How frequently do the * GX emulators autosave?

I guess this is mostly a question for Tantric, or anyone else who's examined the source code significantly. I notice that whenever I have autosave enabled, in any of the three * GX emulators, it seems as though the autosave file is being written to constantly. Any time I go to the save or load menu, the last-written time is always right then, even if nothing has been saved in-game recently. Is it just written to every time you go to the menu? Or is it being written on a timer? Even saving every thirty seconds automatically would wear out a cheaper SD card in about 100 hours of use.

Thanks for any insight.

I think (think) that the "autosave" is called when you pull up the menu. That would explain the time.

That would make sense, so that you don't accidentally load an old save when you just want to go back to your latest save, but I don't really want to risk that kind of wear-and-tear to my SD cards without some confirmation...

All the autosave code that I've been able to find was in the "menu" files (as in: only called when the menu pops up).

But doesn't it also autosave if you turn the Wii off while it's running?

Whenever you leave the game (back to menu or shutdown the Wii). If you do this a half million times or so you might wear out your SD card.