based on forum advice, I went to the site: http://www.tototek.com/ thing is that I am confused as hell. I wanted to get my bro (who just got his own SNES) a cart by which he can upload his own games whenever he wants. Now, on this site, I see options that say CARD ONLY. I see another one that has a real SFC game sticking out of it. I also see a modchip separately for sale. What gives? Is there a regular (everything) included package? (this site or another) Can these only work on a super famicom? Thanks Would it be better to get him a dumper (I think thats the name, what ever sits in the system and you load games in)?
Well there are 2 ways you can go on this. The SuperFlash cartridge or a Backup Device such as the Game Doctor SF6 or SF7. Both will play about the same games really. If you want the SuperFlash, get the "kit" that comes with the programmer and cartridge. You may also need to obtain a suitable parallel port cable and usb cable to use the programmer. Your PC may have compatibility issues with the programming software you may have to work through. Uploading different games always requires your PC. You could also get a backup unit like the Game Doctor SF series. It will load games off your standard 3.5" floppy disks. It's probably easier to understand and use for a non-technical person. I'm a bit bias though torward the backup unit. I have a Game Doctor SF7 and its wonderful. I'd highly recommend it and buying it from Tototek (where I bought mine). If your brother or you can handle some simple conversion tools to convert the ROM files and put them onto floppys you'll be fine. The main plus of the Flash Cart is its just a cartridge you plug in like any other which is nice. But the backup unit you can change games faster without any PC interaction once you have a collection of floppy disks. The backup unit is probably cheaper too. ;p
Loading off floppy is a pain in the ass, it takes forever. Either use a flash cart or hook up your backup device to UCON64.
That's not true at all. The time spent loading a game onto your flash cart is comparable with the time it takes to convert the rom to GD3 format. It might take a bit longer if you are doing a large game like 32mbit. But when it comes to loading a new game it's not super fast but it doesn't take that long. One thing I noticed is my GDSF7 loads floppys MUCH faster than my GDSF3 ever did. I did hear once this has to do with poor power feeding the floppy drive causing it to re-read sectors constantly or something. If you have a PC by the SNES, you can always use UCON64 and the parallel port to upload roms from the PC which is a good bit faster than floppy loading. Again you'll have to decide for yourself what is more suitable to you. For myself I don't like flash carts if it can be avoided because it isn't as easy to quickly change games. At any time I can just pop a game like Super Castlevania into my system and be playing in 15 seconds. For a flash cart I'd have to get the programmer out if it isn't already, take the cartridge and put it in, bring up the software, possibly delete games to make space, flash the cartridge, then put it in and play. Maybe it's just me but putting some cheap 10 cent floppy disk in and playing sounds alot better to me. Even if I have to use 4 floppys, it's not bad if you have a healthy floppy drive.
If you don't think that waiting for 4 floppies to be read is a pain in the ass, then fair enough. I reckon you're in the minority though, that's all I was saying. Really none of the backup devices I've seen are much of a substitute for the real thing, I've used my SNES one (SWC, 32MB I think) for a fan translation and some homebrew SPC700 code, and that's about it. I was anticipating it being a way to make my SNES collection more portable and less space-consuming (my tiny student room is really packed to bursting these days) but it just isn't practical like that. A DX2 might be but for that kind of money I could get a bunch of real games...
I find that my flash cart is more convenient for larger SFC games, but for smaller (8M or less) games, my UFO copier is nicer, because the UFO has cheat codes, slow-motion, state saving, etc. Splitting ROMs over floppy disks and all the mess with headers is kind of a pain, definitely.
Maybe I'm just well experienced with it then. For my I just think of a game I want to play, if it's on floppys already I just load it up, otherwise I grab the ROM, use ucon64 to convert to gdsf3 format and split and copy to the floppys. To me this is really easy and pretty fast. I think Covell is right though that the copier can't be beat for small games (really 12M or less because of the 1.6mb formatting option). Honestly unless the game is 32M, it's not really bad. 20M and 24M games can be fitted to 2 Disks. But 32M can't be cut onto 3 unfortunately (with GDSF). I actually wondered cause Ucon64 makes it seem like the SWC series can have any split file length which would mean you could fit a 32M game on 3 disks. I'd also agree, nothing beats having the real cartridges to plug in. And you're definitely right about the SWCDX2. For that insane cost you might as well buy every game you want. I never will understand why the SWCDX2 is so highly reguarded and highly priced yet the GDSF series is superb too but so much cheaper and more available.
Can Game Doctors accept Zip disk, CD-ROM or HDD? Those are the selling points for the DX2. Not to beat the proverbial dead horse here, but if you're doing all that then a flash cart is an identical process but with a quicker load time on the SNES.
But the Flash cart requires PC interaction always to load a new game, where as the SNES with backup unit can do it independently if you have it on media already. Plus again, the Flash cartridge costs more. For a 32M unit, you'll pay something like 50$ less. It is all personal preference in the end ofcourse. I just prefer copiers over flash cartridges.
I've found several threads (nesdev and other places) where people alude to them but no actual links. Would be appreciated although if it involves anything more complicated than a soldering iron (ie making a PCB, blowing onto PROM etc) then there's not much point. It's mainly for my own curiousity anyway.
The CDROM interface only requires a $0.30 octal tristate "bus driver" chip and passive components like connectors and caps, mind you the CDROM must be a Matsushita or Sony MKE drive (Sony plans haven't been released)
ok, so if I buy the Doctor SF7 (64M) for NTSC SFC as on the backup page on tototek.com, what else would i need? again, I have no idea and googling this doesnt really help. thanks again
You would need a 9V DC power supply which has the center polarity negative such as the MD/Genesis 1/FC/SFC/PCE supply. It should be rated over 500mA, 1A would be great. If you wish to transfer games using your computer's parallel port, you'd need a "straight-through" "switch box" DB-25 male to male cable which means that pin 1-25 corresponds to pin 1-25 on the other end. If you'd like the CDROM interface, you'd need the DB-25 cable mentioned above, a Panasonic/Matsushita MKE CDROM, a 74LS244 chip, an electrolytic capacitor, a single drive IDE ribbon, a 40 pin IDC connector, a DB-25 female connector, wiring and some perfboard. It would also be wise to buy a parallel port CDROM and swap the internals to get a nice enclosure and power supply.
