Star fox 2 on a Yoshi Island Donor Cart

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megamanretro
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat May 05, 2018 9:00 am

Star fox 2 on a Yoshi Island Donor Cart

Post by megamanretro »

hi everyone , im new here on the nesdev.com :D

Im trying to make a Star Fox 2 repro on Yoshi island donor cart , but yoshi island cart has 256k sram , and star fox 2 need's 512k sram. :(

the question is:

is possible to use a 512k sram from other carts like Doom or RPG Tsukuru 2 (RPG MAKER 2) to upgrade YI cart sram to run star fox 2 :?:

thx everyone.

Greetings from Brazil.
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Hojo_Norem
Posts: 137
Joined: Mon Apr 16, 2007 10:07 am
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Re: Star fox 2 on a Yoshi Island Donor Cart

Post by Hojo_Norem »

Why destroy a YI cart when the sd2snes now has full SFX compatibility? :wink:

Seriously though, I wouldn't destroy another cart to do this. Just Google for a 128K sram sop 32, just make sure you get a 5V part. They can still be had relatively cheap and you'd be using a brand new part rather than risk destroy a old one while removing it from the donor. I know that it's double what's needed, but the YI board has the solder pads to support it once you scrape the mask away. You'd have to do this for a 64K donor sram anyway. Personally I would use a Stunt Race cart, correct RAM already installed and the only difference between SFX1 (GSU1) and SFX2 is 16MBit of rom address space.
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megamanretro
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat May 05, 2018 9:00 am

Re: Star fox 2 on a Yoshi Island Donor Cart

Post by megamanretro »

Hojo_Norem wrote:Why destroy a YI cart when the sd2snes now has full SFX compatibility? :wink:

Seriously though, I wouldn't destroy another cart to do this. Just Google for a 128K sram sop 32, just make sure you get a 5V part. They can still be had relatively cheap and you'd be using a brand new part rather than risk destroy a old one while removing it from the donor. I know that it's double what's needed, but the YI board has the solder pads to support it once you scrape the mask away. You'd have to do this for a 64K donor sram anyway. Personally I would use a Stunt Race cart, correct RAM already installed and the only difference between SFX1 (GSU1) and SFX2 is 16MBit of rom address space.
Hi Hojo_Norem i have a damaged doom and rpg tsukuru 2 carts, thats why I thought the 512k sram of them;

and I'm also thinking in the future to do a multicart with FX games using the yoshi island cartridge( here in Brazil is a lot cheaper a japanese copy of YI in comparison to stunt race fx)
Markfrizb
Posts: 607
Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2012 8:17 am
Location: East Texas

Re: Star fox 2 on a Yoshi Island Donor Cart

Post by Markfrizb »

Even though the YI carts have the expansion solder pads for a bigger sram, if you follow the traces of the higher needed address (A15), it's not pinned to the GSU2. It's tied to the sram vcc IIRC..... oddly enough, I think what would be A16 does get pinned. I've wondered if that would work after all (I don't think so) but maybe worth a try.
megamanretro
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat May 05, 2018 9:00 am

Re: Star fox 2 on a Yoshi Island Donor Cart

Post by megamanretro »

Markfrizb wrote:Even though the YI carts have the expansion solder pads for a bigger sram, if you follow the traces of the higher needed address (A15), it's not pinned to the GSU2. It's tied to the sram vcc IIRC..... oddly enough, I think what would be A16 does get pinned. I've wondered if that would work after all (I don't think so) but maybe worth a try.

Yes. I think cutting trace and jumping with the 105 pin of the GSU 2 will work. but I have not done the test yet because the pins of the GSU are very small, I'm afraid that much work will not solve at all. Anyone here already tested SRAM upgrade on a YI cart?
hidden0
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Dec 29, 2021 1:28 am

Re: Star fox 2 on a Yoshi Island Donor Cart

Post by hidden0 »

megamanretro wrote: Wed Jul 18, 2018 10:32 pm
Markfrizb wrote:Even though the YI carts have the expansion solder pads for a bigger sram, if you follow the traces of the higher needed address (A15), it's not pinned to the GSU2. It's tied to the sram vcc IIRC..... oddly enough, I think what would be A16 does get pinned. I've wondered if that would work after all (I don't think so) but maybe worth a try.

Yes. I think cutting trace and jumping with the 105 pin of the GSU 2 will work. but I have not done the test yet because the pins of the GSU are very small, I'm afraid that much work will not solve at all. Anyone here already tested SRAM upgrade on a YI cart?
i did and it worked with doom , But i don't know that we can run Starfox 2 on GSU 2 as well ?
Can we ?
kalikiretro
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2022 11:25 am

Re: Star fox 2 on a Yoshi Island Donor Cart

Post by kalikiretro »

Standard starfox 2 Needs 256kb of sram, i did It various time using mini yonku scorpion something
BokuNES
Posts: 42
Joined: Wed Apr 22, 2020 8:42 pm

Re: Star fox 2 on a Yoshi Island Donor Cart

Post by BokuNES »

ohhhh come on!!, lets help the man!!, ok my friend, the answer is YES YOU CAN!, you can swap the memory to put a 512 kb SRAM memory on the board, and you only need to connect ONE point (in my case) between the sram super fx chip, and the only thing you need to do its to connect the SRAM a15 pin to the pin 105 of the super fx (GSU2) chip, just that, thats all, here i have some photos

https://1drv.ms/i/s!ArFuBF31X5b5nBiK9i_ ... t?e=aycoaL

https://1drv.ms/i/s!ArFuBF31X5b5nBlJ2xw ... s?e=4a3KtP

some notes on the photos:
-first to all i didnt use adapters for the eprom jajaja (difficult to obtain in my country)
- the board is dirty with flux (that photos i took it just before i finish the work, it was cleaned later using isopropilic alcohol)
- as you can see, the board uses a GSU2-SP1 chip, but the first GSU2 chip has the same pinout config (the only diference are the sizes)

now, to finish, if tyou want to expect a noticeable difference beteen the gsu2 from the others super fx chip versions, YOU WILL NOT FIND ANYTHING!!!, there is not difference at all (from my experience).

if you have any questions, please feel free to ask!
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