Sega Saturn Backup Cart (Memory Card) question

[bruser_inc]

Another stupid question.

 

I Saturn I bought today came with a 3rd Party Memory Card. The problem with it, it doesn't do autosave.

 

It'll save to the system, and it won't see the card. So I have to move the game save from the memory card to the system, then from the system back to the card once I am done.

 

It'll only save if the game has the opition to save to the system or the card (IE: Nights).

 

Does anyone know of a 3rd Pary card that does autosave? Any of the imports one (where you can play imports, and has a 4MB upgrade)?

 

Thanks!

 

--David "Bruser" Goldberg

[Kialan]

Some games save to the system only and you have to copy them to the cartridge (like Bust a Move 2's high scores)

 

But really with a third party card you're risking it. Don't be surprised if all your game saves erase

 

I had an action replay that had memory save..but games wouldn't recognize it was a memory card. It was pretty annoying. You'd have to do the system/cartridge save swapping EVERY time.

 

Honestly, try your damnedest to get an official one. The day I got mine was a joyous day indeed. It still blows my mind how nobody bought em and they're oddly hard to find.

[bruser_inc]

Some games save to the system only and you have to copy them to the cartridge (like Bust a Move 2's high scores)

 

Well that stinks. All the games I have must do that. They are all from near launch games (I think)

 

But really with a third party card you're risking it. Don't be surprised if all your game saves erase  

 

Telling me. Damn thing fucked saves twice already. Once when I was overwriting a save on the card. It just became frozen. Restarted the system, it was gone. Good thing it was still on the system. The other time was I was moving the save from the card to the system. It became frozen again, and lost eveything on the card. Piece of crap.

 

 

Honestly, try your damnedest to get an official one. The day I got mine was a joyous day indeed. It still blows my mind how nobody bought em and they're oddly hard to find.

 

Thats what I am doing. Looked on eBay didn't see any offical ones at the time. Looked at the ended auctions and see that they go from $35-$60 (depending on if its boxed or whatnot). So I guess I'll have to start keeping my eye out and just pay whetever I have to pay.

 

Well thanks for helping.

[IronMongeR]

The metal pins in the cart slot are made of tin and are notoriously dodgey. You might want to give them a clean. Also, try and avoid removing the cart too often as it can bend the pins.

[Zaxxon]

I had an action replay that had memory save..but games wouldn't recognize it was a memory card. It was pretty annoying. You'd have to do the system/cartridge save swapping EVERY time.

 

Honestly, try your damnedest to get an official one. The day I got mine was a joyous day indeed. It still blows my mind how nobody bought em and they're oddly hard to find.

 

Nobody bought the SEGA ones because they were like $70 back then and were small in memory size compared to the 3rd party ones. Since no one bought SEGA's overpriced mem cart, they didn't continue to make many more. The SEGA brand one is the only on AFAIK that games will recognize and save to in-game. This isn't ever a problem except for one RPG(?) put out by Working Designs, because the initial game save in the game where you created all your characters/stats was too large for the internal memory. With 3rd party ones you'll have to save to internal and then use the memory manager to move it to your memory card. It's not that big a hassle at all IMO. I have a couple of those 4 in 1 memory cards made by EMS? IIRC and I've never had a problem with them losing saves. Maybe his Saturn cart slot is dirty or damaged.

[bruser_inc]

Maybe his Saturn cart slot is dirty or damaged.

 

No. Its the memory card. Its some crap card from China. Chinese writing printed into the plastic, I had a friend who can read/speak Chinese read it to me and its just directions on how to use it.

 

It looks cheap, feels cheap. It is cheap.

[josephtheanthrogamerbat]

I want to make things clear. Using the cartridge like with 64x or without is ok but saving your game is important to the cartridge instead of internal ram with CMOS battery replacement because you need the right size of CMOS batter such as 2032 size not they year the size number. otherwise, your save file will be gone permanently if the battery is not changed.

[josephtheanthrogamerbat]

On 7/4/2004 at 7:43 PM, bruser_inc said:

 

No. Its the memory card. Its some crap card from China. Chinese writing printed into the plastic, I had a friend who can read/speak Chinese read it to me and its just directions on how to use it.

 

It looks cheap, feels cheap. It is cheap.

no i think you just forgot to change the cmos battery on the internal ram.

[Lord Innit]

16 minutes ago, josephtheanthrogamerbat said:

no i think you just forgot to change the cmos battery on the internal ram.

Dude, you're replying to someone who hasn't logged on to this forum for nearly 16 years. 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Not only that, but over the years a lot of this is known in detail. None of the 3rd party save carts would work as on the fly save carts. Appears that only the official Sega Saturn back up carts support this. I've confirmed this myself after having owned an older Action Replay for 20 years and finally getting an official backup cart. Games that support saving to cart directly will save to the official cart without issue. But never to the older game shark or Action Replay carts I own. 

 

And it is kinda moot now since we have the FRAM IC upgrades you can install in place of the original SRAM so you don't have to worry about loosing your games saves when the internal battery dies. 

 

 

[DragonGrafx-16]

Holy necroposting...

[josephtheanthrogamerbat]

On 2/11/2024 at 9:55 AM, Lord Innit said:

Dude, you're replying to someone who hasn't logged on to this forum for nearly 16 years. 

no kidding i am trying to log in to this site which it was almost abandon 

[josephtheanthrogamerbat]

On 2/11/2024 at 9:36 AM, josephtheanthrogamerbat said:

I want to make things clear. Using the cartridge like with 64x or without is ok but saving your game is important to the cartridge instead of internal ram with CMOS battery replacement because you need the right size of CMOS batter such as 2032 size not they year the size number. otherwise, your save file will be gone permanently if the battery is not changed.

*the

[phoenixdownita]

On 2/12/2024 at 9:57 AM, -^CrossBow^- said:

Not only that, but over the years a lot of this is known in detail. None of the 3rd party save carts would work as on the fly save carts. Appears that only the official Sega Saturn back up carts support this. I've confirmed this myself after having owned an older Action Replay for 20 years and finally getting an official backup cart. Games that support saving to cart directly will save to the official cart without issue. But never to the older game shark or Action Replay carts I own. 

 

And it is kinda moot now since we have the FRAM IC upgrades you can install in place of the original SRAM so you don't have to worry about loosing your games saves when the internal battery dies. 

 

 

Not quite, the MCP (memory cart plus) works for the most part to the point I read people reflash their AR/GS with the MCP fw and in doing so getting RAM + backup (obviously losing cheats).

 

I do have 2 MCP and can confirm that in a few games I tried they allow direct saving, not sure it’s 100% as it appears it uses some BIOS hooking and it’s not reset resistant or something and it requires power cycle. I personally never tried to flash an AR (got a few around) with the MCP fw and see how it fares, not sure how the AR 1Mb/4Mb switching works and if that breaks with the MCP fw. Attention that MCP uses crappy compression as well so once you get to a certain size it starts to misbehave.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

1 hour ago, phoenixdownita said:

Not quite, the MCP (memory cart plus) works for the most part to the point I read people reflash their AR/GS with the MCP fw and in doing so getting RAM + backup (obviously losing cheats).

 

I do have 2 MCP and can confirm that in a few games I tried they allow direct saving, not sure it’s 100% as it appears it uses some BIOS hooking and it’s not reset resistant or something and it requires power cycle. I personally never tried to flash an AR (got a few around) with the MCP fw and see how it fares, not sure how the AR 1Mb/4Mb switching works and if that breaks with the MCP fw. Attention that MCP uses crappy compression as well so once you get to a certain size it starts to misbehave.

I wasn't aware that was possible. It certaintly wasn't nearly 20 years ago when I was first trying to use an MCP and then had lots of issues with it and moved onto an AR. And about 2 years ago my AR now barely reads in my Saturn and I've gone to using an actual Saturn backup cart. 

 

I seem to recall that many times I did have issues with my saves just getting screwed up on the MCP and that was why I stopped using it.

 

[phoenixdownita]

1 hour ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

I wasn't aware that was possible. It certaintly wasn't nearly 20 years ago when I was first trying to use an MCP and then had lots of issues with it and moved onto an AR. And about 2 years ago my AR now barely reads in my Saturn and I've gone to using an actual Saturn backup cart. 

 

I seem to recall that many times I did have issues with my saves just getting screwed up on the MCP and that was why I stopped using it.

 

http://clubsega.blogspot.com/2008/08/saturn-interact-memory-card-plus.html
 

https://segaretro.org/images/4/48/MemoryCardPlus_Saturn_Manual_Performance.pdf

 

(if only there was a fw with compression disabled … I suppose the capacity would go down to 25% but at least it would likely stop corrupting stuff … I think)

Edited April 4 by phoenixdownita