NES/Famicom Multicarts

[thomas_surles]

Holy Diver works fine on my N8. The newer clones should run it, if they are running firmware 1.20 or later.

Im afraid to update my clone. Its several years old

[pbj]

Just get a new one, bro. Life is too short.

[pbj]

My everdrive clone arrived and appears to work.  I will confirm if Castlevania 3 is 100% tomorrow.

[pbj]

And there it is.... one jumper wire on the Everdrive and a resistor jumper added to the Top Loader.

Castlevania 3 - 100%

http://youtu.be/F8UNfpG2dzQ

[KenToad]

Nice work! I did the console modification with a resistor to my front loader NES, but I didn't modify my OG N8 at all. Was the cart modification something specific for the top loader or the clone N8 functionality?

[pbj]

On the top loader, pin 54 doesn’t exist on the cartridge slot.  You can jump pin 54 on the Everdrive to a few pins that aren’t used on the top loader pcb.  Pin 51 is close, so it seems most jump to that.

On pin 51 inside the nes, which is ordinarily connected to nothing, you add a 1.2k ohm resistor from there to the sound output on the transistor.  I did it once with very short leads on the resistor and had horrible hum.  I used a different brand of resistor, left about 1/4” on the leads, and folded it over to the side (sandwiched in electrical tape) and the hum went away.

I really should post a photo.  There is exactly one on the internet, you have to use archive.org to pull it up, and it’s horribly blurry.  All information you can find online links to that photo.

I still have jailbars on my top loader, but I may finally bite the bullet and kill RF functionality and redo my composite mod.

I also learned that if you dip copper braid into flux and then lay it on top of an edge connector, you can clean solder off nes cartridge pins very easily.

 

[pbj]

Clone Everdrive is confirmed working with 1.24 firmware. I checked with the vendor first and he assured me it was fine.  Downloaded from krizz and copied to the cart and I'm good to go.

Also learned that save states and game genie codes don't work unless you're on original hardware.

 

[thomas_surles]

Clone Everdrive is confirmed worked with 1.24 firmware. I checked with the vendor first and he assured me it was fine.  Downloaded from krizz and copied to the cart and I'm good to go.

Also learned that save states and game genie codes don't work unless you're on original hardware.

 

Awesome gonna have to update mine now. Thanks

[pbj]

..sigh..

Forum ate my long post.  This is a nice cart.  Desirable games and multiple save game support.

 

[KenToad]

Looks good. You must have quite a collection of multicarts by now.

Re: losing forum posts, I make it a habit to always copy my posts to the clipboard before clicking post. For whatever reason, this forum seems particularly bad about eating posts. 

[pbj]

I do. They're fun. I've enjoyed watching the evolution. 2 steps forward, one step back. This one has all the nes mini games listed first in alphabetical order, then 200 more games in alphabetical order. The library is definitive. You can jump through the list by first letter of game name, so these menus are getting more advanced.

[thomas_surles]

New snes cart. Different menu than the super everdrive.
It was $26. Not letting me post screens of the menu. Says it failed security check.

[pbj]

Does it do anything different?  Dsp1 games?

[thomas_surles]

Does it do anything different?  Dsp1 games?

I doubt it does any special chip games I'll give dsp1 a try. Name a game and I'll test it.

[pbj]

Pilot Wings
Mario Kart

[opt2not]

I love Pilotwings. Such a great early game to show off that mode 7.

[thomas_surles]

Pilot Wings
Mario Kart

Conveniently not a single special chip game available on the included micro sd. Seems whomever made the list did a good job of excluding the non working roms.

[pbj]

So a forum member, who may identify himself if he sees fit, sent me a SEGA Genesis II.  It’s brought me lots of joy and found a nice home on my Tv stand.

I had a huge library of games in the 90s.  Borderline obscene.  Master system, genesis, 32x, SEGA cd.  It suffered the same fate all our collections did when we moved out.  I can’t even begin to afford to recapture it these days.

But it’s Current Year so I bought a “1200 in 1” which is an Everdrive 3 Pro clone.

Only got some limited time with it tonight but so far so good...

[Titchgamer]

So a forum member, who may identify himself if he sees fit, sent me a SEGA Genesis II.  It’s brought me lots of joy and found a nice home on my Tv stand.

I had a huge library of games in the 90s.  Borderline obscene.  Master system, genesis, 32x, SEGA cd.  It suffered the same fate all our collections did when we moved out.  I can’t even begin to afford to recapture it these days.

But it’s Current Year so I bought a “1200 in 1” which is an Everdrive 3 Pro clone.

Only got some limited time with it tonight but so far so good...

Dannggg they added Xeno Crisis to a flash cart already!?
I only just got my original NGCD version through the post yesterday!

[KenToad]

It's weird to me that they would release Xeno Crisis on the Neo Geo because of the lack of buttons. It's a good game, but only playable on the Genesis with the 6-button controller. Personally, I wish that they had released it for the SNES because it plays better having grenade and roll on the shoulder buttons.

My experience of owning a Genesis back in the day was of having only Sonic. All my games were at the rental shop.

[pbj]

No special chips on Xeno Crisis, so it was easy to copy.  You can buy a bootleg cartridge with a box and manual for $12.  Piers Solar appears to be the unobtainable.  I have no doubt it could run on these cheap clones but nobody is going to write the mappers.  I played it for 20 minutes on Dreamcast and was already annoyed with it, so I think I'm good.  (also couldn't get the Dreamcast version to save... it may require an actual VMU).

There's actually quite a few new Genesis games out there, and some nice quality of life improvement rom hacks. 

I'm on the hunt for some random cartridges just so I have something to touch, but there's really no need.  I may also pick up at 196 in 1 cartridge as those were rather nice and have a great library.

[pbj]

So, cheapest I’ve been able to squeeze counterfeit games is ~$3.25 each in bulk.  Considering tossing $20 at it and seeing what happens.  For $30 you can get a flasher and then the blanks are around $10.  Another option.


Pier Solar and Special FX Unit Yuki are no-go on this cartridge, it won’t attempt to write anything larger than 4MB.

The rom hacks for SF2 get it right there with the snes version.  SEGA got done wrong.

Cave Story runs great.

[pbj]

Well, I just bought a new in box “cassette organizer” and 14 bootleg games from China.

 

[pbj]

Seller canceled my order and jacked up his prices when he got in the office Monday.  I’ve since placed a smaller order with another seller and we’ll see if this one actually ships.  Came out to ~$4.09 shipped with tax per game.  As always, you can bounce around temporary accounts and scam Ali express out of new user coupons if so inclined


 

[Malenko]

So a forum member, who may identify himself if he sees fit, sent me a SEGA Genesis II.  It’s brought me lots of joy and found a nice home on my Tv stand.

You're welcome bro! I'm glad you are enjoying it. Despite owning an everdrive clone I still wanna build up my cart collection again. I keep either getting sniped on ebay, or they want $54 to ship. I just picked up Virtua Racing , and I think that's the only retail cart that cant run on clones. I have had some issues with some home brew and hacks but that is kind of to be expected. The Ultimate MK3 hack not working is disappointing, but the MKII Unlimited hack works just fine. The Hyperstone color hack is a game changer and the 2 Street Fighter II hacks are pretty amazing especially the audio fixes.

I have a pretty sweet copy of NHL95 and the case has lots of character and patina!

[pbj]

So, I got to relive the console wars from the comfort of a well worn chair.

I’ll summarize by saying all three of these are nice conversions.  But the differences are interesting.

Genesis with sound and color enhancements via RF because my composite cable ain’t here yet



SNES via composite



PC Engine Duo via composite

[pbj]

Moved recently, realized I’ve been carting around a box and manuals for a cartridge I lost a long time ago.  AliExpress to the rescue.  Pretty ballsy bootleg, has Nintendo stamped on the cartridge, seal of quality, and a tri wing screw.  My sincere hope is this thoroughly confuses some collector in 40 years when my widow sells all my ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- for $5.

[Malenko]

ShaqFu biznichez!


10 games for $32 shipped!

[Malenko]

Ive spent more on Genesis games than PC games in the last month.


Virtua Racing was the most expensive at about $30 USD, I picked up Sonic, RBI 4 , and sports talk 93 for a total of $11 "shipped". My neighbor was selling them on ebay so I made him an offer to just drop them at my door step and he accepted!

On the serious tip, Virtua Racing on the Genesis is still damn impressive to this day. I think its on par or better than the 32x version... and despite my love for the Sega Saturn, Virtua Racing isnt very good on it.


I need to pick up some cheap EA games just to gank the case for ShaqFu and a replacement case for NHL 95.
Unfortunately I now own 3 pretty bad NFL games. The speech is pretty amazing for a cart based game, but the game play is not very good. The zoom in on the older games is very jarring.
I also forgot how terrible the UI is on the PGA games, its like a port of an old DOS game faking a windows GUI. I'm going to have to look up if its still the same on PGA III and European tour. If it is, I'll probably skip getting them.

[pbj]

Virtua Racing for $30?  I know what I’m bidding on next.

Genesis is fun to mess around with.  Lots of good games and the loose carts sell cheap.

Ali Express keeps flaking on my bootleg orders.

 

[Malenko]

I blame PBJ


I now have another Model 1 Sega Genesis (version 2 this time though, lacking the "high definition graphics" around the ring)
I guess I'll throw it and all my dupes up on eBay and try to recoup some of my expenses.



The thing to remember is , I have a flash cart than can already play all these games (except Virtua Racing)

[pbj]

Something to be said about stroking a stack of cartridges.

I opened up my Top Loader NES and snapped a photo of the expansion audio resistor.  Ignore the other wires, those are from my RCA out mod.  Ordinarily this resistor is wrapped in electrical tape.  With short leads and close to the motherboard I was getting hum.

[Malenko]

This was worth buying for R-Type alone:


Street Fighter II is actually pretty amazing too but the controller makes it pretty much impossible to play. The card that came with it is loaded with hacks and demos so it's going to take me a while to prune out all the garbage.  I need to figure out how to run CDs from it, because I don't feel like burning discs.

[Howard_Casto]

Unless something has changed in the last few months, you can't run cds from it.   The only thing you can do is change the bios your cd drive runs with.   

[JimmyU]

Virtua Racing for $30 isn’t too bad considering it was around $100 new back in the 90’s.

[Malenko]

Virtua Racing for $30 isn’t too bad considering it was around $100 new back in the 90’s.

Its a shame that Sega didn't do the SVP cart addon idea instead of making the 32X. Seems like the SVP chip could have handled almost everything the 32x did at a much lower cost.  Woulda coulda shoulda I guess.
Virtua Racing on the genesis is still big fat Oprah tits though, if only the genesis had a wheel Speaking of 32x, someone made a new Engine for DooM for 32x and its kind of amazing.

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/119202-doom-32x-resurrection/

As for wasting money..... I bought this:

[pbj]

It's Singles Day in China, which means some discounts on Ali Express.  You can get a Sega Genesis cartridge flasher for about $30 shipped right now, so I ordered one along with a rewriteable TMNT cart that will get the color fix patch put on it.

About $8.15 per cartridge for 4MB and no ability to save.

About $10 per 2MB cartridge with save ability.

And, yes, I know this has all been 100% emulated for over 20 years.

 

[Malenko]

Getting tough to find game lots that don't include either an sports game or MsPacman...... with reasonable shipping.

Some of the EA sports game cases are going to get new box art printed for the non EA sports games, like Shaq Fu and General Chaos. 1 will probably also get modded to house Virtua Racing. Seems like right after I bought that game a ton went for sale with the real box for less money.

I'm also convinced old dorks like me are getting their seasonal bonus checks cause I keep getting outbid on weird games on eBay. I did just pick up Columns and Caesar's Palace with boxes for $15 shipped though
If anyone has any Genesis games with boxes, let me know! Im still looking for  MK1, UMK3, NBA Jam TE, NBA Hangtime, Sonic 1 and 3 but I'd still be interested in what you got!

Unrelated, why does Paprium go for such big money? It looks like an average "fight and go right" based on youtube vids. I mean I'm all about supporting an indie dev and I'd probably drop $50 for a cart to help the cause but $500+ doesn't make sense.


EDIT: Got Jam TE for $13.50 shipped

[Howard_Casto]

It's not a regular genesis cart.   It includes a couple of custom co-processors designed just for the game.   It's a shame because that probably means we aren't going to get it emulated or on a flash cart anytime soon.

[pbj]

It’s also encrypted and nobody has figured out how to dump the rom yet