SNES Powerpak is now available

[Mitch]

like i said, i think a lot of probs people are having are due to the CF card they are using. There are plenty of examples in this thread of CF cards that work.

Only partly, there's obviously still some console compatibilty issues as well as some mapper bugs.

Mitch

[brad1984]

Hey guys,
My name is brad i am from Australia i want a Snes Powerpak bad and i don't wanna wait till Xmas so if anybody wants to sell me theirs please let me know via email evlutn06@hotmail.com

thanks heaps

[c0ldb33r]

MY SNES POWERPAK WORK PERFECLTY NORMAL WITH the included 2gb card i bought with it.

Mine too. People should try to purchase a 2GB Dane-elec card, which is what mine came with.

[Nature Boy]

i read all the snes powerpak problems . and i have none of them

MY SNES POWERPAK WORK PERFECLTY NORMAL WITH the included 2gb card i bought with it.

people are not lucky here.

castlevania 4 work perfeclty.

For the record, I purchased the 4 GB card from POWERPAK (which is the Dane-whatever brand that the 2 GB card is).

It's really the only rom (other than Contra III) that I've had issues with. I have another spare CF card kicking around (16 MB I think it is ) that I'm going to try out, just to see if I can rule out the card or not. Haven't gotten around to it yet!

[maxwell7301]

For the record, I purchased the 4 GB card from POWERPAK (which is the Dane-whatever brand that the 2 GB card is).

It's really the only rom (other than Contra III) that I've had issues with. I have another spare CF card kicking around (16 MB I think it is ) that I'm going to try out, just to see if I can rule out the card or not. Haven't gotten around to it yet!

One thing I've been wondering is if it makes a difference whether the card is formatted FAT-16 or FAT-32.

Cards 2GB and under can be formatted FAT-16, which may be more compatible with the SNES Powerpak.

Cards 4GB and above must be formatted FAT-32.

My 4GB Lexar card only works without problems if I set DMA=0 in the config.txt file in the POWERPAK mapper directory. If I don't do this, I have problems saving in many games, games don't always load, and some of the text on the rom loading screen is corrupted.

Also, Super Castlevania IV works 100% perfectly for me, so it's probably an issue with a bad rom. I would try to obtain another rom of it, and see if that helps.

[Az]

To expand on a previous post, my Transcend 133x 8gb card card was extremely slow (many times saw the message "card busy") and almost every game had graphical or sound glitches. Tried several formatting tools and eventually rendered it unusable to the Powerpak, now I get the "cart format error, use Fat16 or Fat32" even though the card works fine with any PC. Also get the same error on my NES Powerpak with this card.

Currently using SanDisk Ultra II 4gb (15mb/s) and SanDisk Ultra 4gb (30mb/s) with no problems yet, both of these cards also work on the NES version.

[maxwell7301]

To expand on a previous post, my Transcend 133x 8gb card card was extremely slow (many times saw the message "card busy") and almost every game had graphical or sound glitches. Tried several formatting tools and eventually rendered it unusable to the Powerpak, now I get the "cart format error, use Fat16 or Fat32" even though the card works fine with any PC. Also get the same error on my NES Powerpak with this card.

Currently using SanDisk Ultra II 4gb (15mb/s) and SanDisk Ultra 4gb (30mb/s) with no problems yet, both of these cards also work on the NES version.

I tried using a SanDisk Ultra 4GB, and it didn't work at all for me in the SNES Powerpak. Ended up returning that one to the store. Sandisk Extreme III 4GB didn't work either. I just got an error message at boot that said something like "$01 Card Read Error" (off the top of my head). Reformatting in FAT-32 using Win XP did nothing to help.

The reason that the SanDisk Ultra 4GB works for other people, might be because they have a different SNES hardware revision.

My Sandisk Ultra II 1GB has always worked perfectly in my NES Powerpak, if that's useful for anyone to know. I even did the expansion slot resistor mod, which allows full VRC6 audio for Japanese Castlevania III, and FM synth for FDS games. The USA version of Castlevania III doesn't work on NES Powerpak anyway, plus it has inferior sound quality.

As I've stated in earlier posts, my Lexar Platinum II 80x 4GB works great in the SNES Powerpak, but only if I set DMA=0 in the config.txt file.

I now have nearly all supported games (that I've tried) running and saving fine, which is good. The DMA=0 thing still bothers me a bit though. I'm pretty sure it just increases CF card compatibility, but load times worsen when selecting games.

[Greg2600]

My Sandisk Ultra II 1GB has always worked perfectly in my NES Powerpak, if that's useful for anyone to know. I even did the expansion slot resistor mod, which allows full VRC6 audio for Japanese Castlevania III, and FM synth for FDS games. The USA version of Castlevania III doesn't work on NES Powerpak anyway, plus it has inferior sound quality.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think bunnyboy uses the same program files for the NES and SNES powerpak, so you could use the same CF card for both cartridges. 1GB is enough likely for NES and SNES games combined (that work). That's why I was asking people if they had an NES PP, and a card that worked.

[BeaKManiak]

Hi, I've just received the Powerpak 1.02 for Christmas, but I cannot make it work. I have a PAL SNES, 2/1/3, SNSP-001A(UKV) and a 2 GB Kingston CF (that works perfect with the NES Powerpak).

First of all, the CF only "works" if it's formatted to FAT32, because if I format the card to FAT then the Powerpak gives me a "CONFIG file not found" error. With FAT32, I can see the games list, but when I execute any of them, it just shows a black screen or it executes the game with a lot of graphic glitches and then it hangs, even with DMA=0.

I think it can be a CF compatibility problem, but before spending 30+ € in a Dane-elec one, I prefer to make sure this is the problem. Any ideas?

[maxwell7301]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think bunnyboy uses the same program files for the NES and SNES powerpak, so you could use the same CF card for both cartridges. 1GB is enough likely for NES and SNES games combined (that work). That's why I was asking people if they had an NES PP, and a card that worked.

Well, I managed to fill up the 1GB card with about 400mb of NES roms for the NES Powerpak, which is not an easy task, considering the absolutely tiny size of NES roms.

This includes every USA release, every Japanese release, nearly every worthwhile fan translation and many hacks, not to mention FDS roms. I also keep an extra folder of duplicate roms that I play often for easy access. All of the full sets are split into folders by letter.

I was really going for completeness, and of course, there are some duplicates and a few games don't work.

I really want a dedicated card for the NES and SNES Powerpaks, and do not want to use the same card for both, although the NES and SNES mappers are definitely combined, and it is very easy to do this.

That said, the 1GB Sandisk Ultra II works perfectly on both Powerpaks. The remaining ~550MB should be plenty for anyone's SNES needs, but I'm stubborn, and want to give my SNES Powerpak the same treatment as the NES (need 1.5GB for this).

[eastbayarb]

I have a 2gb card for my NES powerpak. Takes about 1gb for all the USA/Japanese games, and a bit more for the FDS, and NSF music collections.

I have a 4gb CF card for SNES with every USA game and many JAP, European, and Fan translations. Hopefully, SPC music playability will be possible at some point.

[maxwell7301]

Hi, I've just received the Powerpak 1.02 for Christmas, but I cannot make it work. I have a PAL SNES, 2/1/3, SNSP-001A(UKV) and a 2 GB Kingston CF (that works perfect with the NES Powerpak).

First of all, the CF only "works" if it's formatted to FAT32, because if I format the card to FAT then the Powerpak gives me a "CONFIG file not found" error. With FAT32, I can see the games list, but when I execute any of them, it just shows a black screen or it executes the game with a lot of graphic glitches and then it hangs, even with DMA=0.

I think it can be a CF compatibility problem, but before spending 30+ € in a Dane-elec one, I prefer to make sure this is the problem. Any ideas?

I would definitely try a different CF card, as the SNES Powerpak appears to be very picky as to which cards it likes.

The worst case scenario would be to buy an NTSC Snes off of Ebay. The problem could be the PAL Snes, which I'm pretty sure are largely untested with the SNES Powerpak.

[maxwell7301]

I have a 2gb card for my NES powerpak. Takes about 1gb for all the USA/Japanese games, and a bit more for the FDS, and NSF music collections.

I have a 4gb CF card for SNES with every USA game and many JAP, European, and Fan translations. Hopefully, SPC music playability will be possible at some point.

Yeah, I guess my NES setup isn't complete, then. I definitely can't think of any games worth playing that aren't in there though.

I have 687 USA roms and 1050 Japan, not including hacks, translations or duplicates.

I basically used windows search to filter out filenames with specific tags, such as (U), (J), [!], [T+ENG, [T-ENG, etc. This was from a very complete set that includes over dumps, bad dumps, pirates, and such.

It would definitely appear that you are more thorough than me.

[MarioMania]

Why do people need a 2GB Card for??

I just wait til it works 95% of the time

[Kiddo]

Hey, folks. Someone I know wants some help with the Powerpak.

http://z9.invisionfree.com/bszelda/i...0#entry1402608

Unfortunately I do not know the ins and outs of the Powerpak enough to help him much more than the suggestions I have. If I had one of my own, I'd try to figure it out myself, but I use a Super UFO ROM copier still...

[Greg2600]

maxwell, yes, I went crazy too, and spent a lot of time scrounging up every USA, Japan-only, and PAL-only release. I don't have any duplicates or music files, although I did eliminate many Famicom games which I'll never play.

1. Puzzle games because I couldn't figure out what the heck to do (kept US games)
2. RPG games because I'm not an RPG'er (kept US games).
3. Any totally untranslated game, because if I can't follow the menus, what's the point? Some have enough English to get by.

In doing so, I wound up test playing (for half a minute) hundreds of NES games, many for the first time ever. So it was interesting, and I have a spreadsheet of lousy game reviews to prove it.

So on that note, does anyone know of or have a listing of all the SNES releases, which lists the Japanese alternatives as well? I know wikipedia does, but its a pain to copy it from there and convert it into usable data for Excel. SNES Central has listings as well, but I'd rather not have to go through that all again.

[jupitersj]

The Powerpak(1.02/1.02) is extremely picky/flaky with compatibility right now.

So far I have tested 5 different systems using the same CF card mentioned in my earlier posts with DMA ON.

#1 v1 SNES US NTSC 1/1/1
system claims DSP1 installed and SDRAM check ok
cannot reset to Battery Save Screen always resets every game instead


#2 v1 SNES US NTSC 2/1/2
system claims DSP1 installed and SDRAM check ok
Occasionally gives errors when loading Seiken Densetsu 3 (J) [T+Eng1.01_NCorlett+LNFT], Sonic Blast Man (U) [!], Sonic Blast Man II (U) ...these load fine on System #1 and #5

etc also will show errors when using select button on these titles on this console but not others


#3 v1 SNES US NTSC 2/1/3
system claims DSP1 not installed error, SDRAM error read bank FF = 21


#4 v1 SNES US NTSC 2/1/3
system claims DSP1 not installed error

#5 v1 SNES US NTSC 2/1/3
system claims DSP1 installed and SDRAM check ok
No trouble on this system so far


I haven't the time to do a large comprehensive 100+ game test on 5 separate consoles at the moment and I do have more information but it'll have to wait till I have time.

Suffice it to say it's a gamble atm until more updates come out for the snes powerpak

[BeaKManiak]

I would definitely try a different CF card, as the SNES Powerpak appears to be very picky as to which cards it likes.

The worst case scenario would be to buy an NTSC Snes off of Ebay. The problem could be the PAL Snes, which I'm pretty sure are largely untested with the SNES Powerpak.

Finally I bought a Sandisk Ultra II 2 GB and works like a charm with my PAL SNES, even with DMA=1. I had to format the CF to FAT32, because with FAT format the Powerpak still gave me the "CONFIG file not found", but in FAT32 it works perfect.

So, if anyone of you are having problems with a PAL SNES (at least with 2/1/3 hw), check if you can get a Sandisk Ultra II 2 GB, because in my case it worked.

[Drejjmit]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR0Msnp5oNU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KATnEosPEv8
Anyone else having this problem?

[scottw182]

Omgosh, I want!

Is there a translated version of the Japanese Terranigma that could be played so you don't have to mess with the Pal version?

Is there a limit to what size CompactFlash card it supports?

"PS: The price went up to $135."
What was the price before?

Is there an incompatibility list for the NES PowerPak? I didn't see one on the site.

I expected them to have a Donkey Kong Country competition cart repo but I didn't see one. Does anybody else make one?