Saved games (PlayStation - final fantasy 7)

I was playing through FF7 and saved my game using the ingame save points. Upon reloading my saves were gone. Any idea how to make this work? I keep my saves in the ROM directory.

It was a simple matter of using the “save state” / “load state” functions rather than the in-game points

Yes, you can use savestates as a workaround, but you should be able to do in-game saves, as well. I haven’t been playing FF7, specifically, but I’ve successfully saved other PSX games with no problem.

kind of related, but very noob question. how exactly do you map save state/load state to buttons? ive got my controller working from using the input configurator, but i dont see any option of how to map save/load states.

@heiNey I believe that has to be done through the overlay system. However, I know some people have discussed using an overlay that only has the small ‘menu’ button visible so the screen isn’t obscured by unnecessary buttons. I don’t know that anyone has shared such an overlay, though.

i forgot to mention that im using retropie, which uses retroarch, on a raspberry pi if that makes a difference. there is no overlay for this system i dont think.

Ah, I just assumed you were on Android. You can use a text editor to add these lines to your ~/.config/retroarch/retroarch.cfg file:

input_save_state_btn = "whatever"
input_load_state_btn = "whatever"

You can map these actions through RetroArch-Phoenix’s input configuration menu but I don’t think a lot of RPi packages include RA-P.

hmm, i’ve tried this but it doesnt seem to work.

i’ve also tried:


savestate_auto_save = true
savestate_auto_load = true

and this works when i add them to the retroarch.cfg file, but adding the input_save/load doesnt seem to do anything.

i’ve also tried setting


autosave_interval = 300 

so that it would save every 5 minutes, but that doesn’t seem to be working either.

RetroPie has the folders set up as ~/RetroPie/configs/all, with the master retroarch.cfg in this folder. there appears to be a retroarch.cfg in /etc too, but im not sure if i should try editing that file.

I forget the order that RetroArch looks for config files in, but you can specify which file to use by adding ‘-c /path/to/config.cfg’ to your launch command. If it still doesn’t do anything, let me know.

still doesnt do anything. i looked at the command being launched, and it looks like it’s specifying the file found in ~/RetroPie/configs/all, which is the one i’ve been modifying

this is the command that’s being launched with retroarch (from a frontend called EmulationStation):


COMMAND=/home/pi/RetroPie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 1 "retroarch -L /home/pi/RetroPie/emulatorcores/fceu-next/fceumm-code/fceumm_libretro.so --config /home/pi/RetroPie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg --appendconfig /home/pi/RetroPie/configs/nes/retroarch.cfg %ROM%"

this is what’s found in ~/RetroPie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg


savefile_directory = /home/pi/RetroPie/savestate
savestate_directory = /home/pi/RetroPie/savestate
autosave_interval = 300
input_player1_joypad_index = "0"
input_player1_a_btn = "2"
input_player1_b_btn = "1"
input_player1_x_btn = "3"
input_player1_y_btn = "0"
input_player1_l_btn = "4"
input_player1_r_btn = "5"
input_player1_l2_btn = "6"
input_player1_r2_btn = "7"
input_player1_l3_btn = "10"
input_player1_r3_btn = "11"
input_player1_start_btn = "9"
input_player1_select_btn = "8"
input_player1_left_axis = "-0"
input_player1_up_axis = "-1"
input_player1_right_axis = "+0"
input_player1_down_axis = "+1"
input_player1_l_x_plus_btn = "h0right"
input_player1_l_y_plus_btn = "h0up"
input_player1_l_x_minus_btn = "h0left"
input_player1_l_y_minus_btn = "h0down"
input_player1_r_x_plus_axis = "+2"
input_player1_r_y_plus_axis = "+3"
input_player1_r_x_minus_axis = "-2"
input_player1_r_y_minus_axis = "-3"
input_enable_hotkey_btn = "8"
input_exit_emulator_btn = "9"
input_save_state_btn = "5"
input_load_state_btn = "7"


this is in ~/RetroPie/configs/nes/retroarch.cfg (empty file)


# All settings made here will override the global settings for the current emul$



it seems like trigger might have changed. i checked github, and it says


input_save_state
input_load_state

without the “_btn” part. i tried both ways, and neither one work. im wondering if it’s been changed to something else, because the changes i make for buttons always work, and some of the fields work when i change them, but none of the stuff related to save states work.

I don’t have a gamepad here at work to test with, but I’ll try to poke at it this evening and see if I have any better luck with it. Just to be sure: you’ve tried it with a couple of different cores and none of them work? I ask because at least one core (mednafen-psx) doesn’t work with save states at all. I assume all of the cores usable on RPi would be okay, but it never hurts to check.

well i only have roms for nes, genesis, psx and snes, so those are the only ones ive tried. genesis uses DGEN, and the config file was separate from retroarch - the load/save state works in that one. but the nes, psx and snes don’t work.

looks like these are being used

NES: fceu-next SNES: pocketsnes-libretro PSX: pcsx_rearmed

this is how emulationstation has its front end written


DESCNAME=Nintendo Entertainment System
NAME=nes
PATH=/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/nes
EXTENSION=.nes .NES
COMMAND=/home/pi/RetroPie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 1 "retroarch -L /home/pi/RetroPie/emulatorcores/fceu-next/fceumm-code/fceumm_libretro.so --config /home/pi/RetroPie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg --appendconfig /home/pi/RetroPie/configs/nes/retroarch.cfg %ROM%"
PLATFORMID=7


DESCNAME=Sony Playstation 1
NAME=psx
PATH=/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/psx
EXTENSION=.img .IMG .7z .7Z .pbp .PBP .bin
COMMAND=/home/pi/RetroPie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 1 "retroarch -L /home/pi/RetroPie/emulatorcores/pcsx_rearmed/libretro.so --config /home/pi/RetroPie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg --appendconfig /home/pi/RetroPie/configs/psx/retroarch.cfg %ROM%"
PLATFORMID=10


DESCNAME=Super Nintendo
NAME=snes
PATH=/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes
EXTENSION=.smc .sfc .fig .swc .SMC .SFC .FIG .SWC
COMMAND=/home/pi/RetroPie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 1 "retroarch -L /home/pi/RetroPie/emulatorcores/pocketsnes-libretro/libretro.so --config /home/pi/RetroPie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg --appendconfig /home/pi/RetroPie/configs/snes/retroarch.cfg %ROM%"
PLATFORMID=6

solved the issue. i guess since i had the hotkey enabled, i had to hold that down to use the save states. im so stupid. thanks for all the help hunterk!

Ohhh, gotcha. That makes sense. I’m glad you got it figured out! :smiley:

I know this post is old, but I just wanted to chime in that I have seen this behavior, too. (The original issue of saves not working)

I have successfully saved/reloaded save files from Chrono Cross, so I know the dir has write permissions. When I try to save in THPS2, it writes the save file , but when I try to load it, it says the memory card is empty.

ls -la Tony\ Hawk\ Pro\ Skater\ 2.* -rw-r–r-- 1 pi pi 748027728 Oct 13 2007 Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2.bin -rw-r–r-- 1 pi pi 74 Oct 13 2007 Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2.cue -rw-r–r-- 1 pi pi 131072 Jul 17 23:09 Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2.srm << The save file is there.

EDIT: I found the solution to the original problem. After fooling around a bit, I did two things.

  1. I moved the bios from emulatorcores/psx/scph1001.bin to just emulatorcores/scph1001.bin (90%) sure this did it.

  2. I set the file to permissions of the save file to -rwxr-xr-x (I made it executable)

Hey there. I’m really sorry but I need HELP. I’m no tech expert here like u guys so I have read about the saving problems which I currently experience playing final fantasy 8 on my iPad or iPhone. The game runs smoothly but when I save my progress, it says that the files have been saved. When I re load the game it says no data found. I have the Bios installed in the ROMS folder which is where the game is and I don’t know what to do… S u can understand playing these type of games without saving doesn’t make sense… Can someone help me out please???

@blackops84 By default, RetroArch only saves when you exit the emulator cleanly. You can either make sure you exit it cleanly so it will write the changes to file or you can go into the RGUI menu and go to settings, then enable SRAM autosave.

hi, I’m looking for Final Fantasy 7 (PS1) Save Games. Especially the point where you broke out of Midgar for the first time and have the open card. Does anyone have something like that? I use Lakka on the Raspberry Pi. Search for both, the Lakka Save Mode an the Ingame Save-Mode (files). BR