I used the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Euopean ISO for Gamecube if EU or US is relevant.
I decided to play the game on Dolphin instead of actual hardware so I could record gameplay. I chose to use gci files since they save faster and I feel are more reliable than a virtual memory card...maybe.
I was some 4 something hours into my game and sure enough those saves are still there. I completed my first dungeon of my 2nd year, got out safely and decided to save. Lo and behold it shows the memory card as empty, why wouldn't it read the GCI files it was reading for two days straight was beyond me, but I made a new save anyways, that saved alright but I didn't get a yellow message in the top left corer letting me know it also created a save on my HDD.
I tried a few more times to no avail, so I had to use a Save State even tho I don't like using those. So after saving the state I quit Dolphin, reloaded my game and sure enough my old saves popped up, as expected as the new saves didn't write anything to my HDD. Then I loaded to state and tried making a 3rd save file in it, this wrote to the HDD alright but when I quit and re launch dolphin and the game I only see my old gci save files there.
1. Why did my Dolphin display an empty memory card mid-game and why wouldn't it write the saves to the HDD?
2. How can I now make the Save Files from the save state my main saves?
In my D:\My Documents\Dolphin Emulator\GC\EUR\Card A folder I have the following:
01-GCCP-FFCC.gci
�m-GCCP-FFCC.gci
I tried renaming the moving both of these two a safe location, then made a copy of �m-GCCP-FFCC.gci which is the more recent file and renamed it to 01-GCCP-FFCC.gci but that tells me my memory card is empty. the other gci file contains my old saves from an hour ago.
Sorry I forgot to say I'm using Dolphin 5.0 on Windows 8.1
I'd really appreciate it if someone could help me
I tried saving to the memory card from the save state again, this time I tried the other memory card(still set as GCI files) and it created this: �m-GCCP-FFCC.gci
this leads me to believe the game saves corrupted files when loaded form a save state since when I try to load my game it doesn't recognize this save.
Bottom line is, my saves permanently broke, why I don't know as I wasn't initially using save states, I only used a save state so I don't lose my progress after the game magically decided not to show my save files mid-way through.
This is the second time this game has screwed me over, it originally did something similar to this on my Wii years ago when it corrupted my memory card and made me lose my baten kaitos saves and I had just gotten to the second disc of BK.
Here's hoping I can play the game using save states and it won't delete those too lol
any help would be appreciated tho
A bit of an update, since I want to play the game I decided to just load my save state and go from there.
At first the game seemed to work fine loaded form a save state, but EVERY time I close an in-game menu to go back to the game, a shop menu or my items menu and so forth, Dolphin reports a Read Error, hitting ok on the error a bunch of times makes it go away.
This however does not happen when I load my regular non save save state file, the 01-GCCP-FFCC.gci, however that's from a whole hour ago and not as recent as my current save on the save state which I was forced to make to preserve progress.
I'd say it's a faulty HDD but since it happens every time I close a menu and the game resumes normally afterwards and only from the save state load I doubt it, plus the HDD that holds my GCN stuff shows no other symptoms of something being wrong.
One more update:
I decided to load my regular save file, except this time converted into a memory card not just GCI file, sure enough that loaded up nice and good, 4 hours 30 minutes of gameplay, right before I enter Goblin Wall.
It appears the bug always occurs after I clear the Goblin Wall dungeon, before that all my saves are there, after that it reads the memory card as empty and saves a corrupted file.
I switched back to memory cards instead of GCI files now and after clearing Goblin Wall I tried to save just to be greeted by an empty memory card again in Slot A, I saved to the utmost bottom slot and Dolphin did show a yellow message in the top left corner which I ASSUME says it saved, can't read it it's too small.
Figured to make sure I'd also make a save file in memory card slob b.
I re-formatted the empty memory card in slob b and tried saving there, the game supposedly saved.
I waited until the second yellow message showed up after a few seconds of saving, waited some more, then quit dolphin and tried reloading my saves.
In Slot A, only the saves from before I cleared the dungeon showed up, in slot B it had nothing.
This either indicates that the ISO itself has compatibility problems with dolphin or is a bad ISO but I don't think the ISO itself could do this.
EDIT: If you don't complete the dungeon and exit you can save and the save files are displayed just fine.
If you complete the dungeon, Goblin Wall and try to save the memory card shows up as formatted and working but empty.
Saving then doesn't make the file show up next time you load a game, it only shows the files from before you completed the dungeon.
(01-20-2017, 07:18 AM)ShinigamiKiba Wrote: [ -> ]One more update:
I decided to load my regular save file, except this time converted into a memory card not just GCI file, sure enough that loaded up nice and good, 4 hours 30 minutes of gameplay, right before I enter Goblin Wall.
It appears the bug always occurs after I clear the Goblin Wall dungeon, before that all my saves are there, after that it reads the memory card as empty and saves a corrupted file.
I switched back to memory cards instead of GCI files now and after clearing Goblin Wall I tried to save just to be greeted by an empty memory card again in Slot A, I saved to the utmost bottom slot and Dolphin did show a yellow message in the top left corner which I ASSUME says it saved, can't read it it's too small.
Figured to make sure I'd also make a save file in memory card slob b.
I re-formatted the empty memory card in slob b and tried saving there, the game supposedly saved.
I waited until the second yellow message showed up after a few seconds of saving, waited some more, then quit dolphin and tried reloading my saves.
In Slot A, only the saves from before I cleared the dungeon showed up, in slot B it had nothing.
This either indicates that the ISO itself has compatibility problems with dolphin or is a bad ISO but I don't think the ISO itself could do this.
EDIT: If you don't complete the dungeon and exit you can save and the save files are displayed just fine.
If you complete the dungeon, Goblin Wall and try to save the memory card shows up as formatted and working but empty.
Saving then doesn't make the file show up next time you load a game, it only shows the files from before you completed the dungeon.
This sounds either like a bug in the game or a bug in Dolphin, have you tested this on the real hardware? (guess it should work, since I have never heard of this specific issue) if it happens there as well, it is a bug with the game. if it doesn't happen, please create a bug on the issue tracker.
I won't be able to test it on real hardware in some time, turns out I lost my second memory card too
So that's kind o a bummer
Unless there's a way to hack a wii so it saves GameCube games on an SD Card instead of a memory card but I don't want to do that stuff in case I mess something up.
I uploaded the files to mega, maybe someone can test it on both hardware and dolphin.
They use the PAL version of the game
Here are the GCI files, the regular one created before clearing the dungeon and the corrupted one created after clearing the dungeon:
https://mega.nz/#!7IB3QQIJ!bX007kT04-lZ9...3f3J9e1dog
Here is the memory card I made just for FFCC
https://mega.nz/#!CM5TCJpZ!IEvQByHZ5QKE8...N7YPX7SrOU
it probably contains a corrupted file saved after the dungeon was cleared too, but the files it will show are the 2 files I created before clearing the dungeon and one file after I entered the dungeon, changed my chalice to fire and teleported out without clearing.
(01-20-2017, 08:44 PM)ShinigamiKiba Wrote: [ -> ]I won't be able to test it on real hardware in some time, turns out I lost my second memory card too
So that's kind o a bummer
Unless there's a way to hack a wii so it saves GameCube games on an SD Card instead of a memory card but I don't want to do that stuff in case I mess something up.
I uploaded the files to mega, maybe someone can test it on both hardware and dolphin.
They use the PAL version of the game
Here are the GCI files, the regular one created before clearing the dungeon and the corrupted one created after clearing the dungeon:
https://mega.nz/#!7IB3QQIJ!bX007kT04-lZ9...3f3J9e1dog
Here is the memory card I made just for FFCC
https://mega.nz/#!CM5TCJpZ!IEvQByHZ5QKE8...N7YPX7SrOU
it probably contains a corrupted file saved after the dungeon was cleared too, but the files it will show are the 2 files I created before clearing the dungeon and one file after I entered the dungeon, changed my chalice to fire and teleported out without clearing.
I don't have my Cube or Wii readily available to test on real hardware and my WiiU doesn't take Cube games, sadly enough, so the only thing I can do is test it on Dolphin as well, which of course I will do as soon as I have the time for it (I think I have the PAL version, not completely sure)
Maybe a strange question, but did you use Savestates or cheats in this game as well, because they are known to corrupt things, maybe not immediately but it might happen further on in the game.
No, the only time I used a save state was when this first happened, so I used one so I don't lose my progress, but as I explained before that broke the game so I went back to loading from the regular file, sadly upon completing this dungeon the memory card always appears as empty and whatever I save to it isn't there the next time I try to load my save.
I found this:
https://bugs.dolphin-emu.org/issues/9384
That's basically the same error I'm getting. it seems the inability to save and read save files past the Goblin Wall dungeon is indeed a Dolphin issue as a guy there mentions losing their character.
So it appears Save States aren't the problem, but once you reach a certain point in the game something messes up in Dolphin, it's unable to read the game properly or create save files properly.
I get the same errors after closing menus and NPC shops and such
As expected no updates on the situation yet, nobody even pays attention to this issue despite it being a fairly big problem.
Sadly on my end I am unable to find a 1st party memory card here to test it out, all I have on me is some 3rd party no name no brand memory card which FFCC refuses to save to, or if it does once it requires I format the memory card the next time I try to load or save, other game seem to save fine tho.
It appears that this particular game doesn't like saving on anything that isn't an official memory card maybe? I dunno