Saving with PowerPak?

[retrogamer73]

I own both a NES and SNES PowerPak cartridge from www.retrousb.com. I'm going to sound like a iddiot by asking this, but here goes. How do I save games on it. I've download the 8KBsave file then copied the .sav file onto the CF card. But the system either won't reconise it, or if I named the file the same name as the rom it just simpily won't save. The site and instructions say just unzip and copy onto card. I double click the folder then just copy the contents onto the card. Is that how your supposed to do it? I really would love some help on this, no matter how hard I try, I can never figure it out. Could someone please give me a step by step guide about how to save games on the carts.

[Reaperman]

The "secret dance" is to save your game in-game, press+hold reset for ~4 seconds (until it goes to the menu instead of the game) and save it on the screen that pops up.

 

It helps to have it named the same as your games (*.sav) and it needs to be in a save folder, I believe. there are better instructions that are downloadable for the NES powerpak--but they've stopped shipping it with a printed manual.

 

I made a handy little batch job for copying/renaming the save blank for each rom, if anybody's interested.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Reaperman

[retrogamer73]

The "secret dance" is to save your game in-game, press+hold reset for ~4 seconds (until it goes to the menu instead of the game) and save it on the screen that pops up.

 

It helps to have it named the same as your games (*.sav) and it needs to be in a save folder, I believe. there are better instructions that are downloadable for the NES powerpak--but they've stopped shipping it with a printed manual.

 

I made a handy little batch job for copying/renaming the save blank for each rom, if anybody's interested.

 

With my NES one I tried to save Sweet Home and it said that it saved, but every time I try to load it it will start from the begining. Is there some special way your supposed to load the games on the NES cart?

 

With the SNES one I've tried holding to reset and naming the files the same as the roms, and the cart will even automatically reconize the .sav file. But no matter what it won't give me the option to save the game.

[Reaperman]

Well I walked through a save on my NES unit, and as I recall, my SNES unit works the same.

• For the example I'm using dragon warrior, with an identically named .sav file for it in the /saves folder.
  
• I powered on, browsed to dragon warrior (which I hadn't played yet), noted that the correct save is selected by default at the top (because I named it the same aside from extension) and started the game
  
• Talked to the king, grabbed some chests and stuff, talked to the king again to "record my progress"
  

 

at this point, in-game save is done, and now to save it from memory to the card itself to "really save"

• held reset on the system for 4 seconds and released
  
• the powerpak menu pops up and asks me if I want to save my progress and the correct file is chosen by default and I tell it to go ahead and save.
  

 

At this point I powered down and counted to 20 for giggles.

• powered it back on, browsed to dragon warrior, noted the correct save was selected by default, started the game, and continued.
  

Edited February 3, 2012 by Reaperman

[retrogamer73]

Well I walked through a save on my NES unit, and as I recall, my SNES unit works the same.

• For the example I'm using dragon warrior, with an identically named .sav file for it in the /saves folder.
  
• I powered on, browsed to dragon warrior (which I hadn't played yet), noted that the correct save is selected by default at the top (because I named it the same aside from extension) and started the game
  
• Talked to the king, grabbed some chests and stuff, talked to the king again to "record my progress"
  

at this point, in-game save is done, and now to save it from memory to the card itself to "really save"

• held reset on the system for 4 seconds and released
  
• the powerpak menu pops up and asks me if I want to save my progress and the correct file is chosen by default and I tell it to go ahead and save.
  

At this point I powered down and counted to 20 for giggles.

• powered it back on, browsed to dragon warrior, noted the correct save was selected by default, started the game, and continued.
  

 

What all files from the save folders downloaded from retrousb did you use?. With SNES I just used and renamed the .SRM, and with NES I just used and renamed the .sav. When using those, NES will save the game but when you try to load the .SAV it will start from the begining of the game you loaded everytime, and SNES won't even show the game save screen. So are the other files in the folder needed for each game?

Edited February 3, 2012 by retrogamer73

[Reaperman]

On my NES powerpak, I'm running with the complete /POWERPAK folder (per the instructions) including the old versions (which are zipped) and even the audio modification image. Naturally there's a /POWERPAK/SAVES folder for my saves. I'm not sure if they're case sensitive, but they're all in caps in the zip, so they're in caps on my drive.

 

My guesses on your issue

• saves folder might be on root vs. /POWERPAK/SAVES
  
• sweet home might have been hacked to the point where it doesn't save right anymore
  
• powerpak (for whatever reason) can't write to your CF card. Maybe try another one.
  

Edited February 4, 2012 by Reaperman

[retrogamer73]

It worked. Before tonight I never played more than a few minutes of Sweet Home because I thought the PowerPak couldn't save. I played it for a little while, got on the game menu hit save, selected no when it asked if I wanted to continue, and once the game said to hold down reset I did and then the PowerPak save screen came up and it saved. I never got on the game menu and selected save before, used to I would just hold down reset and that was it. I guess thats where I made the mistake.

 

Thanks a lot for your advice, it really helped. You should give Sweet Home a try when you get the chance. It's a pretty cool game.

[elvisboogens]

Hello, I'm having this same problem with my snes power pak. I'm trying to save my progress on A Link to the Past, and I've done everything both in the manual and in the posts above this one, but when it asks me if I want to save my file I can access the saves folder from the menu but my save is not listed. I've renamed the .smc file for the .sav, and it I have the same result. But I know I'm capable of saving to the card because Ninja Gaiden Trilogy, Super Castlevania 4, and Super Mario World all have successful saves where the game itself wrote the save file. Is there something I'm missing, or is it possibly the rom for the game?

[elvisboogens]

Hello, I'm having this same problem with my snes power pak. I'm trying to save my progress on A Link to the Past, and I've done everything both in the manual and in the posts above this one, but when it asks me if I want to save my file I can access the saves folder from the menu but my save is not listed. I've renamed the .smc file for the .sav, and it I have the same result. But I know I'm capable of saving to the card because Ninja Gaiden Trilogy, Super Castlevania 4, and Super Mario World all have successful saves where the game itself wrote the save file. Is there something I'm missing, or is it possibly the rom for the game?

Figured it out. My problem was that I was trying to save by renaming the files that came preloaded in the /SAVES folder on my card. Apparently, even though they appear to be save files that are ready to go, I still had to load the 8 kb .srm file from the site into the folder, then rename it to match the rom's name but without changing the extension. Then, it shows up in the battery ram screen, save in game, hold the reset for 4 seconds...voila. So to all of you who are like me that don't find the instructions to be particularly user friendly: You are not alone.

 

Now if I can just get somebody in the Fire Pro Wrestling community to explain some things I don't understand I'll have it all figured out.