IrishNinja wrote:fantastic OP, was just reading up the differences in the Super Everdrive vs SD2SNES: the latter does region-patching, does this mean the Super Everdrive will have issues with SFC/other region games, then?
There's two types of region locking with the SNES. Hmm, well maybe three. I'll just try and explain everything...
One is the physical difference between the NA SNES and PAL SNES and SFC cart shells and their respected console's cart slots. NA SNES carts will not fit in a PAL SNES or SFC cart slot because it is too wide. This can be overcome by either physically widening the cart slot to accommodate, or using an adapter (or possibly a GameGenie or Action Replay). SFC and PAL SNES carts can fit in the NA SNES cart slot, however, there's these two tabs in the cart slot that prevent you from inserting the cart. NA SNES carts have two slots that these tabs fit into. See the following pictures to understand...
The tabs found in the NA SNES cart slot can easily be removed, thus allowing you to insert a SFC or PAL SNES cart. However...
There's two different lockout chips found in SNES/SFC carts. Well, there might be revisions so technically more than 2, but for our purposes, there are only two. One found in NA SNES and SFC carts, and the other found only in PAL SNES carts. The SNES/SFC console has a lockout chip "lock" and the carts have a lockout chip "key". If you remove the tabs in a NA SNES cart slot (highly recommended) you can play
any SFC cart without issue, since SFC carts have the SAME lockout chip found in NA SNES carts. However, if you break the tabs out of a NA SNES cart slot, you cannot play PAL SNES games because of the different lockout chip.
That being said, this problem was overcome. There's a number of ways to get around the PAL/NTSC lockout chip difference. But since ways to get around it were discovered when the SNES was still relevant, developers figure out another way to imploy a region lockout. By putting something in the game code that checks to see if the PPU (picture processing unit) is set to output 60Hz (NTSC) or 50Hz (PAL). Not all games have this. I'm not sure how many games have it, but it's not a lot I don't think. But a game that does have this, if you try to boot a cart on the wrong region console, even if you defeated the lockout chip, the game will refuse to boot. Instead, you'll get a message that says, "This game is not intended for this SNES or SFC" or something to that effect.
For games that check to see if the console is running at 50 or 60Hz, there's two ways to get around it. Some people mod their consoles so they can switch between 50 and 60Hz. If you have this switch you can (for example) set it to 50Hz, boot a PAL game game, then after a few second switch it to 60Hz. This works because the game check, sees the correct output, then boots the game. So once the check has completed, you can switch it to the other output.
The other way to get around this is to patch it out of the ROM. If you have the ROM file on a computer, you can run it through a program to take the region check out. This would be considered a "hard" patch. The Sd2snes does this on the fly, which is known as a "soft" patch. The ROM isn't altered, but the Sd2snes will apply the fix to allow the game to run. It's like using a GameGenie code.
ALL of the SNES flash carts, at this point, will have the cloned lockout chip installed. Just be aware of SNES flash carts that were made before the cloned lockout chip was made. If the SNES flash cart has the cloned lockout chip, then you don't have to worry about THAT particular implementation of region locking. You only have to worry about the physical difference of the carts and cart slots, and IF the game checks to see if the console is set to 50 or 60Hz (except for the Sd2snes since it auto detects this and fixes it for you).
So just to be clear, if you own a Super Everdrive (and live in North America) you'll be able to play all SFC games with out issue (not included games that aren't compatible with the flash cart). You'll be able to play most PAL games. The only ones you'll have an issue with are the ones that check the video output of the console. For such games, you can hard patch the ROM to remove this check.
edit: As far as flash carts are concerned, this might also be worth mentioning. Some SNES games have a check against pirated games. Back when, game copier systems for the SNES would often create an SRAM file that was larger than the SRAM found on the authentic cart. Some games check the SRAM size, and if they find the wrong size, they will give you a message, freeze, etc. Pirates caught onto this, and hacked some games to remove this check. Earthbound is a good example of this. Apparently Earthbound can check to see if the original check was removed (or something like that - it's been a while since I read this info), and apparently it'll spit out tons of more enemies on the map and freeze during the last boss and delete all your saves.
There's two ways to avoid this SRAM check problem. One, try and only use verified good dumps (there will be a [!] at the end of the game title). Really, you want to be using verified ROMs all the time anyway. If it's a verified good dump, that means there's no hacks to remove pirate checks. And two, make sure the SRAM save file size matches what the game is. I think the Super Everdrive and Sd2snes do this automatically, but I know the SNES PowerPak just has a generic save file for each game - this might cause an issue with such a game. To get around this, you can create a save file for the game in an emulator (an emulator that creates correct size SRAM files) and then copy it to the save directory on the flash cart's memory card (you may or may not have to convert the emulator save file for it to work on your flash cart).
IrishNinja wrote:looking into them, i was bummed that some minor stuff wasn't there for technical reasons (SG-1000 support on the mega everdrive, 64DD on that respective one, etc) but with prices getting stupider by the day, i really am thinking of getting more of these.
SG-1000 support on the Mega Everdrive was something I was oblivious to. Since I don't care about the SG-1000, I might have read it but filtered it out. It seems like a cool feature of the cart though, I'll have to add that in the next time I update the guide.
Which N64 flash cart has 64DD support? I wasn't aware of this at all, and I'd be very interested in knowing. Any relevant links?
I'd also like to point out that I encourage input from the community. Let me know what I'm missing, what I should explain better, etc.
your not missing much, those games are not worth playing over the SNES versions, they are just watered down ports that make pirate games look good.
