Savestate bug or intentional?

RetroArch General
#1

Hi there,

I’ve come across something I’d consider a bug, though maybe it’s how Retroarch is designed? At any rate, I’ve been playing E.V.O. The Search for Eden on SNES Next and use both save states and conventional saves (save states for bosses, mostly).

The problem I’ve encountered is that whenever I load a savestate it erases all conventional saves made after that savestate, even if I’ve reset the game. For example, say I conventional saved at level 6, save stated at level 7, and conventional saved again at level 9. If I load up the save state at level 7, even if I restart the game afterward, my save from level 9 will be gone and only my save from level 6 will be available.

Is this intentional and something I’ll have to keep in mind or is it something unintended? I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered a issue like this in previous emulators.

#2

This is how emulators usually work because SRAM is part of the emulator’s state, unfortunately. Some few games use SRAM as RAM as well. All SNES emulators I know of have this behavior.

There is an option in RetroArch called “Block SRAM overwrite”, which blocks SRAM from being overwritten by save state loads, but if the game depends on that data, it’ll probably crash. Systems like PSX don’t have this behavior as memory cards are external, and doesn’t count as internal state.

#3

Hunh. I’ve been using SNES emulators since '99 or so and never knew that. Guess you learn something new every day. Thank you for clarifying :slight_smile: