Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Trilogy) Save and Ship Freezing

[Malkierian]

I saw, in searches, that the issue with saving (at stations or on the ship) and hanging was a known issue, for the NTSC version, but I recently ran across an issue where I can't even just enter my ship. I get a flash of the cockpit, then the screen goes black and nothing responds. I would switch over to the PAL version, but of course, I've been running on save states, and you can't copy those between versions of the game like you can the Wii save files, so I'd have to start over again from the last time a save station worked, which was just before seeing AU 242 on the Olympus after the PED suit is obtained. I just don't understand why this wasn't resolved in the 6 years since it was first known.

Running 5.0-10155, default ini settings (though changing those doesn't seem to do anything anyway).

[Malkierian]

(05-10-2019, 02:48 PM)Malkierian Wrote: I saw, in searches, that the issue with saving (at stations or on the ship) and hanging was a known issue, for the NTSC version, but I recently ran across an issue where I can't even just enter my ship.  I get a flash of the cockpit, then the screen goes black and nothing responds.  I would switch over to the PAL version, but of course, I've been running on save states, and you can't copy those between versions of the game like you can the Wii save files, so I'd have to start over again from the last time a save station worked, which was just before seeing AU 242 on the Olympus after the PED suit is obtained.  I just don't understand why this wasn't resolved in the 6 years since it was first known.

Running 5.0-10155, default ini settings (though changing those doesn't seem to do anything anyway).

For the record, the save hanging is happening with the PAL version as well, and I can only assume the inability to enter the ship will come up at the same place in the story if I were to continue to play.

[JMC47]

If you load a savestate that is from before your last physical save, you'll put the emulated environment in an impossible state and, depending on the game, be unable to save or crash.

Solution: Don't rely savestates.

I've never actually seen anyone have issue saving in Metroid Prime 3 normally, so I don't know where that has come from.

[Malkierian]

The Trilogy version of MP3 is the only game I've ever had this issue on. Even MP1 and MP2 on the trilogy don't have the issue you described (which doesn't even make any sense, when you think about it from a programmatic point of view, because the save state doesn't care one iota about the condition of the physical save. Any physical saves after that will simply overwrite the previous one with the new information from the loaded save state). I've loaded save states from before the last physical saves countless times with no adverse effects (even earlier in MP3 the save states were working). Save states work flawlessly otherwise.

All that being said, I got fed up with problems with the PAL, or the idea of starting completely over with the MP3 standalone, so I went back to my last physical save and played through normally, no changes (including my continued use of save states), except repeatedly trying to recreate the situation you initially described, just to see what would happen, and it's all still working, saving and ship controls alike, so I really have no idea where that was coming from...

[JosJuice]

(05-11-2019, 09:29 AM)Malkierian Wrote: the save state doesn't care one iota about the condition of the physical save.

Yes it does. The game is capable of storing information in RAM (which gets included in the savestate) about what the current save file in the NAND is like. But whether that actually happens depends on the game.

[Malkierian]

(05-11-2019, 04:41 PM)JosJuice Wrote: Yes it does. The game is capable of storing information in RAM (which gets included in the savestate) about what the current save file in the NAND is like. But whether that actually happens depends on the game.

But when does it ever compare what it has in RAM to what is on the NAND?  And its version of the save in RAM isn't what's saved to the NAND, it only goes off of the current game variables.  I've never heard of this being a problem in my 15 years of playing on emulators.  What games is that actually a known issue for?

[DJBarry004]

Certain games supported by Dolphin have methods to fuck up your saves if they detect something unusual (Pokémon games use it, for instance, but can´t remember exactly for what).

Then there are other games that are simply too sensible with saves. Meaning, abuse save states and you´ll find out that your normal saves no longer work/can´t use normal saves anymore.

[Malkierian]

Huh. Well, here's hoping I never encounter any of these games, because I'm a state save maniac. Either way, Trilogy doesn't seem to actually be one of those games.

[Helios]

Then you're going to be a bit less of a save state maniac if you want your games to work as expected.

Any game is susceptible to this problem to varying extents. There is nothing to fix.

[JosJuice]

(05-12-2019, 08:59 AM)Malkierian Wrote: What games is that actually a known issue for?

GameCube games, mostly. Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD are notorious about it, but it can also happen in e.g. Paper Mario. I can't recall if it has been confirmed to happen in any specific Wii games.