NES Cartridge Capacity

[CaryMG]

Does anyone know what the max is ?
If not -- does anyone know where I can find out?
GOOGLE & WikiPedia didn't have anything.

Like, for example, the max of a Nintendo64 cartridge is 64MBs -- 512 MegaBits
I think "The Ocarina Of Time" is 64MBs.

[madman77]

The biggest game out there is 8mbit, I believe in terms of official releases. Multi-carts can exceed this with custom built mappers.

[theoakwoody]

I don't know how accurate this is but the biggest rom size I've ever seen for a Nes game is Dragon Warrior IV at 1.6 MB.

[Mr. Smashy]

Kirby's Adventure looks to be a 6-megabit cart. Most other big games that I can think of only hit for the 4-megabit mark.

Those would be:
Dragon Warrior IV
Mega Man 6
Wario's Woods
Final Fantasy III (Famicom)

Adventure Island IV might be up there in size, too.

[rbudrick]

I thought it was Kirby at 4MB....or was that 4Mb?

Shit, I dunno.

-Rob

[suppafly]

THe biggest official NEs games was Kirby at 6 megabits.

The second biggest official game was uncharted waters which was 5 megabits.

There are A LOT of 4 megabit games for NES

[Mr. Smashy]

Action 52 looks to be a 16-megabit cart.

[MarioMania]

How about the pirate carts like Super Mario World on the Famicom

[ccovell]

Metal Slader Glory (by HAL) on the Famicom was 1 megabyte (8mbits). There is no theoretical limit to game size on the Famicom (you just need a new board and a new mapper), but the SFC and 32-bit systems took over, so 8mbits is what we had by the end of the NES/FC's life.

[Graham Mitchell]

Metal Slader Glory (by HAL) on the Famicom was 1 megabyte (8mbits). There is no theoretical limit to game size on the Famicom (you just need a new board and a new mapper), but the SFC and 32-bit systems took over, so 8mbits is what we had by the end of the NES/FC's life.

Are those sizes comparable to, say, a Genesis game (ie--does an 8-meg Famicom game contain the same amount of data as an 8-meg Mega Drive game?) If so, that's impressive. I never thought a FC/NES game could contain as much data as Mega Drive Strider. That's really something.

[veronica_marsfan]

Why are you using megaBITS instead of megaBYTES? (Megabits is confusing when you're used to talking about megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, et cetera.)

Like, for example, the max of a Nintendo64 cartridge is 64MBs

That's not the maximum. They could have gone larger if they had wanted to.

In theory the N64 could address a 4 gigabyte cartridge (without bank switching).
That's equivalent to a DVD in a cartridge, but nobody ever came close to that maximum.

[XianXi]

Why are you using megaBITS instead of megaBYTES? (Megabits is confusing when you're used to talking about megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, et cetera.) That's not the maximum. They could have gone larger if they had wanted to.

Very true. If you open an NES cart the pcb doesnt use much space, they could have easily expanded the size of the pcb to fill the void in the cart.

[Steven]

Just to chime in in general... this is why I miss the old days of meg count. It was always fun to say "WOW, SFIITurbo the 1st 20 meg game!!! 20 megs, holy bejesus!"

Admit it, back in the summer of '93 you thought and said the same thing with your friends. I know I'm not alone.

BTW, not to veer too far OT but was Super Metroid the 1st 24 meg game? I read that somewhere, but cannot confirm. What was the first 32 meg game for SNES? What about 8 and 12 meg?

Back on topic, what % would you say the NES games are 4 megs? One guy here said a lot were 4 meg. So that would match Super Mario World on SNES? I always assumed the majority of NES games to be 2 meg, with only the later generation titles being 4, and only a handful at that.

[veronica_marsfan]

Admit it, back in the summer of '93 you thought and said the same thing with your friends. I know I'm not alone.

I had a computer with 1,000 "megabit" hard drive, so no a teeny-tiny 20 megabit cart did not impress me.

(shrug)

[Steven]

I had a computer with 1,000 "megabit" hard drive, so no a teeny-tiny 20 megabit cart did not impress me.

(shrug)

no problem. Me, I was never into tech-spec of computers. All I knew in 93 was... a lot of games were either 8 or 16 meg. 20 meg was mind-blowing to me because I assumed, like many others did in 93, that the SNES could not go beyond 16 meg.

[veronica_marsfan]

As I recall, the largest SNES cart matched the size of Mario 64 on the N64 == 8 megabytes (64 megabits).

[XianXi]

As I recall, the largest SNES cart matched the size of Mario 64 on the N64 == 8 megabytes (64 megabits).

And the Neo had games 10 times that big.

[veronica_marsfan]

And the Neo had games 10 times that big.

80 megabytes?
Um. No.

Resident Evil 2 on the N64 is the largest cartridge ever made (it included prerecorded videos). It was 64 megabytes.

(The second largest carts were the N64 Zeldas - 32 megabytes each.)

[smork]

80 megabytes?
Um. No.

Resident Evil 2 on the N64 is the largest cartridge ever made (it included prerecorded videos). It was 64 megabytes.

(The second largest carts were the N64 Zeldas - 32 megabytes each.)

Wrong.

Here's a discussion from neo-geo.com (and I'm sure they are the authority on Neo cart sizes):
http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/archiv...p?t-61197.html

Some of the later KOF games were over 100Mb (>800 Mbit). Alot of stuff on them there Neo carts.

[Gentlegamer]

Wrong.

Here's a discussion from neo-geo.com (and I'm sure they are the authority on Neo cart sizes):
http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/archiv...p?t-61197.html

Some of the later KOF games were over 100Mb (>800 Mbit). Alot of stuff on them there Neo carts.

That thread shows that the amount of game data in N64 carts dwarfs that of Neo Geo carts.