/vr/ - Retro Games

Why pages anyway?

No kid would have been confused by simply being given the KB number, and even someone could get confused- all that matters is the ratio, just give the remainng KB compared to used ones and everyone will b alright.

>>4320334
It's Nintendo. They always do something weird.

>>4320360
Glad someone's willing to say it.

>>4320334
I guess they underestimated children, nowadays they can operate a cellphone just fine.

>>4320457
They primarily use them to send their dangly bits and shitty memes to each other though

wait that's our gen too

I have a 3rd party rumble pak with 4 memory cards built in and I never filled one up. But I didn't play shit like Madden and didn't care about ghost data in Mario Kart.

The only game I know of which can fill most of a memory card is Mario Kart 64's ghost data. All other games I own only take up between 1 and 20.

>tfw had one of those third party high capacity ones that wiped all my saves

>>4320267
Those things are such a fucking nightmare to get out of the controller.

>>4320578
Hybrid Heaven takes the whole thing

>>4320334
Because the n64 partitions the memory pak.
Each page is 2kb, and if a game claims that page, then that whole 2kb is dedicated to that game, even if the save doesn’t actually take up 2kb.

>>4320713
That's entirely not what he was asking.
Why not just use a real measurement? They pull this shit with everything, N64, NGC, Wii, 3DS. Nintendo doesn't trust their userbase to understand numbers.

Yeah, sony did the same with the blocks on playstation. It's a bit weird that nintendo stuck with it. I don't think anyone is really intimidated or confused by these numbers anymore.

>>4320761
Sony used "blocks". Sega too I think

>>4320578
ISS64 can take like 60 blocks of save data.
Top Gear Rally eats like 80 between season data, ghost data and decals.
Hexen 64 uses 90 pages.

>>4320781
GameCube used blocks as well

>>4320578
Turok 2 takes the whole thing.

Are these things battery powered? Or are they standard flash storage like with PlayStation? I'm curious if all my old saves still work

>>4320838
battery powered, I just replaced one for my 4-slot pak.

>>4320590
>tfw you have one with multiple pages and a little screen to select them with little buttons but the screen burnt out long ago

>>4320267
Third party memory cards were better for N64.

>>4320708
It definitely doesn’t. I only have one memory card and I have all of my saves on it for about 6 games including Hybrid Heaven

>>4320801
Bullshit. Turok 2 only used 90 pages.

>>4320846
Okay, what kind of battery does it use? Is it the same/similar to the standard battery in game carts?

>>4321147
CR2032 Button Battery

>>4321153

>>4321153
>>4321160
Thanks mans, guess I have a project this weekend

>>4320334
Because Nintendo has, and probably always will operate with the heart of toy company producing games and toys to play them on and not a tech company that produces software and hardware.

>>4320267
We have third parties cables, controller, controller pack and other bullshit but not this piece of scrap...its to hard to ask a 1mb memory without a shitty battery?

>>4321475
There are tons of 3rd party ones though, even aftermarket.

>>4321475

I don't think Flash would necessarily be better. Flash modules eventually burn out. Despite claims that they can last a practical lifetime, that's not how it works in application. Flash modules in video games and video game components burn out all the time. Good luck replacing those. Batteries are a simple swap. (Unless they're initially soldered, but there are ways to set up a more accessible method of replacement in the future)

>>4320761
>Why not just use a real measurement?
Why sell paper by sheets? Why not square inches?

>>4321510
Better yet, if you’re handy with a soldering iron, replace the memory chip with a FRAM chip.

FRAM is non-volatile and has a lifespan that FAR exceeds that of flash.

snowboard kids needs it's own card too, are there any reliable third party memory cards that have a nice amount of space? preferably one that doesn't need a clamp to remove it

>>4321594
Get a performance mempak and some of these
>>4321160
You get 4 controller paks in one, you only need to use a switch on the device to change between the pak's memory

>>4320267
Tip: If you buy these, replace the batteries. They are leaking in some and will destroy the memory unit. At least check on them.

>>4321921
are they using alkaline batteries?

>>4321578
Do you have a link to where you can buy those specific compatible chips? Do you still need the battery if the fram if non-volatile?

>>4321936
See >>4321153 >>4321160

Didn't Goemon also use the whole thing up?

>>4321921
>They are leaking in some and will destroy the memory unit.

A leaky button cell battery shouldn't do any damage to electronics. I've pulled a few from Game Boy carts and replaced them with working ones. Never had any issues with the games not working.

>>4321984
A FM18W08 or FM28V020 FRAM chip should be a drop in replacement for the old memory chip, and no, you don't need a battery, that's what non-volatile means.

>>4320578
Off topic I guess but City of Lost Children was the only ps1 game I ever played which did it

the black page

>>4322298
Hmm, if you can just swap out the ram chip for a compatible equivalent, is it possible to install a larger chip for more storage?

Assuming it has the same pin configuration of course

>>4322746
Yes and no.

If you put in a chip with a larger memory capacity, the N64 can only address the first 256 kilobits, just due to the way it works.
So if you put a 1 megabit chip on, you'll need to implement a way to manually switch to the higher memory addresses.
The simplest way to do that is to put switches on the address pins higher than what the n64 is using (1-8 I believe).
I'd give you more details, but I haven't actually tried to implement that yet.

>>4322047
no

So are blocks actually a standard with a set size or were they just some arbitrary size set by the console manufacturer? Is a block on a PS1 memory card the same size as a block on a Sega system and so on?

>>4323738
I remember having a ps1 mc that said it had 1MB of memory.
It had the same 16 blocks in comparison to my original MC iirc.

>>4320994
Nice, I have the same Video Matic storage, here. Welcome to the 90's again, Anon.

>>4323738
No. It varies between companies.

For Nintendo a block is 128 kilobytes, for Sony a block is either 64 kilobytes or 8 kilobytes (I can't figure out if the 1 "meg" PS1 cards are listed in kilobytes or kilobits), and for Sega a block is .5 kilobytes

>>4320360
^This.

Why does Nintendo insist on doing everything backwards? I love Nintendo, don't get me wrong, but they are willing to make some odd decisions in order to stand out, it seems.

>Blocks instead of memory
>Complicated menu navigation
>Multiple settings menues or things buried in bizarre menues in their games
>Strange controllers
Just little shit like this.

>>4323779

>dat toshiba vcr/dvd

mint

>>4322746
Sure. That's how the 3rd party paks with multiple banks have been doing it for decades.

>>4323312
256Kbit uses 15 address lines and yes, you can just pull extra lines high to change banks.

>>4323850

Nintendo sticks very closely to the philosophy that they are a toy company, so they always try to appear as accessible and simple as possible on the surface. This leads them to end up making things more complicated than if they had simply done what everyone else does.

>>4323779
Mine's just a single-wide, but I do have two of them.

>>4323860
Yeah, I really like it. Had it since the late 90's. Tops out at 800x600 without interpolation, which is perfect for me because I recently resurrected a Dell. Man, let me tell you, it may not be the most amazing PC in the world, but at 800x600 I can plug it in via RCA to my TV and enjoy Lemmings Revolution, Earthsiege 2, Dark Forces, and while not retro, Jedi Knight 2, and Jedi Academy on the big screen. Kinda nice, honestly. But if I can't be assed to hook it up to the TV, I do have my monitor as a standby.

>>4323923
I really preferred the doubles. Holds 24 games, if I had more of them I'd stack them almost like a server rack. However, I'm a bit of a cheapskate and refuse to pay $40 on average for another box with a plastic insert.

>>4320761
It used a real measurement, it just created it for that purpose.

Would you rather they have said "There's this many kilobytes available, but you can only use about half of them because we write to two KB's at a time, that is unless that specific bit of information uses up a whole 2 KB in which case it will have 100% utilization" because that's certainly not fucking confusing.

They use Blocks/Pages/Files because, up until recently, just giving out the KB/MB number would have been only a half truth. It wasn't until DSi and PSP that the file sizes could be read with 100% accuracy via KB/MB, and at that point there's no reason to switch.

>>4323928
I got lucky with my second one. I found it at a flea market for a couple of bucks. The other bought brand new back in the day for how ever much it was.

>>4323907
Well, that's gay. How very gay of them.

>>4323934
Ah, lucky. I only have this one. I found one on eBay for $30 (says $19.99 but $11.xx for shipping) and while I want to buy it, I still can't justify $30 for a box with plastic insert. Although, it looks like a better deal because the single's are roughly $30 right now.

Anyway, aside from me being Scrooge McDuck where my hobby is concerned, I'm happy for you, Anon. Glad you lucked out on that deal.

>>4323924
>800x600 rca
doubt

>>4322454
Was that the weird adventure game?

>>4321515
For one, number of sheets is a real measurement, it's the actual amount of something you are being.

Secondly, you do buy paper by size, either by standardized dimensions (A4, A3, Legal, etc.) or special order custom sizes.

>>4324945
* buying

>>4320798
So did the OG Xbox Bizarre enough

>>4320578
Rayman 2 The Great Escape pretty much fills it up.

>>4324768
That was it.

I rented it and had to print out a walk through guide from school to finish it all in one night because I wasn't willing to wipe my other saves for it.

I remember liking the style of it though. Picked up an ex rental of it so might try it again

Maybe it's a dumb question but do you still need to use a controller pak when you're using an Everdrive 64 with extra memory?

>>4326617
everdrives only store game cart saves on the sd card, not controller pak saves.
you can however backup your controller pak sav on the everdrive os and put it back on your controller pak if needed.

endgame it seems like you'll need a lot of controller paks though. thats the issue im dealing with currently.

>>4326627
If you can backup the saves to the everdrive, then wouldn't you only need one? Unless you can only backup a single card, that is.

>needing a raid controller to save a game

>>4327038
What?

>>4326617
>>4326627
Some Everdrives allow mempak emulation

>>4320267
Why did a cartridge based system even need memory cards?

>>4327180
reduce cartridge costs

>>4327180
Most games didn't, but some did, either because they were cheap fucks and didn't include SRAM, or because the game needed to store lots or data.

Like, Mario Kart saves your best times and what trophies you've won, but ghost data gets saved to the MemPak so you can share ghosts with friends.
Blast Corps supports 3 saves on the cart, but it can also store an additional 14 saves on a MemPak (and those saves also store more detailed data).

>>4327217

i have every n64 game in my collection and most games acutally need the controller pak to save. i'd say only 30% of the games have internal batteries to save games on the cartridge. It's really lame. I need 6 controller paks to keep all the saves.

>>4323929
Did the PS2 memory card lie with its kilobytes?

>>4327289
6 controller paks? for every game? You mean for every game you play, right?

>>4327428
Yup. It also has no issue addressing more than the standard 8MB of the original memory cards. I just picked up a few 128MB cards off DX because fuck swapping. It still lists blocks for PSX cards, obviously.

>>4328151
Oh. Shit. I thought you said list and not lie. It doesn't appear to lie, anyway. It gives fairly accurate (or at least non-rounded) file sizes.

>>4327153
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

>>4320578
Doom 64.

>>4322454
what about every single NCAA / Madden game?

brother had 2 cards just for those (it actually filled them, we had called him out on it and checked) and we had 1 card for everything else. IIRC career mode got stupid huge once you were like 10 years in

>>4330069
I know what fucking raid is, you dumbass.
What does that that to do with a controller pak? That's the question.