Mednafen emulator save files when switching discs in multi-disc games

Throughout my adult life, I have always favoured the “retro” video games that I enjoyed during my childhood over newer releases. Nearing the end of my peak gaming interest (in my early adolescence), the original Sony PlayStation hit the markets. With it came multi-disc games where we had to switch discs at one or more points during gameplay.

I hadn’t really given this topic much thought since then, but recently I started playing some of my original PlayStation games on my computer via an emulator (in my case, Mednafen). When it came time to switch to the second disk, the emulator no longer recognised my save file from the first disc; meaning I couldn’t continue the game.

Had I followed the Mednafen documentation for Multi-CD Games, this wouldn’t have been a problem as I would have created an M3U playlist file for the discs. Unfortunately, I hadn’t even considered this potential issue when I started playing the game. Thankfully though, I devised a workaround that allowed me to continue with disc 2 instead of having to start over completely.

The overarching problem is that the save files for disc 1 will not be recognised by the emulator as being applicable for any subsequent discs. So, the basic process to fix the problem is:

• Before loading disc 2 (or later discs) in the emulator for the first time, go to the emulator’s directory for save files and make note of what is present for the game
• Load disc 2 and use the in-game method for loading your saved game (they should all be empty)
• Go to the emulator’s save directory again and make note of the placeholder save files for disc 2
• Copy the contents of the save file entries for disc 1 to the name used for the save files for disc 2

Those steps might seem a bit convoluted, but I think the following example from my computer using Final Fantasy VII will make them clearer. As I played through disc 1 of the game, the only save files related to it were specific to disc 1:

$ ls ~/.mednafen/sav/ | grep VII
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.0.mcr
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.1.mcr

At the end of disc 1, I saved my game (as instructed), but when I loaded disc 2 for the first time, all of the save slots were empty. Thereafter, I noticed that there were new save files present:

$ ls ~/.mednafen/sav/ | grep VII
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.0.mcr
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.1.mcr
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 2).7b24ee44b5b1f29f85d9e7e79a2b53d7.0.mcr
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 2).7b24ee44b5b1f29f85d9e7e79a2b53d7.1.mcr

and that the new ones were specific to disc 2, but they didn’t have any of my previous save data in them. At this point, it’s important to recognise the different parts of the filename structure:

Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.0.mcr
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.1.mcr
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 2).7b24ee44b5b1f29f85d9e7e79a2b53d7.0.mcr
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 2).7b24ee44b5b1f29f85d9e7e79a2b53d7.1.mcr

• The red portion is the name of the game (and needs to match the .bin and .cue filenames, including the disc number)
• The purple portion is the hash for the particular save, and will be randomly generated at initial load
• The orange portion of 0 or 1 indicates separate save files (possibly because Playstation has two memory card slots)
• The blue portion is the file extension MCR, which is short for ‘Memory Card’ (taken from the ePSXe emulator)

For the final step of the process outlined above, it is necessary to copy the contents of the two save files for disc 1 into the two save files for disc 2, whilst keeping the filenames for disc 2 as they are. The way I accomplished this task in Linux was to copy the .0.mcr for disc 1 to the name of .0.mcr for disc 2, and then repeat that process for .1.mcr:

~/.mednafen/sav $ cp -v Final\ Fantasy\ VII\ \(USA\)\ \(Disc\ 1\).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.0.mcr Final\ Fantasy\ VII\ \(USA\)\ \(Disc\ 2\).7b24ee44b5b1f29f85d9e7e79a2b53d7.0.mcr 
'Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.0.mcr' -> 'Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 2).7b24ee44b5b1f29f85d9e7e79a2b53d7.0.mcr'

~/.mednafen/sav $ cp -v Final\ Fantasy\ VII\ \(USA\)\ \(Disc\ 1\).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.1.mcr Final\ Fantasy\ VII\ \(USA\)\ \(Disc\ 2\).7b24ee44b5b1f29f85d9e7e79a2b53d7.1.mcr 
'Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.1.mcr' -> 'Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 2).7b24ee44b5b1f29f85d9e7e79a2b53d7.1.mcr'

However one chooses to go about this, the goal is the same—to copy the MCR files from disc one over the MCR files for disc 2. The important part is to keep the name of the MCR files for disc 2 the same (including the hash). This will allow the emulator to use them for disc 2.

Using a GUI application (like Windows File Explorer or Mac OSX Finder), it could be done by making a copy of the disc 1 MCR file and then copying the full name of the disc 2 MCR file to use as the new name. There are certainly other methods of accomplishing the task, but the key is having the contents of the disc 1 MCR in the file named accordingly for disc 2 .

I hope that this information is helpful, but if I’m able to provide any further clarification, please just ask in the comments.

Cheers,

Nathan Zachary