Can savestates break a game?

[nsd]

So I abused savestates heavily in Death or Glory and it worked just fine until one mission started to crash randomly and forced me to revert to an earlier, regular save.

Now I've been playing Amberstar (WHD install) and regular saves don't work for some reason (guru meditation every time I try) so I'd have to rely on savestates alone all the way. I got this message saying that the game isn't fully compatible with savestates (presumably due to WHD) - what does that mean? Could I be in for a nasty surprise at some point?

[Toni Wilen]

It can but it can never be confirmed if it is statefile or some random game bug..

Harddrive statefiles can be quite fragile, basic non-hd configurations should work fine in most situations.

[nsd]

I see, cheers. Better get this install working properly before I delve deeper into the game then.

[Minuous]

Well, it should be impossible, in theory, for them to cause a problem, unless there is some kind of bug or other lack in the state loading/saving routines.

[Bronko]

Basically, if the game is complex enough, to deliver it's own save game routine, it's saver to use it, then save states. That's what I learned with Settlers, etc.

[demoniac]

When I was heavily emulating with WinUAE 1.0.x - 1.5.x, loading save states would sometimes result in frozen games. However, I noticed when I reloaded a few times in succession using shortcuts, the game would at times continue. There are gfx glitches at times, but it's still better than restarting the game. I'd save states between levels as a backup.

[s2325]

I had this problem only with Lionheart. Maybe it's because of random paths of enemies or something.

[nsd]

Well, I had to start over anyway since you can't kick an npc from the party unless you save the game in the process. Interestingly enough, all it took to make saves work was changing cpu from 030 to 020, but that required a fresh game.

Am I right to assume that tampering with the hardware while a game is in progress and using savestates is generally a bad idea and leads to all sorts of errors? In that case I have a hunch what broke DOG in the first place.