♪ Flash cart! Aa-aah~ ♫

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Mothra
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♪ Flash cart! Aa-aah~ ♫

Postby Mothra » Mon Feb 23, 2015 12:55 pm

I've gotten a group together in Boston that might be down for a Secret of Mana playthrough. I've got an SNES, and I can probably get that multi-controller tap thingie on eBay, so all that remains is to get a playable copy of one of the most expensive SNES titles on the market.

It would probably cost me $60-$75 if I wanted to buy the game from someone online, which is starting to make me consider the possibility of getting an SNES flash cart and doing it that way.

Way I figure, it would cost about the same, and this way I could play a few translated Japan-only titles like... well, Secret of Mana 2. And Sweet Home.

Anyone have any experience with SNES flash carts? A cursory Google search reveals a wall of cheaply-made, wildly-overpriced garbage.

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Re: ♪ Flash cart! Aa-aah~ ♫

Postby kashan » Mon Feb 23, 2015 1:29 pm

I don't really have much input on this other than to say I don't think sweet home should be a motivator for you in buying an SNES flash cart as that's a famicom game. I've been considering getting a flash cart too though so if you find one that you love let me know how it goes.

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Mothra
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Re: ♪ Flash cart! Aa-aah~ ♫

Postby Mothra » Mon Feb 23, 2015 1:57 pm

Nah I'm not actually considering playing Sweet Home, I was just clownin'.

That game look charming and utterly unplayable.

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Re: ♪ Flash cart! Aa-aah~ ♫

Postby Smiler » Mon Feb 23, 2015 2:27 pm

Both the SD2SNES and Super Everdrive seem good enough. I'd look up what each one does. I don't think either support the FX chip.

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Re: ♪ Flash cart! Aa-aah~ ♫

Postby Mothra » Mon Feb 23, 2015 5:22 pm

Heard the same thing from a friend who's really into emulation. That looks to be the best quality board out there.

But! I just realized SD2SNES is $190 dollars.

Fuuuuck that.

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Mothra
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Re: ♪ Flash cart! Aa-aah~ ♫

Postby Mothra » Mon Feb 23, 2015 5:49 pm

Was poking around this Etsy show that sells reproduction carts, and oh my god some of these are delightful:


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Re: ♪ Flash cart! Aa-aah~ ♫

Postby Thad » Tue Jun 05, 2018 12:42 am

Smiler wrote:Both the SD2SNES and Super Everdrive seem good enough. I'd look up what each one does. I don't think either support the FX chip.


(Three years later...)

SD2SNES does now.







Some fine fellow by the handle of Redguy has released an unofficial firmware that handles the SuperFX/SuperFX2. It's been merged into the official firmware; there's some testing yet to do but it should be in the next release.

So that's basically every chip supported except the SA-1 (Super Mario RPG, Kirby Super Star, Kirby's Dream Land 3). It's unclear whether SA-1 simulation is possible on the SD2SNES, but obviously now that the SuperFX is implemented that's the next place for developers to start experimenting.

I own Super Mario RPG, but not the Kirby games. Last I checked eBay, Super Star was going for around $50 and Dream Land 3 was going for around $100 (for just the cart). It'd be nice to be able to play them on the SD2SNES, but if not...well, I'll start saving pennies.

In the meantime, well, I've got a shitload of other games to play, of course.

And now I can try out Star Fox 2 on a real SNES.

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Re: ♪ Flash cart! Aa-aah~ ♫

Postby Thad » Sun Mar 03, 2019 9:20 pm

Thad wrote:So that's basically every chip supported except the SA-1 (Super Mario RPG, Kirby Super Star, Kirby's Dream Land 3). It's unclear whether SA-1 simulation is possible on the SD2SNES, but obviously now that the SuperFX is implemented that's the next place for developers to start experimenting.


SA-1 is now supported. The list of games that aren't supported on SD2SNES now has under 25 entries on it (and, at a glance, the only one on the list that was released outside of Japan is Street Fighter Alpha 2, and of course there are better ways to play SFA2 than on a SNES with a flash cart). And that list is still shrinking; devs are working on S-DD1 and SPC7110 implementation as well. (ETA: S-DD1 support has been added to firmware version 1.10. I guess that means Star Ocean and SF Alpha 2 should work now?)

I fired up Kirby's Dream Land 3 and confirmed it works on mine.

There's also an improved version, the SD2SNES Pro, on the way. The immediate advantage is that it will be able to combine MSU-1 audio hacks with SA-1 games (so, say, if somebody wanted to reorchestrate the Super Mario RPG soundtrack). There may be some other possibilities on the horizon -- maybe winnow that list of incompatible games down even further, maybe even support Super Game Boy -- but all of that's hypothetical at this point. The main reason for the spec bump is just that the FPGA the SD2SNES used up to this point has been discontinued; the spec bump is just a side effect of having to switch to a new chip.


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Re: ♪ Flash cart! Aa-aah~ ♫

Postby Thad » Sat Jun 22, 2019 12:28 am

28 years later, a no-disc version of the Sega CD finally exists—and it works

$260 is too rich for my blood, but man, pretty cool.

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Re: ♪ Flash cart! Aa-aah~ ♫

Postby Thad » Mon Jun 22, 2020 1:11 pm

Somebody's managed to get Super Game Boy support on the SD2SNES. I don't see any explanation of how it works but presumably this requires reproducing actual Game Boy hardware using the SD2SNES's FPGA -- which sounds complicated but is probably considerably less complicated than implementing features the SD2SNES already has like the SuperFX 2 chip.

FPGA programming is generally done in HDL; I don't know much about it but as far as I understand it it's basically a circuit diagram translated into words, and it's portable by its nature -- meaning that whatever HDL code the MiSTer uses for its Game Boy core is probably not difficult to port to other FPGAs. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened here.

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Re: ♪ Flash cart! Aa-aah~ ♫

Postby Thad » Mon Jul 13, 2020 5:37 pm

Thad wrote:28 years later, a no-disc version of the Sega CD finally exists—and it works

$260 is too rich for my blood, but man, pretty cool.


The new Mega EverDrive Pro can also load Sega CD games. Nobody seems to have it in stock yet but apparently it'll be $200.



The EverDrive is a quality line of products, and if you've already got a Genesis and controllers then this is still cheaper than a MiSTer. And more accurate (though the MiSTer is pretty damn good).

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