4M Save Flash

[PriusTK]

Hi Dr.Neo

Thank you for providing your good product MK3.
In Japanese recent ROM, as "0293- Eigo ga Nigate na Otona no DS Training: Eigo Zuke" , use 4M flash ( ST Micro. M45PE40) for it's save memory.
Could MK3 support this ROM?
Or Should I wait for your new product?
The SC-SD can support this ROM by using original save area. But it's non-sense.

I hope MK3 can support it by next release menu.

[bruceg]

That's a very good question since a lot of people are wondering whether mk2/mk3 will support the larger roms/saves that are coming out now.  I asked cory about this in another thread, so hopefully he'll see this, and post any info he knows here for everyone's benefit.

BruceG

[cory1492]

There are plenty of ways to work around the hardware, saving to an origional DS cart with the same save size is only one option. SuperCard can probably support it already by simply increasing the filesize to 512k.

An unforseen (not really) expansion of the gamesave size, and non-standard cart types/sizes can be expected from a minority of games. Just look at GBA stuff, some of those use some odd bankswitching and non-nintendo produced chips to expand the game size and save size; its just a matter of time before patches, workarounds etc can come forward and work well.

I have yet to see any product that has truely 100% compatibility, the official hardware is evolving as long as they are making new games, and in all honesty I cant say that anyone would go really far out of their way to get 1 Japanese game working (unless some kind Japanese soul steps up with a way to make it work, of course).

[Kushan]

I dare say people will create patches to allow you to use the Flash cart to save a game, then backup the save to SD later on.
That's how I would do it, anyway.

[boblen]

yes you coould use corys patcher

[Kushan]

No, that won't do anything.

This is the SAVE size we are talking about, not the Rom size.

The MK3 has a 2M SRAM which has worked fine for ALL games up 'till now. But the problem is, games are starting to get released that have a 4M Save, which is too big for the MK3's built in saver to handle.

[cory1492]

I dare say people will create patches to allow you to use the Flash cart to save a game, then backup the save to SD later on.
That's how I would do it, anyway.

Or simply do what supercard did, and write directly to an already existing file on SD... as I said, so far it is one game that uses that save type, most are happy to sit tight with what bigN specified though.

current save types/sizes
4kbit - EEPROM
64kbit - EEPROM
128kbit - EEPROM (guess is about 4-5 uses this one)
2mbit - flash
4mbit - flash (so far only one uses this)

[Kushan]

Yeah I suppose so, that would no doubt work for 99% of games, but you just know that there will be that one REALLY AMAZING game that everyone wants to play...that just doesn't work >_<

[boblen]

yes that game we all want to play

[PriusTK]

Thank you for replies. 

In my understanding, you will support such ROM by software.
I do not hope that you will support such Roms by directly save to SD, because it may cause any access time issue.
Couldn't you use a part of Menu ROM or ZIP SRAM for save area?
Or are there any way to support it by MK3 hardware?

Currently it may be only one games that use 4M flash.
But if the Nintendo realizes that it causes some difficulties to support by　a kind of your product, they will recommend it to the game provider.
On the other hands, the device cost-down speed is very fast. The silicon vendor will stop the small size flash, because the cost difference will minimize between 2M and 4M. So I think that such game will increase.

I believe that MK3 is the best solution for this kind of product.

[boblen]

yep thats right the mk3 is better than the mk2

[Kushan]

Nintendo wont care if the 4M save is a problem for homebrew people (i.e. us).
As it has been stated, there's all sorts of ways of bypassing the 4M save limit, they're just not needed at the moment.
Saving to SD card wont actually cause that big a delay, saving isn't done constantly (unlike reading the Rom) so it would only be a slight periodic thing and there's still nothing stopping the Rom from being on the flash cart or MK3 at the same time.
Also, hopefully by the time a lot of 4M games do come out, the read/write speeds of the SD card will have been increased.

[cory1492]

I do not hope that you will support such Roms by directly save to SD, because it may cause any access time issue.
Couldn't you use a part of Menu ROM or ZIP SRAM for save area?
Or are there any way to support it by MK3 hardware?

Flashing the menu flash space is actually alot slower than flashing/writing the SD/MMC disk.

[Dr.neo]

PriusTK can u buy this cart and send to me? i'll pay all 

[boblen]

this came from [link to romsite edited out].coms website:

0293 - Eigo ga Nigate na Otona no DS Training - Eigo Zuke
Region: Japan
Language: Japanese
Publisher: Nintendo
Internal Name: EIGODUKE
Serial: NTR-ANGJ-JPN
Save Type: FLASH (2Mbit)
Size: 1024 Mbit

[link to romsite edited out]