README.rst

N64-Saveswap

A simple command-line utility for manipulating the endianness of (A.K.A. byte-swapping) Nintendo 64 save data so it can be moved between various cartridge-dumping tools, emulators, flash cartridges, etc.

Features:

• Supports multiple types of byte-swapping
• Codebase is very well-commented because I'd originally intended to offer it as a learning aid for moving to Python before I got carried away.
• Should run on any platform with a Python 2.7 or 3.x runtime
• Only dependency is the Python standard library
• Unit and functional test suite with 100% branch coverage

Also usable for swapping other formats if the --force-padding switch is used to disable size checks. (With the caveat that it will load the entire file into memory and make copies.)

Very loosely based on saturnu's ED64-Saveswap because I was feeling wary about virus-scanner false positives and wanted something I didn't have to run in Wine to use on Linux.

Usage

For basic conversion of a save memory dump file, the default settings should do perfectly well and usage is as follows:

1. Make sure you have a Python runtime installed.
2. Run saveswap.py with the path to the save dump as its argument.

On Windows, that may look like this:

1. Install the Windows version of Python.
2. Copy the save dump into the same folder as saveswap.py.
3. Open a terminal/command window (eg. cmd.exe) in that directory.
4. Run saveswap.py NAME_OF_DUMP_FILE

C:\Users\Me> cd Desktop
C:\Users\Me\Desktop> saveswap.py MyNintendyGame.eep

For more advanced functions, please consult the --help output:

usage: saveswap.py [-h] [--version] [-v] [-q]
                   [--swap-mode {both,bytes-only,words-only}]
                   [--force-padding NEW_SIZE]
                   [--no-backup]
                   path [path ...]

A simple utility to translate among the SRAM/EEPROM/Flash dump formats for
Nintendo 64 cartridges as supported by various dumpers, emulators, and flash
cartridges.

positional arguments:
  path                  One or more Nintendo 64 save memory dumps
                        to byte-swap

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --version             show program's version number and exit
  -v, --verbose         Increase the verbosity. Use twice for extra effect.
  -q, --quiet           Decrease the verbosity. Use twice for extra effect.
  --swap-mode {both,bytes-only,words-only}
                        Set the type of byte-swapping to be performed.
  --force-padding NEW_SIZE
                        Override autodetected padding size. This also
                        disables the associated safety checks, allowing
                        this tool to be used on other types of files.
                        Specify 0 to disable padding entirely.
  --no-backup           Disable creation of an automatic backup. This is
                        intended to be used by scripts which want
                        more control over whether and where backups
                        are created.

The swap modes behave as follows:
        both: 12 34 -> 43 21
  bytes-only: 12 34 -> 21 43
  words-only: 12 34 -> 34 12

The valid padding sizes for N64 save dumps are as follows:
  ===== EEPROM =====
      512 (  4kbit)
     2048 ( 16kbit)
  ====== SRAM ======
    32768 (256kbit)
   131072 (  1Mbit)
  ===== Flash ======
   131072 (  1Mbit)

For scripting purposes, the exit code will indicate the most
serious error encountered, with the following meanings:
   0 = Success
  10 = Could not read file / Could not write backup
  20 = File is too large to be an N64 save dump
  30 = File size is not a multiple of the requested swap increment