GTA savegame file not recognized

[chrisrevoltes]

Hi again,

Im trying for days now to get my GTA Vice City (and San Andreas) saves to PCSX2.
For other games using Free MCBoot (here in v1.966) copying from my MC to an USB-Stick worked without any issues. Then merging all files in PS2 savegamebuilder and finally importing that file with MyMC in PCSX2s virtual memorycard.
For GTA Vice City that do not work. I assume because of those special characters in the filenames. So I desperately need some advice.

First things first:The savegames are working and not corrupted

(Savegames work inside my PS2)

Now what I've tried:

Here what the savefolder looks like in LaunchELF:

I copied that folder to my USB-device.

Back in Windows trying to use those files resolves into various errors:



Under Linux (CentOS here) even worse:


Pretty sure it has something to do with the filename.

After trying around, I renamed those files with LaunchELF in that way, that no special characters where present:


Back in Windows all issues gone:


Now it was possible to import those in PS2savegamebuilder:


But after launching the game in PCSX2 no savegame was shown.

My last try was to rename the files inside PS2savegamebuilder back:


But that didn't work either.

But the savegame is shown by the system in PCSX2:


(https://imgur.com/a/i8OnA1r)

Any ideas?

(And sorry for the german screenshots and the unstructured post)

[pandubz]

GTA games are an odd case in that the game is hard coded to expect the files to be in a specific order. That order (assuming the memcard is not tampered with) is predictable, and determined by the creation date/times of the files. Once you start extracting files or using folder-type memcards, this breaks down and the saves start failing. The saves are not corrupted; the BIOS will still be able to read them, but the game's special memcard code won't recognize the saves unless the exact structure is correct.

[chrisrevoltes]

GTA games are an odd case in that the game is hard coded to expect the files to be in a specific order. That order (assuming the memcard is not tampered with) is predictable, and determined by the creation date/times of the files. Once you start extracting files or using folder-type memcards, this breaks down and the saves start failing. The saves are not corrupted; the BIOS will still be able to read them, but the game's special memcard code won't recognize the saves unless the exact structure is correct.

Ok. I don't know how the different savegame formats handle the files internal neither how the .ps2 memorycard container file does. Is there any combination which preservers the order?

[vsub]

Copy the save from your PS2 memory card and use psuPaste to paste it.That way you will make 1:1 copy of the original save
This game uses some weird names and if you just use copy=>paste,it will not work
Then use mymc to import the psu file

Is it's still not working you can try this:
1.Create an iso file containing that psu file(you can use ImgBurn)
2.Select the image with the iso selector
3.System=>Run ELF=>open the uLaunchELF
4.Go to CDFS=>copy the psu file and then use psuPaste into the memory card

[chrisrevoltes]

Copy the save from your PS2 memory card and use psuPaste to paste it.That way you will make 1:1 copy of the original save
This game uses some weird names and if you just use copy=>paste,it will not work
Then use mymc to import the psu file

Is it's still not working you can try this:
1.Create an iso file containing that psu file(you can use ImgBurn)
2.Select the image with the iso selector
3.System=>Run ELF=>open the uLaunchELF
4.Go to CDFS=>copy the psu file and then use psuPaste into the memory card

Thanks for that great answer! I didn't knew what psuCopy stands for. Thats so much better than my way. No I did back every save game that way, just in case.
Back to topic: That worked perfectly for GTA vc, but not for san andreas. I tried your second suggestion, but I ELF didn't show any contens of that disk.
I tried two programs for creating the iso and I tried the iso selector and mounted the iso ans selected the plugin.
I even tried wELF.

Any idea?

[vsub]

Post your psu save

[chrisrevoltes]

Post your psu save

Send you a pm. Thanks!!

[vsub]

The GTA SA don't looks file(no weird names)
If this don't work,then I don't know

[chrisrevoltes]

First thank you for help. Unfortunately this didn't work.
A few days ago I maybe found the reason. I few years ago i bought a used GTA SA version because mine was in bad condition. I never tried it, because I wasn't aware of the incompatible I found in GTA games.
I found this site: http://redump.org/discs/quicksearch/san-...rt/system/ which lists informations about PS2 games. It seems that there excists 2 versions for the EU marked with german language and another 2 versions especially for the german marked.

So with the correct verison, the savegames should load as espected.