List of game save file extensions?

lordcrammy

Does anyone happen to know the extensions that each emulator uses for the in-game save files?

I'm trying to get a script to run that will search the ROM folders and subfolders and copy all the save game files and the .state files over to a USB and maintain the same folder structure. I'm using it as a backup in case I ever have to restore RetroPie

meleu

@lordcrammy said in List of game save file extensions?:

Does anyone happen to know the extensions that each emulator uses for the in-game save files?

I know that the .srm is the one used for RetroArch NES and SNES cores. But I'm not sure if this is the same for every core.

bobcat987

The '.srm' and '.state[0-9]*' files are the two formats of state files in my experience. I backup with:
find /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ -name "*.srm" -o -name "*.state*" | tar --transform 's|/home/pi/||g' -PcJf retropie_saves.tar.xz -T -

To restore, run the following:
tar -C /home/pi -xJf retropie_saves.tar.xz

You could probably do something like the following to backup to to usb in the way you describe:
find /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ -name "*.srm" -o -name "*.state*" | tar --transform 's|/home/pi/||g' -Pcf - -T - | tar -C <path_to_usb_root>/<backup_dir> -xf -

lordcrammy

Thanks for the responses!

I also found this command before you replied:

find . -name "*.srm" | xargs cp --parents -t /media/(name of usb)/

But that only included the one filetype. I'm very new to Linux. It worked on some empty files i created, but I didn't find a good way to restore them. i was probably just going to copy them over via SFTP if i had to re-image the SD card.

I also found this thread: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/2370/is-it-possible-to-call-an-retropie-setup-scriptmodule-from-command-line

I want to incorporate the backup script in the Retropie menu if possible.

lordcrammy

I want to create a menu selection under the RetroPie menu to run the save file backup. Here is what I'm thinking may work:

create an empty .rp file called gavesave-backup.rp under /home/pi/RetroPie/retropiemenu
create an icon and call it gsbackup.png and save it under ~/RetroPie/retropiemenu/icons/
create an entry in the gamelist.xml file under /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/supplementary/retropiemenu/ directory with:

    <game>
        <path>./gamesave-backup.rp</path>
        <name>Gamesave Backup</name>
        <desc>Create a backup of all your games savefiles and save states and export them to a USB stick.</desc>
        <image>~/RetroPie/retropiemenu/icons/gsbackup.png</image>
    </game>

create a SH script named gamesave-backup.sh under /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/supplementary/ with one of the lines from previous replies, but also add ".dat" for CaveStory gamesaves. For example:

#!/bin/bash
find . -name "*.srm" -o -name "*.state*" -o -name "*.dat" | xargs cp --parents -t /media/(name of USB drive)/

So once all that is done, it should hopefully run from the menu. I have a few concerns though. Will it run and come back to the RetroPie menu? Will it just go to a black screen and not come back? What will happen if someone runs it without having the USB plugged in, or puts in another USB that doesn't have the name listed in the SH file?

Can anyone check this or give me some clarification?

dankcushions

.nv, .hi, .hs, .cfg and probably others are used by mame/fba.

for me, this is why https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Running-ROMs-from-a-USB-drive is the way forward. if i want to backup my roms/saves i just take the stick out and copy the whole thing to my computer, and i get everything.

lordcrammy

Thanks for the extra info. The reason i want to make a menu entry to automate the backup is I'm putting a few RetroPies together as Xmas gifts for friends. They are not savvy enough to do backups manually, so i want it to be idiotproof, just put in a USB stick, run the menu command, done.

If they ever make the SD corrupt, i'll just reimage the card and copy their save files back over.

lordcrammy

How about DOSBox game saves and ScummVM? Do they have different save file extensions?

flop

".EEP" for N64
".SRM" for SNES and too GBA

Hmm, the idea it´s pretty good, maybe to save the highscores from Arcade too?

lordcrammy

High scores would be cool. My RetroPie doesn't have MAME installed, but I have NeoGeo. I have no idea what files would contain that data for either though, unless like stated by dankcushions, maybe the .HS files?

dankcushions

@lordcrammy i use lr-fbalpha and it looks like it keeps .fs files for neogeo saves.

lordcrammy

i put RetroPie on another SD card so i could experiment with it without ruining what I have on my other SD. i tried doing what I listed at the top of this thread. I received a few errors.

First:
cp: failed to access /media/4GB/: no such file or directory

(4GB was the name I gave the USB stick)
Then I got the next 2 lines:
Module /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/supplementary/gamesave-backup.sh is missing valid rp_module_id
Module /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/supplementary/gamesave-backup.sh is missing valid rp_module_desc

Any idea which file contains the spots I'd have to give it the ID and Description? I think I might have fixed the USB location issue by mounting the SDA1 to /media/usb, but I still need to correct the last 2 errors.

lordcrammy

I have temporarily given up on creating a menu selection to do a backup of the save files. Instead, I've copied an SH file to the /home/pi directory called "backup.sh". I will just show them how to plug in a USB keyboard, hit F4, then run the command to start the script after plugging a USB stick in. So basically:

sudo sh /home/pi/backup.sh

The contents of the SH file are as follows:

#!/bin/bash
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /media/usb0
find . -name "*.srm" -o -name "*.state" -o -name "*.dat" -o -name "*.nv" -o -name "*.hi" -o -name "*.hs" -o -name "*.cfg" -o -name "*.fs" -o -name "*.eep" -print0 | sudo xargs -0 cp --parents -t /media/usb0/
sudo umount /media/usb0

I know it's very long, but I don't know how to condense the extensions into one easier command, I'm very new to Linux. The backup does work though, I tried it myself, everything gets copied over into the same tree structure as on the Pie. The "-print0" entry before the pipe and the "-0" after "xargs" had to be put in to list the files before copying them because most of the ROMs have spaces in the names, and if you don't put it there, you get a bunch of STAT errors where the command breaks down each word in the ROM name as a file and it fails.

The only thing I have to mention is that I had to do:

sudo chmod 777 /media/usb0

before running the script (but after plugging in the USB stick) or you get write permission errors.

If anyone else has any input, it would be appreciated. Or if you know of any other save file extensions. Otherwise, I may mark this as solved in the next few days.

backstander

@lordcrammy
Great script!

I'm not at my Pi to test this but you might back able to add this to the EmulationStation Ports menu like this:
nano /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ports/Backup\ Savegame\ Files.sh
Or some name that makes since and then put your same script in there!

And, yes, make sure it's executable:
chmod +x /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ports/Backup\ Savegame\ Files.sh

So under the Ports menu it should have "Backup Savegame Files" or whatever you called it.
Also for the .sh using 777 would work but it would be more secure if you used 755 instead but this shouldn't matter on the Pi lol
I personally like to just do the +x which just makes it executable to everyone and keeping everything else the same.
For the /media/usb0 it might be better to use the 777

lordcrammy

@backstander Hey that's a good idea actually. I'll give it a try in the next few days, work has me busy these next few evenings. I'll let you know how it works for me.

Also, yes i know 777 isn't the best choice for most things, but this is just the USB stick, so i don't really mind having full rights to it.

FreakyBigFoot

If you guys are interested I made a tool to backup saves to Dropbox. You can check it out here: http://www.freakybigfoot.com/pisave.php

Dochartaigh

I also find it's nearly as easy to simply have all your save games go into 1 consolidated directory. Takes me about 10 seconds to SSH into my Pi with an FTP client and drag that file over for backup.

FreakyBigFoot

Oh for sure! This is just nice to be able to hit a button and let it do it's thing. It will be the same to restore soon.