PS1 memory card questions

[ComputerSpaceFan]

So I am running out of space on my single PS1 memory card that I have in my Playstation and I looked online to see what sizes and varieties are out there. Most pages I read said stick with Sony branded cards, many third party cards are no good. However, as far as I can tell the official PS1 memory cards from Sony only ever had 15 blocks, is this right?

 

If so, rather than fumble around with stacks of memory cards I am thinking of paring down the games I will save files for (I also have a Wii with the Homebrew channel for playing PS1 games too so this is not a big deal).

 

My main question is are games like Strikers 1945 and In the Hunt (coinop ports) mainly using memory cards for storing high scores? If so I won't bother with saving those titles. Having said that, I am still trying to unlock Tempest 2000 on Tempest X3 by reaching 500,000 and putting in the secret code so if I ever finally manage that you can bet I will be saving that progress.

 

Clearly story-driven games like Wing Commander I should be saving my progress, but with the exception of Tempest X3 do I really need to create a save for arcade titles?

 

I have Wipeout XL which I was going to save my progress in however I think there's only 8 circuits in the whole game so I think I'll just play that one "from scratch" every time I play it.

 

Any PS1 experts out there willing to give me some advice?

[Rex Dart]

I don't know about stacks; 4 should do it.

[CGQuarterly]

Buy a Dex Drive. Or buy several memory cards, number them with labels, then keep a sheet of paper with the contents of each card.

[Seob]

There are psx to usb devices. Some only work on the ps3 and some may not work with psx games.

But if you have a ps3 and a card reader, you could transfer data to youre ps3 and then to usb.

[TheGameCollector]

Yeah I just back all my cards up to my PS3 with the card reader, but if you don't have a PS3 and at least have a PS2 you can still copy PS1 saves to a much larger PS2 memory card temporarily just to store them there and just one of those can hold tons of PS1 saves. PS1 saves are very small in comparison to PS2 saves.

Edited September 6, 2013 by TheGameCollector

[Rex Dart]

Yeah I just back all my cards up to my PS3 with the card reader, but if you don't have a PS3 and at least have a PS2 you can still copy PS1 saves to a much larger PS2 memory card temporarily just to store them there and just one of those can hold tons of PS1 saves. PS1 saves are very small in comparison to PS2 saves.

In addition, I'm pretty sure you can use a Free McBoot card with your PS2 to copy PS1 saves to/from a USB flash drive.

[+Gemintronic]

Pretty sure I remember using third party memory cards way bigger than standard sizes. They had a small LCD display and buttons to switch between pages of save memory.

[Rex Dart]

Pretty sure I remember using third party memory cards way bigger than standard sizes. They had a small LCD display and buttons to switch between pages of save memory.

Yeah, but they're all made by third parties, and have a reputation of being not-so-reliable.

[jhd]

I only ever used third-party memory cards with my PSX (and now with my PS 2): Mad Catz (?) cards with the same capacity as the Sony originals, and then one of the multi-page cards mentioned above. This is not recognized by the PS 2, but my other third-party cards work just fine. I have never had any problems with not using original memory cards (since about 2004).

Edited September 6, 2013 by jhd

[Atariboy]

If you have a PS3, you can make as many virtual cards as you needed. Nice 2D Playstation games still look pretty nice on a PS3 connected to a HDTV and you could restrict your original Playstation connected to a CRT to 3D games that look best on an older tv.

 

And with a transfer cable, you could bring things back & forth as you needed like your Tempest save.

[+Gemintronic]

As I recall ALL my first party and 3rd party PS1 memory cards eventually pooped on themselves. Perhaps wear leveling hadn't been invented yet.

[Video]

You can get a non branded PS card, but things to know would be that you have to treat them special, at least at first.

 

A sony card, you buy, you just pop that in, and it works. It has everything you need.

 

The off branded cards are often missing some sort of "magic gate" (some sort of anti copy software, I don't know) and if you just stick a fresh card in your PS One or PS2 system, then the card will get scragged. I don't know if you can fix one as I've never had this happen to me...the way to avoid getting the card screwed up on you is, turn your system on, put a game in, and start the game. After the game has run it's makers logos and gotten to the main screen, you can then put in the third party card, the game will say the card isn't formatted and will give you the option of formatting the card. Go ahead and format, once it's formatted, you can us it normally, it'll work in the dash, copy games, etc, everything a "real" sony card will do.

 

I get some off brand cheap ass cards on amazon, their $3, and I get them about 10 at a time for use with my music mixer programs. Never had a problem.

[Atariboy]

Where did you pick all that up? In the over 15 years that I've been online and participating in communities dedicated to this hobby like this one, including when this console was Sony's premier game console, I've never heard of such a thing. I'm 99% sure that you've been taking an unnecessary step over the years by doing that and perhaps even risking bricking a memory card in the process.

 

If a 3rd party memory card doesn't work right, I'm quite confident that it's not because someone didn't wait to insert it until the game had already booted because it wasn't formatted by the manufacturer and that it would self destruct if you inserted it when the console was off in the normal manner.

 

My only experience with 3rd party memory cards was with MadCatz GameCube memory cards. I've been very pleased over the years with that purchase after initially kicking myself for being sold on them by an Electronics Boutique employee a decade ago when they were out of 1st party GCN cards despite knowing the reputation of the company (Which at that time was a poor one) and of 3rd party memory cards in general.

 

But I lucked out and that double pack of 1024 memory cards is serving me fine to this day and through two generations of Nintendo hardware.

Edited September 7, 2013 by Atariboy

[bomberpunk]

i have a third party intec 2x (30 block) card that's been good to me for 8 years and counting.

[Rex Dart]

You can get a non branded PS card, but things to know would be that you have to treat them special, at least at first.

A sony card, you buy, you just pop that in, and it works. It has everything you need.

The off branded cards are often missing some sort of "magic gate" (some sort of anti copy software, I don't know) and if you just stick a fresh card in your PS One or PS2 system, then the card will get scragged.

 

This is all completely made-up. MagicGate wasn't even around when the PS1 was sold, and wouldn't cause this anyways.

[rockman_x_2002]

As far as reliability of third-party cards go, I bought a Performance Memory Card 2x that still works quite nicely. The only annoying thing about it is it always boots into the first page whenever you turn on the console, so you have to hit the button every time to swap to the second memory page. But that's more a design flaw than a performance bug.

[Video]

All I know is after the PS2 console (and the later PS one, not the original, but the newer smaller PSX console) came out, and even cheaper third party cards came out, they would indeed be screwed up by the PS2 and PSOne consoles. Something to do with formatting, if you popped it in and booted the system, the cards just corrupted. I would take the cards back to the store and get a new one. Never had it corrupt if I let the system go through it's boot cycle and let the PSone games format it though.

 

And as I said, I never tried to fix a card after it corrupted, because back in the day, I didn't know that running it on boot before formatting it would screw it up. I only found that out years later.

 

Official PS cards are already formatted, so no problem, and older PS third party memory cards are either higher quality, or pre formatted.

 

Saying from first hand experience, I don't know of anyplace you can read about it, other than various boards.

[shadow460]

I'd say get several first party memory cards and a PS2 or a DexDrive. The DexDrive has a serial port on it, though, so it might not be as easy to hook up to your PC as its supposed to be.

 

The easiest way I can think to save all those old files is with a soft modded PS2. I've got hard disks in both of mine as well as a USB stick that's dedicated to PS2 use. I generally just copy the files off the PS1 memory cards I have onto the PS2's unofficial hard disk. I think you can also transfer files to the _official_ PS2 hard disk as well. It's a smaller drive, but you won't need Free McBoot for it.

 

Also, don't forget you can back up your PS1 saves to a PS2 memory card, but you'll have to copy them back to the PS1 memory cards in order to use them. The first party PS2 memory cards will hold a ton of PS1 saves.

[Atariboy]

I've seen at least one person speak of it being problematic, but another solution for memory card management is a Playstation 3.

 

If you own a PS3, purchasing a cheap memory card adapter that Sony released allows PS/PS2 memory cards to interface with a PS3 allowing you to store data and copy it back to your memory cards as needed.

 

And even though the vast majority of PS3's lack PS2 compatibility, that capability is retained for PS2 memory cards on every PS3.

Edited September 12, 2013 by Atariboy

[rsb0204]

I would stay away from third party cards, personaly Ive had nothing but trouble out of them. a little tactic I used in the early 2000's was to transfer my saves from the ps1 memory cards to ps2 memory cards via my ps2. unfortunately to use them you had to transfer the saves back on to a ps1 card, kinda like backing them up. I just kept the games I normaly played on the ps1 card and transferred other saves to and from it as needed. also If you have a ps3 you can use the memory card reader (if you can find one, try ebay) to place your saves on your ps3s hard drive and use it in the same manner. also I think all models of the ps3 can play ps1 games via emulation so you could elleminate the use of cards altogether. well almost altogether cause as we all know sometimes emulation doesent function perfectly and there are a few ps1 titles the ps3 dosent like, take driver 2 for example.