Saturn Action Replay 4M: Improve some games?

[YoshiM]

Just wondering: would an Action Replay 4M enhance games that don't require it? For example: there are times when Guardian Heroes experiences some slow down. Would this cartridge help that?

[crazyjackcsa]

Nope. Don't mean to sound like a tool, but: Does a bigger memory card make your PS2 Quicker? Did a game genie make your Genny any faster? Did the N64 Memory expansion improve games that were not programmed for it?

[VACRMH]

Nope. Don't mean to sound like a tool, but: Does a bigger memory card make your PS2 Quicker? Did a game genie make your Genny any faster? Did the N64 Memory expansion improve games that were not programmed for it?

Actually, wouldn't it be similar to adding more ram to a computer?

I think there was one or two games that used the 4mb card, but wasn't required. Was it Xmen COTA?

[shadowkn55]

Actually, wouldn't it be similar to adding more ram to a computer?

I think there was one or two games that used the 4mb card, but wasn't required. Was it Xmen COTA?

It was Marvel Super Heroes. In short, the extra ram won't help for games that weren't programmed to take advantage of it.

[YoshiM]

Nope. Don't mean to sound like a tool, but: Does a bigger memory card make your PS2 Quicker? Did a game genie make your Genny any faster? Did the N64 Memory expansion improve games that were not programmed for it?

No you don't sound like a tool. You just sound like an arrogant prick.

From what I've read about Action Replays and their ilk there are some games that will OPTIONALLY use the extra memory, like Pocket Fighter. Knowing that lists on the web aren't necessarily 100%, I figured I'd ask here for the possibility that maybe the Action Replay might do the same for other games. If it does, hey cool! If not, well, what's the harm in asking?

Well I guess the harm of asking is getting posts from a smart ass like you.

Thanks to others who posted constructive responses. I'm wading into unknown waters with imports and such on my Saturn.

[Trebuken]

There are imports as well that take advantage of it, but never thought it was optional for any games.

[Imstarryeyed]

For imports that I know of....

Dungeons and Dragons Collection (one of them used it)
Pocket Fighter
Metal Slug
Xmen vs Streetfighter
Marvel Super Heroes vs Streetfighter
Final Fight Revenge

I am sure I am missing more...

I am unaware of any US released games that use it, even secretly, but if someone knows of one for sure please let us know.

[Damaramu]

I am unaware of any US released games that use it, even secretly, but if someone knows of one for sure please let us know.

It was Marvel Super Heroes, as mentioned earlier. I don't believe the option to use the cart on the US version was even mentioned outside of gaming magazines.

[InsaneDavid]

It was Marvel Super Heroes. In short, the extra ram won't help for games that weren't programmed to take advantage of it.

There are many more games that require it, mostly fighting games need the extra RAM. There are also games that need the 1MB expansion which the PAR also provides, Metal Slug (JPN) comes to mind but I know there are more. The PAR also functions as a large memory backup device although the cartridge cannot be directly written to / read from while ingame. There are also cheat codes on board and more can be added and stored on the cartridge. Lastly the PAR 4-in-1 will allow the play of USA/JPN/EUR games on a native console. However, there are some compatibility problems with multi disc games if I remember correctly. (just have me hardmod your system :D)

Note that there is one game, King of Fighters '95 (JPN), that requires a special ROM cartridge. This isn't a flavor of RAM cartridge and no RAM cartridge will work. The special ROM cartridge contains game sprites that are called upon when the game requires them.

[Steven]

Yes, as someone mentioned Pocket Fighter is upgraded, but playable without the 4 RAM. Same as Cyberbots IIRC.

Actually there is ONE game (at least) that is negatively affected by the 4 RAM oddly. World Heroes Perfect, a game that requires NO RAM, will load 1-2 seconds, but with the 4 RAM take longer at 3 seconds. I always found that peculiar. Trust me, I played WHP probably 1,000 times, with and without the 4 RAM and that extra loading time has always made me go "huh?"

[Hwj_Chim]

I know that the Real Bout Fatal Fury games require the extra ram as does The King of fighter games also Grove on fight and Vampire Savior do.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

Note that there is one game, King of Fighters '95 (JPN), that requires a special ROM cartridge. This isn't a flavor of RAM cartridge and no RAM cartridge will work. The special ROM cartridge contains game sprites that are called upon when the game requires them.
Actually, there's three games that came with ROM carts. KoF'95, Ultraman and some Tamogotchi (or something similar) game. I always though it would be cool if you could somehow swap the ROM carts among those games so that you could have giant Ryo and Iori battling in a cityscape from Ultraman or you could raise a rubber suit monster from Ultraman in the Tamogotchi game.

Also, I've read that some of the SNK games that required the 1MB cartridge don't work well with the Capcom 4MB cart or the 4-in-1. Maybe that was the problem with World Heroes that Steven mentioned. I've never tested this out myself since I never had a 4MB or 4-in-1 cart for my Saturn.


...word is bondage...

[crazyjackcsa]

No you don't sound like a tool. You just sound like an arrogant prick.

From what I've read about Action Replays and their ilk there are some games that will OPTIONALLY use the extra memory, like Pocket Fighter. Knowing that lists on the web aren't necessarily 100%, I figured I'd ask here for the possibility that maybe the Action Replay might do the same for other games. If it does, hey cool! If not, well, what's the harm in asking?

Well I guess the harm of asking is getting posts from a smart ass like you.

Thanks to others who posted constructive responses. I'm wading into unknown waters with imports and such on my Saturn.


Hey Yoshi, I'm sorry man, I figured it would come across wrong, and I'm sorry if it sounded that way. And the following probably will to: Think about it. Your asking if a game that was designed and developed before a particular accessory was even thought of would increase performance. Has this ever been the case before? Consoles are not computers. Adding more ram in the form of 4 in1 card will not improve a game that was not designed for it.The developer develops the game knowing what the system specs are. As was mentioned, for games that are programed for it, you will see an increase in performance. Does hooking up a 1080p HDTV increase the resolution of a game? Nope, because it wasn't designed for it.

Again, sorry if I seem harsh, that isn't my intent at all, and I hope there are no hard feelings.

[c0ldb33r]

No you don't sound like a tool. You just sound like an arrogant prick...
that made me laugh so hard I actually snorted LOL

[YoshiM]

Hey Yoshi, I'm sorry man, I figured it would come across wrong, and I'm sorry if it sounded that way. And the following probably will to: Think about it. Your asking if a game that was designed and developed before a particular accessory was even thought of would increase performance. Has this ever been the case before? Consoles are not computers. Adding more ram in the form of 4 in1 card will not improve a game that was not designed for it.The developer develops the game knowing what the system specs are. As was mentioned, for games that are programed for it, you will see an increase in performance. Does hooking up a 1080p HDTV increase the resolution of a game? Nope, because it wasn't designed for it.

Again, sorry if I seem harsh, that isn't my intent at all, and I hope there are no hard feelings.

Apology accepted. I've been around the gaming block for quite a while but some things, like the Saturn, aren't my strong points. I had a pretty good feeling that the 4-in-1 wouldn't enhance games not made for it BUT I really couldn't find good info that answered my question. The Saturn is kinda kooky in some respects so I figured I'd ask the proverbial "dumb question" here to see what the story is. My query was answered and I got a pretty good list of games that do use the 4-in-1 along with games that don't. 50% ain't bad in this case.

A simple "No" or "It's the same concept as the N64 Expansion Pak" would have been fine.

Water under the bridge now. Let's just game on :D

[ghostangelofcky]

Yeah I think bsides the normal kind of cheats and the ability to play imports, which is the whole reason I and just about everyone else has bought theirs is about all it can do

[Teknik_SE-R]

Don't mean to jack a thread, but I thought it applied loosely to this thread and didn't want to start a new one...BTW I grew up on Tendy (but NOT A FANBOY) and just getting started collecting on the Saturn.

* WARNING*
this is a total n00b question, so go easy on me

ANYWAY
How does the game shark compare to the action reply, 3rd part rom carts, and official ROM cart? I know the PAR and Game shark have stored codes... what exactly makes them a 4 in 1? What are the (dis)advantages of each?

In my feeble google search all I found was the racketboy articles, which talk about the pain of navigating thru the menus of the 4 in 1 and not being able to save during gameplay to it, while with a standard rom cart there are no menus and you can save directly. Does this apply to 3rd party rom carts also?

anyone have some experience with each type of cart?

my assumptions:

for the 4 in 1
1. 4MB ROM
2. 1MB save cart
3. built in cheat codes
4. Region code bypass??????

For the std (official and 3rd party) carts
4MB rom (can be used as save memory)

please someone correct me

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

You're confusing the backup carts, RAM carts and ROM carts.

First of all, the ROM carts are totally different. They contain permanent read-only data specific to certain games (graphics data, I think). There's three different ROM carts that came with three games: King of Fighters '95, Ultraman and some Tomogatchi game. None of them are interchangeable and there's no third party alternatives for any of them.

The RAM carts contain extra system memory so that more data from the game disc can be loaded into memory at one time. There's two official RAM carts, one from SNK that has 1MB RAM and another from Capcom that has 4MB RAM. SNK games that require the 1MB can also be used with the 4MB cart, but I've heard that that can cause problems in some games, but I don't know first hand since I only ever had a 1MB cart and never had a 4MB cart. There's some third party alternatives for the 4MB cart, including the 4-in-1 you mentioned. RAM carts cannot be used to hold game saves.

The backup carts are for holding game saves, sometimes they're called SRAM carts. There's the official ones from Sega, a few official ones that came packaged with certain games and many many third party ones. Some third party ones can't be accessed in-game (so you have to save to the Saturn's internal memory and then transfer the save to the cart in the Saturn BIOS and then vice versa the next time you want to play the game), those carts generally have a bad reputation for corruption because they use compression to hold more saves. Other third party ones act just like the official backup carts and you can save and load directly to and from them in-game; these are more reliable than the ones that use compression, but probably not as reliable as the official backup carts. Backup carts cannot be used as additional system RAM.

The 4-in-1 carts do all of those things, plus region code bypass as you thought (there's other carts that do just that and they're usually called ST-keys). They use compression for game saves, so you can't access the backup portion of the cart in-game. These are labeled in a variety of different ways, sometimes called Action Replay Plus or other names or even sometimes called 5-in-1, but I think those are actually the same as the 4-in-1s but they were referring to the fact that you can also use them for 1MB SNK games.

I had no idea there was a GameShark for the Saturn. I see a couple listed on eBay, that's the first time I've ever seen one, so I don't know if they're the same as the 4-in-1s or not. The packaging only specifies save backup and cheat codes, so I wouldn't assume it can do the other stuff unless someone who's used one says it can.


...word is bondage...

[Mobius]

I had no idea there was a GameShark for the Saturn. I see a couple listed on eBay, that's the first time I've ever seen one, so I don't know if they're the same as the 4-in-1s or not. The packaging only specifies save backup and cheat codes, so I wouldn't assume it can do the other stuff unless someone who's used one says it can.

I believe they also bypass region codes, but they definitely don't provide RAM cart functionality.

[madroms]

To clear some things on this post: only 2 games requires a ROM cart: UltraMan ~Hikari no Kyojin Densetsu~ and KOF'95. Tamagochi Park (the only tamagochi game on the Saturn) comes with a standard backup RAM cart.

If you need a list of games that require or are compatible with ROM/RAM carts, check this link: http://www.satakore.com/cartridge.php
All of the titles have been checked, verified and the list is 100% complete (except maybe some pirate chinese stuff that may exist like the "mahjong cart only game")

[rbudrick]

To clear some things on this post: only 2 games requires a ROM cart: UltraMan ~Hikari no Kyojin Densetsu~ and KOF'95. Tamagochi Park (the only tamagochi game on the Saturn) comes with a standard backup RAM cart.

If you need a list of games that require or are compatible with ROM/RAM carts, check this link: http://www.satakore.com/cartridge.php
All of the titles have been checked, verified and the list is 100% complete (except maybe some pirate chinese stuff that may exist like the "mahjong cart only game")

I always wondered why there were never any cart-only games for the Saturn. There is one! Ha! Ok, it's a pirate, but it sounds like a Pirate original. Perhaps just unlicensed and not an actual pirate?

Besides cost of memory back in the day, is there any other reason cart games weren't released more for the Saturn? If a homebrewer decided to make Saturn games now as a cart-only game, would there be any limitations in the use of the Saturn's resources? I imagine a huge benefit over CD would be load times.

-Rob

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

Yeah, I've never heard of a cartridge-only Saturn game. I must know more! Anyone have any links to more info? I couldn't find anything with Google.

I'm surprised that such a thing would exist. Not only does it seem like it would be entirely non-cost effective fore pirate to produce such a thing, I wouldn't have even suspected that the Saturn could execute code from the cartridge slot. I always figured that it was just like an extra memory address that running games could use.

Does this mahjong cartridge require some sort of boot CD?


...word is bondage...

[CosmicMonkey]

I too have heard of this Mahjong cart game for the Saturn. It certainly is a HK original. There was a thread where it was talked about over on the ASSEMbler forums ages ago.

[ProgrammingAce]

How did you guys think the menu system on the Action Replay 4-in-1 worked if you couldn't run code off the cart slot?

[Teknik_SE-R]

so would the same apply for other memory cart slots (eg ps1 and 2) since they seem to store sprites for each game, or is that handled by the OS?

Back to my lame questions...so does anyone have an opinion of the version of the "action replay" on ebay for $10?

Anyone have one?
I'm guessing this isn't the original.
Does it have the same functionality of the original?
How does it compare to the original PAR (prob of crashing, ease of use)

another n00b question what are the capabilities of the internal memory?
how many game saves and what is the average number of save blocks used per game? NOTE I probably won't be going into RPG territory. I'm mainly interested in arcade ports (blasphemy to some, I know, but my life dictates I can't get too attached to any games right now)

[madroms]

I don't know much about this mahjong cart.

The AR program is formed like a saturn cd with header and IP.bin, so you can run code from the cartridge port, but it must limited.

Internal memory = 461 blocks (for the JPN saturn) if I remember well. 1 block = 64 Bytes.
There is not any average number of save blocks per game. Some games need only 1 block where some others need more than 3000 (so you need an external backup cartridge or a FDD). Some ex:
Sega Rally EUR: 80 (+ 977 for Ghost / Replay)
Virtua Fighter 2 EUR: 180
Sega Touring Car Championship EUR: 222 (+ 49 for Vs AI Replay / + 942 per track for Ghost in Time Attack Mode)
Saturn Bomberman EUR: 1 (Normal Game) / 5 (Master Game)

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

I too have heard of this Mahjong cart game for the Saturn. It certainly is a HK original. There was a thread where it was talked about over on the ASSEMbler forums ages ago.
After much digging, I found that thread (hey, I even posted in it...who knew?).

http://assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3937

I also dug up the posts on SegaXtreme that antipasta was referring to:

http://forums.segaxtreme.net/showthread.php?t=12092
http://forums.segaxtreme.net/showpost.php?p=131235&postcount=67

Not much info really. If that's all there is on the cart, I would tend to think it's just a rumor. Not impossible to believe, though, so I'll keep an open mind and hope one turns up. I've seen Hong Kong cheat cartridges for the Gameboy and GBA that have little games on them, so it's not unheard of. Those were more like Snakey games than mahjong, which would be a bit complicated for a company like that to include as a one-off feature, but who knows.


...word is bondage...