PowerPak and SNES PowerPak

I've always been interested in the idea of flash carts for my favorite retro consoles, but I do have some concerns I'd like satisfied before I make such an investment in one of these devices (found here)
Since these products are technically using non-official components won't there be some distinct differences between playing a game on a flash cart and playing that same game on the original cart? Obviously a machine like the original NES sometimes uses extra processors inside of the cartridges called mappers that will give that console a little more power (the SNES uses additional processors inside carts, as well). These extra processors allow the machines to play more graphically enhanced games outside of the consoles' normal boundaries. So if the developer that manufactures these carts is programming chips that will only emulate these functions is it safe to assume there will be at least some differences that we can expect both visually and aurally in the gaming experience? If so, what might those be?
Do any of you own either of these products? If so, what has been your experience? I obsess over such details because I would like to be aware of what inconsistencies I can expect before making such a purchase. Thanks for your time!

 

Not for most games. I don't see why you think "non-official components" has anything to do with how the game works. For SNES games, the games that work will work identically to the original cartridge. For the NES, the games that work most work identically. There are a few that work that might behave slightly differently but do not impair gameplay. The PowerPAKs are great products.

The NES mappers are duplicated (not emulated like you would emulate NES ROMs on your PC) by the FPGA in the cartridge. Some mappers are implemented perfectly. Some may be slightly off. Some aren't implemented at all. Excluding unlicensed games and Japanese only games, the only games that aren't supported are MMC-5 games such as Castlevania 3. Again, for the games that work, there are no major differences or no differences at all.

For SNES, games that use coprocessor chips like SuperFX are not supported at all and never will be. However 99% of SNES games do not contain any coprocessors.

I own both PowerPAKs. They are awesome. For the NES, there is no other device like it. It works wonderfully. For SNES, you could investigate the EverDrive for SNES, and the MashMods USB Flash Cartridge. While I will prefer the PowerPAK the SNES EverDrive cartridge is cheaper and uses SD cards which you may prefer.

Flawed how? Or joking?

 

Thanks, MottZilla! I hate to sound pedantic, but how would those non-major inconsistencies manifest themselves? In your post you said that there may be some minor differences between the real cartridge and 3rd party flash cart, would that include negligible framerate issues, slightly wonky color palette, occasional sharp distorted intonations in the games' soundtrack? Please be specific if you wouldn't mind!

 

There would not be any framerate issues. The only thing like that would be if you tried running a PAL rom on a NTSC system or vice versa, a game won't like being run on the wrong video format. But chances are this isn't going to be an issue for you. There is no "wonky" palette issues or sound distortion. For NES, games with expanded audio (all japanese games) require a slight hardware mod and may not sound exactly 1:1 to the original hardware, but sound close enough that you would not notice this anyway.

For SNES, again same with about PAL and NTSC, no palette or sound issues.

I never experienced either of those issues. Perhaps you're thinking of issues with the first batch of PowerPAKs before the "resistor fix" and all that? Usually if someone gets the PowerPAK and it works, it works great. Some people reportly had issues in the past where it wouldn't work on their console. I don't see any of those types of posts anymore, atleast not on the forums I go to.

 

That's exactly what I was wondering, Mott. That would be nice if the developer could somehow replicate the missing sound chip from the Famicom so a hardware mod wasn't necessary and 100% authentic sound could be had, but I suppose he's already done quite a bit for the retro gaming community.

 

You don't understand. The NES doesn't support Expansion audio like the Famicom does. The NES routes the Audio In to the Expansion Port on the bottom of the NES. On the Famicom this pin is instead on the Cartridge Port. Because Nintendo never officially used the audio expansion with the NES, the only solution to get expansion audio is to solder a resistor between a pin on the expansion port and whatever you are connecting to. With the PowerPAK you can get expansion audio for various mappers, but it requires you to solder a 47k ohms resistor between two expansion port pins (which is easy to do) for you to hear it.

Unfortunately making a simple plug in device to do this would cost an insane amount of money, so you'll just have to stick with soldering a resistor inside the NES.

 

Interesting! That's actually very cool that there is even additional audio available in the first place on the American NES. I know if I do a bit of googling I could probably find a tutorial on how to solder this resistor to the two pins, but would you mind linking me up to the one you might have used? I value these conversations with real retro-gaming fans who actually are familiar with the hardware because there are just far too many people that speak out of their ass like they know about these classic games, you are obviously not one of them. Thanks for your time!

 

Look at the audio_mod picture in loopy's mapper pack. http://home.comcast.net/~olimar/NES/powerpak_loopy.zip

http://home.comcast.net/~olimar/NES/

It's really simple, as you will see you just connect two pins with a 47k resistor.

 

Mottzilla: I also have both PowerPaks and love them. And with the new os version they released before the new year, saves are now handled automatically instead of the jumping through hoops like you had to do before. I haven't tested it with all games yet but Super Mario World on the SNES Powerpak saved my game automatically and when I shut it off and turned it back on and reloaded the game the save was there without me doing anything.

The reason some people hate the Powerpaks (I believe) is because they don't work well or at all on a lot of the fake systems, or the dual systems that support other consoles. Also I believe that some games are flawed on the Japanese Famicon if I am remembering correctly. But as long as you have a US NES everything seems to work like the original cart except for those MMC-5 games.

As for the SNES Powerpak There are only approx 12 US games (I have them listed at home) that don't work due to the coprocessor issue. But since the SNES Powerpak supports DSP1 it has the upper hand over all other flash carts currently.

I would also recommend Krikzz's Super EverDrive as he actively adds and improves things and there has been some talk about the possibility of adding DSP1 in the future although there hasn't been any promises.

If I had to say anything negative about the Powerpaks I would say the price. I had to ask for money for my birthday and Christmas and combine them together to finance them, it's not a casual spend. And that is where Krikzz has the upper hand. But I personally love the Powerpaks. The Everdrive is a very close second, and if DSP1 gets added it will surpass the Powerpak due to the price.

These are just my opinions though. Everyone has their own.

 

The reason I "hated" my SNES PowerPak was that it had different problems on three different (original Nintendo, not clone) consoles and with three different CF cards. I've owned it for a year now and only this last week have I found a CF card and console combination that it likes. While I'm now very happy it's up and running, I couldn't recommend it in good faith; I'd have to point to the Everdrive since by all accounts it isn't such a bloody prima donna.

 

That is interesting Alchy. I must have had the luck of the draw then because mine has worked flawlessly since day 1. But like I said...it is only my personal opinion. The EverDrive is equally as good in my opinion. Kirkzz makes good affordable products.

Oh and thanks for the correcting on a word. Fake=Clone. I meant "clone" but typed "fake" for some reason. =)

 

Two thumbs from me on both PowerPaks. They are worth it alone to play foreign and translated titles (which there are a lot). Have had the latest revs for a few weeks and no complaints or problems. Get that resistor installed for the NES PowerPak for the enhanced Famicom audio and you will be in heaven (i.e. Akumajou Densetsu).

Side note: You need an additional chip installed on the NES as well if you are also outputting RGB with the PowerPak.

As other users stated, price could be an issue but the quality is high and it pays itself back once you dump more than 100 games on there...

I can't wait for the new rev of the EverDrive MD to come out with the return of the SMS tactile (pause) button, gonna finally check it out.

 

Slightly off topic -- Are there any US games that have extra audio left over?

Also, is there a difference in the Japanese Castlevania 3 and the US version?
This video shows a guy running Castlevania 3 (Jap) on his powerpak.

 

No US games used extra audio as it was not connected to anything. Installing the resistor is basically doing what presumably some sort of jumper pak or FDS adapter might have done to connect one of the cartridge pins to the expansion port pin for sound mixing. MMC-5 has extra sound channels but no US release used them as they wouldn't be heard anyway.