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Post by cyrusmartin on Mar 14, 2021 14:57:12 GMT
Hi everyone. I am new to this forum but a lifelong Turbo Grafx 16 and PC Engine fanboi. I have a TG16 with the CD unit and also a PC Engine Duo Rx. Both have served me well and they are my favorite video game consoles of all time. So yes... I am all about that PC Engine life... or whatever the kids say these days.
Anyhoo...
I recently stumbled onto a thread on the Turbo Everdrive forum discussing the save game backup features of Elmer's TEOS. I never realized that this was a thing so I downloaded it and installed TEOS Beta 4 from 12/03/2019 on my Turbo Everdrive. It installed fine and seems to function very well. Highly impressed with it and very happy to have a way to back up my save games.
So I need a little help though...
I figured out how to copy an entire memory bank from my TG16CD to the SD card and I figured out how to copy that to the internal memory bank of my Duo R-X. No problem there... but I was wondering... is there a way to copy individual save games without copying an entire bank? I have a few saves from The TGCD I would love to combine with a few from the Duo onto 1 memory bank instead of having to have either/or.
Does this make sense?
Maybe there is a way to do that easily and I am too dumb to see it... which is always a possibility. So that's why I am asking.
I can copy the bank to an SD slot. I can copy an SD slot to the bank. I can switch a bank and a SD slot. ...and I know how to erase individual save games from a bank.
Other than that, I don't see a way to do what I am asking.
Can anyone help or is this just not possible? Maybe there is a way to take the files off the SD card and edit them on my PC?
Any help would be enormously appreciated.
Thank you
-Cy
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Post by dshadoff on Mar 14, 2021 16:50:57 GMT
This is certainly technically possible, but I’m not aware of any programs written to do it. I think it would need to take place on an external computer or in something like a TEOS program, as you wouldn’t normally have access to both BRAM files at the same time on the PC Engine.
The reason I believe this wasn’t done in TEOS is because the user interface could be challenging to write (or confusing to use), plus there are several tedious error check situations to confirm, and writing for PC Engine is not as easy as writing for the PC. Plus, virtually all non-original methods of play (SSDS3, Mednafen, MiSTer, etc.) use save-per-game files, and it’s fairly straightforward to switch among them with TEOS.
If you are a programmer, the information needed is pretty straightforward...let me know if you need help finding it.
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Post by elmer on Mar 14, 2021 18:30:43 GMT
I have a few saves from The TGCD I would love to combine with a few from the Duo onto 1 memory bank instead of having to have either/or. ... Can anyone help or is this just not possible? I'm sorry, but this is not currently possible to do within TEOS. As dshadoff said, this is primarily because of the user-interface and error-handling difficulties that make such a feature a bit of a pain to implement. Take RPGs for one example, which IMHO are the games that would most benefit from copying individual saves. Some of these games store multiple files in Backup RAM, and you can't just copy a single file over to a different bank and guarantee that it will work correctly without the game's other files. That would result in a tech-support nightmare that I don't want to deal with in TEOS, which is just a hobby project after-all. Now, if you want to write some PC program that will allow copying single files from one bank to another, then the structure of the bank isn't very complex ... so good luck and best wishes to you! Apart from that, a few bugs were recently found in TEOS Beta 4, so I recommend that you download the newer TEOS Beta 5.
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Post by cyrusmartin on Mar 14, 2021 19:03:34 GMT
I really appreciate the information and explanation. I'm not a programmer. I am just a gamer and a Youtuber. Love this community and I cant thank you enough for making this possible at all. Its amazing.
Thank you! -Cy
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Post by SignOfZeta on Mar 15, 2021 14:32:11 GMT
Yes. Delete all the saves you don’t want with the PCE, then just back up the one you want.
But sadly that doesn’t help you do this this...
The tricky part is combining them.
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Post by spenoza on Mar 15, 2021 15:56:09 GMT
Could a tennokoe bank do that?
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Post by elmer on Mar 16, 2021 20:45:15 GMT
Could a tennokoe bank do that? Not as far as I can see. I believe that you can only copy/swap entire banks of Backup RAM data to/from the Tennokoe Bank.
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Post by spenoza on Mar 16, 2021 21:36:46 GMT
Could a tennokoe bank do that? Not as far as I can see. I believe that you can only copy/swap entire banks of Backup RAM data to/from the Tennokoe Bank.
Thanks for that. I don't actually have one, so the only thing I know about them is what other people post.
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Post by elmer on Mar 17, 2021 1:30:21 GMT
Thanks for that. I don't actually have one, so the only thing I know about them is what other people post. Hahaha ... neither do I! You can run the Tennokoe Bank ROM image in TEOS, and use it to save another 4 banks of Backup RAM, on top of the 8 banks that TEOS normally supports in its own BRAM management UI.
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Post by dshadoff on Mar 17, 2021 2:22:36 GMT
Elmer, I had thoughts about updating TEOS to backup MB128 as well, but the code on your GitHub is incomplete (and I believe out of date by now as well). Will you update it ?
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Post by SignOfZeta on Mar 17, 2021 3:05:39 GMT
Could a tennokoe bank do that? Not as far as I can see. I believe that you can only copy/swap entire banks of Backup RAM data to/from the Tennokoe Bank. Yep, even Hudson thought it was too much of a PITA to perfect. They both seem to have the same limitation. As a PCE user for 30 years now, I cannot stress enough how much old saves just don’t matter. I’m sure there is some exception but if it’s Ys I&II saves or your Drax X file... Scenario 1: you never play the game again...why do you need a save? Or the game itself, even? Scenario 2: you do play the game again...so again, why do you need the save?
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