Wolfenstein 3D: how to load a save game

[Isgoed]

4 hours ago, Rick Dangerous said:

Just happened to me. Have been replaying Wolf 3D. Leaving my cart in the Jag.

 

We had a brownout at the house the other day, when I fired the Jag back up that evening all three save files were gone as well as " last game.". I thought it must be due to the brownout (short loss of power) and started another game and saved it.  When I went to fire it up tonight the save game was gone and I had only the option to start a new game.  Tried again saving after first level and it was gone again after a restart. 

 

The EEPROMS must be touchy in this cart?  Oh well....bummer, seems like my copy is now fried as well.  Never leave your Wolf cart (or any cart with built in saves?) In the Jaguar I guess or risk losing save capabilities. 

 

Certainly was not maxing out "100,000 changes" that are allowed per the manual. I was probably at like 200 saves tops. 

 

Where can I get a new EEPROM to solder in? I'm not opposed to that idea. 

 

 

Maybe you've done it already, but you could always try and clean the cartridge contacts, first.

 

I had a copy of Cannon Fodder that wouldn't save files, even in the menu the "save" icon was scrambled with a red line.

I soldered a EEPROM from a working loose Cybermorph cart, no difference.

Gave the cartridge connector a good clean, and the save feature worked.

 

 

[Rick Dangerous]

Good thinking and will do. Will clean both the Jag slot and the cart and try again tonight. 

[+cubanismo]

Might also try resetting it if cleaning doesn't work. *, Option, # on "the Wolfenstein 3D main game screen."

[+-^CrossBow^-]

3 minutes ago, cubanismo said:

Might also try resetting it if cleaning doesn't work. *, Option, # on "the Wolfenstein 3D main game screen."

THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Similar issue happened with my Wolf3D cart sometime back. In addition to the saves being goofy on it, it was also not running the demo correctly as BJ was running into walls and shooting at nothing. Seems if the save files get corrupted it also effects the built in demo save run the game uses. Resetting the cart to wipe out the eprom took care of both game save issues and with the demo running properly again.

 

 

[Rick Dangerous]

Rigerously cleaning the cart contacts and Jaguar appears to have worked!  Was a surprising amount of dirt on the contacts given I've cleaned it in the past and keep the cart cased.

 

Edit: after cleaning the cart/Jag with Isopropyl the game was retaining my saves, but the Demo was screwed up (BJ looked like he was on shrooms, running into walls and getting lost and such.) So I decided to do the reset, and between cleaning and the memory reset (*, Option, #) everything appears to be 100% now!

 

Great tips, this is why I love AA!

[+Stephen]

13 hours ago, Rick Dangerous said:

Good thinking and will do. Will clean both the Jag slot and the cart and try again tonight. 

Ask a certain Jeff here - I think he'll tell you that blowing on the cart ports will work.  Just don't do it on an N64, because the cart itself is sealed from dust, while the fingers that make contact are not.  So that means the connection can go bad, but hey - the internal cart will not have dust on it.  Because yeah, that's why the NES had issues.  The dust on the cart, not bad contact with the edge connector.

[Rick Dangerous]

Well after playing a few times today my "demo mode" went screwy again. I wonder if resetting say 3 times in a row would help clear it out more. 

 

At any rate the game functions fine and saves work again so going to leave it well alone until I've beaten my current game! 

[Hyper_Eye]

21 hours ago, Rick Dangerous said:

Well after playing a few times today my "demo mode" went screwy again. I wonder if resetting say 3 times in a row would help clear it out more. 

 

At any rate the game functions fine and saves work again so going to leave it well alone until I've beaten my current game! 

Doom and Wolf3d run demos in engine. If the game's constants, math, and random number generation are not all producing expected results the demos will desync. On the Odamex (doom source port) development team we use demo checksums for regression testing. If demos desync we know we screwed something up. If your game's demos are desyncing (which does result in things like running into walls, failing to open doors, shooting at walls, dying prematurely, etc.) the game is not running right. While it is most obvious in demos it is also happening while you are playing. How that will manifest can vary from your character or enemies moving at incorrect speeds to the game crashing. Maybe you will never notice or maybe it will ruin the game for you at some point.

[Rick Dangerous]

Interesting---the game seems 100% to me as i play it, but i get where you are coming from and clearly it's not 100% somewhere. The only thing i have noticed is that one or two levels didn't have treasure counted at the end, like one in 10 (i assumed that was because not every map had treasure?).  Enemy AI seems to be spot on.  I'm playing through on the third difficulty level and when i beat the game i'm going to try clearing the memory three times to see if it sticks before starting a new game on "Maximum Death" difficulty. 

 

After i cleared it once last time, the demo was running properly, but after a few saves/resets the demo went off kilter again.  But since i had restarted the game so many times recently to try to test/get save working again, i was not up for another reset.   I'm hoping 3x clears does it. 

 

It is strange watching the glitchy demo; almost looks like the game is "sick" or something; haha.