How trustworthy are the non-VMU Dreamcast memory units?

[vrikkgwj]

There's a local used game shop near me that are unfortunately sold out of the Sega brand VMUs, but they said on the phone that they have some of the unofficial ones. I know from my PS2 days that those "8x" memory units wiped my saves, so has anyone had luck with the Dreamcast ones? He said that he had "1x" and "4x", which I assume is the memory, so... help please. And thank you.

[j_factor]

I know this doesn't really answer your question, but there are official Sega-made 4x memory cards as well. They're definitely reliable.

[Genesaturn]

I honestly can say I've never seen any non official Sega VMU's out there. I'm pretty sure none were released..although I could be completely wrong. I always buy official accessories though, so I never bothered looking for off brand VMU's. I know MadCatz makes regular memory cards though.

[Damon Plus]

Mine worked fine since 2005, until one day last year, with no reason, it erased itself. Thankfully, I had mostly saves of finished games. I only really miss my 45 hour Record of the Lodoss War save, and my Shenmue one that had one save right before a snowy day and one right before a rainy day.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Non-Sega branded memory packs are iffy at best, dangerous (to your save data) at worst. Plus some games will refuse to work with them.

[kedawa]

They were unreliable 12 years ago, and battery-backed RAM does not get better with age.

The official Sega 4x card is a great product, though. I own two of them and I've had no trouble with either one, despite near constant use.

[A Black Falcon]

Dreamcawst memory cards are flash memory, not battery-backed. From the Playstation and Saturn on, all systems except for the N64 have flash memory in their memory cards, not batteries... (though of course, N64, GBC, and GBA cart games often have batteries, but I'm talking about memory cards). But anyway, yeah, third party memory cards never were reliable back then. If you do get one, I'd recommend sticking with 1X, which are the most likely to actually work... I've had no problems with 1x Mad Catz PS1 cards, for example.

As for the Dreamcast, most of my cards are first party (and yes, only Sega could make the VMUs with screens on them), but I do have one third party card. It's actually a Nyko rumble pack slash 4X memory card combo... I know, failure-bait if there is anything, but I've had it sine '07 or '08, and it still works, surprisingly enough. It's got some issues -- ever since the controller it, and my Sega 4X card are in, got wet sometime around like '09 or something, in order to get the cards to register on that controller, when I turn on the system I have to turn the third party card from vmu mode to rumble mode and then back (it's a switch on the thing), then change channels on the card; then it'll appear. I also need to change channels with the Sega card to get it to appear too. Yeah, it's really, really weird, but I haven't lost any files on either card so far...

If Sega 4X cards were cheaper and easier to find, though, I'd replace it with one for sure. I don't exactly entirely trust it.

[kedawa]

I didn't realize they were all flash at that point. Good to know.
Do third party memory cards have the extra memory space for VMU games?
The Sega 4X card does for some reason, which is awesome. I have all my memory cards and VMUs reformatted to use the entire memory space for game saves.

[Wraith Storm]

I didn't realize they were all flash at that point. Good to know.
Do third party memory cards have the extra memory space for VMU games?
The Sega 4X card does for some reason, which is awesome. I have all my memory cards and VMUs reformatted to use the entire memory space for game saves.

I LOVE my official Sega 4x card. It is one of the only 4x cards that I have never had issues with. I just wish it had a screen, then it would be perfect. I usually have it in the bottom slot and then a VMU in the top slot.

Back in the Playstation days I bought a Mad Catz 2x memory card and that thing was either possessed or just really hated Final Fantasy 8. Either is possible. It would screw with the controller input and reset the game and format itself. After realizing what was causing the issue I trashed it and only went with official memory cards after that.

The Saturn, while having its fair share of terrible 3rd party memory carts (Interact memory card plus), has some really REALLY good ones (Game Shark) and some that are even better than the official one (Performance memory card plus, Action Replay 4m plus).

As for the DC 3rd party memory cards, I don't have much experience with them. I would assume that any 1x card would be fine, but would stay away from any 2x or 4x cards unless its the official Sega 4x.