Fab wrote:
I know I can save games by holding the reset button for 3 secs and then save it to the ram by selecting a empty save game.
To start off, as far as I know, the .sav files used by the PowerPak are the same format as those used by most emulators, and thus if you have a game image with a .sav file already, you should be able to load it. I'll have to test this out to be sure, but I believe it will work.
You want blank .sav files when you want to play games from scratch.
Fab wrote:
But where does it save it? On the .sav file or on the flashcard itself ?
Well, it does both actually; this should also help to partially answer your next question:
When the PowerPak loads the .sav file, the FPGA logic that is emulating a real cartridge treats it like the battery-backed RAM on that game cartridge. When you select the .sav file in advance, the PowerPak loads the contents of that .sav file into the memory allocated for saved game data (the BBR address range).
While you play a BBR (battery-backed RAM) game, say "Dragon Warrior", every time you save the game, the state of the BBR address range is changed in the PowerPak's memory, much as it would be on a real cartridge. Unfortunately, the memory on the PowerPak is not really BBR, so if you turn off the console, you'd normally lose it.
Thus, the PowerPak gets around this in a tricky way: When you hold the reset button for a specific duration of time, the logic of the PowerPak (which has not yet lost power) realizes on reset that it still has data in its BBR address range and prompts you to save or not: "Save to CF Card /Yes/No/".
If you do not choose a .sav file for such games when you load them, the PowerPak still realizes that they are BBR games and will prompt upon exit to save the game data to a .sav file. This is important to note, as some games will use BBR for off reasons and it's a good bet that games that you normally wouldn't expect, will in fact ask for it on exit. Keep some extra blank .sav files on your CF card for these oddities.
When you select 'Yes' and choose a .sav file, the PowerPak writes the BBR data to that .sav file on your CF card. Of course, the .sav file is on your CF card, which is why my answer is 'both'. All of your saved game data is recorded to the .sav file, so you can back it up, copy it, modify it, etc., as you wish.
Fab wrote:
How does the Game load the savefile? Can you have multiple save files ? Do you have to choose everytime a new empty file?
You can have as many .sav files for each game as you wish. You can even load from one .sav file and save to another. You can reuse a .sav file as often as you wish and I suggest storing them in directories for each game or game type, with each .sav file named to match its parent game, as not to confuse them all.
I further suggest not crossing .sav files between incompatible games (such as LoZ and Final Fantasy) as this will have bizarre effects on loading, although because of that, it can of course, be fun to try.
Does this help to answer your questions?
-Xious