Any reliable unofficial memory cards for the Playstation?

[Ross PK]

It seems that a lot of 3rd party memory cards are supposed to be unreliable for the PS1, and I was wondering are there any reliable 3rd party ones at all?

Edited June 13, 2014 by Ross PK

[+Gemintronic]

I've had a MadCatz Playstation 1 memory card for many, many years without fail. Actually, I've had worse experience with official Sony branded cards. My take is that the technology (and wear leveling) were poorer back then.

 

If you're really paranoid about reliability you could always get an Interact Dex Drive.

[cimerians]

Nah, I'm the opposite from the Loon. Mad Catz = bad. Official Sony ones = good.

 

I might add....I could not stand Mad Katz and only in recent years have they been making some "ok" stuff.

 

I do have another third party card that I used that lasted a while but the name escapes me. I can find out later when I search for it.

[+Gemintronic]

I've got a sneaking suspicion my experience is not typical. Still, Dex Drive for the win

[xenomorpher]

Anything besides Mad Catz for the original Playstation I wouldn't be too worried about. I've had one, I think a Performance brand, for about 16 years with no issues.

Edited June 13, 2014 by xenomorpher

[Ross PK]

*EDIT*

Sorry, this post kept messing up, I'm not sure what's going on.

Edited June 13, 2014 by Ross PK

[Rex Dart]

Don't buy this mother____er! There were certain games that it just could not handle... refused to save Megaman 8, for example.

 

 

 

Just buy a (or several) official 1st party card, they're cheap online. I have a Dexdrive, though I haven't used it in ages... was great when my PC had the necessary port.

 

Theloon, any idea if the Dexdrive works under any modern 64-bit OS?

[RARusk]

An alternative to the Dex Drive is the PS3 since they are BC with the PS1 regardless of model. Get a Memory Card reader and transfer your saves to the PS3 for safe keeping.

[+Gemintronic]

Theloon, any idea if the Dexdrive works under any modern 64-bit OS?

 

Suposedly Dexster works where the original Dex Explorer software doesn't. Unfortunatly the Dexster web page is long gone. As of today you can still download the files via the Wayback Machine

https://web.archive.org/web/20140227171501/http://www.neillcorlett.com/dexter/

[Phredreeke]

What you should be cautious about are memory cards with more than the standard 15 blocks. They have a nasty tendency to lose saves, also they are incompatible with the PS2s because Sony changed the way the controller interface works.

[Gabriel]

I have never found a third party memory card that works. Tested on four different PS1s and not a single third party memory card I've tried has ever worked. Most aren't even recognized as memory cards.

[TheGameCollector]

My blue "2X Memory Card for PS One" by InterAct has never failed me all these years. A see through "Mega Memory Card" by I forget what brand failed on me because the database organization was all digital, giving it room for the corruption it suffered.

[Rex Dart]

An alternative to the Dex Drive is the PS3 since they are BC with the PS1 regardless of model. Get a Memory Card reader and transfer your saves to the PS3 for safe keeping.

 

Or a PS2. You wouldn't need the extra memory card reader, but you would need a way to load Free McBoot. It's a little janky, but it works.

Edited June 20, 2014 by Rex Dart

[Video]

I always just bought what was cheap back in the day. Usualy Nyko or Madkats or whatever. Because back then, the official one was like $20 and the offbrand was $10. Never had a problem when I stuck with a standard sized card instead of the 2x 4x or bigger cards. (those might be fine, but everyone that I know of that legitimately had problems with one, always had a plus size card)

 

The problems people have with them is either

A, the get the X sized cards (and something would always go wrong with those, stick to the one for one size) or

B people would simply ignore the proper setup of the card. If you have an original PSX (pre, uh...7k, I believe) there would be no problem at all, but only the 360 has been a MORE unreliable console than the original PSX was. So you likely got a newer one (easily spoted by the lack of a parallel port on the back)

 

If you got a newer system, or a PS one, or a PS2 (or three, I assume, no first hand experience there though) the system would do an authenticity check on the card, and wouldn't use the card if it was an unformatted third party card. If you get a new card, it always has an instruction sheet about how to get aroudn this, usually something like "start a game, and from the game's save menue, insert the card and the game itself will format the card" Been to long, but that I believe was what it was, and when you do this it will then function, even outisde of a game just as a first party card would.

 

Of course, if you do that, it's amazing how many "non functioning" cards you can get for 100% free. It was pretty rare for me to ever pay for a card.

 

Another thing is, there's a belief that people don't sweat or whatever, they shove the card in their back pocket, ride a bike 10 miles to a friends house and wonder how come their ass juice soaked card some how died on them when "I never did anything wrong with it at all" for some reason, people believed because it was cheaper (or maybe because it was cheaper) they dind't have to take care of them.

 

Of course, you can get official cards for like $6 on amazon now, or just go to a local game store and ask if they have a box of dead cards that they would be willing to give you to see if you could fix them or something