BESS

June 4, 2025 · View on GitHub

Motivation

BESS is a save state format specification designed to allow different emulators, as well as majorly different versions of the same emulator, to import save states from other BESS-compliant save states. BESS works by appending additional, implementation-agnostic information about the emulation state. This allows a single save state file to be read as both a fully-featured, implementation specific save state which includes detailed timing information; and as a portable "best effort" save state that represents a state accurately enough to be restored in casual use-cases.

Specification

Every integer used in the BESS specification is stored in Little Endian encoding.

BESS works by appending a detectable footer at the end of an existing save state format. The footer uses the following format:

Offset from end of file	Content
-8	Offset to the first BESS Block, from the file's start
-4	The ASCII string 'BESS'

BESS blocks

BESS uses a block format where each block contains the following header:

Offset	Content
0	A four-letter ASCII identifier
4	Length of the block as a 32-bit integer, excluding header

Every block is followed by another block, until the END block is reached. If an implementation encounters an unsupported block, it should be completely ignored (Should not have any effect and should not trigger a failure).

NAME block

The NAME block uses the 'NAME' identifier, and is an optional block that contains the name of the emulator that created this save state. While optional, it is highly recommended to be included in every implementation – it allows the user to know which emulator and version is compatible with the native save state format contained in this file. When used, this block should come first.

The length of the NAME block is variable, and it only contains the name and version of the originating emulator in ASCII.

INFO block

The INFO block uses the 'INFO' identifier, and is an optional block that contains information about the ROM this save state originates from. When used, this block should come before CORE but after NAME. This block is 0x12 bytes long, and it follows this structure:

Offset	Content
0x00	Bytes 0x134-0x143 from the ROM (Title)
0x10	Bytes 0x14E-0x14F from the ROM (Global checksum)

CORE block

The CORE block uses the 'CORE' identifier, and is a required block that contains both core state information, as well as basic information about the BESS version used. This block must be the first block, unless the NAME or INFO blocks exist then it must come directly after them. An implementation should not enforce block order on blocks unknown to it for future compatibility.

The length of the CORE block is 0xD0 bytes, but implementations are expected to ignore any excess bytes. Following the BESS block header, the structure is as follows:

Offset	Content
0x00	Major BESS version as a 16-bit integer
0x02	Minor BESS version as a 16-bit integer

Both major and minor versions should be 1. Implementations are expected to reject incompatible majors, but still attempt to read newer minor versions.

Offset	Content
0x04	A four-character ASCII model identifier

BESS uses a four-character string to identify Game Boy models:

The first letter represents mutually-incompatible families of models and is required. The allowed values are 'G' for the original Game Boy family, 'S' for the Super Game Boy family, and 'C' for the Game Boy Color and Advance family.
The second letter represents a specific model within the family, and is optional (If an implementation does not distinguish between specific models in a family, a space character may be used). The allowed values for family G are 'D' for DMG and 'M' for MGB; the allowed values for family S are 'N' for NTSC, 'P' for PAL, and '2' for SGB2; and the allowed values for family C are 'C' for CGB, and 'A' for the various GBA line models.
The third letter represents a specific CPU revision within a model, and is optional (If an implementation does not distinguish between revisions, a space character may be used). The allowed values for model GD (DMG) are '0' and 'A', through 'C'; the allowed values for model CC (CGB) are '0' and 'A', through 'E'; the allowed values for model CA (AGB, AGS, GBP) are '0', 'A' and 'B'; and for every other model this value must be a space character.
The last character is used for padding and must be a space character.

For example; 'GD ' represents a DMG of an unspecified revision, 'S ' represents some model of the SGB family, and 'CCE ' represent a CGB using CPU revision E.

Offset	Content
0x08	The value of the PC register
0x0A	The value of the AF register
0x0C	The value of the BC register
0x0E	The value of the DE register
0x10	The value of the HL register
0x12	The value of the SP register
0x14	The value of IME (0 or 1)
0x15	The value of the IE register
0x16	Execution state (0 = running; 1 = halted; 2 = stopped)
0x17	Reserved, must be 0
0x18	The values of every memory-mapped register (128 bytes)

The values of memory-mapped registers should be written 'as-is' to memory as if the actual ROM wrote them, with the following exceptions and note:

Unused registers have Don't-Care values which should be ignored
Unused register bits have Don't-Care values which should be ignored
If the model is CGB or newer, the value of KEY0 (FF4C) must be valid as it determines DMG mode
- Bit 2 determines DMG mode. A value of 0x04 usually denotes DMG mode, while a value of 0x80 usually denotes CGB mode.
Object priority is derived from KEY0 (FF4C) instead of OPRI (FF6C) because OPRI can be modified after booting, but only the value of OPRI during boot ROM execution takes effect
If a register doesn't exist on the emulated model (For example, KEY0 (FF4C) on a DMG), its value should be ignored.
BANK (FF50) should be 0 if the boot ROM is still mapped, and 1 otherwise, and must be valid.
Implementations should not start a serial transfer when writing the value of SB
Similarly, no value of NRx4 should trigger a sound pulse on save state load
And similarly again, implementations should not trigger DMA transfers when writing the values of DMA or HDMA5
The value store for DIV will be used to set the internal divisor to DIV << 8
Implementation should apply care when ordering the write operations (For example, writes to NR52 must come before writes to the other APU registers)

Offset	Content
0x98	The size of RAM (32-bit integer)
0x9C	The offset of RAM from file start (32-bit integer)
0xA0	The size of VRAM (32-bit integer)
0xA4	The offset of VRAM from file start (32-bit integer)
0xA8	The size of MBC RAM (32-bit integer)
0xAC	The offset of MBC RAM from file start (32-bit integer)
0xB0	The size of OAM (=0xA0, 32-bit integer)
0xB4	The offset of OAM from file start (32-bit integer)
0xB8	The size of HRAM (=0x7F, 32-bit integer)
0xBC	The offset of HRAM from file start (32-bit integer)
0xC0	The size of background palettes (=0x40 or 0, 32-bit integer)
0xC4	The offset of background palettes from file start (32-bit integer)
0xC8	The size of object palettes (=0x40 or 0, 32-bit integer)
0xCC	The offset of object palettes from file start (32-bit integer)

The contents of large buffers are stored outside of BESS structure so data from an implementation's native save state format can be reused. The offsets are absolute offsets from the save state file's start. Background and object palette sizes must be 0 for models prior to Game Boy Color.

An implementation needs handle size mismatches gracefully. For example, if too large MBC RAM size is specified, the superfluous data should be ignored. On the other hand, if a too small VRAM size is specified (For example, if it's a save state from an emulator emulating a CGB in DMG mode, and it didn't save the second CGB VRAM bank), the implementation is expected to set that extra bank to all zeros.

XOAM block

The XOAM block uses the 'XOAM' identifier, and is an optional block that contains the data of extra OAM (addresses 0xFEA0-0xFEFF). This block length must be 0x60. Implementations that do not emulate this extra range are free to ignore the excess bytes, and to not create this block.

MBC block

The MBC block uses the 'MBC ' identifier, and is an optional block that is only used when saving states of ROMs that use an MBC. The length of this block is variable and must be divisible by 3.

This block contains an MBC-specific number of 3-byte-long pairs that represent the values of each MBC register. For example, for MBC5 the contents would look like:

Offset	Content
0x0	The value 0x0000 as a 16-bit integer
0x2	0x0A if RAM is enabled, 0 otherwise
0x3	The value 0x2000 as a 16-bit integer
0x5	The lower 8 bits of the ROM bank
0x6	The value 0x3000 as a 16-bit integer
0x8	The bit 9 of the ROM bank
0x9	The value 0x4000 as a 16-bit integer
0xB	The current RAM bank

An implementation should parse this block as a series of writes to be made. Values outside the 0x0000-0x7FFF and 0xA000-0xBFFF ranges are not allowed. Implementations must perform the writes in order (i.e. not reverse, sorted, or any other transformation on their order)

RTC block

The RTC block uses the 'RTC ' identifier, and is an optional block that is used while emulating an MBC3 with an RTC. The contents of this block are identical to 64-bit RTC saves from VBA, which are also used by SameBoy and different emulators such as BGB.

The length of this block is 0x30 bytes long and it follows the following structure:

Offset	Content
0x00	Current seconds (1 byte), followed by 3 bytes of padding
0x04	Current minutes (1 byte), followed by 3 bytes of padding
0x08	Current hours (1 byte), followed by 3 bytes of padding
0x0C	Current days (1 byte), followed by 3 bytes of padding
0x10	Current high/overflow/running (1 byte), followed by 3 bytes of padding
0x14	Latched seconds (1 byte), followed by 3 bytes of padding
0x18	Latched minutes (1 byte), followed by 3 bytes of padding
0x1C	Latched hours (1 byte), followed by 3 bytes of padding
0x20	Latched days (1 byte), followed by 3 bytes of padding
0x24	Latched high/overflow/running (1 byte), followed by 3 bytes of padding
0x28	UNIX timestamp at the time of the save state (64-bit)

HUC3 block

The HUC3 block uses the 'HUC3' identifier, and is an optional block that is used while emulating an HuC3 cartridge to store RTC and alarm information. The contents of this block are identical to HuC3 RTC saves from SameBoy.

The length of this block is 0x11 bytes long and it follows the following structure:

Offset	Content
0x00	UNIX timestamp at the time of the save state (64-bit)
0x08	RTC minutes (16-bit)
0x0A	RTC days (16-bit)
0x0C	Scheduled alarm time minutes (16-bit)
0x0E	Scheduled alarm time days (16-bit)
0x10	Alarm enabled flag (8-bits, either 0 or 1)

TPP1 block

The TPP1 block uses the 'TPP1' identifier, and is an optional block that is used while emulating a TPP1 cartridge to store RTC information. This block can be omitted if the ROM header does not specify the inclusion of a RTC.

The length of this block is 0x11 bytes long and it follows the following structure:

Offset	Content
0x00	UNIX timestamp at the time of the save state (64-bit)
0x08	The current RTC data (4 bytes)
0x0C	The latched RTC data (4 bytes)
0x10	The value of the MR4 register (8-bits)

MBC7 block

The MBC7 block uses the 'MBC7' identifier, and is an optional block that is used while emulating an MBC7 cartridge to store the EEPROM communication state and motion control state.

The length of this block is 0xA bytes long and it follows the following structure:

Offset	Content
0x00	Flags (8-bits)
0x01	Argument bits left (8-bits)
0x02	Current EEPROM command (16-bits)
0x04	Pending bits to read (16-bits)
0x06	Latched gyro X value (16-bits)
0x08	Latched gyro Y value (16-bits)

The meaning of the individual bits in flags are:

Bit 0: Latch ready; set after writing 0x55 to 0xAX0X and reset after writing 0xAA to 0xAX1X
Bit 1: EEPROM DO line
Bit 2: EEPROM DI line
Bit 3: EEPROM CLK line
Bit 4: EEPROM CS line
Bit 5: EEPROM write enable; set after an EWEN command, reset after an EWDS command
Bits 6-7: Unused.

The current EEPROM command field has bits pushed to its LSB first, padded with zeros. For example, if the ROM clocked a single 1 bit, this field should contain 0b1; if the ROM later clocks a 0 bit, this field should contain 0b10.

If the currently transmitted command has an argument, the "Argument bits left" field should contain the number argument bits remaining. Otherwise, it should contain 0.

The "Pending bits to read" field contains the pending bits waiting to be shifted into the DO signal, MSB first, padded with ones.

SGB block

The SGB block uses the 'SGB ' identifier, and is an optional block that is only used while emulating an SGB or SGB2 and SGB commands enabled. Implementations must not save this block on other models or when SGB commands are disabled, and should assume SGB commands are disabled if this block is missing.

The length of this block is 0x39 bytes, but implementations should allow and ignore excess data in this block for extensions. The block follows the following structure:

Offset	Content
0x00	The size of the border tile data (=0x2000, 32-bit integer)
0x04	The offset of the border tile data (SNES tile format, 32-bit integer)
0x08	The size of the border tilemap (=0x800, 32-bit integer)
0x0C	The offset of the border tilemap (LE 16-bit sequences, 32-bit integer)
0x10	The size of the border palettes (=0x80, 32-bit integer)
0x14	The offset of the border palettes (LE 16-bit sequences, 32-bit integer)
0x18	The size of active colorization palettes (=0x20, 32-bit integer)
0x1C	The offset of the active colorization palettes (LE 16-bit sequences, 32-bit integer)
0x20	The size of RAM colorization palettes (=0x1000, 32-bit integer)
0x24	The offset of the RAM colorization palettes (LE 16-bit sequences, 32-bit integer)
0x28	The size of the attribute map (=0x168, 32-bit integer)
0x2C	The offset of the attribute map (32-bit integer)
0x30	The size of the attribute files (=0xfd2, 32-bit integer)
0x34	The offset of the attribute files (32-bit integer)
0x38	Multiplayer status (1 byte); high nibble is player count (1, 2 or 4), low nibble is current player (Where Player 1 is 0)

If only some of the size-offset pairs are available (for example, partial HLE SGB implementation), missing fields are allowed to have 0 as their size, and implementations are expected to fall back to a sane default.

END block

The END block uses the 'END ' identifier, and is a required block that marks the end of BESS data. Naturally, it must be the last block. The length of the END block must be 0.

Validation and Failures

Other than previously specified required fail conditions, an implementation is free to decide what format errors should abort the loading of a save file. Structural errors (e.g. a block with an invalid length, a file offset that is outside the file's range, or a missing END block) should be considered as irrecoverable errors. Other errors that are considered fatal by SameBoy's implementation:

Duplicate CORE block
A known block, other than NAME, appearing before CORE
An invalid length for the XOAM, RTC, SGB or HUC3 blocks
An invalid length of MBC (not a multiple of 3)
A write outside the $0000-$7FFF and $A000-$ BFFF ranges in the MBC block
An SGB block on a save state targeting another model
An END block with non-zero length