sych
"Living for the fantasy" -NIGHTS INTO DREAMS- The Classic Saturn Gem!!!
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Post by sych on May 31, 2018 21:22:57 GMT
It's never attemmpted to compress save files before this. It's only because I got down to 5000 units which ultimately shouldn't have been a problem because it states 5000 memory blocks left but it won't let you go pass 5000 units which is very odd. It hasn't attempted to compress save files before because it didn't have to. Not to sound rude but go back and read the second paragraph of what I said (I'm only theorising, of course). Interestingly enough I checked out that link to Saturn gamer's cartridge. It doesn't apper to offer 4MB expansion or Game Shark Cheat codes, looks inferior to the Action Replay to me. Cheat codes are coming in a future version of Pseudo Saturn Kai, which the Gamer's Cartridge is powered by. As for the lack of RAM expansion in the Gamer's Cartridge, not many games in the Saturn library even make use of the additional RAM, so it's hardly a big deal; just put in a RAM cart if you ever want to play one of the few 1MB/4MB games. A big downside of the Action Replay is that its storage is not direct-access, so you've got no way of saving files that are larger than the internal memory (this means no Dezaemon 2 shmups or Sega Rally ghost data, among others). Couple this with: - the limited amount of storage it offers vs the practically unlimited storage that the Gamer's Cartridge provides (storage is only limited by the size of your SD card, and even a 2GB card offers a gargantuan amount of space for Saturn save files);
- the unreliability of an Action Replay for storing save files (the error message that you got is indicative of this);
- the fact that you can't transfer save files to PC with the Action Replay (unless you've got one of the older comms link models and a Bluetooth DataLink)
means that the Gamer's Cartridge is certainly the superior solution if you really value your saves. Yeah sorry I did read your last paragraph, I just got distracted in giving more specific info on my predicament whilst I was making my original reply. Ive actually got the USB datalink, I tansfer all my saves with it to my modern laptop. It's actually very easy to use. I've transferred my Fire Pro Wrestling save files to other Saturn gamers via the Datalink a good few times now with great success. I've also downloaded a few homebrew games and played them on the Saturn via the Datalink & AR which is a nice little side feature the Datalink offers. The AR is more handy than you think. Plus I'm a Capcom and SNK nut so I have pretty much every Saturn game that requires Ram expansion so getting rid of the AR is not ideal for me. And there's around 15 or so games that use it. Also the fact that the AR can't save files directly onto the cart whilst in game isn't really a big deal to me. I'm so used to just reseting the console and manually transferring it over that way. It really doesn't take that long and you get used to it quite quickly. It just becomes part of my Saturn gaming experience. Almost like a ritual now. But constantly switching between Mem Cart, 1MB and 4MB cart is not something I'd recommend. That method destroyed my first Satutn cartridge slot so I vowed never to do that again. Best to have one cart for multi-purposes and leave it in there. I've had over a decade of usage out of the same AR cart with no issues. It's the best way to ensure longevity out of your Saturn as the cartridge slot isn't getting constantly irritated. Plus the cheat function seriously adds longevity to many Saturn games so I'd hate to lose that feature. It also works pretty well with the VCD slot too. But if the Saturn gamer's cart does finally upgrade with the cheat function and 4MB I'll definitely look into it but until then I'll stick with the AR as it definitely has more pro's than cons over the Saturn gamer's cartridge at this point.
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Post by davyk on Jun 1, 2018 8:30:42 GMT
I use my AR cart to backup my official Saturn carts from time to time - but I don't think I'm using that much space to be honest. I'll check. I have an older cart too - the one with the comms port. Is there any way of using that to backup saves to a PC? If not I like the sound of that Gamer's cartridge. I rarely use my AR for region free gaming since I got my JP console. I keep an officlal save cart in my PAL and JP consoles. Only swapping them out if I need to use the 4MB cart which is exceptionally rare nowadays. EDIT: just noticed sych's post about the data link. I see there even a bluetooth version of that now! That's on my wishlist now.
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sych
"Living for the fantasy" -NIGHTS INTO DREAMS- The Classic Saturn Gem!!!
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Post by sych on Jun 1, 2018 10:40:40 GMT
I use my AR cart to backup my official Saturn carts from time to time - but I don't think I'm using that much space to be honest. I'll check. I have an older cart too - the one with the comms port. Is there any way of using that to backup saves to a PC? If not I like the sound of that Gamer's cartridge. I rarely use my AR for region free gaming since I got my JP console. I keep an officlal save cart in my PAL and JP consoles. Only swapping them out if I need to use the 4MB cart which is exceptionally rare nowadays. EDIT: just noticed sych's post about the data link. I see there even a bluetooth version of that now! That's on my wishlist now. Indeed there is a Blutooth Datalink version, I'll probably upgrade to the Blutooth version at some point. I currently have the USB one which looks like this: Very handy and very easy to use. USB Sega Saturn DataLink
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captainkael
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Post by captainkael on Jun 1, 2018 14:40:50 GMT
Haha I'm fairly certain sych has one of those older models with the comms port Indeed I do, you know me too well Captainkael lol I've had the same Action Replay Cart for coming up to 15 years now and it's served me well with no major incidents so I'll probably be sticking with it. I'm just shocked it doesn't have the 8000 plus spaces it claims to have. It's more like 4000. If you're gonna test it out to exceed 4000 slots try repeatedly transfering a game that requires large slots like VF2 or Touring Cars as you'll hit that 4000 target alot quicker. Ya I have a game that takes like 400ish blocks I think so I should be able to do it quite quickly. I will give it a shot tonight sych and let you know. I totally forgot yesterday as I was working on my thesis till like 11:30pm
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Post by davyk on Jun 1, 2018 14:46:04 GMT
Good point someone made about Fantasy Zone replay files - they are enormous!!!!
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privateye
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Post by privateye on Jun 2, 2018 22:42:20 GMT
Haha I'm fairly certain sych has one of those older models with the comms port I used to have one until fairly recently, as I sold it for a pretty penny. I couldn't justify keeping it when I could sell it and use the money to get a better cart, despite its rarity.
But constantly switching between Mem Cart, 1MB and 4MB cart is not something I'd recommend. That method destroyed my first Satutn cartridge slot so I vowed never to do that again. Best to have one cart for multi-purposes and leave it in there. Oh I get that sentiment. That's was my original thinking behind buying this cart, and the sale of my comms link Action Replay covered the whole purchase plus the £10 I originally payed for the AR. It has 1MB/4MB RAM and, unlike the AR, has 512KB of direct-access storage so you can save your progress in-game. Finally, I had the ultimate cart that had everything I wanted, and I would never have to take it out of the cartridge slot and risk ruining it... ... or so I thought. After a short while, I went into the memory manager and all the saves that I copied over from my official memory cart were gone. It just said '0 free blocks' in the memory manager, even though no saves were showing up. At first I thought it was just a loose connection, but I quickly realised it wasn't that because the 1MB and 4MB RAM both worked just fine.
So I formatted the memory and copied over my saves again and, about a week or two later, it happened again. Thankfully nothing was lost because I was only playing Metal Slug at the time which saves to the internal memory. Even so, I knew I couldn't trust this cart so I sold it on, and the money I got covered the whole amount of the Gamer's Cartridge. Essentially, I traded my old, unused AR for the Gamer's Cartridge which I'm really happy with now.
But if the Saturn gamer's cart does finally upgrade with the cheat function and 4MB I'll definitely look into it Interestingly enough, there is a cartridge called wasca that was being touted as the ultimate all-in-one cartridge. Due to its FPGA-based design it can theoretically mimic every function you could want in a cartridge; backup memory, 1MB/4MB RAM, and even the 1MB ROMs that are mandatory for KoF '95 and Ultraman. Unfortunately this project has gone a bit quiet, but if it ever comes out I'll definitely get one. but until then I'll stick with the AR as it definitely has more pro's than cons over the Saturn gamer's cartridge at this point. We'll just agree to disagree on that one. I love my Sega Rally ghost data and replays so the AR is an instant no-go for me right there. It's also not possible to transfer shmups from the Dezaemon 2 Save Game Managers to the AR, which means forgoing excellent shmups like Devil Blade 2. This doujin shmup is quite notable because it was made by someone who now works at Vanillaware, the company that was formed from members of the Atlus project team which had developed Princess Crown. Now you could always use an official memory cart for Dezaemon 2 but, since the games are so big, you can still only fit about two or three of the larger shmups before you run out of space. The Gamer's Cartridge allows you to use all ten available game slots at once, which is very nice for Deza 2 fans like myself.
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sych
"Living for the fantasy" -NIGHTS INTO DREAMS- The Classic Saturn Gem!!!
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Post by sych on Jun 2, 2018 23:00:08 GMT
Haha I'm fairly certain sych has one of those older models with the comms port I used to have one until fairly recently, as I sold it for a pretty penny. I couldn't justify keeping it when I could sell it and use the money to get a better cart, despite its rarity.
But constantly switching between Mem Cart, 1MB and 4MB cart is not something I'd recommend. That method destroyed my first Satutn cartridge slot so I vowed never to do that again. Best to have one cart for multi-purposes and leave it in there. Oh I get that sentiment. That's was my original thinking behind buying this cart, and the sale of my comms link Action Replay covered the whole purchase plus the £10 I originally payed for the AR. It has 1MB/4MB RAM and, unlike the AR, has 512KB of direct-access storage so you can save your progress in-game. Finally, I had the ultimate cart that had everything I wanted, and I would never have to take it out of the cartridge slot and risk ruining it... ... or so I thought. After a short while, I went into the memory manager and all the saves that I copied over from my official memory cart were gone. It just said '0 free blocks' in the memory manager, even though no saves were showing up. At first I thought it was just a loose connection, but I quickly realised it wasn't that because the 1MB and 4MB RAM both worked just fine.
So I formatted the memory and copied over my saves again and, about a week or two later, it happened again. Thankfully nothing was lost because I was only playing Metal Slug at the time which saves to the internal memory. Even so, I knew I couldn't trust this cart so I sold it on, and the money I got covered the whole amount of the Gamer's Cartridge. Essentially, I traded my old, unused AR for the Gamer's Cartridge which I'm really happy with now.
But if the Saturn gamer's cart does finally upgrade with the cheat function and 4MB I'll definitely look into it Interestingly enough, there is a cartridge called wasca that was being touted as the ultimate all-in-one cartridge. Due to its FPGA-based design it can theoretically mimic every function you could want in a cartridge; backup memory, 1MB/4MB RAM, and even the 1MB ROMs that are mandatory for KoF '95 and Ultraman. Unfortunately this project has gone a bit quiet, but if it ever comes out I'll definitely get one. but until then I'll stick with the AR as it definitely has more pro's than cons over the Saturn gamer's cartridge at this point. We'll just agree to disagree on that one. I love my Sega Rally ghost data and replays so the AR is an instant no-go right there. It's also not possible to transfer shmups from the Dezaemon 2 Save Game Managers to the AR, which means forgoing excellent shmups like Devil Blade 2. This doujin shmup is quite notable because it was made by someone who now works at Vanillaware, the company that was formed from members of the Atlus project team which had developed Princess Crown. Now you could always use an official memory cart for Dezaemon 2 but, since the games are so big, you can still only fit about two or three of the larger shmups before you run out of space. The Gamer's Cartridge allows you to use all ten available game slots at once, which is very nice for Deza 2 fans like myself. I understand your points. I guess it all depends on the games you play but you've definitley perked my interest. I love Sega Rally but I hardly ever play time trial mode and usually go straight to Arcade mode. You've perked my interest in Dazeman 2, I've never heard of that game before. Just looking at clips of it on youtube and it looked absolutely awesome. Is it the same game as Devil Blade 2? I'm suprised that hardly anyone talks about it on here. It looks amazing.
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privateye
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Post by privateye on Jun 2, 2018 23:25:20 GMT
I understand your points. I guess it all depends on the games you play but you've definitley perked my interest. I agree, it definitely depends on what games you play for sure. Since you heavily play your RAM cart games, the AR is a better fit for your Saturn needs. You've perked my interest in Dazeman 2, I've never heard of that game before. Just looking at clips of it on youtube and it looked absolutely awesome. Is it the same game as Devil Blade 2? I'm suprised that hardly anyone talks about it on here. It looks amazing. Dezaemon 2 is a game which allows users to create their own shmups. The really intriguing aspect about this is that you can use the Dezaemon 2 Save Game Manager to import shmups that over people have made, and then play them yourself. There is also a second volume of the save game manager, and between them there are just under 200 shmups.
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sych
"Living for the fantasy" -NIGHTS INTO DREAMS- The Classic Saturn Gem!!!
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Post by sych on Jun 2, 2018 23:39:11 GMT
I understand your points. I guess it all depends on the games you play but you've definitley perked my interest. I agree, it definitely depends on what games you play for sure. Since you heavily play your RAM cart games, the AR is a better fit for your Saturn needs. You've perked my interest in Dazeman 2, I've never heard of that game before. Just looking at clips of it on youtube and it looked absolutely awesome. Is it the same game as Devil Blade 2? I'm suprised that hardly anyone talks about it on here. It looks amazing. Dezaemon 2 is a game which allows users to create their own shmups. The really intriguing aspect about this is that you can use the Dezaemon 2 Save Game Manager to import shmups that over people have made, and then play them yourself. There is also a second volume of the save game manager, and between them there are just under 200 shmups. What! That's super awesome! Create your own shumps. Can't believe I am just hearing about this. The Saturn to this day is still full of suprises. Thanks for all the links, I'm looking, into them now. I see this is also on PS1, I wonder if it might be on the PSN store as well.
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captainkael
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Post by captainkael on Jun 3, 2018 15:13:01 GMT
Haha I'm fairly certain sych has one of those older models with the comms port Indeed I do, you know me too well Captainkael lol I've had the same Action Replay Cart for coming up to 15 years now and it's served me well with no major incidents so I'll probably be sticking with it. I'm just shocked it doesn't have the 8000 plus spaces it claims to have. It's more like 4000. If you're gonna test it out to exceed 4000 slots try repeatedly transfering a game that requires large slots like VF2 or Touring Cars as you'll hit that 4000 target alot quicker. Sorry for the delay sych. Just got around to testing this today. Luckily I was sitting at 5289 blocks free already so it didn't take long. I got down to about 4800 with no issues. Do you want me to try going under 4000?
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sych
"Living for the fantasy" -NIGHTS INTO DREAMS- The Classic Saturn Gem!!!
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Post by sych on Jun 3, 2018 16:16:47 GMT
Indeed I do, you know me too well Captainkael lol I've had the same Action Replay Cart for coming up to 15 years now and it's served me well with no major incidents so I'll probably be sticking with it. I'm just shocked it doesn't have the 8000 plus spaces it claims to have. It's more like 4000. If you're gonna test it out to exceed 4000 slots try repeatedly transfering a game that requires large slots like VF2 or Touring Cars as you'll hit that 4000 target alot quicker. Sorry for the delay sych. Just got around to testing this today. Luckily I was sitting at 5289 blocks free already so it didn't take long. I got down to about 4800 with no issues. Do you want me to try going under 4000? That's very strange. Must be just my Action Replay then. But yes, trying going under 4000 and see what happens. Thanks for trying it the first time. Lets see what happens when you go under 4000 or it could just be my AR. Having said that I am a bit of a junk collector as I have games saves stored on the AR memory that I no longer own, so clearing out some of those games gave me an additional 300 plus blocks to play with Looking at some of the big files stored on my AR: Fire Pro Wrestling SMS takes 351 memory blocks Nights takes 217 memory blocks Valora Valley Golf takes 227 memory blocks Winning Post takes 485 memory blocks Sega Touring Cars takes 244 memory blocks
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captainkael
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Post by captainkael on Jun 3, 2018 16:20:14 GMT
I'll give it a shot in the next few days sych. I think my internal battery is dead anyway so always a good time to backup. My AR is also a mess already anyway. So many duplicates. Ehh delete stuff when I need to. I'll try copying more than one game too. When I tried it today I just spam copied the same file over and over
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Post by zyrobs on Jun 3, 2018 19:05:25 GMT
Sim City 2k saves take all the internal memory (400-something blocks). Fighting Vipers can also do replays which are very big.
As for the Action Replay, keep in mind that the save space is shared with the firmware and all the cheats you have saved. The memory size on the carts is either 256k or 512k (I don't know why it varies), and the firmware + cheats is around 64-90k from that depending on version and how many cheats you created. I don't know why it keeps saying it has 8000 blocks though.
It's also possible that it stores saves compressed to cheat with the amount of space it uses. But that alone makes it impossible to predict the actual size a save uses on the cart: it may be able to store 8000 blocks worth of compressed save only for certain save games, which compress better.
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sych
"Living for the fantasy" -NIGHTS INTO DREAMS- The Classic Saturn Gem!!!
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Post by sych on Jun 3, 2018 21:51:51 GMT
Sim City 2k saves take all the internal memory (400-something blocks). Fighting Vipers can also do replays which are very big. As for the Action Replay, keep in mind that the save space is shared with the firmware and all the cheats you have saved. The memory size on the carts is either 256k or 512k (I don't know why it varies), and the firmware + cheats is around 64-90k from that depending on version and how many cheats you created. I don't know why it keeps saying it has 8000 blocks though. It's also possible that it stores saves compressed to cheat with the amount of space it uses. But that alone makes it impossible to predict the actual size a save uses on the cart: it may be able to store 8000 blocks worth of compressed save only for certain save games, which compress better. That would explain alot actually. I have alot of cheats stored on my Action Replay. I also haven't deleted the default cheats that came with the cart, even if I don't own those games. I've always felt that deleted the default cheats already on the cart for games I don't own would corrupt the cart or somehow. Maybe I should just delete them anyway and see what happens. Wonder where it plucks that 8000 plus figure from then, maybe some of it is the additional 4mb ram maybe?
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sych
"Living for the fantasy" -NIGHTS INTO DREAMS- The Classic Saturn Gem!!!
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Post by sych on Jun 7, 2018 0:55:41 GMT
Sim City 2k saves take all the internal memory (400-something blocks). Fighting Vipers can also do replays which are very big. As for the Action Replay, keep in mind that the save space is shared with the firmware and all the cheats you have saved. The memory size on the carts is either 256k or 512k (I don't know why it varies), and the firmware + cheats is around 64-90k from that depending on version and how many cheats you created. I don't know why it keeps saying it has 8000 blocks though. It's also possible that it stores saves compressed to cheat with the amount of space it uses. But that alone makes it impossible to predict the actual size a save uses on the cart: it may be able to store 8000 blocks worth of compressed save only for certain save games, which compress better. Just thought I'd come back to you on this Zyrobs. I went through all the games in the cheat code section on the AR that I don't have or ever plan to play and deleted them but strangely enough the memory space stayed the same and I deleted a good few games, I was hoping that it would free up more storage space but nothing seemed to happen unfortunately so not sure if the space set aside for cheats does actually factor in to the memory space on display. Very odd.
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