Dangers of game saves

[mr_bogus]

I've always wondered what'd happen if you were saving and had a powercut?

 

I've wondered the same when you are downloading the latest firmware update for the Wii and there was a powercut half way through.

 

Would it just reset to before the update?

 

Nintendo's guidelines for savegames (i'd imagine/hope they use a similar method for system updates) is to have enough free space to create the save file in a separate place, and only when the ENTIRE savegame is written, change a single value to point to the new savegame.

 

So if there's a powercut during saving, but before the pointer's updated, it'll still just point at the old savegame.

 

eg. a game that has 3 save slots, would internally have enough space for 4 slots, & always writes into the unused space.

[Nolan]

I find that giving them a blow in the holes sometimes makes them work.