Famicom games (perhaps only pirate carts) causing strange interference on Famiclones

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

Here's an interesting question that I've yet to bring up ...

... I have a handful of Famicom games, most, if not all of them are HK pirates.

Some of them won't boot at all on some (of the many) Famiclone systems that I have, while they boot and play on other Famiclones BUT cause wicked on-screen distortion that looks like some type of power "leak" causing the television screen to "warp" or "roll" as well as producing audible "buzzing" ... and those SAME carts work completely fine on OTHER clones in my collection.

What on a cartridge would cause a system to do that? Are we looking at a potential short on the cartridge ... or a resistor or capacitor that's wired for some other overseas standard?

Or is it just the product of sub-standard parts that were used in these things that some clone systems tolerate and others don't?

[InsaneDavid]

Or is it just the product of sub-standard parts that were used in these things that some clone systems tolerate and others don't?

My money would be on that one. All one needs to do is look at bootleg GB, GBC, and GBA cartridges to notice the wildly varying build quality. While I've had much better luck with bootleg Famicom stuff I'd assume the same holds true.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

Yeah, I figured as much.

Speaking of substandard ... I just got a pirate of TECMO Sumo Wrestling in a random Fami lot that actually has a totally corrupted dump of the game on it ... scrambled graphics during gameplay, which sucks as what ISN'T scrambled looks really fun!

[InsaneDavid]

Speaking of substandard ... I just got a pirate of TECMO Sumo Wrestling as a random Fami lot that actually has a totally corrupted dump of the game on it ... scrambled graphics during gameplay, which sucks as what ISN'T scrambled looks really fun!

I had a Pokemon GBC multicart that was like that. It used a pair of IC's for game storage (oddest pirate GBC board I've ever seen). The two Pokemon games on there (Pokemon Yellow and Pokemon Trading Card Game) worked fine, but everything else in the menu was corrupted and wouldn't load or would load with errors like you described. Sucked too since there were about 20 unique games including the first two Mario Land titles. I thought about keeping it but figured it'd irritate me too much so I traded it back.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Yeah, I figured as much.

Speaking of substandard ... I just got a pirate of TECMO Sumo Wrestling in a random Fami lot that actually has a totally corrupted dump of the game on it ... scrambled graphics during gameplay, which sucks as what ISN'T scrambled looks really fun!

It might be that the game is rigged to work on a particular set of clone hardware. I have a game that refuses to work on anything but the system it came with.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

It might be that the game is rigged to work on a particular set of clone hardware. I have a game that refuses to work on anything but the system it came with.

While anything is possible, and that could be the case, I don't see companies making pirate games/consoles going to those lengths.

I think it's more made to work/tested by the manufacturers on a "typical" set of clone parts/hardware than made to ONLY work on a certain clone system.

[phreak97]

youre completely sure your corrupt game is not just dirty? :P and have you tried it in other consoles? in a real nes or fami even?

the video faults you described could be a bunch of stuff, my first thought was that there are multiple ground pins on a real cartridge, but often pirate stuff will use less.. if the console is using different ones to the cart you'd have plenty of trouble.. i dont know if the game would work at all though.