Sega Saturn: RAM cart and memory cart - what's the best solution?

[fireaza]

As I'm sure you all know, there's two carts that go in the Saturn's cart slot: the memory cart used to save game data on and the RAM cart, which is required for some games for better performance. There's also the option of using the Action Replay Plus which has RAM, memory, region-free and cheats built into one cart.

If the Action Replay Plus cart didn't exist, how would you save when playing a game that requires the RAM cart? I read that the Saturn doesn't support hot-swapping of carts, so are you forced to save to the internal memory? I like the idea of the Action Replay Plus, but I also think it looks kinda ugly, I've heard unofficial memory carts can sometimes lose their data, I don't like that I need to go though it's menu before the game starts and I feel like I would be tempted to use the cheat functions of the cart :P I was thinking of going region-free BIOS, memory carts and RAM carts for my all-region, saving and RAM'ing Saturn goodness, but would this be an absurdly expensive option compared to the Action Replay Plus?

[Shinebi]

The Action Replay still doesn't allow saving to the cart. You need to save to internal memory anyways.
The most ideal solution would be if someone could make a tray with switches to select what cart to use, eliminating cart swap.
ROM/RAM/MEM/AR/Modem

eg like this:


...but with one donor cart + cable connected to seperate tray next to the console...

[fireaza]

The Action Replay still doesn't allow saving to the cart. You need to save to internal memory anyways.

I see, does the official memory cart allow saving to itself or is this a flaw in the Saturn's design?

[television2000]

I see, does the official memory cart allow saving to itself or is this a flaw in the Saturn's design?

Yes. It does allow saving to itself.

[fireaza]

Hmm, sounds like the official memory cart is the more convenient option, but what happens if you need to use the RAM cartridge?

[maringouin11]

Yes. It does allow saving to itself.

But that depends on the game, right? Some don't have the option to save on the cart, or is it just that I didn't the option..?

[maringouin11]

Hmm, sounds like the official memory cart is the more convenient option, but what happens if you need to use the RAM cartridge?

You need to save on the internal memory.

[sheath]

The Saturn has enough internal Memory that I can usually save directly there for whatever games I happen to be playing and only rarely need to swap a save file or two over to the PAR to free up some space. I use my PAR as a backup and memory saving device for games I don't intend to play for a long time. Mine is over ten years old and I haven't lost any save files except when my Saturn's battery dies every couple of years and I neglected to back up. My old Gameshark died back in 2000 though, and I lost all of my saves from back then. I used to have an ISO card around here to back up from the Gameshark or PAR to my PC, but I haven't had a PC with ISO ports in a while.

[synbiosfan]

But that depends on the game, right? Some don't have the option to save on the cart, or is it just that I didn't the option..?

That's correct, some games do not recognize the cart for saving.

[fireaza]

The Saturn has enough internal Memory that I can usually save directly there for whatever games I happen to be playing and only rarely need to swap a save file or two over to the PAR to free up some space. I use my PAR as a backup and memory saving device for games I don't intend to play for a long time. Mine is over ten years old and I haven't lost any save files except when my Saturn's battery dies every couple of years and I neglected to back up. My old Gameshark died back in 2000 though, and I lost all of my saves from back then. I used to have an ISO card around here to back up from the Gameshark or PAR to my PC, but I haven't had a PC with ISO ports in a while.

I'm just worried that the battery will die and I'll lose all my hard work :(

Hmm, it's sounding like using the original memory cart original RAM cart and a region-free BIOS is a good option! Has anyone else installed one of these (Bad_Ad sell them I believe)? Does the Saturn behave essentially the same as stock?

[angelwolf71885]

well if there was no action replay supporting save backups as well
the best solution would be to save the game to internal memory
with ram cart installed and then plug in the backup cart and backup the saved game to
the backup cart thats the way things were until the action replay came out and eventually became a responsible price

[Lum]

I'm just worried that the battery will die and I'll lose all my hard work :(

Hmm, it's sounding like using the original memory cart original RAM cart and a region-free BIOS is a good option! Has anyone else installed one of these (Bad_Ad sell them I believe)? Does the Saturn behave essentially the same as stock?

Much like Action Replay, region-free BIOS only breaks the region code. As always any other mods you want (say CD-R or 50/60hz) still have to be performed independently.

[l_oliveira]

With a backup RAM cart you can suspend a Dragon Force game in the middle of a "scene". If you use internal memory you can only save when not with a map/stage in course. Just to mention one game that actually uses it for something useful.

[fireaza]

With a backup RAM cart you can suspend a Dragon Force game in the middle of a "scene". If you use internal memory you can only save when not with a map/stage in course. Just to mention one game that actually uses it for something useful.

Did a lot of games that used both RAM and the save cart do it that way, or was that uncommon?

[l_oliveira]

Did a lot of games that used both RAM and the save cart do it that way, or was that uncommon?

You can't use both at the same time as there's no official cartridge with more than one function. So SEGA would not request such a thing from the developers, obviously...

[reprep]

I am thinking about this too. But most probably a RAM card plus a save card will cost more than Action Replay.

[ave]

You can't use both at the same time as there's no official cartridge with more than one function. So SEGA would not request such a thing from the developers, obviously...

Well, not REQUEST it, but it's available as a bonus feature in some games. Most RAM-cart supporting games were arcade ports, therefore save states weren't really needed except for highscores (and who saves a highscore in a fighting game?).

But there is a handful of story-based games that have different title or loading screens if you fire them up while having a RAM-cart inserted. Games that will probably be of minor interest to most Import-gamers like Pia Carrot he Youkoso 2 or Noel 3.

[fireaza]

You can't use both at the same time as there's no official cartridge with more than one function. So SEGA would not request such a thing from the developers, obviously...

Of course. I think what I meant was, were there a large number of games that were able to make use of both carts in this fashion?

[Druid II]

I don't recall any games that gave different perks for both the backup ram and expansion ram carts. Plus, most better games by the end REQUIRED the expansion ram, so they couldn't have given extra functions for the backup ram, because the game wouldn't have booted up to begin with.

[phoenixdownita]

An alternative is the Sega Floppy (although rare and expensive).
Some games (very few) allow direct saving (like Panzer Dragoon Saga, all regions) but for the rest it basically works as the PAR, you save in the internal memory and then copy it to disk. A floppy disk offers around 11K block per side, and 2 sides, so around 24K blocks.
There are games though that allow saving data on the backup cart that are not available on any other device like ghost data and such. For those games the interact memory card plus (although it doesn't work for some games) works and it does support region free at the same time.
The intereact mem card plus is a quirk oddity as the developers had to reverse engineer the backup cart of Sega and did so poorly, also it only has real memory for 25% of the claimed capacity so when the save file is not compressible it silently fails (it says that saving succeded but it fails), for example Dezaemon games can use up the card with one or two games out of the 4 it should be possible to store.
Finally because it was an imperfect reverse engineer process some games for no reason will fail to save (Panzer Dragoon Saga) but they succeed on loading from it ... oh well.

Anyway I own the PAR, the intereact memcard plus and the floppy, and honestly I use mostly the PAR (for cheating as I suck at games) or the interact mem card plus but I do not save directly to it, I always go thru the internal backup memory and then copy it over, unless I have no choice (like ghost data for Sega Touring Car, which goes straight to extra backup mem when available and seems to work just fine with Interact mem card plus, lucky strike I suppose).
The floppy was just a whim, it works, PDS saves directly (and I think is the only game that support all 3 memory to save to) but not much more than that.
I only bought it because I could have it for 80$ shipped from Japan (no AC, no operator CD) AND my Saturn was chipped AND I found an Operator CD image to use it with or it would be pretty much useless with the exclusion of Dezaemon that can be used to format disks on it etc...

Anywa here you have it... and yes, if the game supports the RAM carty it's always worthy, so no choice but internal save.