Bananmos wrote:
I'm not sure what you mean by "replace the flash memory with RAM". Both the RAM *and* a CF/SD memory are needed of course, though the later is of arbitrary size and provided by the user. One of my problems will be to decide what type of RAM to use to have 8 megabytes of it.
8 MiB? No NES or Famicom game is larger than 1 MiB, apart from multicarts.
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PSRAM. (which only come in BGA packaging and are only sold in quantaties of thousands)
Are you sure about these drawbacks of PSRAM? Can you cite sources?
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I looked at the SuperCard, but I'm still not sure how it works. It doesn't seem to use a USB cable, and thus doesn't act like a mass storage device at all?
SuperCard has a 32 MiB RAM (to hold the running program, believed to be some form of PSRAM), a 64 KiB RAM (for saving), and an ATA interface (for reading the CF card).
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Seems to use need its own software and additional patching of the ROMs?
SuperCard patches GBA games for three reasons, mostly related to saving:
- There are three GBA mappers, distinguished by how they save. Patches mapper-hack games that use the serial EEPROM mapper or the 8-bit flash mapper to use the 8-bit SRAM mapper instead.
- SuperCard save memory is not battery backed. Patches make the game occasionally write the SRAM to the CF card.
- "Exit hack" allows the game to go back to the menu.
The DS, on the other hand, acts more like the FDS because the DS card is a
block device. SuperCard patches DS games to read and write a file on the CF card instead of the DS card (which sits in another slot).
Bregalad wrote:
That's pretty much expensive, but keep in mind it would be a all-in-one investisment and that cart could then play hundreds to thousands of games.
We have to decide: Are we trying to make carts solely for development and piracy, or should we consider how to make carts for replication once we get some sort of lockout defeater working?