NES Cartridge Capacity

[CaryMG]

Does anyone know what the max is ?
If not -- does anyone know where I can find out?
GOOGLE & WikiPedia didn't have anything.

Like, for example, the max of a Nintendo64 cartridge is 64MBs -- 512 MegaBits
I think "The Ocarina Of Time" is 64MBs.


:)

[madman77]

The biggest game out there is 8mbit, I believe in terms of official releases. Multi-carts can exceed this with custom built mappers.

[theoakwoody]

I don't know how accurate this is but the biggest rom size I've ever seen for a Nes game is Dragon Warrior IV at 1.6 MB.

[Mr. Smashy]

Kirby's Adventure looks to be a 6-megabit cart. Most other big games that I can think of only hit for the 4-megabit mark.

Those would be:
Dragon Warrior IV
Mega Man 6
Wario's Woods
Final Fantasy III (Famicom)

Adventure Island IV might be up there in size, too.

[rbudrick]

I thought it was Kirby at 4MB....or was that 4Mb?

Shit, I dunno.

-Rob

[suppafly]

THe biggest official NEs games was Kirby at 6 megabits.

The second biggest official game was uncharted waters which was 5 megabits.

There are A LOT of 4 megabit games for NES

[Mr. Smashy]

Action 52 looks to be a 16-megabit cart.

[MarioMania]

How about the pirate carts like Super Mario World on the Famicom

[ccovell]

Metal Slader Glory (by HAL) on the Famicom was 1 megabyte (8mbits). There is no theoretical limit to game size on the Famicom (you just need a new board and a new mapper), but the SFC and 32-bit systems took over, so 8mbits is what we had by the end of the NES/FC's life.

[Graham Mitchell]

Metal Slader Glory (by HAL) on the Famicom was 1 megabyte (8mbits). There is no theoretical limit to game size on the Famicom (you just need a new board and a new mapper), but the SFC and 32-bit systems took over, so 8mbits is what we had by the end of the NES/FC's life.

Are those sizes comparable to, say, a Genesis game (ie--does an 8-meg Famicom game contain the same amount of data as an 8-meg Mega Drive game?) If so, that's impressive. I never thought a FC/NES game could contain as much data as Mega Drive Strider. That's really something.

[veronica_marsfan]

Why are you using megaBITS instead of megaBYTES? (Megabits is confusing when you're used to talking about megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, et cetera.)
Like, for example, the max of a Nintendo64 cartridge is 64MBs That's not the maximum. They could have gone larger if they had wanted to.

In theory the N64 could address a 4 gigabyte cartridge (without bank switching).
That's equivalent to a DVD in a cartridge, but nobody ever came close to that maximum.

[XianXi]

Why are you using megaBITS instead of megaBYTES? (Megabits is confusing when you're used to talking about megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, et cetera.) That's not the maximum. They could have gone larger if they had wanted to.

Very true. If you open an NES cart the pcb doesnt use much space, they could have easily expanded the size of the pcb to fill the void in the cart.

[Steven]

Just to chime in in general... this is why I miss the old days of meg count. It was always fun to say "WOW, SFIITurbo the 1st 20 meg game!!! 20 megs, holy bejesus!"

Admit it, back in the summer of '93 you thought and said the same thing with your friends. I know I'm not alone.

BTW, not to veer too far OT but was Super Metroid the 1st 24 meg game? I read that somewhere, but cannot confirm. What was the first 32 meg game for SNES? What about 8 and 12 meg?

Back on topic, what % would you say the NES games are 4 megs? One guy here said a lot were 4 meg. So that would match Super Mario World on SNES? I always assumed the majority of NES games to be 2 meg, with only the later generation titles being 4, and only a handful at that.

[veronica_marsfan]

Admit it, back in the summer of '93 you thought and said the same thing with your friends. I know I'm not alone. I had a computer with 1,000 "megabit" hard drive, so no a teeny-tiny 20 megabit cart did not impress me.

(shrug)

[Steven]

I had a computer with 1,000 "megabit" hard drive, so no a teeny-tiny 20 megabit cart did not impress me.

(shrug)

no problem. Me, I was never into tech-spec of computers. All I knew in 93 was... a lot of games were either 8 or 16 meg. 20 meg was mind-blowing to me because I assumed, like many others did in 93, that the SNES could not go beyond 16 meg.

[veronica_marsfan]

As I recall, the largest SNES cart matched the size of Mario 64 on the N64 == 8 megabytes (64 megabits).

[XianXi]

As I recall, the largest SNES cart matched the size of Mario 64 on the N64 == 8 megabytes (64 megabits).

And the Neo had games 10 times that big.

[veronica_marsfan]

And the Neo had games 10 times that big. 80 megabytes?
Um. No.

Resident Evil 2 on the N64 is the largest cartridge ever made (it included prerecorded videos). It was 64 megabytes.

(The second largest carts were the N64 Zeldas - 32 megabytes each.)

[smork]

80 megabytes?
Um. No.

Resident Evil 2 on the N64 is the largest cartridge ever made (it included prerecorded videos). It was 64 megabytes.

(The second largest carts were the N64 Zeldas - 32 megabytes each.)

Wrong.

Here's a discussion from neo-geo.com (and I'm sure they are the authority on Neo cart sizes):
http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/archive/index.php?t-61197.html

Some of the later KOF games were over 100Mb (>800 Mbit). Alot of stuff on them there Neo carts.

[Gentlegamer]

Wrong.

Here's a discussion from neo-geo.com (and I'm sure they are the authority on Neo cart sizes):
http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/archive/index.php?t-61197.html

Some of the later KOF games were over 100Mb (>800 Mbit). Alot of stuff on them there Neo carts.That thread shows that the amount of game data in N64 carts dwarfs that of Neo Geo carts.

[veronica_marsfan]

http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/archive/index.php?t-61197.html That thread states, "I think the capacity on the gamecube disc is around 350 megabytes." "no, gamecube discs are mini cds."

Clearly the people there have NO clue what they are talking about. In contrast, there are a slew of articles about how Resident Evil 2 is the world's largest (and most-expensive) cartridge. Unfortunately I don't have time to look them up right now, but google.com has plenty of links.

If you feel KOF2001 is bigger, just show me a copy of the ROM, which will say how large it is.

[dendawg]

That thread states, "I think the capacity on the gamecube disc is around 350 megabytes." "no, gamecube discs are mini cds."

Clearly the people there have NO clue what they are talking about. In contrast, there are a slew of articles about how Resident Evil 2 is the world's largest (and most-expensive) cartridge. Unfortunately I don't have time to look them up right now, but google.com has plenty of links.

If you feel KOF2001 is bigger, just show me a copy of the ROM, which will say how large it is.

The only thing that thread proves is that every village has an idiot. How can you base the credibility of that community on the basis of a few clueless comments? Those people know their Neo-Geo stuff. Period.

[Mr. Smashy]

If the information in Wikipedia is correct, Resident Evil 2 for the N64 is a 512-megabit cartridge. If the classic style insert for King of Fighters 2003 for the Neo-Geo AES is correct (which it is), it's a 716-megabit cart.

Saying that Resident Evil 2 is the world's largest cartridge is bad enough but saying that it's the most expensive is laughable.

[tom]

so that's KoF 2003 = 89 MB

Wasn't it funny in the early 90s when kids were impressed with Genesis carts boasting 8 Megs, not realising it's only 1 MB....
of course, in my days we were lucky to get a 16KB cart for our C-64 or XL


it's a shame, we never got to see a 100MB cart, as they are not making a comeback, so it seems.

[veronica_marsfan]

When I was college learning to be an engineer, one of the things my profs emphasized was: "Think. Does the answer you found make logical sense?"

In that same matter I ask the question: "Does it make logical sense that a 2D fighter (with no videos) uses more memory than a 3D Resident Evil 2 game with over an hour of MPEG2 video inside the cartridge?"

No.

And yet you claim it's an 89 megabyte cartridge.
Why on earth do they have 89 megabytes?
Are there videos included?

Also why is it 89 megabytes? That's a strange number... I'd expect a computer-compatible number like 96. This is most puzzling. [EDIT] [I just downloaded the KOF2002 rom; it was exactly 64 megabytes. So I suppose it's possible KOF2003 is larger.]

[idrougge]

Why are you using megaBITS instead of megaBYTES? (Megabits is confusing when you're used to talking about megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, et cetera.)

Because memory traditionally is measured in bits, not bytes. Long ago, computers had 20-bit words, 36-bit words, 16-bit words and so on. There was little concensus on how big a "byte" was, so memory which was offered for several architectures was sold in bits. If you look at old DRAM chips, they will read "256 kbits x 4" or "16 kbits x 1". If you had an 8-bit data bus, you would take two of the former or eight of the latter to have 256 kbytes or 16 kbytes.

And measuring in bits gives larger numbers, so it suits Sega's marketing department.

[CosmicMonkey]

Because SNK didn't beleive in compressing game data. Whereas the all the graphics files and movies on a, for instance, SNES game are generally compressed to fuck to fit on as small cart as possible.

Neo carts have a greater size than any other cart. Ever. Fact.

And I wouldn't go saying that the bods over at Neo-Geo.com are clueless either; there's a few muppets over there and some wonderful people with more console/arcade knowledge than you could ever need.

[Gentlegamer]

Because SNK didn't beleive in compressing game data.I think it's more like that wasn't supported by the Neo Geo hardware. In contrast, compression was supported by the N64 hardware and allowed for far larger amounts of game data in its carts than Neo Geo.

[RugalSizzler]

Well the thing is all cartrige system games is RAM based or basically an alternative form of FLASH. Just very cheap. However at the time it was expensive.

So the correct answer is that a NES, SNES, Gens, N64, Saturn, or any other cart based system can be as big as they want it to be. I was thinking about taking some mini mini flashes and making a game cart with 100GiG on it. It could even 1000TB if we built it correctly.

That is why carts will allways rule. All this tecnhology we have now has been done allready in the past. Nothing is new just cost effective.

Flash itself is in every computer based system that has a bios. our bios is stored on flash that is no diffrent then your game or flash card for your camera. Not new no limit.

There was also RAM storage or Solid State storage ( simluar to solid state HD ) that was righ beside the Proccessor one time but now they do not build it into computers anymore. It was like TB back then and smaller then the ram we have now in area.

[veronica_marsfan]

Well the thing is all cartrige system games is RAM based or basically an alternative form of FLASH.
ROM not RAM.


So the correct answer is that a NES, SNES, Gens, N64, Saturn, or any other cart based system can be as big as they want it to be. No not really. Early CPUs (or buses) had inherent limits. For example Atari could only address 4 kilobytes. NES I think was limited to 64 kilobytes.

Bankswitching provides a solution, but it's a poor solution, because bankswitching slows down the program.

And there's a limit to how many banks a machine can handle. Commodore 64 (and probably NES too) had a limit of 16 banks, so a maximum addressable space of 64x16 = 1 megabyte.

[smork]

That thread shows that the amount of game data in N64 carts dwarfs that of Neo Geo carts.

The amount of game data isn't the issue -- the question at hand is about the size of the carts. And the fact is the capacity of some of the Neo carts is larger than the largest cart for any other system!

[Jorpho]

BTW, not to veer too far OT but was Super Metroid the 1st 24 meg game? I read that somewhere, but cannot confirm. What was the first 32 meg game for SNES? What about 8 and 12 meg?

I remember Super Metroid being the first 24 meg game as well. Donkey Kong Country might have been the first 32 meg game. (Tales of Phantasia for the Super Famicom was 48.)


In that same matter I ask the question: "Does it make logical sense that a 2D fighter (with no videos) uses more memory than a 3D Resident Evil 2 game with over an hour of MPEG2 video inside the cartridge?"

MPEG2 video can come in a wide variety of bitrates.

[RugalSizzler]

ROM not RAM.


I know but the way it is read and stored is simluar to RAM.


In that same matter I ask the question: "Does it make logical sense that a 2D fighter (with no videos) uses more memory than a 3D Resident Evil 2 game with over an hour of MPEG2 video inside the cartridge?"

Yes since Resident Evil use fancy pictures as backgrounds while you explore the invisible 3d world. If it did do all the 3d in real time then you would have ugly grpahics.

MPEG video is just a standard type that was around since Video Discs. That is like 198? or even 197? In 1992 DVD debuted and could be played on computers with DVD drives and Hardware codecs. Play it no diffrent then any other DVD players and maybe even better.

You can even play and run a full MPEG on a GBA using program software.

[djsquarewave]

As I recall, the largest SNES cart matched the size of Mario 64 on the N64 == 8 megabytes (64 megabits).
The largest SNES/SFC games out there are only 6MB (48 megabits). Star Ocean and Tales of Phantasia. From what I've heard, ToP has actual voiceovers, and Star Ocean has a special custom compression processor in it (which was used in a handful of other games)...but I don't play these sorts of games so I wouldn't know firsthand.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were some exceedingly large GBA or DS games out there, but I have no way to easily check this...

Incidentally, the largest Megadrive game was Super Street Fighter II at 40 megabits...supposedly there's special banking hardware in the cart as this is larger than the ROM space in the system's memory map. No 32X games reached this size, though. ;)

[veronica_marsfan]

My Bluray PS3 disc holds 400,000 mega!!! (bits).

Oooo power!

ROFL (Sorry not really helpful, but amusing anyway. Makes the 48 megabit Nintendo carts look teeny-tiny.) ROFL

[Steven]

I remember Super Metroid being the first 24 meg game as well. Donkey Kong Country might have been the first 32 meg game. (Tales of Phantasia for the Super Famicom was 48.)


Yeah, Super Metroid was the first 24 meg SNES game. ToP was a whoppin' 48 indeed, and don't forget Star Ocean. SFA2 on SNES was originally supposed to be 48 megs too, but they pulled it off in 32.

DKC the first 32-meg game? Actually, the earliest I can think of would be Super SF II. Damn, Capcom had the first 16, 20 and 32 meg games on the SNES market. Unless I'm mistaken.

[Jorpho]

Yeah, Super Metroid was the first 24 meg SNES game. ToP was a whoppin' 48 indeed, and don't forget Star Ocean. SFA2 on SNES was originally supposed to be 48 megs too, but they pulled it off in 32.

Aye, SFA2 used the same compression chip as Star Ocean, the SDD-1.

[jajaja]

I think it's more like that wasn't supported by the Neo Geo hardware. In contrast, compression was supported by the N64 hardware and allowed for far larger amounts of game data in its carts than Neo Geo.

Are you sure? The biggest Neo Geo AES games are nearly 80MB (megabyte) large. What is the biggest N64 game in MB ?

[veronica_marsfan]

In contrast, compression was supported by the N64 hardware and allowed for far larger amounts of game data in its carts than Neo Geo. Are you sure? The biggest Neo Geo AES games are nearly 80MB (megabyte) large. What is the biggest N64 game in MB ? Someone arrived late to the party. ROFL

The answers to your questions can be found on page 1.

And what Gentlegamer was saying was that, because the N64 uses compression, a NeoGeo game ported to the N64 might shrink in size from 89 megabytes to only 8 megabytes. The N64 (and PS1 and other modern consoles) "squash" images/video using MPEG codecs, whereas the NeoGeo does not.

[jajaja]

This is a party? Where are the partyhats and balloons? :P

Neo Geo games doesnt use pre-rendered movies. I was more interested in knowing the total storage capacity, not how much compression that is used. If the biggest N64 game is 64MB, is this the biggest storage space a N64 cart can hold?

[FABombjoy]

MPEG video is just a standard type that was around since Video Discs. That is like 198? or even 197?

Wow... radioactive light fixtures, spinning lasers in CDX units, and now MPEG video in the 70's & 80's. You really know how to research a topic.

[veronica_marsfan]

I know but the way ROM is read and stored is simluar to RAM. No. ROM and RAM a very, very different at the hardware level. Most RAM is really just a series of capacitors (dynamic ram), whereas ROM consists of transistors (permanent logic states).

(Yes I know I simplified things a little, but the point is that ROM is >not< stored similar to how RAM is stored.)


MPEG video is just a standard type that was around since Video Discs. That is like 198? or even 197? In 1992 DVD debuted... Wikipedia says:

- Laserdiscs and CED videorecords (1970s) use NO MPEG compression of any kind. They are analog like videotape.

- MPEG-1 was released in 1993 (after the neo-geo... which did not include compression algorithms).

- DVD - 1996 release

The point is that because the N64 *does* have MPEG compression whereas the neo-geo does not, the N64 can squeeze 2 CDs worth of video (resident evil 2) into only 64 megabytes of cartridge. That same compression would allow an 89 megabyte neogeo game to only require around 8 megabytes on the N64 (or PS1 or other modern console).

[Jorpho]

Laserdiscs aren't digital video? I did not know that.


The point is that because the N64 *does* have MPEG compression whereas the neo-geo does not, the N64 can squeeze 2 CDs worth of video (resident evil 2) into only 64 megabytes of cartridge. That same compression would allow an 89 megabyte neogeo game to only require around 8 megabytes on the N64 (or PS1 or other modern console).

Except those 89 MB Neo-Geo games do not contain any FMV of the sort that could be compressed with MPEG!

[Mr. Smashy]

Neo Geo games doesnt use pre-rendered movies.

Grammatical errors aside, this is untrue. Just look at Double Dragon for the Neo Geo.

[Gentlegamer]

Are you sure? The biggest Neo Geo AES games are nearly 80MB (megabyte) large. What is the biggest N64 game in MB ?I think the answer is GB . . .

[veronica_marsfan]

Laserdiscs aren't digital video? I did not know that.

Except those 89 MB Neo-Geo games do not contain any FMV of the sort that could be compressed with MPEG! They have still pictures and various textures that could be compressed. N64 can do that.... Neogeo lacks the capability.

Laserdiscs == composite format video with 533 "pixels" per scanline == Super VHS quality.

[jajaja]

Grammatical errors aside, this is untrue. Just look at Double Dragon for the Neo Geo.

Did you have problems understanding me? Apparently not since you were able to answer. My 1st language isnt english so what exactly did you try to accomplish with your first comment?

I havnt played every Neo Geo game, but i know for sure that it was far from common to use FMV in the games. That 1 out of 200 (or how many NG games that exicst) games got a small clip of FMV isnt impossible, but as said, far from common.

[Jorpho]

They have still pictures and various textures that could be compressed. N64 can do that.... Neogeo lacks the capability.

Huh? Nobody said that the Neo Geo was incapable of decompressing still images. Compression and decompression of video is an entirely different matter (and can also produce a far greater reduction in size anyway).

[idrougge]

Huh? Nobody said that the Neo Geo was incapable of decompressing still images. Compression and decompression of video is an entirely different matter (and can also produce a far greater reduction in size anyway).

Any system is capable of decompression, but where do you decompress the data stored in ROM? Into RAM, of course! And as we all know, consoles always have little RAM. If the Neo Geo had enough RAM to make decompression of graphics into RAM feasible, the Neo Geo CD wouldn't have dropped animation frames.

[idrougge]

And there's a limit to how many banks a machine can handle. Commodore 64 (and probably NES too) had a limit of 16 banks, so a maximum addressable space of 64x16 = 1 megabyte.

No, there is no such limit.

[tom]

surely MPEG is earlier than 1993, as it's used for CDi

cinepak was a forerunner of MPEG compression, used for Sega CD, Jaguar, Mac etc....so NEO GEO could have used that?

[Jorpho]

Any system is capable of decompression, but where do you decompress the data stored in ROM? Into RAM, of course! And as we all know, consoles always have little RAM. If the Neo Geo had enough RAM to make decompression of graphics into RAM feasible, the Neo Geo CD wouldn't have dropped animation frames.

Fair enough, but then the N64 didn't necessarily make regular use of compressed still images either, come to think of it. (Or did it?)

[jajaja]

I think the answer is GB . . .

What game is that short for or do you mean GigaByte? :P You cant compare like RE2 size for PSX (maybe around 1GB?) to N64 size. If RE2 for N64 takes up 64MB, then that is what it takes.

[idrougge]

surely MPEG is earlier than 1993, as it's used for CDi

Could be earlier, but not on CDi. The first CDi units with MPEG encoders came rather late in 1993.


cinepak was a forerunner of MPEG compression, used for Sega CD, Jaguar, Mac etc....so NEO GEO could have used that?

For what?

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

What game is that short for or do you mean GigaByte? :P You cant compare like RE2 size for PSX (maybe around 1GB?) to N64 size. If RE2 for N64 takes up 64MB, then that is what it takes.
I think he probbaly meant Gb, not GB (there's that popping up again). The largest DS games are 1Gbit (or 128MB). There's quite a few DS games that clock in at that size so far. I expect that the games will get even larger before the system dies, too. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a 512MB DS game eventually.


Fair enough, but then the N64 didn't necessarily make regular use of compressed still images either, come to think of it. (Or did it?)
"Still images" would include textures, so yes the N64 used still image compression quite often.

The compression formats we know of on our computers like MPEG, JPG, MP3, etc. are not the most commonly used ones in video games, by the way, or at least they weren't in the old days, I don't know about modern games so much. Usually, proprietary compression methods were used and games like Resident Evil 2 or Conker (which had music in MP3 format) were more the exception. The compression was also usually handled in software, rather than in hardware on older systems, so to say that the Neo Geo is "incapable" of compression is sort of misleading.


...word is bondage...

[veronica_marsfan]

surely MPEG is earlier than 1993, as it's used for CDi

No. The MPEG-1 reader was added *later* after the introduction of the new specification. It's a mid-90s addon.

[Jorpho]

The compression was also usually handled in software, rather than in hardware on older systems, so to say that the Neo Geo is "incapable" of compression is sort of misleading.

...But then, with just a 12 MHz 68k, wouldn't playback of a compressed video while still maintaining a decent framerate be extremely difficult? I mean, there was brisk business selling PC MPEG decoder chipsets back when multimedia was new, and even the PCs of the time were a lot faster than that.

I'll stop talking now.

[jajaja]

I think he probbaly meant Gb, not GB (there's that popping up again). The largest DS games are 1Gbit (or 128MB). There's quite a few DS games that clock in at that size so far. I expect that the games will get even larger before the system dies, too. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a 512MB DS game eventually.

Ah ok. Then its Gb indeed, not GB. Small "b" means bit and big "B" means byte, then its important to use the right one if the discussion is both talking about bits and bytes to avoid confusion :) The biggest DS game i've seen is Resident Evil. Its like 110MB (MegaBytes) which is close to almost 900Mbit. I dont think i've seen a N64 game that is that big.

[FABombjoy]

...But then, with just a 12 MHz 68k, wouldn't playback of a compressed video while still maintaining a decent framerate be extremely difficult?

Considering that Andrew Davie wrote an FMV playback engine for the 2600, I'd say just about anything is possible.

[veronica_marsfan]

The biggest DS game i've seen is Resident Evil. Its like 110MB (MegaBytes)

That's huge. Why so big? The N64 version of RE2 was only 64 megabytes (with 25 megabytes of pre-recorded video). Does the DualScreen version include videos?

[Gentlegamer]

I meant GB: GigaByte.

[jajaja]

That's huge. Why so big? The N64 version of RE2 was only 64 megabytes (with 25 megabytes of pre-recorded video). Does the DualScreen version include videos?

No idea, but its huge indeed :) I had the dump of the game, then its 128MB large, but this seems to be a standard size. After doing maximum compression with Winrar i have a 101MB large file so the game does definitly have more than 100MB of data.



I meant GB: GigaByte.

It would be cool if N64 games had that storage space, but to produce a 1GB cart back then would probly had cost thousands of dollars. Didnt a 1GB Memory Stick have a retail price on around $1000 some years back?

[idrougge]

...But then, with just a 12 MHz 68k, wouldn't playback of a compressed video while still maintaining a decent framerate be extremely difficult? I mean, there was brisk business selling PC MPEG decoder chipsets back when multimedia was new, and even the PCs of the time were a lot faster than that.

The CDTV had a video format called CDXL. It allowed for video a quarter of the screen size and with around 10 fps on a 7,14 MHz 68000.

So you're right, in a way. But no-one ever expected fluid full-screen video back then, so even CDXL was impressive.