I know save states usually don’t work when cores/emulators get updated but is there a reason why even native saves get reset?
After Beetle Saturn was updated to 1.32, my native Saturn Bomberman saves no longer exist. The files do exist in the folder but it seems like the core is overwriting them with fresh ones since i get no “load game” option anymore.
hmm, dunno. Should still be okay. I’d open a ticket at the repo about it.
Happened here too for one lucky game, and hasn’t happened since. Most likely simply updated the core at a bad time.
I had a different issue with SwanStation in which just by activating the second memory card will instantaneously erase your main card, this is destructive behavior that the option should let users know about. Now, I see from what you’re saying above that before updating a core, we should zip the save folder before, just in case.
I do have a backup of the old core and saves. I was asking to see if i can eventually use the saves with the newer version of the core.
Ok, i updated the core today again and the native saves work.
But the save states also work too! Though you have to make sure the game loads first, after the Sega Saturn logo intro/bios animation. Otherwise the states will load in a bugged state. After the logo, the states load correctly and you can save them again so now you can load them whenever you want.
Quite interesting behavior.
So far I only tested with one game; Akumajou Dracula X/Saturn SOTN (backed off the save just in case) and the save was still there. I’ll test with a couple more games later on just to be on the safe side.
And holy hell, Beetle Saturn being updated after this long really came as a nice surprise.
I quote myself to add something to this. It appears 3D games like Quake load states fine no matter what. The above only applies to games with 2D graphics like EWJ2 and Bomberman. At least for the games i tried.
2nd game I tried (Grandia English translation) and, yeah; this is what happens when I start the game, right after booting the Saturn bios.
Deleting the save files does fix the issue (but of course you can’t use the old save then). I didn’t use any old savestates of the game when testing.
(The squished aspect ratio of the captured image is just the Saturn internal resolution during that scene; it looks normal during actual gameplay)
So, it seems there are some saves made from the older core that are incompatible with Beetle Saturn 1.32 for some reason.
I noticed a boost in overall performance too!
Do we know of any specific changes with the update?
Usually with RA, no, unless we follow up the standalone updates. Normally, native saves aren’t affected with updates, only save states, for obvious reasons, but’s it’s never a bad idea to backup your save folder, at least from the 32-bit emulators/cores and above.
Thanks, I wasn’t asking about the save situation so much as what updates to the core happened. It’s been a while since there was a Beetle Saturn update and it roused my curiosity.
That’s the difficult part, knowing what actually changed. There were blog posts about RA itself and core updates at Libretro Blog, it’s over a year since nothing happened there. The only way I can think of is looking at Mednafen’s website, in this case.
What I can tell is that the updated Saturn core improved significantly in performance. I was playing Tomb Raider, before the update, fast-forward basically did nothing, using it to skip loadings and pushing blocks now the game speeds up noticeably, and this is playing the game in a Poco Pad, a tablet with a mid-range CPU.
I just looked at that website and forum and most of it hasn’t been updated since 2024 or 2025.
Interesting, I didn’t check the website, so it’s feasible to assume the core stalled since a few years back and only recently is in line with the standalone?
I have no idea. Most of the time I don’t even know when a core has been updated, much less what the changes are. I usually come here and hope someone knows about it.
Same here, maybe someone knows, I don’t even know who’s the core maintainer.
I guess the RA crew could require a changelog to be submitted with all updates and it could go in a RA “changelog” folder, or something like that… but that would probably cause upheaval or something.
Hi all, I updated to the new core and tested my fighters megamix save however it does not seem to load, has anyone else have this issue?