Memory Card Save File Preservation - PS1, PS2, N64, Dreamcast, Xbox, & GameCube / MY LIFE IN GAMING

[@ChaunceyGardener]

MLiG is the National Geographic of retro gaming.

[@jeffbanfieldsflwr3537]

I'm late for work because if this channel... lol

[@gwicks]

And Marc Duddleson is its David Attenborough.

[@RohanSpartin]

The PS3 Memory Card Adapter is a Godsend. Legend of Legaia has a game breaking bug about 3/4 through the game, that happens almost consistently when playing the game on a PS3. But with the adapter I managed to transfer the save to my PS1 memory card, get past the point where the glitch happens, save the game, and transfer it back to my PS3. It worked like a dream.

[@mylifeingaming]

[Try4ce] I did the same thing with Soul Reaver 2 to get around a PS3 glitch, although I did finish the rest of the game on my PS2.

[@ATthemusician]

I had no idea they were as rare as they are, thankfully I bought a few a decade ago lol

[@Viciouspiked]

why not just use original hardware? seems like hassle to transfer saves from ps3 to ps1 memory card.

[@RohanSpartin]

@@Viciouspiked I keep my PS2 hooked up via Component permanently, and PS1 games do not display via Component output, and the only TV I have that I can hook up my PS1 to is a heavy as hell CRT that I keep for console and game testing, and I have to move it every time I need to use it.

[@mackdee911h3]

@@RohanSpartin if you can, keep an eye out on the PS1DIGITAL. Shit is a dream come true. an actual HDMI port on my PS1.

[@Harlan6493]

Multiple times throughout my childhood, I would leave a PS1 or 2 on for days on end because we didn’t have a memory card. 😂 Now as a collector, I love picking up memory cards and finding old saves on them from 15-20+ years ago. It’s like a look back in time. Might be weird but it’s always fun to imagine the fun the original saver was having at the time of the save. Another great video! I also recently found out how local you guys are to me. So pumped to see so many local collectors and to find such a good channel in my own back yard. Keep up the great work!

[@HPRshredder]

Love to see you guys tackling topics like this! This type of data preservation is ignored all too often.

[@Sevent77]

Two interesting bits worth mentioning regarding ps1 menory cards. 1. You can restore deleted saves by holding L1L2R1R2 in the menory card menu as long as it wasn't overwritten. 2. Later on some demo discs came with saves for certain games that you could copy onto your own menory card and use.

[@gamernaut8864]

What an excellent video on memory card save file preservation. Only you guys can do a topic like this justice. The retro gaming scene of KZbin would not be same without this amazing channel.

[@Electrohead92]

The beginning of so many PS1/2 and Gamecube games are permanently burned into my mind from when I had no memory card. I remember any time I got a new console, I usually didn’t have enough money for a memory card until later or received one as a gift, so all my games would be reset whenever I turned off the console. It’s definitely a huge perk to have internal console storage.

[@bland9876]

100% believe they should have packed one in when you bought the system. Glad the 360 did that.

[@mariokart8715]

And the later consoles after that. The OG Xbox has an internal hard drive.

[@bigredjanie]

I was just rewatching MLiG videos and wondering when there'd be a new one - so glad to see this!

[@chrisengh2323]

You can also just email saves to yourself on Dreamcast if you have that set up. Great video!

[@mariokart8715]

The VMUs (visual memory units) in the controllers.

[@chrisengh2323]

@@mariokart8715 yes. You can use the Dreamcast to email saves from the VMUs to yourself. In this way it's possible to back up sav s on the computer, load them in emulators, even load your saves into the grandia 2 port on steam from your DC game.

[@KesMonkey]

I did not know that you can use a PS2 to copy PS1 saves to a PS2 memeory card. That is extremely useful info. I can now use just one PS2 memory card to backup my saves from multiple PS1 memory cards. Sweet!

[@theneedforspeeder9575]

You can actually save ps1-ps2 save files on ps3 too

[@revenge1205]

Saw u on Reddit

[@brandonkick]

Memcard pro is on sale for like 45 dollars. A great option!

[@raekane]

@@theneedforspeeder9575 With the optional Memory Card Adaptor. I bought one before I bought a PS3 because I thought it could be connected to a PC and could save on a hard drive. I couldn't. But I still used it to save games on my PS3

[@ongakuwotabeta]

@@brandonkick yes. Considering a 1gb micro SD card could hold about 8,000 memory cards worth, that’s a WAY better deal and considering this is saves we are talking about, you don’t have to worry about legal trouble with the contained files. Even a 32GB micro SD card costs less than $10 nowadays if you know where to look for them! So, yeah, less than $100 to get just about any micro SD card and the device itself, versus 8,000 memory cards. There’s no reason NOT to get it unless you have don’t have a PS1/Early PS2

[@SpoonOfHawaii]

i am SOOOO happy this video came out. I was struggling to figure out how to do do PS2 saves for a while since there didn't seem to be anything too comprehensive that I could find. Watching this helped give me a better understanding of what to do and I was able to get the right tools and programs for the job!

[@jeffcorry1]

So glad you guys are back. I love your videos. Definitely a happy - nostalgic place for me to enjoy online.

[@Mamiya645]

NeoGeo AES memorycards are my fave for the aesthetics, simple regular PCMCIA in black with a fine looking sticker of texture on top, the most serious business memorycard in gaming there ever was, and also the first. Kinda wanna grab an AES again. Been too long.

[@paulclinton6414]

Neo Geo is a beautiful machine.

[@wolfgangervin2582]

@@paulclinton6414 I'd say about 75% of my PSP use is Neo Geo emulation.

[@ELI8T]

You can take your Aes memory card and play your saved games in the arcade!

[@electrofreak0]

I will never forget playing through the first few hours of The Wind Waker, eagerly waiting for my mom to come home with a memory card so I could save my game. When I plugged it in, there wasn't enough space to save (it was used) so I had to replay the first chunk of the game over again. I was so frustrated that places like Gamestop hadn't formatted the card and deleted the data.

[@Agamemnon2]

Given the sheer amount of memory device slots the initial-model PS3s have, it's surprising they didn't put a PS memory card slot into it.

[@BabusGameRoom]

32:45 FLOIGAN BROTHERS! Fantastic choice of a background game!

[@killbot80k]

You seemed to cover everything except for the Saturn. I know the Saturn had built in memory as well an external memory card you could plug into the expansion port. However, I have not found any great way of backing up and restoring saves off that system. I have a fenrir but it only seems to backup the entire flash memory at once and Pseudo Saturn Kai's memory manager seems to give me mixed results as far as backing up and restoring saves. Kinda wish there was something more robust for the Saturn.

[@jago3798]

21:48 Fun fact: It's SRAM (not SDRAM). SRAM is static while SDRAM is dynamic and needs to be refreshed very often. Anyway, amazing video! Really enjoyed it. Thx!

[@SubToTheUpchucks]

Glad to see you fellas back can't wait for the other 2 parts of Analog Frontiers, the updated Game Room Tour, and any other future projects you guys have in store

[@Zazabar]

This video could not have come out at a more perfect time (for me). I recently bought a retrode2 with an N64 adapter to back up my game saves from the games themselves (controller packs were corrupt) as well as some SNES saves, burned freemcboot onto a cd and backed up my PS1 and PS2 memory cards, and bought a dreamshell adapter for my Dreamcast to back up my vmus. Also backed up my Wii, Wii U, and Gamecube memory card saves via soft modded hardware.

[@mariokart8715]

The Wii & Wii U didn’t make their own memory cards, but the Wii has GC memory card slots.

[@Zazabar]

@@mariokart8715 I meant to say my Wii and Wii U saves but I was too lazy to edit.

[@beardsplaining]

I bought one of those USB PS memory card adapters at a thrift store with no idea what it was. Glad I watched this video 👍

[@Steelflight773]

I remember I was happy with the memory cards when they first came out. I mainly rented games and had to hope my save files on cart games were still there when I rented it again. I was happy with the cards since my data would always be there regardless.

[@MrRudePolite]

The green title bar on the wood grain background is superb.

[@robbiedenton3752]

There was a save backup for Dreamcast back in the day. It was like the dex drive, but it used a parallel port

[@cableroyson9992]

Wow this takes me back to the frustration of the n64 and ps1 limited save file days. Thanks!

[@ATthemusician]

I actually have a few of the PS2 memory card adapters for PS3 just sitting in a box. I didn't know how rare they were til I looked it up recently.

[@DukeNukem2020]

I loved those VMUs. You can also manage the saves right on the VMU and send files to another just by connecting them together

[@Daniel-it1dp]

I have to say, I love the cheap wood paneling PC desktop background keeping with the 80’s aesthetic 😎

[@zetsuboushinjiruu9350]

So Nostalgic, i bet we all missed this days

[@slot9]

This was great! I was finally able to use my PS3 Memory Card Adapter to back up PS1 Saves! Lots of other great info in there. Loved the "What is this?" clip!

[@animeaddict5301]

I don't miss memory cards. Buying multiple cards. Juggling memory slots. So much easier and cheaper today. Its great new tech is keeping retro gaming alive and making it so more convenient today.

[@ThunderHorsePyro]

The only portable memory I ever had an issue with was this cartridge for Sega Saturn. It was a third party brand. One day, all of my saves were gone. Lesson learned.

[@soyborne.bornmadeandundone1342]

I think you guys are the best retro gaming channel for getting the best retro gaming set ups : )

[@pinkace]

For Dreamcast, you can use the Web Browser 3.0 on the Dreamcast itself and access an FTP site of your creation to upload/download saves. This is what I did. Of course you will need a dialup connection or a broadband adapter.

[@boomboxzer0914]

This is great for a lot of people to learn how to preserve their save files from the generations that use memory cards. Also the ps3 memory card adapter is a godsend for people who play ps1/2 classics on the ps3 with a lot of games having save data bugs that can erase all progress if encountered. Like most of the smt and persona releases on ps3 have these save data bugs that don't happen on original hardware so if you have those versions and have a way to play them on original hardware you can back up the save data to the original hardware and play them there to avoid game breaking save data bugs.

[@shinsharonelectrons]

Was just thinking yesterday about how much I would love a new MLiG video

[@videogameobsession]

Excellent as usual! I was a little taken back to not see the Neo•Geo AES (and MVS) show up here, as it's the very first game console that used a memory card (at least that I'm aware of). I ordered one back in August 1990, and then they tossed in a free one with my AES Gold System + Baseball Stars Pro (pack-in) + Top Player's Golf). That was on 12/23/1990. I have to admit it was pretty neat to be able to save games at home and then use them on arcade games. I did this first with Magician Lord. It Allowed you to start at the last level and beat Dr. Muckly.. A few people there wanted to see the ending of it.

[@EHphonehome]

So good to see a new video from you guys!

[@AustNerevar]

I deleted my Animal Crossing save from my GameCube memory card sometime in my late teens. I've tried recovering it using the memory card manager but it's not there, even though a lot of my other deleted save files are recoverable. It must be because the AC save was so big and parts of it have already been written over. RIP my childhood memories.

[@jimmyeddy]

I had no idea that you could put PS1 saves on a PS2 memory card, and furthermore, I had no clue that a non-vmu memory card existed for Dreamcast outside of wireless Bluetooth adaptors. I always wondered what the point of OG Xbox memory cards were, my friend Nick had two for each of his four controllers. It looked cool I guess, but was overall pointless, as he was the only kid we knew who owned an Xbox. He gave me that old Xbox circa 2008, I had it in my setup until 2021 when I realized that it needed a new disc drive and the reason I had to manually reset date / time every time I booted the system is because the CMOS battery was long dead. Somehow it never leaked or ruined traces on the board in 13 plus years. Now I use that old Xbox often to play OutRun 2 and the many other OG Xbox games that I've discovered long after the system's lifespan. Great video as always, love the content and hope you guys pump out a couple more vids before the end of '22.

[@middle_pickup]

Virtual memory cards in OPL changed the game for me. It makes backups so much easier.

[@VncentValntine]

37:29 one practical use I saw for the xbox 360 mem card was when i used to work for a video game-centric tv channel and one of the in-house gamers/hosts used to save their xbox gamertag to their memory card so they could play as themselves at home and at work. It seemed to work pretty seemlessly.

[@SnakebitSTI]

A DIY option for PS1 Memory Cards is the PicoMemcard. It uses a Raspberry Pi Pico. The PicoMemcard uses onboard storage to act as a single Memory Card, while the PicoMemcard+ uses a microSD card to act as many switchable Memory Cards. When plugged into a computer, a PicoMemcard acts like a USB storage device.

[@jackofallgamesTV]

funny thing in 2004, I bought a PS2 Hard Drive for one cent at a game stop. what a clearance.

[@Rag3QuitnRob3rt]

I've got a 64mb GameCube and PS2 memory cards and love them. I might need to look into keeping backups of them 🤔

[@HalianTheProtogen]

29:00 The NFL games also had an option to use the VMU for playcalling to prevent screen peeking.

[@gamertoon8230]

Thanks for making this video. I just recently 100% Sonic Adventure 2 Battle on my childhood save file, now I know how to back it up.

[@Bransfiiiield]

There was a DexDrive-alike on PS2 - it was called Xport here in Europe, and I think it was just a renamed version of the Sharkport in North America. It let me and my friends download and flash option files for PES on PS2, which was a formative part of our collective youth. It also meant I could get loads of created wrestlers on Smackdown Here Comes the Pain. It was ace, if not a wee bit clunky.

[@Bransfiiiield]

lol

[@-dash]

This channel is the GOAT as far as gaming is concerned

[@danhead7966]

Another option for N64 memory packs is the the Hyperkin Admiral. The dongle has a micro SD card slot that allows you to dump/write mpk files from/to the memory card plugged in to the dongle.

[@hongosorongo]

Excellent episode as always! But, if my memory serves me right, doesn´t the Sega Saturn also had an external Memory Cartridge to save games? Or am I wrong?

[@domtomazo]

The Saturn had a 32 kb internal memory, and 512 kb external memory cards (looking a bit like mega drive cartridges). There was also a floppy drive option in Japan.

[@striderskorpion]

EMS made something called the Double Power that you can connect to a computer to backup VMU saves. You need the cable that also allows you to connect their Nexus memory card to a computer.

[@Planag7]

Always forget about the Saturn c; Thankfully I got a bunch of official memory cards years ago

[@geoffnaylor3734]

I am so excited to watch this when I get home!

[@brandon_png9743]

I had a BC PS3 on release and never knew there was a device to transfer my old memory card saves until last year. Also, getting my FF7 save from my PS3 to work on DuckStation was a lot harder than expected, it was really cool that was even a thing I could do

[@mylifeingaming]

[Try4ce] It's always been interesting to me how many people's minds I've blown over the years telling them that the memory card accessory for PS3 exists. I saw that in Best Buy the day I bought my PS3 in 2008, and went back the next day to buy it because of course I'd need that... seemed completely essential to me.

[@brandon_png9743]

@@mylifeingaming It did blow my mind haha, so many saves were lost. I don't blame you, I would've bought it asap if I knew it was a thing.

[@gammaphonic]

I’ve never really been that precious about game saves. If I loose my save, I consider it a reason the play that game again.

[@Reckoner89]

I didn't know a Memcard Pro for the PS1 existed. Very fancy! (This is also my first time hearing about the Dreamcast's Memory Card 4×.)

[@MichaelM28]

PS2 with OPL and VMC FTW!!!

[@bluewombat]

Y'all forgot to mention that it is possible to get the same functionality as FreeMcBoot without taking up an MC slot by using FreeHddBoot, which can be installed directly to an HDD/SSD from a computer using any IDE/SATA interface.

[@NekoValtz]

I'm happy you could copy a LOT of ps1 saves onto ps2

[@sevenheavenhavengaming]

Nice video! I still got my PS1, PS2 and N64 memory cards. lol It was definitely a different experience compared to previous consoles during that time period. I remember being amaze at the moving character animations in the PS2 memory card. They make sad faces and reactions if you try to delete the data. lol It was defiintely a different experience back then when it comes to saving data compared to today's huge capacity HDDs and SSDs used on consoles. It was only in the kilobytes for PS1 and megabytes for the PS2. There's also the third party memory cards that can hold more storage. Nowadays Gigabytes have become the normal and soon Terabytes and so on and so forth.

[@MidnightMechanic]

The HDD is exactly why I got an Xbox over the PS2. The fact you need the hard drive AND a network adapter combined on a PS2 just to save games to it is ridiculous. Plus being able to play custom soundtracks in GTA is really fun.

[@herbertholland924]

I owned 3rd party Memory cards for PS1, PS2, and Dreamcast. I never had any issues with them, and they stored so much more than the official ones, that I never needed a second one, nor did I have to juggle saves between them. My only regret is that because I never owned an actual Dreamcast VMU, I missed out on playing VMU games.

[@FanonBanned]

Cheat devices like the N64 Game Shark also had memory card managers. You could even backup and restore cartridge-only save data to a memory cards then backup the memory card to a PC with a Dex Drive.

[@alextirrellRI]

I have one of those fairly janky cheap serial to SD adapters for my Dreamcast. Actually works great and I'm even able to play games off it with no apparent issues.

[@zerounit87]

My 128MB Nyko memory card for my gamecube does me wonders. Now just need big storage for the N64 and PS2.

[@Craxin01]

On PS2, I had one of the cheat engines come with a thumb drive you could plug into the USB port on the front and download or upload the save.

[@derekmoore1612]

I see PSO stuff in there on the Gamecube. My all time favorite game. I started it on the Dreamcast then mastered it on the GameCube. Man, I love(d) that game. It was fantastic in its day and still awesome today if you can find the right ppl to play with.

[@MellowGaming]

There was a 8MB official Gamecube memory card? Right, i should get one of them. Do love how the closer we get to current gens the less companies were trying to restrict how we handle saves. It's a lot easier now to transfer saves about.

[@Dark_Jaguar]

The Memcard Pro sounds like an amazing device, and that autodetecting of games is a killer feature. Now then, is there a way to "link" multiple game titles to share a single entry for it's autodetect? I'm thinking of Suikoden 1 and 2, or even how Metal Gear Solid detects and reacts to a handful of Konami save titles.

[@pikapomelo]

If you don't have an x station, you manage the cards yourself. You can do this with the x station with the web interface if you don't want the default. X station also has a save manager and you can use a real card as an in between. Or edit the cards in PC software as shown.

[@Dark_Jaguar]

@@pikapomelo I was asking about a very specific scenario. I'm okay with managing the cards myself, I was talking about unique situations I'd love the automatic switching to handle.

[@pikapomelo]

@@Dark_Jaguar ah. It would be neat if you could do that.

[@Alexzw92]

Luckily I have 2 of the PS3 memory card adapters. Bought them for 20$ each back in the day. I did not know that I could use them to transfer the save data onto a flash drive, assuming for emulation use?? Now that’s awesome!

[@Riylo]

Yooooo, content. I is happy. Found my warm blankey.

[@julien2983]

I adore memcardrex, I was able to get save files off an emulation handheld and convert them to raw saves, put them on a USB and used a freemcboot ps2 to transfer them to a memory card.

[@Punisher6791]

great video Coury, you and Try make some fantastic content, keep it up!

[@BasementBrothers]

Shout out for the Neo Geo, which was the first console with removable memory cards. There's still no way to export and manage Neo Geo memory, by the way.

[@Imperfect21stCenturyPioneer]

I have been so concerned with whether we can still get reliable memory cards for these particular machines in the future, unless saving directly on a ODE's SD card or going FPGA even further in the future eliminates the need for such cards. Now I can rest a little easier with this, especially with the Nintendo 64's method. Thank you.

[@awnordma]

Way back I used a serial "coders cable" to back up my Dreamcast saves to my PC. Poking around I'm pretty sure the program is called Dream Explorer. It's a bit convoluted to get going but worked pretty well.

[@awnordma]

There's a guide on a blog called dashwood

[@malssite]

Honestly I kind of figured you could use one of those USB controller adapters for N64 and Dreamcast to access the memory cards that way. I'm surprised no one has made any software for that.

[@chikaw0ng]

It feels like forever MLIG release a new vid.

[@alivepoltergeist]

a great nostalgia. great video. i have one Neo Geo AES memory card. good memories

[@MiriOhki]

One issue I ran into, and why I've never finished FFVII or Xenogears was that I had one of those third party cards that had about 10 cards worth of memory, supposedly, that you just pressed a select button on the card to change. Unfortunately it was garbage and it died on me the day after I got to disc 2 of ff7. It also took out my Xenogears saves which had me at about 2/3rds of the way through disc 1.

[@andyfrey1612]

So excited for this! Cheers guys

[@no_one_from_nowhere]

I just bought one of those Xbox 360 HD transfer cables. This made me want to actually use it

[@DenkyManner]

Until I started watching the MLiG streams I didn't realise people cared much about old saves. I have deleted many over the years, the progress I made in a game 25 years ago is a memory in my head, I don't have any need for the data to still exist. I can understand the nostalgia of stumbling across an old save but it would only make me think "Oh yeah" for a few seconds. When they were current consoles, I only ever had 1 PS1 memory card, 1 ps2, 1 Saturn cart, 1 for N64. Dreamcast was the only time I bought multiple, ending up with 2 official and 1 third party which had 4 times the space (selectable with a toggle button), and I may have had some semi-nefarious reason for needing more than one.

[@reviathan3524]

Back when I was 7 when I got the PS1, I've never had a memory card until I was 9. The games I used to play before 9 were just simple games that I can go through in a day. Then when I first played Megaman X5, I knew I didn't want to go through the first stage against Sigma. SO I got myself a memory card. I even let the PS1 stay on for hours as I went out to buy one.

[@KemmerlingKomputers]

one thing i noticed you didnt mention was some of the web browser apps on the dreamcast back in the day. I grew up with a dreamcast, using it with my 56k dial up internet for alot for games and web browsing. You could download and upload game saves using the browser back in the day on a select few sites tailored to work on the dreamcast browser

[@barowt]

My Mom played this one NES game, can't remember the name, but she horded the NES for a few days locking it up in her room with it turned on.

[@Psmgamer]

I remember buying a third party memory Madcatz card for GameCube and sadly it broke with a corrupt data message. The only cool thing was it had 3x times the storage space of an official Nintendo memory card.

[@dbayne2]

Hell yeah. Thanks for this one!

[@shockwave.9749]

I guess the memcard pro can be used with an unmodified ps2 now which is pretty cool (still ps1 saves only of course)

[@dudeman0811]

Where was this when I was 13 damnit? Now I have to play Jet Moto 2 ALLLLLL Over again

[@SemkOld]

If you have a dvd-r lying around, you can easily create a fmcb mc with some specific games. Not saying more.

[@CpUIMasteR]

One way not mentioned in this video for N64 save files is using a device called adaptoid. It was a USB to N64 controller adapter released in the early 2000s that came with a mem Pak manager built into the Windows shell via the drivers. Unfortunately the drivers are outdated and will not work under a modern Windows 64 bit system so a older 32 bit machine or a VM is required to use it. Compared to the methods mentioned in this video, this way seems unconventional but you do have the ability to write and save mem Pak data and also Rumble Pak support on N64 emulators using a supported plugin. I own one and still use it to this day on my PC using generic USB drivers without mem Pak support.

[@jeffersonderrickson5371]

Just looked up a ps2 to PS3 oem converter for memory card was laughable when I looked one up this weekend. I found my old PS memory card. No idea if it has any blocks filled on it or not. but DAMN my Lunar, final fantasy saves...so so so many hours.

[@OtakuAnthony]

I remember having a decent drive. Good times

[@Epsilonsama]

For the Gamecube and PS1 I used third party ones cause the official ones lack barely any memory. I knew about the MC 251 for the Gamecube but the other one never heard of it. I just used a Mad Catz MC which still works to this day btw.

[@creative_soul-recolo]

Back in the 2000s, 8MB was a ton of space to save games 😂😂😂😂 In today times, games now take at least 100GB worth of space. Man, the evolution has been downright insane

[@radornkeldam]

PS1 cards are EEPROM, not Flash. N64 CPaks are SRAM (S for Static) not SDRAM (SD for Synchronous Dynamic). SRAM can keep data for a long time with a low power button battery, but SDRAM needs a memory controller actively refreshing the memory cells, which fade out and lose data otherwise. Also, the N64 CPak dumps I know about are either raw or DexDrive style which adds a 1040 byte header to the beginning of the file (yes, 1040... which I guess is 16 for a header to the header, and 1024 for the main body of the header with comments or whatever). Filename extensions given to these files by different software seem to be very inconsistent and nonsensical just like the ROM "formats" (byte orders, really) and their extensions. The point is that, other than DexDrive dumps, MPK is what I identify as RAW. MPK is not a format like there's anything special to it. The only format to it, being a raw dump, should be the internal format the N64 library present in the games give it. But, as always, people keep coming in, mixing things up, and I know there are CPak dumps out there that have a header and yet use the filename extension "mpk", wich is just silly. If the size is exactly 32KB (32768 bytes), then it's "raw" (unless yet another smartass has decided to change the byteorder around, which I wouldn't be surprised about). If it's bigger, then there's a silly header added to it. There's nothing more to it. I really don't understand why they have to keep messing with that. If it depended on me, I would call Controller Pak dumps ".cpak", and dumps from the internal cartridge save chips ".sav" or ".save" and let the type be identified by the size of the file instead of the pointless ".eep" for EEPROM (of which there are two types, 4kbit and 16kbit), ".sra" for S-RAM (256kbit and a 3x size of 768kbit in one japanese game), and ".fla" for FlashRAM (1024kbit). Like, I care that it's a save, and the size tells me what type already, so don't give me 3 different extensions for saves, for goodness sake! Finally, ROMs would be just ".n64" and ".64dd". For both ROM and save dumps, the natural "RAW" form would be the "big endian" byte order (ABCD), not that V64 byteswap nonsense (BADC) that came into use thanks to the old Doctor V64 backup unit. The Mr Backup Z64 at least got the byte order right, but of course they had to name the dumps ".z64" to match the name of the backup unit, instead of "N64" to match the console name as if they had anything specific about them. No, there's nothing special to "z64" ROMs, they are just natural RAW dumps, byte by byte, ROM address after ROM address, of the contents of the cartridge. To fudge things even further, some old ROM byteswappers apparently identify a "little endian" byte order (DCBA) and give those files the extension ".n64"... the nerve! So far I haven't been able to figure out what backup unit that nonsense originated in, if any. Unurprisingly, many downloaded ROM dumps are in a different byte order than their filename extension suggests, with .n64 and .z64 files actually containing a byteswapped ROM, viceversa, and other nonsensical combinations. WHAT A MESS!

[@1995ryuk]

The admiral 64 should be able to dump the memcards to the SD card slot but I haven't used that feature yet.

[@tobormax]

I had a PS1 memory card that used multiple "pages" to save game data, and my brother lost two playthroughs of FFVIII halfway through before we realized that thing was to blame. We only ever used official memory cards after that.