"Don’t overwrite SAVERAM on loading" is not working

RetroArch Sony consoles
#1

First and foremost, let me just say I have no idea how mednafen/beetle psx memory card saves work. Shared memory cards or otherwise…

I was trying to figure out how to convert my PSP PSX saves to mednafen .mcr saves when I noticed some of my saves aren’t showing up on the saves folder…

I have memory card (.mcr) saves & various save states on these games:

  • Jackie Chan Stuntmaster
  • Toy Story 2 Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue
  • Thousand Arms
  • Megaman 8
  • Metal Gear Solid ver. 1.1
  • Metal Gear Solid VR Missions
  • Xenogears
  • Ehrgeiz

But the only files on my retroarch “saves” folder are these:

  • mednafen_psx_libretro_shared.0.mcr (this is memory card slot 1 I think?)
  • mednafen_psx_libretro_shared.1.mcr (and this is memory card slot 2?)
  • Ehrgeiz
  • MGS Ver. 1.1
  • MGS - VR Missions
  • Thousand Arms
  • Xenogears

So I thought… “wait… where are my other saves? are they inside the ‘mednafen_psx_libretro_shared.0.mcr (Memory Card Slot 1)’ file?”

So I tried to view them using this thing called “memcard rex” which I heard could also convert saves between PSP PSX to Emulator PSX and the contents of Memory Card Slot 1 keep changing depending on what save state I loaded last on retroarch/beetle psx.

For example, I load content MGS v.1.1 on beetle psx, load one of my save states, state 1. When I open ‘mednafen_psx_libretro_shared.0.mcr’ after loading that save state for that game, only my MGS 1.1 Save and Xenogears show up when viewed on memcard rex. None of my other saves for other games are in there.

So then I close MGS 1.1, try running Toy Story 2 Buzz Lightyear, load save state 0 then open ‘mednafen_psx_libretro_shared.0.mcr’ via memcard rex and the contents change again with absolutely no sign of my MGS / Xenogears saves inside. Only Toy Story 2, Jackie Chan Stuntmaster, Thousand Arms, and Megaman 8 show up…

Why is this happening? Is that normal? I thought if I had shared memory cards switched to ‘on’ in core options all my saves would show up inside the memory card slot one .mcr file? I also have “Don’t overwrite SAVERAM on loading” set to ‘on’ in the settings…

What affects this and how do I consolidate all the saves for all the games into one .mcr file? What steps do I do to get all the saves to all the games to show up in the memory card slot 1 .mcr file? And why are some of my saves showing up as seperate .mcr files instead of being inside the memory card slot 1 .mcr file itself?

I’m sincerely sorry if this is stupid and I’m an idiot that doesn’t know how this works.

#2

Save states include the state of the cards.

#3

What? But… that doesn’t make any sense… shouldn’t save states be seperate from the Memory Card Slot 1 .mcr file?? Because when I load state 0 from MGS and view the save files in Memory Card Slot 1 via memcard rex or some other memory card manager, only my MGS Saves show up… Yet loading state 0 from Buzz Lightyear shows some other saves like Jackie Chan, Megaman 8 & thousand arms, but doesn’t show my MGS saves or any of the other games that I have memory card saves on…

There are psx games that require saves from other games to aquire secrets or bonuses. How am I supposed to do that if all those other games aren’t consolidated into the memory card at all times regardless of save state??

Isn’t that the point of the “shared memory cards” settings in core options??

#4

well, that explain why when loading a savestate make before making a mc save overwrites the mc and lost all progress

#5

Yeah, I learned the hard way lol. But they do mention it in the documentation somewhere. Forget the exact link.

#6

You don’t get it. That’s not supposed to happen anymore if you have “Don’t overwrite SAVERAM on loading” set to ‘ON’ in the main RetroArch global settings. But for some reason it’s not working at all even though I have it set to “ON”. My savestates are still overwriting my shared memory card saves.

#7

Can you verify whether it’s working with any other cores? I suspect this core isn’t using the SRAM interface (completely?).

#8

It might take some time to try other cores though. I’m only familiar with beetle PSX & it’s HW version.

Plus I don’t have any game files using any other platform besides Sony.

Also weird, it explicitly states on beetle psx’s libretro docs page that I shouldn’t even be experiencing this problem on this specific core. Here’s a quote of the warning under “SAVES” section:

“Keep in mind that save states also include the state of the memory card; carelessly loading an old save state will OVEWRITE the memory card, potentially resulting in lost saved games. You can set the ‘Don’t overwrite SaveRAM on loading savestate’ option in RetroArch’s Saving settings to ‘ON’ to prevent this.”

Another different user from a year ago also opened a github issue on this but never got a decent reply: https://github.com/libretro/beetle-psx-libretro/issues/190