[Enhancement] Support for save states

[Darknior]

Hi
Is it possible to have Save states on x68000 like on the other LR emulators ?
I know it works perfectly on xBox Madmab emulator, it's possible.

[gingerbeardman]

I'll look into this. Not sure at the moment how feasible it is. I'm hopeful.

[Darknior]

The way is to save the x68000 memory to reload it after.
I know it's complicated on the Microsoft DOS, not easy to implement, i don't know for x68000.
But it save life on many old games so hard ... or so long to end quickly ...

[gingerbeardman]

Yes, save memory and registers.

I will try to figure it out! My C skills are very low 🤣

[Darknior]

Mine are zero :(
I only code in PHP and Javascript ... i can't do nothing with this in emulation world :p
I can only help in Theming, and beta test ;)

[gingerbeardman]

I think you'd be surprised how much of the source code you can easily read.

[usedr]

My god, do we need this!

[Darknior]

Yes some games are so hard, i pray to have this option one day

[Darknior]

The other options are not really important .... but this one is really.
No one is playing this computer because we can't save our game advancement :(
We must always start from begining ... and x68000 stay an strange computer no one use .... so bad :(

I have try with Akumaju Dracula yesterday, create a character, play the first level, reboot, and no save in game stored :(
Is this emulator store our games advancement with real old save ???

[gingerbeardman]

This emulator works exactly as the original computer. You need to save your game to a blank disk from inside the game.

But, yes, modern save states would be very welcome

[Darknior]

OK thanks for your answer @gingerbeardman.
It's what i've think about. Very complicated for common users ... i try to configure this emulator for me, common users and my children. My little girl love video games and has only 6 years old. She can't do so complicated command.

How/Where can i get a blank disk file ? Maybe i can load the game with the blank disk with a M3U ?
To make it auto for users ?
Is there an easy way for that please.
I search the solution for a children, easy, and all with the gamepad. No Keyboard, like a SNES console ... i know x68000 is a computer, a fantastic one ... and i really want more people try it easily ::p

[gingerbeardman]

@Darknior well, again it comes down to how the original machine worked.

You insert a disk and format it to be blank. Note: a blank disk is often called user disk by the game. And a game should offer to create a blank/user disk for you if it offers the ability to save.

Or you can format using command line or an app on the emulated system.

What file to use? Maybe a duplicate of an existing hdm disk image? Of course not a zip file.

Really it is not for here, start a thread in the user support forum.

https://forums.libretro.com/t/px68k-libretro/10113/36

[Darknior]

Hi :)
Some news about a savestate support on this core ?
Or it's really hard to implement ....
Thanks a lot

[gingerbeardman]

I will not be able to do this due to time and new family needs.

[Darknior]

It's normal :)
Real life is the most important ;)
Maybe we will have a chance some one else have time to do it one day :p

[negativeExponent]

anyone has started anything for this yet?

[Darknior]

@negativeExponent do you think you can do it ?

[darksgan]

I would love to have a save state option. Not only for saving progress (you can save anyway if the game let you do it with an option, but some games, more arcade-like don't)

... I would love to "simulate" a "console" experience with some games (having X6800 some of the best "home-ports")... I mean... for example Super SF II: CE.

It work nice, and I can even correct the aspect ration (I was not able to do it with other standalone emulators, XM6 forks o WinX64k

BUT... I can't save the controllers configurations... Street Fighter uses 6 buttons for playing, right? so I need to change the 2 buttons controller (set by default in the game), to CPSF or CPSF-MD (maybe, this one better, for me).

If I could save the state, I could configure the controllers as CPSF-MD for players 1 and 2, go back to the menu and wait till the intro starts again, right in that moment, I could save the state in one slot (the less used one, for example).

After that, I could launch the emulator using a script (for copying config files, launch the game directly, etc), and calling other scripts from that main script... for example, I could call an Autohotkey script wich could "press F4 automatically" (load the savestate) after launching the game/emulator ... then I would have the controllers or any other option preset as wanted (futhermore, I would skip the "machine starting up" and "loading game posts" as a plus, saving time).

Regards :)