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Save sync

Save sync

rommate keeps your emulator saves in sync with RomM, so you can continue a game on another device. It syncs in-game saves (not save states) of the games you downloaded with rommate.

The Saves tab with one conflict selected

How it works

  1. rommate registers your device with RomM once.
  2. It looks for the save of every downloaded game, in the place your emulator keeps it.
  3. It sends RomM a short description of each save (a hash and a timestamp). RomM decides per save: upload, download, nothing to do, or conflict.
  4. rommate uploads and downloads accordingly. Before a downloaded save replaces yours, the old one is backed up.

Saves are stored in RomM’s shared autosave slot, the same one the RomM web player and other RomM apps use.

When it syncs: in the TUI when it starts and before it quits (turn this off with auto_sync_saves = false), with Y in the Saves tab, or with rommate saves sync.

Supported emulators

rommate finds the saves on its own for native, Flatpak and AppImage installs, and for EmuDeck and RetroDECK setups. It reads each emulator’s own save location setting first.

EmulatorPlatformsSaveMatched by
RetroArchNES, SNES, Game Boy (Color/Advance), N64, PlayStation, Mega Drive, Master System, Game Gear, PC Engine and more<game>.srm, also in the core and content folders RetroArch sorts saves intofile name of the game
melonDSNintendo DS<game>.sav next to the game, or in SaveFilePathfile name of the game
AzaharNintendo 3DSthe game’s save foldertitle ID, read from the game file (.3ds, .cci, .cxi, .cia)
PPSSPPPSPall SAVEDATA folders of the gamedisc ID, read from the game file (.iso, .cso)
Eden, Citron, Sudachi, Suyu, yuzuSwitchthe game’s save folder of your profiletitle ID from a [0100…] tag in the file name, or read from the game file with your emulator’s prod.keys

Platforms without a supported emulator show ? in the Saves tab. PlayStation 2 is not supported yet: PCSX2 and ARMSX2 keep all games in one shared memory card file.

Emulators may keep a save in memory until you close the game. Close the game before you sync.

Conflicts

A conflict means the save changed on this device and on RomM since the last sync. rommate never picks a winner on its own: both copies stay untouched until you choose. In the Saves tab, press A on the game and then X to keep this device’s save or Y to keep RomM’s. From the command line:

rommate saves resolve <rom-id> --keep local    # upload this device's save
rommate saves resolve <rom-id> --keep server   # download RomM's save

The other version is not lost: a replaced local save goes to the backups, and RomM keeps older versions of each save.

Backups

Every time a download replaces a local save, the previous version is copied to ~/.local/state/rommate/save-backups/<rom-id>/. rommate keeps the five newest backups per save. To restore one, copy it back to the emulator’s save location (folder saves are stored as zip files).

Command line 

rommate saves                                   # save state of every downloaded game
rommate saves sync                              # sync now (--json for scripts)
rommate saves resolve <rom-id> --keep local|server

RomM version

Save sync needs a RomM server with the save sync API (/api/sync). RomM 5.4 or newer is recommended: it keeps track of what each device last synced, which makes conflict detection more reliable. With older servers rommate does that bookkeeping itself.

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