DraStic's save Compatibility with DeSmuMe and No$GBA

[JeaneMaggie]

I'm new here, and, yes, I have seen forums about DraStic's dsv comparability with that of other emulators before. I decided to make a new one since I didn't want to bump an old forum and what I'm about to post is a bit irrelevant to those topics.

First off, DraStic seems to make at least two different sized dsv files. Some at 8kb and others at 64kb. It looks like it depends on the size or type of the game. I'm not exactly sure how that works. The average dsv file size for me is 8kb. Only one of my ROMs has a dsv file size of 64kb. That ROM's larger than 100mb (128mb) and my other two ROMs are 128mb and 65mb. This size applies to the nds files when uncompressed. The two nds ROMs with the 8kb dsvs are 7z compressed. The ROM with the 64kb dsv is uncompressed. This is because it could not be properly compressed due to the bad header it got when I applied the english patch. It is still playable on all three emulators mentioned though. Could this be the reason the dsv sizes are different? I doubt it since I uncompressed the 128 mb ROM that was 7z compressed, deleted the compressed version, and the save worked just fine and the dsv size of that ROM did not change on DraStic.

DeSmuMe seems to only creates and accept dsv files that are are 64 and 65kb. It will not accept anything smaller (and maybe even bigger, but I'm not sure). I'm using DeSmuMe 9.11 (x64). The 64 and 65 kb dsvs are compatible with DraStic only if the particular game creates a 64 kb dsv on DraStic. Otherwise it will not. Maybe it will with other games. Keep in mind I have only tested it with one other game.

No$GBA accepts the 8kb dsvs from DraStic once the file extension(dsv) is changed to sav. It will not accept the 64kb dsv changed to sav. It only be accepted by No$GBA if the 64kb dsv is put into DeSmuMe and is exported with the export backup memory option. It will be a 64 kb sav. I'm using No$GBA 2.8. I assume the sav file will be compatible with DraStic once the sav extension is changed to dsv only if the dsv created on drastic is 8kb. Otherwise it might not. I have not yet tested this. I will one I get my notebook computer back.

So here are my questions:

1. Is there any way to get the 8kb dsvs from DraStic to 64 kb dsv. If so, how?

2. Has anyone else had this problem?

3. Who has sucessfully had computer emulator to android emulator save comparability?

4. How can one change how big dsvs are on DraStic? Will there ever be such an option in the future?

Thank you in advanced, even if this cannot be helped.

[Exophase]

The save size is based on the size of the flash/EEPROM chip in the game ROM. It varies from ROM to ROM depending on how much space the game developers decided they needed. DraStic gets that information from a database file (game_database.xml) that lists almost all the games that were released. More RPG-like games tend to have larger save sizes. Whether or not the game is compressed has nothing to do with it.

DeSmuME uses a heuristic to determine game size based on what the game code does. Apparently it doesn't always end up being precisely the proper game size.

It should accept saves of whatever size the footer says it is, but maybe they changed something again in 0.9.11. All the games I tested with 0.9.10 had proper inter-emulator operability. I'm not sure about No$GBA, except that last time I used it with save files you had to manually set the size with each game in the options, so that may have something to do with it. Unless that was changed.

You could change the size in game_database.xml, but in my experience this tends to break games because they explicitly check how much they can write to.

[Axvor]

Im usin desmume, no$gba (official release) on my pc too,

Dis how my "dumb" working-around with ingame save compatibility:
+Copy DraStic .dsv file
+Paste to both desmume, no$gba ingame save folder(chg to .sav for no$gba)
+Most of time, desmume will recognize my savefile, but sometime only no$gba recognize it,
if dis happen, load ur ingame savefile den save it again(ingame with no$gba)
+Now chg ur new .sav to .dsv den copy to desmume ingame savefile folder,
& voilà, now desmume recognize it,

Hope dis work for u, Godspeed

[JeaneMaggie]

Thank you both, but Exophase's explaination helped clarify everything. It's good to know that DraStic handles dsv file sizes properly.