Optimum donor cart for Star Fox 2 repos?

[The Adventurer]

I'm jonesing hard to get a hard copy of Star Fox 2 I can actually play on my Super Nintendo. And though I lack the expertise to make one myself, I figure I might save myself some money in the future if I find a valid donor cart for it early on. But I'm not entirely clear on what game carts can handle Star Fox 2. From what I know, all of the Super FX 2 games (all 3 of them) should work. Doom works but A)No battery back up, and B)clashing red game cart. Winter Gold is supposedly the optimum cart as it has battery back up. But its somewhat rare and expensive. But what about Yoshi's Island? I know that game is FX2 and has battery back-up. But I've never heard if its usable as as donor cart. Is there some reason that makes it invalid? Or is it actually a good choice?

But I've heard that you can use Stunt Race FX. Which sounds odd to me since its not Super FX2. Or I didn't think it was. Since that cart is rather common it definitely would be the easiest to sacrifice for the greater good. But I'm skeptical.

So, help me understand this a little better?

[Jack_Burton_BYOAC]

If the clashing color bothers you then you can always swap it out for some other FX2 game with a gray cart. Then sell that game with "wow! special red cartridge version!", just make sure you make a note that you have swapped the case from another game and that it is not really an official release.

[SparTonberry]

Is there some reason that makes it invalid? Or is it actually a good choice?

Probably because people don't like to destroy a game that someone else might want to play.
(I hear it's quite possible that to make one repro, you could destroy a few carts in the process.)

[Scissors]

But I've heard that you can use Stunt Race FX. Which sounds odd to me since its not Super FX2. Or I didn't think it was. Since that cart is rather common it definitely would be the easiest to sacrifice for the greater good. But I'm skeptical.

While I know nothing about making repros, I do know that I sent a copy of Stunt Race FX as the donor cart to the person who made my Star Fox 2 repro.

[Tanooki]

The game technically was supposed to be a FX2 game but takes no real advantage of the extra speed or sprite capabilities of the chip so going with either FX1 or FX2 is fine. Due to that the cheap optimum is Stunt Race FX because it has the two perfect qualities needed which is a save battery for scores/pepper coins and the right size of memory needed on board to handle the sprite processing the game needs so it won't glitch. DOOM on the FX2 end has all that but no saving, and Yoshi has the save but it has not enough memory on the PCB board so it won't work, and yes while Winter Gold is 'perfect' it is a PAL chipset so you'd need to butcher in a NTSC chip onto that sucker so it would boot to an American system and that along with the rarer nature of the game makes it too costly. I've seen the thing run on a FX1 and FX2 processor and you really can't tell the difference.

Mind you if you were some speed hack hacker though with the right crystal oscillator (look up star fox 2, drakon on youtube) you can clock the chip up quite a bit higher which allows the game to run at faster running speed, though it still runs the same FPS. It gives a false sense of being smoother when all it does is just run the game at a faster overall pace is all.

Your best bet is to find someone who does a solid job on the cart. Taco! over on NintendoAge will hardwire a thick gauge wire for each pin on the chip that has starfox2 flashed to it to the main board with a good solid amount of solder so it will last. Many repro makers will halfass it up using very thin ribbon cable wire that's known to be much more likely to bust off there and as such fail. As long as you can find someone doing it with Stunt Race FX and using quality materials you'll be safe.

[The Adventurer]

The game technically was supposed to be a FX2 game but takes no real advantage of the extra speed or sprite capabilities of the chip so going with either FX1 or FX2 is fine. Due to that the cheap optimum is Stunt Race FX because it has the two perfect qualities needed which is a save battery for scores/pepper coins and the right size of memory needed on board to handle the sprite processing the game needs so it won't glitch. DOOM on the FX2 end has all that but no saving, and Yoshi has the save but it has not enough memory on the PCB board so it won't work, and yes while Winter Gold is 'perfect' it is a PAL chipset so you'd need to butcher in a NTSC chip onto that sucker so it would boot to an American system and that along with the rarer nature of the game makes it too costly. I've seen the thing run on a FX1 and FX2 processor and you really can't tell the difference.

Mind you if you were some speed hack hacker though with the right crystal oscillator (look up star fox 2, drakon on youtube) you can clock the chip up quite a bit higher which allows the game to run at faster running speed, though it still runs the same FPS. It gives a false sense of being smoother when all it does is just run the game at a faster overall pace is all.

Your best bet is to find someone who does a solid job on the cart. Taco! over on NintendoAge will hardwire a thick gauge wire for each pin on the chip that has starfox2 flashed to it to the main board with a good solid amount of solder so it will last. Many repro makers will halfass it up using very thin ribbon cable wire that's known to be much more likely to bust off there and as such fail. As long as you can find someone doing it with Stunt Race FX and using quality materials you'll be safe.

Thanks. Especially for clearing up the mystery about Yoshi Islands. I'll dig up a copy of Stunt Race FX with confidence now.

[wiggyx]

Using "thick" wire is of no benefit. If the job is done right, then it could be done with 30g wire and hold up just fine. It's not like there's anything inside the carts to break solder points loose. If it fails, it's because someone did a crummy job soldering and gluing wires down.

[kedawa]

I always thought that the FX2 chip was required for the texture maps that appear sparingly throughout the game.