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Question about Doctor SF7

 
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Videogamer555



Joined: 01 May 2009
Posts: 102

PostPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 11:51 am    Post subject: Question about Doctor SF7 Reply with quote

On the store's page for the Doctor SF7 it says.
Quote:
Menus in English, Chinese, or Japanese

This implies that the language is software based and can be changed from a an "options menu" type setting.

Later on the SAME page it says.
Quote:
If you need Full English setting, you can write it down in comments from your order. Then we will help to change your SF7 to Professor SF2 (both are same, only language setting is different).

This implies it is hardware based, and physically altering the electronics is the only way to change the language setting.




So I have a big question. Which is it?
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MottZilla



Joined: 08 Sep 2004
Posts: 765

PostPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 7:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There is a hardware jumper that changes between Game "Professor" and "Doctor". In the US it was called Professor, and as such the default language is English. Game Doctor usually has Chinese as the startup language. But this is misleading. Most important text is always English. Only a few messages ever appear in Chinese.

Again this sets the default power up language. After power up you can go to a settings menu and change between Chinese, English, and something else, Japanese I think.

I have a GDSF7, it starts up in "Chinese" language mode. Generally I never change it because the only messages in Chinese are completely ignorable. All the options to Load Disk, Copy Disk, Copy Cartridge, etc are all English no matter what options you pick.
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Videogamer555



Joined: 01 May 2009
Posts: 102

PostPosted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 10:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was under the impression that even if the startup language is one thing, you can go to an "options" menu to change the current language for the current opperating sessioin (reset at power off). Is that true?

Also, you mentioned commands like copy to AND copy from. What exactly do those mean? I understand copying the one direction, copying from the cartridge to the floppy drive. But what about the other direction? Is there some kind of flash memory in the device you can copy games to, if copying from a floppy disk (such that the games play off of internal memory storage chips)? Or when you play the game, do you play them DIRECTLY from the floppy disk itself? I'm confused.
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MottZilla



Joined: 08 Sep 2004
Posts: 765

PostPosted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 2:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

As long as your GDSF7 is plugged into power it is intended to retain the current settings and even the current games loaded into memory. So if you don't unplug your GDSF7's power adapter, it should remember english as the language you prefer.

I don't know where you got the idea of copying a game onto a cartridge. I was giving examples to illustrate that all the menus really are in English reguardless, only some useless messages like "Insert Disk" and "Waiting" appear in Chinese.

You can not copy a game onto a cartridge with the GDSF7. You load ROMs from Disk (or parallel port connection) into the GDSF7 to play them. You can also copy a cartridge inserted into the GDSF7 to Disk or Parallel Port connection.

You do NOT play games "directly" off the floppy. When you load a game it is loaded into a type of RAM in the GDSF7. It is used in place of what the system would expect to be a ROM chip containing the game program. Once you put in a disk and load the game and the drive light goes out, you may remove the disk. No game will ever have "in game loading" or anything of that sort.
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Videogamer555



Joined: 01 May 2009
Posts: 102

PostPosted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 7:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

MottZilla wrote:

You do NOT play games "directly" off the floppy. When you load a game it is loaded into a type of RAM in the GDSF7. It is used in place of what the system would expect to be a ROM chip containing the game program. Once you put in a disk and load the game and the drive light goes out, you may remove the disk. No game will ever have "in game loading" or anything of that sort.


Thanks for the info.

Can I copy several games from disks onto the internal memory of the GDSF7, and then load any one of them at will? Then turn off the machine and reset it, and then expect the menu to still be "populated" with games so that I can next time select a different game from the list?

You also said no in game loading, yet what about loading save data (such as Zelda, A Link to The Past has 3 save slots), how do I load my game saves?
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MottZilla



Joined: 08 Sep 2004
Posts: 765

PostPosted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 8:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes you can do that. But if games use Save RAM you will be to reload your save game from a disk before playing it.

When playing a game like Zelda, after you save in the game you should power off the console. Then power it back up to the GDSF7 menu and use the menu option to "Write BRAM to Disk". Then whenever you want to load up those saves again you use the "Load BRAM From Disk" option.

It's all very simple to use really. I should note that the more memory in your GDSF7 the more slots you have to store games if you do leave the GDSF7 plugged in. With the minimum 32 Megabits, you can store up to 4 games if they are each no larger than 8 Megabits (1 Megabyte). By contrast with 128 Megabits which is the maximum, you can store up to 16 games.

Ofcourse many games are larger than 8 megabits. Sizes of 32 megabits (which is 4 slots) are as big as most games get, only a few are bigger than that. 48 megabits is Tales of Phantasia, and the largest game is 96 megabits which is the Star Ocean "No SDD1 Hack".

If you really think you'll use the game retaining feature alot then it would really benefit you to have alot of RAM in your GDSF7. I only have 32mbits in mine and don't use that feature. If I had more I might consider it.
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Videogamer555



Joined: 01 May 2009
Posts: 102

PostPosted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 9:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

What's BRAM? And why should I load BRAM for game save loading? Also, why can't I just run the game, THEN select the game save from the game's OWN save menu? Also, do copiers like this support "save states 1 to 9" like emulators do? And lastly, if I have a save file (NOT a savestate file, but an actual file based on in game saving using the game's own save feature) like Zelda.srm while having played the game on an emulator, are such *.srm files (along with the game rom file itself) recognised by the GDSF7 if present on the disk when the game is loaded?
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MottZilla



Joined: 08 Sep 2004
Posts: 765

PostPosted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 8:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

BRAM is what the GDSF series called the Static RAM that is battery backed inside game cartridges like Zelda.

You are not understanding how it works so I'll explain again.

Lets say you want to play Zelda 3. First, you need to load the ROM into memory if it's not already loaded. Next, you need to load your BRAM (a copy of what would be in the cartridge's save memory) into the GDSF's memory. Now you can start Zelda 3 and your saves will be there.

Now lets say you beat a few levels and saved your game using Zelda 3's built in save feature. All that has happened is the BRAM in the GDSF now contains your up to date Zelda save game. But it's up to you to save that to a disk.

So you have the physical BRAM memory that the game uses, but you need to transfer it from disk to memory when you want to load it before playing a game, and transfer it from memory to disk when you want to update your save file on the disk.

I hope that's clear.

There are not "save states" like emulators. Many copiers, including the GDSF, support a "real time saver" feature. If you enable it and have a game slot free (8 megabits) when you hold down a key combination like L+R+Select, or L+R+Start it will either make a real time save, or load your real time save. Compatibility with games and this feature will vary. Some games will work fine with it. Other games will experience glitches, and others will crash/freeze. Sometimes games will work if you make your save at a certain point in the game like between levels, or at a menu screen but not during gameplay.

If you have a save file from an emulator you can convert it with UCON64 to use it on the GDSF7. You may even be able to just rename it to a proper GDSF name and get it to work.
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Mystic_Merlin



Joined: 15 Oct 2007
Posts: 496
Location: Bangkok

PostPosted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 12:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Motzilla's explanation is quite clear though let me sum it up differently.

Roughly, regular SNES cartridges contain a ROM (the game) and optionally SRAM/BRAM for saving games' status (for RPGs, options, scores...).
The ROM's data never changes and is not writable. The SRAM though is writable and changes every time you save your status in a game. Problem is this type of writable RAM needs to be powered to retain its data, hence the reason why some cartridges have a CR2032 battery inside.

The GDSF7 uses volatile memory, a "kinda of a big SRAM" where you store your game(s), a BRAM to store your save status and I believe a 3rd type of RAM to keep user settings such as the GDSF7's language...
Since all these RAM need to be powered to retain their data, you need to write what's stored inside on a disk before you take off the power supply or load a game which also uses the BRAM.

Some other copiers have a built in battery that act similarly to the one you find on some cartridges so you can take off the power supply and the game's status will remain even after a couple of days; once again as long as you don't load a game that also uses the SRAM/BRAM.

I don't know if anybody thought of modding a GDSF7 to add a battery to keep all its RAM powered after you take off the power supply but I guess it's doable.
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MottZilla



Joined: 08 Sep 2004
Posts: 765

PostPosted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 6:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If they used DRAM and not SRAM for the saving ram then I would guess it's not possible.

By the way, you should backup your save to a disk before you play ANY other game because even though in theory a game that doesn't use save ram won't damage it, there is the odd chance that it might. While the GDSF7 normally would not map the save ram into use on a game that doesn't use it, perhaps you have a bad header or the game's internal header lies and it could become mapped and corrupted. It's really not a huge deal to just copy your save to the disk after you finish playing. It's just a quick power off, wait 1 second, power on, goto a menu option to write the save to the disk which is a very small file and takes maybe 2 or 3 seconds to write to the disk.
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conceitedjerk



Joined: 04 Jan 2004
Posts: 69
Location: Cardboard box behind Sears

PostPosted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 5:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I might add that if you unplug your GDSF7, you'll lose everything on it. Also, Neviksti wrote a DOS program to convert emulator save states to the GDSF7's realtime save format (which works quite well, incidentally!).
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