My Review: The SNES Everdrive vs. the Retrozone PowerPak

I figured since I don't think there's too many people who own both devices, and since I do, I could let everyone decide for themselves which device is better in my opinion.

Before I start the review, I want to say how excited I am that KRIKzz and the guy at Retrousb.com were awesome enough to both make SNES flash carts. It has been my dream to own one my whole life, and to see them finally coming to light is very exciting to me.

I bought the RetroZone PowerPak as soon as it came out. I always wanted to get the NES one, but never did because I didn't have an NES anymore. When he came out with the SNES one, I had to get it.

I then read on another forum that KRIKzz over here has made his own SNES flashcart as well. Why would I buy another one even though I already had one? One reason was I wanted to support anyone who was cool enough to make an SNES flashcart. Secondly, there's some (minor) flaws with the SNES RetroZone PowerPak that I thought maybe the EverDrive could fix.

Instead of reviewing both in length, I will give you the differences between the two, and their pros and cons.

I do not consider the fact that the PowerPak comes with its own shell to be a plus (or a minus). To some people, it's a plus because they don't have to gut a cartridge. I consider the fact that the EverDrive does not come with a shell to be a plus, because it is meant to fit inside a real SNES game (the PowerPak will not fit inside a SNES game even if you cut a hole for the CF card). A major reason we are using our original hardware instead of emulation is because we like the look and feel of the original consoles. A clear red cartridge labeled PowerPak kind of kills that. I love that my EverDrive is housed in a Super Punch Out cart. This is just personal preference, though. The PowerPak shell is very high quality as is the label on it.

A definite pro of the PowerPak is time it takes to flash games/load ROMs. This is a very small pro, because the EverDrive is still fairly quick. It's just that with the PowerPak, it's pretty much instant, no matter how big the game is. There's no loading or progress bar because of how fast it is. This really isn't a big deal, but I want to be fair.

The only games that I could find that ran on the PowerPak but did not run on the EverDrive were Super Mario Kart, Pilotwings, and Star Ocean. Star Ocean didn't run because it's a patched ROM very large in size due to uncompressed graphics. This game works fine on the PowerPak. We all know why Super Mario Kart and Pilotwings did not work on the EverDrive. Personally, the lack of DSP does not bother me too much, because (and someone correct me if I am wrong), the only games that are any good that use the DSP chip are Super Mario Kart and Pilotwings.

A big plus for the EverDrive is the use of SD. Why is this? Well, I have a GP2x Wiz handheld device that has an SD card slot. Whenever I want some SNES on the go, I pop the SD card from my EverDrive into the GP2x Wiz. Bam! Instant SNES, with all my saves! It's great.

The biggest plus for the EverDrive comes from the fact that it has automatic saves. Saves on the PowerPak are a huge pain. Firstly, it does not create saves. You have to make a blank SRAM file for every single game in your collection and rename it to the name of your ROM. Then, to top it off, whenever you are done playing a game, you can't just turn off your console. You have to hold reset for 5 seconds, then backup the SRAM. If you forget to do this, you stand to lose all your progress! It's incredibly annoying and this is why I play my EverDrive more than my PowerPak now.

I am basically keeping my PowerPak around for Super Mario Kart, Pilotwings, and Star Ocean. That's basically it.

In short, the EverDrive is a great device. It loads a little slower than the EverDrive, and there's like 3 worthwhile games that it won't play that the PowerPak will, but in every other area the EverDrive is better, in my opinion (not to mention, cheaper!). Perhaps the one thing that would secure the EverDrive in first place would be in-game reset, but I am not sure if it's even technically possible (would be so great to not have to get up and reboot the SNES every time you want to change a game!).

All in all, I eagerly await an NES and Gameboy/Gameboy Color EverDrive from KRIKzz!

 

A well-written and enjoyably impartial review.

This is such a nuisance. Most of the time the games I'm playing I'm just checking out (romhacks and so forth) but I have been playing Super Metroid again and I lost an hour or two's progress the other day. Could've sworn I remembered to boot back to save the progress but I guess not. Not sure if I can be fucked to continue playing now. The irony is that I've tried playing this a few times over the last few years, but the battery went out on my PAL cart (even again after I replaced it, I think), I figured at least with a flash cart there'd be no battery life issues.

Autosave does seem like a feature that should've been added a long time ago.

 

Great review/comparison, I enjoyed reading it :thumbsup:

One question though, you said:-

I thought the Super Everdrive did have in-game reset? I read this post:-

I dont yet own a Super Everdrive so I dont know if thats correct, or how you activate it

 

What do you guys mean by autosave ?
It's like save state on the emulator ? Like it will be saving my game every 30s or so and if I power it off I can have the game from the same place without going to a exact place to save the same, like in final fantasy with the moogle or something ?

 

RetroPak is using SDRAM instead of FlashRAM. Thats why its loding games faster. But I asume that they are lost after power off?

 

You misunderstood something . For MD everdrive when you press/hold reset button you go back to game title , but for Super Everdrive if you press reset button you will be sent to Super Everdrive menu. That's what he meant.

 

Super Everdrive autometically save .sram to SD card and Auto load .sram from SD card.

For SNESpowerPak you have to manage saving .sram to SD by yourself after you've done playing your game, if you forget anychange to your .sram will be lost.

 

Are you sure thats what he meant? I didnt see any mention of pressing the physical console reset button - it said "in-game reset":-

Hopefully JimmyCrackCorn will reply and let us know what he meant ;-)

 

I definitely meant in game reset meaning I can reset from the controller and have it boot back to the game select menu. That would be awesome!

 

Well according to the post I linked to above Super Everdrive does have in-game reset(?) but I cant find any information about it. Maybe try some different button combinations, or ask KRIKzz?

Actually I just read a Super Everdrive review that says you can choose to return to flashed game or Everdrive menu when you press console reset button - you can select it in Everdrive "options" menu:-

 

How's the Super ED with region locked games or copy protected games (some of the RARE games)? Also, the SNES Powerpak had issues with some 2MB games, that had to be padded to 4MB. And of course, the Powerpak had countless problems with CF card compatibility, often affecting certain games differently.

 

super ed have not ability for unlock region protection, but easy can pass RARE copy protection. also cart set physical rom and sram size same as game need because some games may check it and be locked if will be detected some difference.

about reset:
for md everdrive you should use power off for back to menu, on snes everdrive you could use reset button for back to menu

 

Would in-game reset be possible for Super Everdrive? So you could use controller button combination to return to Everdrive menu? (Would have to make button combination obscure since some games use button combos for cheats)

 

currently i have not plan to implement such features

 

Have to make a couple of corrections.

1) You said the only games that run on Powerpak but not Everdrive is Mario Kart and Pilotwings. This is not true..there are several more DSP1 games that run on Powerpak and not Everdrive...and now that Everdive supports DSP1 those work on Everdrive now as well.

2) Pilotwings is not a DSP1 game =)

3) If you update your Powerpak to the latest OS it now autosaves sram.

Just thought I would share this information. I am also a fan of both Powerpak and Everdrive

 

Pilotwings is dsp1 game, by the way (;

 

Really? Now why did I think it was SuperFX?!
Oh well. Thanks for clearing that up. ;-)

I wonder why it doesn't work on the Powerpak. Every other DSP1 game does.
Hmm I will have to look into it.

 

Pilotwings used not standard mapping for dsp chip, but available some patched roms.
(U) [f1] for example sould work fine

 

Do you still have to create your own blank save file first? Also, do you still have to hold reset in order to save before powering off?

 

Kirkzz, thanks for that info. I will try it.

Electrochip: I didn't have to do any of that when I tried it, but I only tried Super Mario World. What are some more games that I could try?

(Sorry Kirkzz didn't mean to turn this into a Powerpak thread. LOL)