ToToTEK.COM

[amptor]

Presenting Ikari's



PAL Cartridge label made by Fish of Snesfreaks.com

for those of you who want amptor's customized Fish snes label for NTSC cart, here it is. But I don't really know how to print it yet. Apparantly you should be able to import it into a MS word document and set the photo size to 1.73" x 3.29" and then print. I just made more edits to the photo so it doesn't look so squished:

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k497/gbatemp/SNES/sneslabel05b.jpg




So this is finally available and I can tell you it works great. This loads ROMs at a speedy 9 megabytes (yes, megabytes not megabits) per second so you won't even notice the game loading after you select it and run.

A couple other features are that it supports SD/SDHC/SDXC (yeah it does support the newest SD specification, the XD). Also it supports up to 64 gigabytes of streamed data (I have read at places that the maximum size of a game is 4 gigabytes but that is still quite gargantuan compared to the largest size SNES games that were ever mass produced. The largest games were only 48 megabit in size which is 6 megabytes. 4GB is far greater than 6 megabytes in comparison).

There is a current homebrew game available, Road Blaster, which is a port of a laserdisc game. It weighs in at above 500 megabytes and it runs flawlessly on this cartridge. Can you imagine? The game is over 4,000 MEGABIT and it works! LOL! (I need to mention here that Version 1.1, the current stable build, does work at 60Hz).




As usual, the high quality SMD parts soldered onto this board.
These are KRIKzz photos and I don't have the sd2snes with me to comment much further. I think the RAM was Micron and the FCPGA (the big chip where all the magic happens) is made by XILINX.


This cartridge, unlike previous products such as the NeoFlash SNES Myth Cart, has more space inside the FCPGA to store code so in the future it is possible to support any special chip as long as it has been firmware updated with the latest code provided that support has been developed and implemented.

FCPGA Firmware updates can be done without any special hardware, again, unlike the NeoFlash product. You can put the firmware on an SD card and it will automatically find the file and allow you to flash it right in place.

This cartridge already supports the Capcom CX4 microchip which is used in both the Megaman/Rockman X2 and Megaman/Rockman X3 cartridges. NTSC/U/J and PAL/E ROMs will run without a hitch as well as the Megaman X3 Zero Mission ROM (with the latest firmware update which readdresses some of the memory mapping in code). It also works with ALL DSP chips including third party vendors (DSP1A/B, DSP2, DSP3, and DSP4). Yes SD Gundam GX and TopGear 3000 run as well as Dungeon Master and Pilotwings. All of these titles load in a fraction of a second and are fully playable. There is no difference between the gameplay of these ROMs using sd2snes than playing them on original cartridge hardware.

The author of this product is currently working on Super FX support. In the meantime, we get to enjoy this flawless beauty of a cartridge and quite possibly in the meantime suspend our hunt for such rarities as the Smart Bros. by CCL

Cartridge pre-fabricated, soldered, flashed, and ready-to-run kit costs $190 for the bare cartridge plus another $5 freight from vendors. It is a marvel of computer electronics engineering for sure and will not set you back as much as it would cost if you actually did come across the previously mentioned non-flash type CCL unit

For those who purchased this fabulous device, enjoy.

[SpooNMan]

Looks good. I look forward to getting one. Hopefully FX (and possibly SA-1 chip emulation will be worked out by then.)

[amptor]

I'm getting very into Megaman x2 on this (although as in another thread, I do own the real cart just never really played it a lot) And played through Wild Guns beginning to end perfect. Also tried some DKC and played Gundam Wing Endless Duel english translation.

I tried out a little homebrew but not much (just to see if this would run the hacked SWC DX2 bios which it doesn't and the Pro Fighter bios which it runs but not the pro fighter Q). Although I know people will say "why do that" well, just to see if it would show the menu screens of course the functionality of those ROMs will not exist in an emulator or copier.

This flash cart is awesome. Some of you know that I have N64 flash cart as well but honestly I seem to prefer SNES games although N64 has a few good titles that I like. I think SNES and Wii were Nintendo's best systems.

[MottZilla]

Really the Wii? I'd say NES and SNES were they best systems. The Wii and Virtual Boy were their worst in my opinion. The Gameboy series collectively right behind the NES and SNES as their best. The DS did well but had alot of crapware. The N64 was OK. The Wii, what a waste of money that was for me. I really can't say I cared for the Wii at all. And I gave it a fair shot. I bought the Wii, twice. It's ok but no where near PS3 or 360 in my interest to play any games. I still own a Wii but I do not like the motion controls at all, or the terrible "pointer" aiming. The 3DS is the only Nintendo platform I might consider looking at in the future. They were great in the past but they've really lost it.

[RGB_Gamer]

N64 wasn't Nintendo's best system either compared to NES and SNES...

[MottZilla]

I agree, but compared to the GameCube and the Wii the N64 has better standing to me since N64 was still relevant back in the time frame. GameCube however was really sparse and not terribly relevant. It had a few AAA titles. But I didn't play it near as much as N64.

[madman]

NES, SNES then GB for me. The N64 has some really outstanding titles that no respectable gamer should be without, but the system was severely limited in its hardware. Probably more so by the hardware than the decision to go with carts vs CDs. I got into the GC near the end of its life span so I never really had a feel for what's on it. Most of the games I've put serious time into on the system were the Mario games. Same with the Wii.

[amptor]

Well I like the NES a bit but when I get into it, it doesn't hold my appeal as long as the SNES. Wii is backward compatible with gamecube. I liked some gamecube games, that console can play them. I have all Nintendo systems except for the NES though. I like the new donkey kong country game on Wii and it has more than 80 other titles that I like just on Wii alone, not including the gamecube backward compatibility. I think GC has less games that I like. I bought all my favorites before I installed a mod chip (the mod chip was available while I was buying the games at the time). Actually Tomy sold me the Qoob SX

[MottZilla]

N64 was definitely limited by the tiny Texture cache. But then you can also say it needed more RAM, though it did thankfully get that. Then you can complain about the game storage medium. N64 did ok for awhile though. All my friends had N64 consoles and we all had plenty of controllers and 4 player games. Was great for gaming together.

[amptor]

Yeah but N64 has some games that I like to load up at times. It offers a small amount of nostalgia. NES offers more but a lot of the games we used to play feel quite bare and basic and usually lack a lot of proper game mechanics. We used to play whatever was available in those days so we'd just keep renting the same stuff over and over. And it was pretty much the same with previous systems. Just by the time we were into NES, we already had so much stuff go on that the NES helped build up more memories. I mean if I watch angry video game nerd on youtube, I can relate to the majority of the kinds of joking around he does in those videos. There were always several kids that embodied what he depicts in those videos and that all went along at the same time with the NES video game culture. NES games are interesting but often times too difficult for what they were intended to be. It's an interesting set of games but as for over all entertainment value, many that we used to play tend to be pretty stale. It's mostly like I will load up a game because I remember it but for the most part I can't stand playing the game for any longer than a few minutes lol.

By the time the N64 stuff really got rolling, the V64 was available. There was a lot of stuff circling that that I saw just because I was on IRC (which was a total utter f***ing waste of time but that is a whole other story. anyhow chat programs inherently are to be time wasters by design). Not many people were on IRC so they didn't absorb things the same way as I did. I remember people saying in #snes that "there won't ever be an N64 copier because the kind of memory it uses is too expensive" which was total bullshit and I knew because people always come out with new technologies rapidly and soon came some units (the most popular of which, the V64, used standard non-ECC EDO sdram which at the time cost a little but it was still cheap over all) and those trying to sell me the backup device which I think cost over $500 at most places (I felt the price to be absurd especially after I actually acquired one a few years back, taking it apart and seeing the innards which I already knew a little bit about) and then eventually it got banned from import (was this ban ever lifted? It wasn't difficult at all for me to import one but that was way later). Also the whole scene and elitist mentality was something that I always wanted to put in the past but it persisted heavily and that wasn't really all that great. For those included it must have been but the internet was still in its infancy relatively for the general public and rampant widespread piracy virtually didn't exist in those times. They still were selling bootleg N64 games on the street in NY from what I heard but I never saw it because I'm not from the east coast

But you can see, there's not a whole lot in the above for me about nostalgia in the N64. Mostly a bunch of BS politics, sales hype, and whatnot. I just liked when my friend got his hands on an N64 and then a V64 and what games he had but the UI for the V64 was rather crummy and disappointing. Still, there's always going to be people fascinated with these things for everyone's experience is different. It is just a lot different than how I got hooked on NES and SNES though. I can't say that means it is a bad system but it offered by far less games that I would play.

I sometimes dig up an obscure N64 title that is really fun to play though and its games offer a bit more depth than NES (depending on the genre of course since the NES had some pretty good RPGs. I liked Dragon Warrior II quite a bit because I got it for free with a Nintendo Power subscription). So though maybe not my favorite Nintendo system of all time, I still like it fine. Same with NES but in a different way.

[madman]

[amptor]

Oh I should have mentioned that I meant the single game CDs (I dunno if they were silvers or burns) that were being sold on the street primarily for the Doctor V64 unit. But this was in early days when only a handful of games were even available for the N64 console.

[amptor]

I would just like to take a moment to state that I have been using krikzz sd2snes product for a while now and it is a very solid piece of hardware. I'm pretty far in megaman x2 and donkey kong country (one game with capcom CX4 chip and one game that is 32 megabit in size respectively).

This device has spiked my interest in super nintendo entertainment software and I'm having a lot of fun playing these games although this device does not have a built in cheat feature (game genie, goldfinger, action replay but really who needs it, I like to play the games the way they were intended to be played. dmessiah a long time ago scoffed me for using the then available included with cracktro DKC3 trainer so from then on I have been mostly using games without cheats). However I did play Wild Guns with the Elitendo trainer and all the options work as well.

I do feel a bit sad for those waiting for super fx support befor purchasing, as it isn't available yet. The majority of the software library has nothing whatsoever to do with FX GSU-1 and FX GSU-2 chips

[MottZilla]

The Super FX support is what will add support for more relevant games that currently aren't support by everything else. Yes it already supports DSP2, 3, 4, Cx4, and has the new MSU-1. But frankly those games aren't that amazing, save for Cx4. Super FX ofcourse you have the Star Fox games and some others like Yoahi's Island. But really the big draw is Star Fox 2 which is not available for your SNES outside of bootleg cartridges that tend to cost alot of money.

But yes you are right that people often miss that any of these devices can play 99% of the SNES library. There is like a 1% of games that have chips in them that make them incompatible with the tons of copiers and flash carts that already exist. But most of those games are not THAT hard to track down.

[amptor]

The only game I had a difficult time tracking down had an SA-1 chip in it and when I did actually find it, it only cost 4 dollars lmfao (originally it was $100 in Japan).

Super FX games are very easy to acquire and usually are very cheap. The last time I bought Stunt Race FX it was about 5 bucks including shipping for example.

I'm more into the software only games although I do like some Pilotwings but practically every copier plays that game. I would have to say that I have put more time in playing DSP1 games than FX besides Yoshi's Island I suppose. But when I bought Yoshi's Island I was a bit disappointed with the whole baby mario theme and whatnot. The Yoshi stuff was the draw for me though.

Star Fox I could never really get into. That is one of those games where everybody tells me it is a good game but it really isn't my thing. So I haven't gone nuts and tried to make my own Star Fox 2 cartridge although I may do so soon just to see it up and running. I mean I do have a spare FX GSU-1 circuit board sitting next to my computer right now. I used the case for the sd2snes cartridge.

I'm definitely not disappointed that this device didn't already include super fx support however it would be quite novelty if it did just like the fact that it supports all the DSP and CX4 games that I do own.

I would collect more SA-1 games from Japan but the vast majority of them suck. I mean unless you like Shougi and Japanese board games and more Strat/J. It's a good thing we are talking on a forum run by Chinese though isn't it so I am safe from mega tyrant adminnage. I may continue collecting later though. I think it would be more interesting to take the mask rom off one and replace it with a socket for inserting eeproms.

If I knew how to make my own flash cart, I would take an SA-1 game and implement my own flash device into the mask ROM area and that would pretty much make it a stand alone SA-1 flash cart. I don't know that much about circuits to achieve this though.

The sd2snes has enough space inside the FCPGA for supporting code to emulate most special chips including the FX and SA-1 according to Ikari but apparantly it has limited space for one other chip. I forgot which chip it was though, possibly the SDD-1. So this cartridge probably won't ever run the full library of games but if he did support SA-1 and FX, I hardly think anyone would notice what is missing.

Some people are waiting for FX support in case the device requires another revision for it. I have huge doubts that this device is going to receive another revision. I believe Ikari has the FX capability planned and that this version of the device will, indeed, work with the FX games upon completion of code. And lucky for us, you can flash the FCPGA from the SD slot rather than having to go through USB or other means.

KRIKzz moved the USB port to the top in his fab and I like the location having all the ports on the top of the device, sans the LEDs which are front mounted, though you can adjust where the LEDs are fairly easily if you want. Currently the software for the USB feature is not yet available so I have not tried it. I actually don't think I'll ever have a use for the USB side of this device anyway so it isn't really of importance to me.

Since this device supports SDXC natively, you can copy the entire library of commercial, homebrew, and MSU-1 software onto one memory card and just leave it in there until the flash memory of the SDXC card wears out. It is pretty cool.