Its now possible to play backups by flashing Saturn Carts!

Discussion of game backup, reproduction, burning, and ripping. Covers ROM backup, cartridge reproduction, optical disc ripping, burning, and storage. Focus on archival purposes and not deceptive selling.
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nightrnr
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Re: Flashing Saturn Carts is now possible to play backups!

Post by nightrnr »

Of course, if you already have a modded Saturn, there's not much point of doing this (unless it's to profit from the service).

I cringe to think that some may be damaging their Saturns with the Swap trick though. Personally, I don't trust the method, but I guess it's better to do it once than to do it every time you play an import or burn.

If there's ever a Saturn SD device that let's you play from from flash drive or SD card, then I'll consider drastic measures if needed.
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Jagosaurus
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Re: Flashing Saturn Carts is now possible to play backups!

Post by Jagosaurus »

So do u need one of the older AR carts with a serial port to connect to PC?

How do you actually flash the firmware?

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nightrnr
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Re: Flashing Saturn Carts is now possible to play backups!

Post by nightrnr »

Ooooh, I DO have the older model.

Yes, if it's flashable via serial port, I may reconsider at some point.
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GSZX1337
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Re: Flashing Saturn Carts is now possible to play backups!

Post by GSZX1337 »

This isn't of much use to me since I already have a modded Saturn, but it's nice to see other have an opportunity to play backups on their Saturns now that the price on chips has gone up.

nightrnr wrote:I cringe to think that some may be damaging their Saturns with the Swap trick though. Personally, I don't trust the method, but I guess it's better to do it once than to do it every time you play an import or burn.

I cringed a little while watching the video in the OP for this reason, but I don't think doing the trick once will do any real damage to the console.
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Re: Flashing Saturn Carts is now possible to play backups!

Post by Hobie-wan »

Jagosaurus wrote:So do u need one of the older AR carts with a serial port to connect to PC?

How do you actually flash the firmware?


It appears you just need to boot the special disc. If you have a chipped Saturn already you should be able to make they easily. If you don't have means to boot the burned disc, then you'd probably be doing the swap once to get it going. If you have the older cart with the port, seems that you'd probably be able to dump the info on there by whatever means was used to update the cart back in the day via the serial port on top.
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theclaw
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Re: Flashing Saturn Carts is now possible to play backups!

Post by theclaw »

All the firmware talk makes me curious which AR versions are safe to flash between English and Japanese. Useless as it is for us.

Its menus were translated like on other consoles, but I don't know about internal differences that'd make the firmware act up.
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Anthony817
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Re: Flashing Saturn Carts is now possible to play backups!

Post by Anthony817 »

From what I understand pretty much any cart that has flash memory can be flashed. Even if you have no serial port on the cart they are basically still the same things, in fact you could even solder on a serial port to the newer models. They can also be flashed to newer firmware.

I am hoping he can take an OFW that has almost every cheat code available, and exploit that, so we can just flash our carts and have everything fully working.

Like I said earlier, he always wants to hook into the bios so he can get games to save DIRECTLY to the carts without having to transfer saves all over the place.

GSZX1337 wrote:I cringed a little while watching the video in the OP for this reason, but I don't think doing the trick once will do any real damage to the console.


That is why I do the reset method when swapping disc's, screw swapping them that Uber fast and yanking on the spindle. Seems most people do the swaps that way sadly. Mine is also a model 2 so there is no access light to know when to swap its all by ear.
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emwearz
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Re: Flashing Saturn Carts is now possible to play backups!

Post by emwearz »

Video I made a few years ago of the Reset Method, by far less damaging than the "regular" method. If you are just wanting to flash your cart and have a model 2, best way to do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhCsuC6j57c
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Ziggy
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Re: Flashing Saturn Carts is now possible to play backups!

Post by Ziggy »

Anthony817 wrote:I am hoping he can take an OFW that has almost every cheat code available, and exploit that, so we can just flash our carts and have everything fully working.

Like I said earlier, he always wants to hook into the bios so he can get games to save DIRECTLY to the carts without having to transfer saves all over the place.


THAT would be awesome. If saves could work directly with the AR, I would flash mine just for that alone.
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JoeAwesome
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Re: Flashing Saturn Carts is now possible to play backups!

Post by JoeAwesome »

Jagosaurus wrote:So do u need one of the older AR carts with a serial port to connect to PC?

How do you actually flash the firmware?


If you wanted to try on my modded Saturn, I'd be curious enough to let you try.
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