"Savestates" using hibernate+HD ghosting in XP...

[Snark]

Am I the only one who ever thought about this?

Basically any modern games (or any software for that matter) that doesn't allow any type of free saving at any given point could benefit from this.

Basically, pause whatever game you're playing using the standard ctrl-alt-delete to bring up Windows task manager, Hibernate your system, then using some ghosting software (like Norton Ghost) create a "savestate" of the content of your Harddrive (which will include the RAM content saved by the OS).

I realise it's highly impracticable in real day to day usage but in a few obscure and very rare cases I think it could be potentially usefull. For example, you could create a "savestate" in bsnes, if you wanted to reproduce a particularly rare bug that only occurs after like...10 hours of gameplay or something and the game itself had no native saves.

[Deathlike2]

Am I the only one who ever thought about this?

Basically any modern games (or any software for that matter) that doesn't allow any type of free saving at any given point could benefit from this.

Basically, pause whatever game you're playing using the standard ctrl-alt-delete to bring up Windows task manager, Hibernate your system, then using some ghosting software (like Norton Ghost) create a "savestate" of the content of your Harddrive/partition + Ram content.

I realise it's highly impracticable in real day to day usage but in a few obscure and very rare cases I think it could be potentially usefull. For example, you could create a "savestate" in bsnes, if you wanted to reproduce a particularly rare bug that only occurs after like...10 hours of gameplay or something and the game itself had no native saves.

Excessive hibernation makes Windows run weird... it includes, but not limited to the Start Menu becoming really wonky and inaccessible... and sometimes apps simply self-implode when launched/relaunched.

[adventure_of_link]

Question about hibernation:

As long as the OS supports it, can any computer use that feature, or is it certain ones?

[Deathlike2]

Question about hibernation:

As long as the OS supports it, can any computer use that feature, or is it certain ones?

You have to have it supported in hardware IIRC.

[adventure_of_link]

Thought so, thank you.

[Snark]

Question about hibernation:

As long as the OS supports it, can any computer use that feature, or is it certain ones?

You have to have it supported in hardware IIRC.

I would have thought any PC could use it...After all, hibernation is simply a dump of all the content of the RAM, isn't it?

[Deathlike2]

Question about hibernation:

As long as the OS supports it, can any computer use that feature, or is it certain ones?

You have to have it supported in hardware IIRC.

I would have thought any PC could use it...After all, hibernation is simply a dump of all the content of the RAM, isn't it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernate_(OS_feature)

It could be done by the OS, but those checks are there for older hardware (not all things will simply just work).

[Nach]

There's programs out there that can save state any running program.

[Snark]

There's programs out there that can save state any running program.

Ah, well there goes my convoluted method. Got any link? I searched but all I find as results are "US program to save the state of the Constitution" or something like that.

Maybe I just need to learn how to use google more effectively...

Edit: of course, there are Virtual Machines and they allow save states. But they perform poorly with graphic intensive apps and do not have full compatibility.

[franpa]

http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/ar ... 54884.aspx

theres this for virtual PC >.> but i cant find anything else except huge load of emulator links.

[Verdauga Greeneyes]

Now that you mention it, ArtMoney is able to make memory dump 'save states' and restore them. Only the Pro version though, I think.