View Full Version : Question about saving on n64 carts...
mr.soul
08-05-2007, 10:48 PM
I got a copy of Mario 64 today and opened it up to clean it, and I noticed it didn't have a battery anywhere on the chip. Do N64 carts use flash memory or something?
Just curious :)
digitpress Jim
08-05-2007, 11:28 PM
Hey, how's it going?
To the best of my knowledge most N64 games save internally to the game chip its self, almost acting like a memory card in a way when it comes to saving the data. I have never really seen an N64 game chip with a battery, then again I have never opened one up. I could be off but I hope this helps a little.
Digitpress Jim
PentiumMMX
08-06-2007, 10:12 AM
All N64 games use a FlashRAM to store save files, except for roughly 12 games (Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Super Smash Bros. amoung others) that use a battery.
Captain Wrong
08-06-2007, 01:01 PM
Interesting. I never knew they used flash. That's good to know (and hopefully more reliable.)
Cinder6
08-06-2007, 01:14 PM
Ironically, the controller pak (memory card) uses a battery.
Porksta
08-06-2007, 01:41 PM
Ironically, the controller pak (memory card) uses a battery.
It seems more aluminally to me.
alxbly
08-06-2007, 06:03 PM
The twelve US N64 games that have battery (or SRAM) saving are:
1080º Snowboarding
F-Zero X
Harvest Moon 64
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The
Major League Baseball featuring Ken Griffey Jr.
Mario Golf
New Tetris, The
Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber
Resident Evil 2
Super Smash Bros.
WCW/NWO Revenge
WWF: Wrestlemania 2000
Source: http://n64.icequake.net/mirror/www.elitendo.com/n64/usa_boot_save_faq.html#s1
Note that I've said 12 US N64 games with battery saves. As far as I know no-one has checked whether there are other Japanese or PAL (UK/EUR/AUS/NZ) games that have battery saving.
Bratwurst
08-06-2007, 07:28 PM
Interesting. I never knew they used flash. That's good to know (and hopefully more reliable.)
Sort of. Most flash memory is rated at 10 years by manufacturer towards data retention, but you can always rewrite to it to 'refresh' the save's longevity. Flash memory can also only support rewriting so many times but it's such a ridiculously large number (several hundred thousand instances) you'd probably never have it happen in your lifetime through casual use.
I personally think the 10 year mark is a conservative estimate because there are eproms out there that have held their data for 20, 30 years so far, but nobody knows for certain.
Barbarianoutkast85
08-06-2007, 08:10 PM
Yea I took apart a N64 cart that wasnt working to see what was inside, and noticed there was no battery. I didnt put the two together or think about it though. Good to know, I guess....
Cinder6
08-07-2007, 12:10 AM
It seems more aluminally to me.
Or perhaps lithially?
Kitsune Sniper
08-07-2007, 12:31 AM
Wait. Didn't the N64 use memory cards? And there's games that don't need it to save, instead using flash chips?
... Why didn't Nintendo just dump the entire memory card system then? It makes little sense to me.
PentiumMMX
08-07-2007, 12:43 PM
Wait. Didn't the N64 use memory cards? And there's games that don't need it to save, instead using flash chips?
... Why didn't Nintendo just dump the entire memory card system then? It makes little sense to me.
Good point...Other then the Mystical Ninja series (Amoung others), nothing uses the Memory Card, so why does it even exist?
dendawg
08-07-2007, 01:02 PM
All N64 games use a FlashRAM to store save files, except for roughly 12 games (Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Super Smash Bros. amoung others) that use a battery.
Actually, IIRC, it's more like an EEPROM than flash.
Sweater Fish Deluxe
08-07-2007, 01:57 PM
Actually, IIRC, it's more like an EEPROM than flash.
Yeah. There are a few games that use actual flash, but most games have EEPROM.
Good point...Other then the Mystical Ninja series (Amoung others), nothing uses the Memory Card, so why does it even exist?
Actually, there's a list of about 200 games that require the external memory pak in the FAQ linked above. Most third party game used the memory pak. It was a cheaper option than having onboard memory.
...word is bondage...
Greg2600
08-07-2007, 02:14 PM
The reason for not having flash or battery save in a cartridge, I can only guess, is cost. Though some games, like EA's WCW Wrestling games, allowed you to save wrestlers, which was done on a memory card. In fact, I recall most of EA's games used the memory card (big shock from Cheap-O EA). For WCW Mayhem, I remember creating so many wrestlers at one point, that I'd have all 4 controller ports hooked up with 4 memory cards at once. Crazy. Games like that were alright for the card, but just playing an ordinary game like EA's The World is Not Enough should have not required a memory card, but it did.