matariel

excellent! thanks a lot for making this thread, I owe you one

sup guys. Alright Im new here and as usual, I have a problem that I need some help with! Alright so this is the story: Ive been playing pokemon emerald US for quite a while now. I downloaded the rom and it came with an ips patch. The rom itself is unpatched although vba (or vba link in my case as that is what I am using, version 1.8.0 non-beta) autopatches on the fly [options -> emulator -> Automatic IPS Patching], I believe that vba doesnt modify the original rom file; the original rom file should be unaffected such that if I delete (or rename) the ips file and re-load the rom file I will infact have an unpatched version of the rom in memory. Anyhow, I didnt realize that so much trouble went into making poke emerald work, what with the ips patches and what not and so ive been battery saving with the ips patch loaded up until now without realizing. And Ive always wondered, why does this game keep telling me my save file is corrupt when I load it up! So this morning I stumble onto this thread as Ive been trying to find a fix for the "save file is corrupted..." message that the game shows me every time I load up my game (ingame load using the battery file; I always use ingame load and ingame save, I never use save states). So after reading Hal's first and ninth post (and then the rest of the thread) I decided to try and convert my corrupted 64k save to a legit 128k save using the outlined method! So I setup the vba-over.ini properly, infact to be safe I downloaded yours, hal, just to be sure that I didnt make any bothersome spelling mistakes or anything of the sort; I then deleted vba1.ini and vba2.ini from vba link's directory (I use vba link so that I can trade/battle/etc) so my settings are effectively defaulted. If you want to be sure, here are the differences between my current vba1.ini and a default vba1.ini frameSkip=0 autoFrameSkip=1 vsync=1 soundQuality=1 pauseWhenInactive=0 rtcEnabled=1 recent0=C:\Emulators\GBA\roms\games\Pokemon Emerald.gba RFU=1 LAN=1 Joy0_Left=256 Joy0_Right=257 Joy0_Up=258 Joy0_Speed=389 Joy0_Capture=387 Joy0_GS=388 Joy0_Down=259 Joy0_A=384 Joy0_B=385 Joy0_L=390 Joy0_R=391 Joy0_Start=392 Joy0_Select=386 Joy1_Left=203 Joy1_Right=205 Joy1_Up=200 Joy1_Speed=42 Joy1_Capture=29 Joy1_GS=56 Joy1_Down=208 Joy1_A=30 Joy1_B=31 Joy1_L=16 Joy1_R=17 Joy1_Start=44 Joy1_Select=45 The next step was to rename the ips file so that when vba link loads emerald it does not patch it in memory. At this point I backed up all my original files (emerald's .gba, .sa1, .sav, .ips). And heres where I encounter an interesting problem... If I delete the original (64k) save file and start a new game then save, the new save file is 128k. When I reset the game then load, the game doesnt show me a "save file is corrupted..." message which means that everything is working so far! Keep in mind that right now the loaded emerald is unpatched. So now I close vba. However if I restore the original 64k save file from backup and attempt to load up the game without it's ips, the game locks up before the intro copyright image and shows me a big white screen inside vba link's window. If I restore the ips file and try again the game loads up correctly and I am able to load my old 64k save however it gives me a "save file is corrupted...". If I ingame save afterwards, the produced save file is 64k. So, what can I do to save my old save? please excuse the horrible pun thanks for all the help. edit: and sorry about the lengthy post, my bad edit2: nvm! I read the thread at dgemu and fixed the problem myself. If anyone is having a similar problem I recommend you read that thread, its quite informative. See I tried the save slot workaround initially to see if I can get it to work (I didnt think of using the save slot to bypass the white screen, that was a smart move on atomicknight's part) but what I didnt think of doing was manually setting save type in vba to 128k RIGHT before I ingame save. That produced the required 128k save (I changed savetype in vba back to 64k right after the game was done saving) and everything was functional afterwards! great eh? Note that I DIDNT have to change the savetype in vba to 128k afterwards as the vba-over.ini is now able to perform its function.