How to use real memcard dumps in dolphin

shuffle2 · November 7th, 2008

First off, a disclaimer: the current incompatibility of dolphin with real dumps is just that; current. This means that if this bug is ever fixed, you will need the original dump again.

Next, a simple explanation of what is wrong:
The first 0x13 bytes of a memcard contain an unknown segment (0x0C long), and then the GC OSTime value (of when the memcard was formatted). This can be seen here:
Yet Another Gamecube Documentation
It seems that the "unknown" segment is fetched from something in the IPL/BIOS, and as dolphin uses HLE emulation of the BIOS (don't ask about using real BIOS, it doesn't work), the data returned is not compatible with real GCs. Inversely, the data from real GCs is not compatible with dolphin.

OK, so how do you work around this? Follow along!

Requirements:
Dolphin r1089 or later (fixed a bug in memcard manager)
A real memcard dump
A hex editor (I use Hex Workshop in windows, and ghex2 in linux)

Directions:
Open your memcard dump in your hex editor of choice
Replace the first 0x13 bytes with this hex string: 0750B25EC2A150A9E2047343000000000B1B595C (see attached pic)
Save and close the file

Open the memcard in slot A of dolphin's memcard manager and click fix checksums.

That's it! you *should* be able to use it with games in dolphin now.

Attached Images

hexeditmemcard.png (33.3 KB, 80 views)

__________________
AMD X2 5200+(65Watt)@3.2GHz | GTX280 | 4GB RAM | Vista Ultimate x64

imfreakin · November 7th, 2008

Awesome tutorial, thanks

!

__________________

Kudos to everyone who's working on Dolphin!!

bll0612 · November 8th, 2008

Thanks. but dolphin save file is 16mb, which is much bigger than backup save file. how could I get it work?

shuffle2 · November 8th, 2008

size doesn't matter if you follow the directions.

__________________
AMD X2 5200+(65Watt)@3.2GHz | GTX280 | 4GB RAM | Vista Ultimate x64

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November 7th, 2008	#2 (permalink)
imfreakin Nintendo-Addict Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Cyber-Space Posts: 284	Awesome tutorial, thanks ! __________________ Kudos to everyone who's working on Dolphin!! __________________________________________________ PC Specs: Windows XP SP2 \| Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E7300 2.66GHz \| 2GB RAM \| NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT Laptop Specs: Windows XP SP2 \| Intel Celeron M processor 1.60GHz \| 248MB RAM \| Intel 915GM/GMS

November 8th, 2008	#3 (permalink)
bll0612 Registered User Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Haiphong Posts: 186	Thanks. but dolphin save file is 16mb, which is much bigger than backup save file. how could I get it work?

November 8th, 2008	#4 (permalink)
shuffle2 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: ß Posts: 432	size doesn't matter if you follow the directions. __________________ AMD X2 5200+(65Watt)@3.2GHz \| GTX280 \| 4GB RAM \| Vista Ultimate x64