Vagrant Questions

[WulfeLuer]

So I beat another game and I went ahead and made a short list of games I'm considering firing up and tearing through. One of them is Vagrant Story. I was looking it over, thinking what would have made me not go ahead and play it when I acquired it last year. Then I realized part of the reason: for some reason this game's save take up three blocks of memory card space, and I like having multiple saves of games. I'm probably gonna go ahead and start this monster, but I want to ask a couple things.

Why does this game actually need three blocks of space? Are there other games for the PS1 (not counting 'creating' games like say RPG Maker) that take up this much card space? I've seen lots of two space games, and some that need an extra 'data' block for things like NG+ or other extra features, but never three just for normal gameplay.

[Pr3tty F1y]

So I beat another game and I went ahead and made a short list of games I'm considering firing up and tearing through. One of them is Vagrant Story. I was looking it over, thinking what would have made me not go ahead and play it when I acquired it last year. Then I realized part of the reason: for some reason this game's save take up three blocks of memory card space, and I like having multiple saves of games. I'm probably gonna go ahead and start this monster, but I want to ask a couple things.

Why does this game actually need three blocks of space? Are there other games for the PS1 (not counting 'creating' games like say RPG Maker) that take up this much card space? I've seen lots of two space games, and some that need an extra 'data' block for things like NG+ or other extra features, but never three just for normal gameplay.

I believe Sony Playstation (e.g., "PSOne") memory cards only contain 128kb of flash memory. Assuming that there is some sort of formatting/overhead, each block is probably only 8kb - which isn't much. If you want to know more about Playstation game memory card requirements, check out MobyGames.com "Specs" tab. Here's what it says for Gran Turismo 2: Memory Card: 3-15 blocks.

There are actually a number of games that take up a good portion of memory card.

Also - If you're interested in actual hardware, be wary of memory cards that supposedly had more blocks than the original Playstation memory card as they are not always what they seem. Some of them may legitimately provide the amount of memory they state (although I think all use some sort of physical button for 'paging' between virtual memory cards'). However, cheaper cards tried to employ compression to the saves so that they could cram more saves in the tiny amount of expansion flash memory provided. The problem was, as Playstation developers got better, they already compressed the save data to take up fewer blocks. Trying to compress already compressed data often leads to no gains. Thus, these shady memory cards which employed this technique often wiped/corrupted themselves as they ran of space because they couldn't compress the data enough and could not provide the space that they advertised/presented that they were making available to the system.

[WulfeLuer]

Oh yes, I know about third-party memory cards, plus the fact that the ones that cooperated with an actual PS1 halfway decently go completely bonkers when you plug them in into a PS2 running a PS1 game. I just wonder what some of these games are doing; games where you do heavy customization or actual world building needing lots of space makes sense, some of these others less so. Sort of half curiousity, half venting.

[Koa Zo]

I've wondered about the various Memory Card usage also, maybe some programmers just optimized that stuff better. Though I think you're right that it's usually customization, or ghost lap records for racing games.
Of the games I have, a few that stand out are:
Burning Road = 5 blocks
Descent = 5 blocks
Speed Punks = 1-13 blocks

JPN:
Croc Pau-Pau Island = 1~15 blocks
Dezaemon Kids = 15 blocks
Dezaemon Plus = 15 blocks
Galaxian^3 = 4 blocks
J's Racin' = 4 blocks
Motor Toon Grand Prix USA Edition = 1-16 blocks
Option Tuning Car Battle 2 = 5 blocks
Prism Land Story [aka Sorcerer's Maze] = 11 blocks
Prisoner of Ice = 6 blocks
Raiden DX = 1-9 blocks
Soukoban Basic 2 = 9 blocks


I wonder what Raiden DX uses all that save data for?

I've also wondered if companies had to pay Sony licensing fees for memory card usage.