#26986 - sgeos - Thu Sep 30, 2004 10:33 pm
Has anyone compiled a list of what games use what save types? Google is not giving me anything useful.
I'm immediately looking for the save type of Sword of Mana. (I'd be curious to know what media my other carts use.)
-Brendan
#27000 - FluBBa - Fri Oct 01, 2004 12:56 pm
Check PIRACY-DOT-COM.
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#27024 - sgeos - Fri Oct 01, 2004 8:07 pm
Thanks a bunch. Exactly what I was looking for.
The flash ram in my tactics ogre cart died. I bought it used and have read other cases of this (gamefaqs board). The save seemed to worked fine a year ago, I set the cart aside and when I came back to it everything was gone. I know flash has a lifespan of X flashes, does it also have a lifespan of X monthes?
I did muck about with reading/writing to "SRAM" with my visoly flash linker. Could this have shortened the lifespan of the flash ram or even destroyed it?
-Brendan
#27026 - ampz - Fri Oct 01, 2004 8:42 pm
| sgeos wrote: |
Thanks a bunch. Exactly what I was looking for.
The flash ram in my tactics ogre cart died. I bought it used and have read other cases of this (gamefaqs board). The save seemed to worked fine a year ago, I set the cart aside and when I came back to it everything was gone. I know flash has a lifespan of X flashes, does it also have a lifespan of X monthes? |
No. Flash does not have a expiry date.
You sure the game is flash based?
| sgeos wrote: |
I did muck about with reading/writing to "SRAM" with my visoly flash linker. Could this have shortened the lifespan of the flash ram or even destroyed it?
-Brendan |
Extremely unlikely (one in a billion or so), but technically possible if the flash has a "write protect sector" feature (far from all flash memory models have this feature).
#27029 - sgeos - Fri Oct 01, 2004 9:12 pm
| ampz wrote: |
No. Flash does not have a expiry date.
You sure the game is flash based? |
No. The page listed above lists the save type as FLASH_V126 (512Kbit). I'm assuming that that means this game uses a flash based save. O_o
| ampz wrote: |
| sgeos wrote: | I did muck about with reading/writing to "SRAM" with my visoly flash linker. Could this have shortened the lifespan of the flash ram or even destroyed it?
-Brendan |
Extremely unlikely (one in a billion or so), but technically possible if the flash has a "write protect sector" feature (far from all flash memory models have this feature). |
In theory could not the write protect feature be deactivated again?
I think I managed to move saves from the cart to the PC and back to the cart before the save died. Interestingly enough, I dumped the ROM and ran it in no$gba. When I tried to do a mid map suspend, the message "Failed to suspend data." pops up. Of course, VBA did not give this failure message. Neither does the cart when run on hardware. The game saves and loads properly on hardware, but all the data is lost when the unit is turned off.
Also, I somehow suspect that the people who posted on the gamefaqs boards did not 'subject' their carts to flash linkers. =P
-Brendan
#27033 - ampz - Fri Oct 01, 2004 9:39 pm
| sgeos wrote: |
| ampz wrote: | No. Flash does not have a expiry date.
You sure the game is flash based? |
No. The page listed above lists the save type as FLASH_V126 (512Kbit). I'm assuming that that means this game uses a flash based save. O_o
| ampz wrote: | | sgeos wrote: | I did muck about with reading/writing to "SRAM" with my visoly flash linker. Could this have shortened the lifespan of the flash ram or even destroyed it?
-Brendan |
Extremely unlikely (one in a billion or so), but technically possible if the flash has a "write protect sector" feature (far from all flash memory models have this feature). |
In theory could not the write protect feature be deactivated again? |
No. But as I said, it is extremely unlikely to accidentally activate write protection. And not all flash models have the feature. I'am not even sure Nintendo use flash memories with write protection features at all.
| Quote: |
| I think I managed to move saves from the cart to the PC and back to the cart before the save died. Interestingly enough, I dumped the ROM and ran it in no$gba. When I tried to do a mid map suspend, the message "Failed to suspend data." pops up. Of course, VBA did not give this failure message. Neither does the cart when run on hardware. The game saves and loads properly on hardware, but all the data is lost when the unit is turned off. |
This is exactly what happens when the battery dies in a SRAM based cart.
Perhaps there are two versions of the game? One with SRAM and one with flash.
The fact that it saves without complaining tells me that the flash is not write protected. The fact that it loads fine indicates that there is nothing wrong with the memory.
#27084 - sgeos - Sat Oct 02, 2004 9:07 pm
| ampz wrote: |
This is exactly what happens when the battery dies in a SRAM based cart.
Perhaps there are two versions of the game? One with SRAM and one with flash. |
Two versions makes the most sense.
| ampz wrote: |
| The fact that it saves without complaining tells me that the flash is not write protected. The fact that it loads fine indicates that there is nothing wrong with the memory. |
Thanks for the info. What is the typical lifespan of SRAM? Are there different grades? I have NES games that still work.
-Brendan
#27093 - ampz - Sun Oct 03, 2004 1:52 am
The lifespan of SRAM is unlimited.
It's the battery backing the SRAM you have to worry about.
Typical lifetime of the batteries in GBA carts is 5-10years. But if you are really unlucky and got a bad battery, it can die much quicker.
Take a small screwdriver and open the cart. If there is a small lithium cell battery in it, then the savegame is SRAM based.
Check the battery solderjoints, it could be just a bad solderjoint, and it that case you will solve the problem by fixing the solderjoint.
Otherwise you need to replace the battery. (Desolder the old one and replace with a new one)
#27141 - FluBBa - Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:12 pm
Or you could dump it yourself and check the serial and version against PIRACY-DOT-COM to see if it's the same (though you'll probably want to open it up anyway ;).
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#27144 - ampz - Mon Oct 04, 2004 4:52 pm
It's more manly to open it up :-)