how much ram does the saturn support with the cartridge slot

if i were to program a game, and somebody can build it(the cart), how much ram does the saturn support via the cartridge slot?
can it go up to 4GB?

 

That'd be interesting. I haven't seen a slot game developed for the saturn. Not sure how well code runs from there, Action Replay menu isn't exactly demanding.

 

No. Why the hell would you want 4Gb of RAM?!

 

He's porting minecraft to the saturn?

 

With a built-in 28.8kbps modem for netlink lol

 

All address spaces in the SH2 (there are four spaces) are a max of 32MBytes. The cart port can address one whole address space, and so can directly address a max of 32MBytes of space. If you wish more than that, you'll need to make some kind of bank select mapper.

 

x

 

Insanity to want 4GB RAM on something as low powered as the Saturn...

Get a PC if you need that much system RAM...

 

It might just be price - oddly enough, it's cheaper to buy 4GB of ram than 32MB.

 

and the access speed(transfer) is the same as with the onboard 2 MB ram?

 

x

 

Yes, and no. It's about the same as the low work ram - 16 bit bus and no bursting. The high work ram is on the 32 bit bus, and supports burst access, so it's much faster. You're supposed to only use carts for data, not code. All code should be in the high work ram. Unless you're doing something like a port of MAME, 1MB of ram is plenty for the code on most games.

 

I can't say for certain, but I don't think the Saturn has an especially large amount of SRAM in the first place. But now that I think of it, I recall getting the RAM cart with backing up my saved games in mind (which is now a moot point as my backup cart is dead and somewhere along the line my Saturn's SRAM got wiped)

 

On the topic of RAM, is it feasible to replace the onboard ram to the max that it could support or increase it to anything higher than the 2Mb onboard? If its possible what kind of ram would work? Basically wondering if you can eliminate the need for the extra Ram carts by doing this mod.

 

x

 

Thanks for the reply and info.

 

RAM? Oh, the OP meant how much save data. It would be really cool to have an Action Replay to come with an SD slot, but it's gotta be the technological limitations.

 

I got my cross setup today and it includes a cartdev cart with two RAM banks. So maybe i can easy check it out how much "RAM" possible

 

I would say 256mb maybe 512mb if any more is possible that would be cool its only for the video ram.