PC Engine/Turbo Duo Question

[icbrkr]

I've been playing with the PC Engine Duo that I got, and I'm having some issues.

Many games appear to crash (when loading off of CD) when you move from one level to another. I'm reading up on it, but I cannot find a more recent FAQ but from what I gathered there's a battery backup somewhere on this thing. How the heck would you get to it? I've played a few games (in Japanese) and all I can translate is "Battery!" so I'm sure my built in one is hosed.

Also, is there a way to see what might already be in RAM?

[Azazel]

There's probably a good chance your system is dying as I've known people with samiliar problems. With the loading from one level to another and the system just crapping out on you or just beening left with a black screen.

To access your save files just hit select when the bios screen is loaded up. You'll get 3 choices.

Delete a save file
format the system save files
exit back to the bios screen

Select the first chose and you should see a list of the save files on the system. If there's no save files it will just say Data Ga Arimasen in Japanese IE which means there's no save data.

Most games that require back up data won't even let you play them. You generally won't be able to get much farther than the title screen. Most RPGS and stretegy games will take up almost the entire systems memory. 2 games at most is all you'll be able to have on the system memory. Try deleting some save files and see if that works. If your still have problems maybe try formatting the save files for the system. I've had it happen once or twice where I deleted all the save files on the system and I was still getting the backup ram error message when I tried to play CD games.

There's also some games that require stuff like the ACD, GEC, Memory Base 128 which is why you can't play them.

[icbrkr]

Great, I'll give it a try when I get home later. Does this mean it's using NVRAM for backup though, or is there some battery I should be switching out?

Thanks for the info!

[Graham Mitchell]

I'm not as well-versed on this subject as you guys, but the machine definitely does have a battery. If you keep the machine unplugged for more than a few weeks, though, it will erase itself. Make sure that thing is always plugged in.

The older games (like Y's) were designed knowing you were going to have memory problems, and therefore have a password option that allows you to keep your memory free.

Hope that helps, but it probably won't.

[Azazel]

I think the manual says you should power the system on once a week. I don't think just having it plugged in is enough. I know I've gone much longer than that and it still had all the save data on it.

[icbrkr]

Looks like I'll have to open this up somehow and replace the battery (gotta love the special screws). Thanks again for the help.

[icbrkr]

Looks like the battery was fine! I took a look in memory, and there was 19 game saves in there. I erased them all, and suddenly my games started switching levels without crashing, I saw new parts of games I hadn't seen (Dracula X didn't come up with a "Create Player" part originally, it does now and works fine). W00! 8-)