear about this not being possible, or maybe it could unplug and plug in the memory card while changing its contents.
Updated by Zephiles over 8 years ago
@JMC4789 The problem with that is that I usually use 4.0.2, as it has the least amount of issues for me, and this version doesn't have the option to use the GCI folder feature.
Updated by JMC4789 over 8 years ago
I can't help you if you want to use outdated versions.
But, I'm curious, what issues do you have that you'd want to use a version of the emulator that doesn't even emulate bounding box correctly?
Updated by Zephiles over 8 years ago
@JMC4789 I've had some issues on newer versions in which the game would crash, and the crash would somehow cause my graphics driver to stop responding.
Updated by JMC4789 over 8 years ago
oh right. I think the Intel HDs still don't support bounding box lol. Ignore me.
Updated by lpfaint99 over 8 years ago
JMC4789 wrote:
The thing about doing this is that it's a bit of an issue of corrupting the memory card accidentally. What I'd really recommend is using Dolphin's GCI folder feature, and just swapping them in/out of there and seeing if that works. Also, turning the memory card off/on should get it to reload the savefiles as well. Turn off memory card, import, turn memory card back on.
You could technically get twice as many saves by having 1 save on the memcard and a different on in the GCI folder, and just switch between them.
Nether one will allow you to change the save of a game that is running
For memory cards, the entire card is in RAM and only written to disk, any changes made by other programs or even the memory card manager, will be overwritten as soon as the game saves to the memory card again.
The one time a memory card file is read from the disc is when the game is booted.
GCI folder is similar, but only reads the gci file into RAM the first time the game reads the save, from there it is never read from the disk again.
One option is to open an exclusive handle on the memory card file when a game is running, but I was under the impression that it was inherintly obvious that you can't change the save file while running a game