Cartridge Batteries and Game Saves

[MrPopo]

The biggest exception for US released games is the Gold Silver Crystal trilogy, again because of the real time clock.

[RCBH928]

I wouldnt panic. Most old game cartridges batteries are holding up just fine. The exception tends to be games with real-time clocks, but the only one of those on N64 is the japan-only Animal Crossing game.

The Saturn battery is inside the console, and is used to store the internal clock too. It has an infamously short lifespan and needs replaced maybe every 2 years or so, as it's just a common watch battery.

How are these batteries even holding a charge for so long? I mean I bet even engineers of the N64 didn't think to make it last to the year 2020 and beyond.

The first time I played Final Fantasy 2 on the SNES, I was maybe halfway through the game when it glitched and froze. When I reset, my save was gone. The battery was fine, it's just that the SRAM got corrupted. I've had this happen a few times on the SNES. My original SimCity cart would always drop my saves. A more recent copy of SimCity that I have, same thing with FF2, I was in the middle of a game when it froze and when I reset my save was gone. My Super Mario All Stars cart would always drop my saves, ever since I've owned it from the 90s. My Link to the Past cart once lost all of my save files, just magically from sitting on a shelf. The battery is still strong, and I now have 3 save files back on the cart with the same battery. And I lost all my saves on my Donkey Kong Country 3 cart because I knocked the cart in the slot while it was powered on. This caused the game to freeze and when I reset all my saves were gone. Now I backup all my SNES cart saves with the Retrode.

Another reason I favour emulation. I forgot that cartridge games froze, I don't recall that happening. I thought game freezing happened with CD based and 3D games as they got more complex.

[o.pwuaioc]

The first time I played Final Fantasy 2 on the SNES, I was maybe halfway through the game when it glitched and froze. When I reset, my save was gone. The battery was fine, it's just that the SRAM got corrupted. I've had this happen a few times on the SNES. My original SimCity cart would always drop my saves. A more recent copy of SimCity that I have, same thing with FF2, I was in the middle of a game when it froze and when I reset my save was gone. My Super Mario All Stars cart would always drop my saves, ever since I've owned it from the 90s. My Link to the Past cart once lost all of my save files, just magically from sitting on a shelf. The battery is still strong, and I now have 3 save files back on the cart with the same battery. And I lost all my saves on my Donkey Kong Country 3 cart because I knocked the cart in the slot while it was powered on. This caused the game to freeze and when I reset all my saves were gone. Now I backup all my SNES cart saves with the Retrode.

FF2 and SimCity were big offenders, but I recall a dozen carts doing it at one point, including the original LoZ and LttP, and Sonic 3. Losing a save sucked. The weird thing with FF2 I recall is that once when the Super Nintendo was bumped, I lost my save, but the two other saves on the cart were just fine. To skip all the beginning stuff (I had just arrived in the Underground world), I just copied another save and picked up from there. Crisis averted.

[Ziggy]

I'm impressed by how well most save batteries seem to have held up. I have carts from 1986 and 1987 that hold saves just fine.

Yes, I don't think I've had any dead batteries in my personal collection. Well, with the exception of Gameboy carts. They use CR1616 or CR2025 which are physically smaller than the standard CR2032 and a lower capacity, it's only natural that they will die sooner. Like Popo said, especially those darn carts with real time clocks.

Another reason I favour emulation. I forgot that cartridge games froze, I don't recall that happening. I thought game freezing happened with CD based and 3D games as they got more complex.

A glitch can cause anything to freeze, no matter what storage medium it's being run from. IIRC, my examples of FF2 and SimCity froze due to a glitch. My example of DKC3 was due to knocking the cart while it was powered on (see: cartridge tilting). Dirty contacts can also lead to freezing, which is why you always want to make sure your cart and cart slot are clean.

How are these batteries even holding a charge for so long? I mean I bet even engineers of the N64 didn't think to make it last to the year 2020 and beyond.

Well like I said in an earlier post, a lot of N64 carts that save to the cart don't use batteries. They use EEPROMs or flash memory, which are "non-volatile" and don't require a battery to hold their data. They can hold data for many, many years. They usually have a max read/write spec, but it's probably far beyond what you could ever do with normal use.

But carts that do use batteries, I guess the power draw for SRAM is very low. These CR2032 batteries aren't rated to last thing long, but they do. It also helps that Nintendo used good brand name batteries.

FF2 and SimCity were big offenders, but I recall a dozen carts doing it at one point, including the original LoZ and LttP, and Sonic 3. Losing a save sucked. The weird thing with FF2 I recall is that once when the Super Nintendo was bumped, I lost my save, but the two other saves on the cart were just fine. To skip all the beginning stuff (I had just arrived in the Underground world), I just copied another save and picked up from there. Crisis averted.

Well NES carts are a weird example. You have to hold reset while powering off the NES to keep the CPU from accidentally writing to SRAM (which could corrupt your save). But who ever did that? I do now, but I certainly didn't back in the day.

Early SNES carts used the same battery circuitry that NES carts used, although Nintendo doesn't recommend to hold reset while powering off the SNES. But these are the carts that I've had issues with, both FF2 and SimCity. I have a newer SimCity cart that uses the MAD-1 chip (and not the old battery circuit) and I never had a problem with dropped saves on that cart. So I don't know if that has something to do with it or not.

I also had something weird happen when I lost my FF2 save. It was a used cart, and naturally there were some old save files on there. I deleted all 3 save slots and started a new game on slot 1. When the game froze and I reset, my save in slot 1 was gone but the saves in slots 2 and 3 were restored! I guess it's because I didn't overwrite slots 2 and 3, I left them blank so the old saves were still written on the SRAM. It's definitely a good idea to save your progress to multiple save slots!

My example with SimCity, when the game froze I was in one of my save cities. When I restarted, that city was gone (save slot was empty) but my other city was still there and the scenarios were still completed. But my original SimCity cart from back in the day, it just always lost all the save data. Like you disconnected then reconnected the battery. I know there's a button combo that you can hold while starting the game up to delete all save data, but I lost my saves even after I found out about that.

My Super Mario All Stars cart does the same thing, it just looses all saves every once in a while. Very frustrating. The battery is still OK, even today. It wouldn't even be from knocking the cart or freezing, I just would randomly power it on and the saves are gone. Which is the same thing that happened my LttP cart, but it only happened the one time. I was very annoyed with that one because I had saves on there from when I was in high school. Saves like that are like trophies, and it sucks when you loose them.

Luckily though, these are the only examples I have. I have plenty of other carts that I never had a problem with, and still have saves on it from when I was young.

[opa]

I remember some SNES games would give you a prompt to hold in the reset button as you powered off the system. Did this actually do anything to prevent save loss?

[Ziggy]

I remember some SNES games would give you a prompt to hold in the reset button as you powered off the system. Did this actually do anything to prevent save loss?

I know some NES games reminded you in game to hold reset, but I don't know of any SNES games that did this. Do you know which games specifically?

On the NES, yes, this actually did something. Holding reset while powering off would prevent the CPU from possibly writing to SRAM, which could corrupt a save if it did. Apparently when you power off the NES, the CPU has weird power spikes that could cause it to write to random memory locations. If it randomly writes to SRAM, it could corrupt your save. This is why you don't always loose your saves if you fail to hold reset. But holding down reset puts the CPU in a low power state, preventing this from happening.

[opa]

I could've sworn Actraiser said something in-game but doesn't. However, I flipped through the manual and it states "Remember to push the reset button when turning the power off."

[Ziggy]

I could've sworn Actraiser said something in-game but doesn't. However, I flipped through the manual and it states "Remember to push the reset button when turning the power off."

Hmm, weird. It is a very early SNES game. I wonder if maybe Nintendo was going to recommend that for the SNES but ended up not, and so it somehow made it's way into the manual. Or maybe Quintet / Enix went rogue with the reset comment because of the NES ?