SNES Neo Myth FLash Cart

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Fab
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Post by Fab »

do FX Games and special chip games work?
MatthewCallis
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Post by MatthewCallis »

The only thing I read was (this is paraphrased): support for DSP games, so support 99% of games. I didn't get far in the forum, there are reviews up in German though.
tepples
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Post by tepples »

So it looks and appears to work like an Aladdin Deck Enhancer, allowing use of GBA flash on a Super NES. I always wondered why some people were so dead-set against NeoFlash's Aladdin-style products (see recent topic about GBA to N64 adapter), when GBA is probably the cheapest consumer NOR flash cartridge format available.
mic_
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Post by mic_ »

I always wondered why some people were so dead-set against NeoFlash's Aladdin-style products
My biggest beef with their solution is that it's a proprietary piece of hardware which requires specific drivers. One of the PowerPak's greatest strengths is that all the games are stored on standard CF cards, no special software or drivers from RetroZone are needed to put new games on the card, and that also makes it future proof.
do FX Games and special chip games work?
DSP-1 supposedly works, but neither I nor any of the other testers have been able to get any games using other chips (SuperFX, Cx4 etc) to work so far. This may be solved with software updates in the future though - keep in mind that this is a very new product (it's not even on sale yet).
You need to keep in mind that a physical cart with the same chip is required. There's a connector on the back of the Myth where you plug in the extra cart.
tepples
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Post by tepples »

mic_ wrote:
I always wondered why some people were so dead-set against NeoFlash's Aladdin-style products
My biggest beef with their solution is that it's a proprietary piece of hardware
So is the PowerPak. Its schematics are not Free.
which requires specific drivers.
In what way? For all I can tell, it just needs a GBA flash card programmer. You can use "GBA ExpLoader" software on a DS/DS Lite to write the game to the card for all I know. Or does it modify the ROMs before writing them? In that case, one can see what modifications were made by dumping the GBA card after programming it and then creating a workalike that runs on a DS.
One of the PowerPak's greatest strengths is that all the games are stored on standard CF cards
The M3 Perfect adapter for GBA also uses RAM to cache a game loaded from CF or SD cards. The cost of all this RAM is part of why the M3 and SNES PowerPak are so expensive. A NOR-based solution doesn't need to buffer quite as much.
no special software or drivers from RetroZone are needed to put new games on the card
Other than .MAP files?
and that also makes it future proof.
Unless CompactFlash dies. SmartMedia, for instance, has already been replaced with xD-Picture cards, and those in turn got replaced with SD cards.
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MottZilla
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Post by MottZilla »

The issue with their Flash Carts is that it's not like just any GBA cart with a FlashROM will work. Only their own work as I've heard. And they do not sell them as cheaply as the ones you linked to recently. And ofcourse should they get sued out of existence or something you'd have to hope for someone else to make cart clones.

But, atleast the Sega Genesis/Megadrive supports their "Neo2-SD" cartridge, which is a GBA cartridge with SD card slot. I would imagine the SNES cartridge will support this eventually.

I highly doubt that the Neo SNES cartridge supports anything that existing Copiers and the PowerPAK don't. Adding SuperFX, SA-1, and probably the others chips as well would probably not be something they would do. But you can't take points away from them since nobody supports those. There was some post though showing Super Mario RPG, as if to suggest SA-1 was supported. If it is that would be a nice plus.

Anyway I agree with the opinion that the more Flash carts available the better.
Last edited by MottZilla on Thu Feb 18, 2010 2:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Bregalad
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Post by Bregalad »

You can use "GBA ExpLoader" software on a DS/DS Lite to write the game to the card for all I know.
I know I'm getting out-topic, but it never worked for me. It justs erase my save and run the previously loaded programm in the GBA cart. It's probably because my GBA flash cart isn't the same brand as my DS flash cart :(
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mic_
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Post by mic_ »

So is the PowerPak. Its schematics are not Free.
My point was that the Neo2 Lite carts used in the MD/SNES/N64 Myth are non-standard and does not have the wide backing that CF does.
In what way? For all I can tell, it just needs a GBA flash card programmer.
These are specific carts, popping in any GBA flash cart you have lying around won't work. Even older versions of Neoflash' own programming tool doesn't work with the SNES Myth, you need their latest programmer to use it. It also writes a menu to the cart whenever you put any ROMs on it.
The cost of all this RAM is part of why the M3 and SNES PowerPak are so expensive.
If you think $135 is too expensive and you're hoping for the SNES Myth to be cheaper you're probably hoping in vain. The MD Myth currently costs $149, and from what I've heard the SNES Myth uses pretty much the same hardware (except for the YM2413 of course).

Other than .MAP files?
If I want to use the PowerPak 15 years from now I won't need RetroZone to create new MAP files for me. All I need is some way to put all the existing files on a CF card, and I deem it far more likely for CF->USB adapters to be supported 15 years from now than any Neoflash device. To use Neoflash products in the future will probably require resorting to some form of virtualization.
I highly doubt that the Neo SNES cartridge supports anything that existing Copiers and the PowerPAK don't.
The idea is to have a game cart of the same type plugged in to the back of the Myth. Reports so far say that DSP-1 games are working (with some exceptions, like Pilotwings). I'm not sure if that solution is possible for something like the SA-1, but we'll have to wait and see what happens when Neoflash updates their programmer software and/or FPGA core (the cart has a connector hidden inside the shell for upgrading the core AFAIK).

I agree that the more of these carts we've got the better. I have both a PowerPak and a Myth and I like both of them.
Eyedunno
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Post by Eyedunno »

I had every intention of buying this a couple years ago when it was first announced, but man, am I glad I have the PowerPak instead.

Fantastic if it has (or ever will have) SFX and other support through the connector on the back; that will give it a niche, but is it ever UGLY?!
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MottZilla
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Post by MottZilla »

I wouldn't much care what it looks like if it supported Super FX & SA-1. The problem is Super FX and SA-1 with people suggesting plugging in a cartridge is that just won't work. The cartridge edge doesn't give all the SFX or SA-1 signals. Those are just the outputs to the system. The Super FX has direct ROM access. Infact as I recall the Super FX, is actually what feeds the ROM to the system as inside the SuperFX is management hardware to allow Super FX and the Host SNES CPU to both access the same ROM.

But reguardless of those details, the only way for them to support Super FX or SA-1 would be if they can put it on the FPGA that's supposed to be on there. I rather doubt that will happen. I also think that if something like that were to happen that Super FX seems more likely than SA-1. But we'll see what happens.
Sektor
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Post by Sektor »

Dr.neo showed a picture of SMRPG but it was listed under "action replay working screen", so it might have just been the unreleased action replay feature being used on an original SMRPG (possibly bypassing region check). Time will tell. I was skeptical about many of the advertised features for the Myth MD that weren't there at launch but they all eventually came true in the end.

The SMRPG picture is called SFC_myth_action_replay.jpg. It shows 99/20? What does that mean? Is that proof of a cheat? I would assume 20/20 would the normal max but I'm not familiar with the game.
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FitzRoy
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Post by FitzRoy »

Is this capable of dumping carts to the PC? Via that slot on the back?
Sektor
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Post by Sektor »

The current software doesn't support dumping but I assume the hardware is capable. It displays the header information from the connected cart.
hyarion
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Post by hyarion »

FitzRoy wrote:Is this capable of dumping carts to the PC? Via that slot on the back?
you might want to take a look at www.retrode.org if you want to dump your own carts
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