SNES/Super Famicom enhancement chips on GameDoctor SF7 or SWC DX2

Hi, i had a thought that came to my head & apparently i was thinking was is it possible to add SNES/Super Famicom special enhancement chips on a backup copier like Super Wild Card DX2, Game Doctor SF6/7, or Gamars? like for example, i want to play a SA-1 chip game like Super Mario RPG, Treasure Hunter G (does that game have the chip?), or Dragonball Z Hyper Dimension on it, is it likely that i could solder the chip to the backup copier?

 

Unless you can engineer it and find some type of passthrough - no. It's not happening.

 

No you can't. Is it possible? It sure is if you have electronics and software engineering skills. But there is a reason no one has done it before. Either people don't have the skills, or they have the skills and better things to do. The number of SNES games that use additional chips is extremely small. And then they are splintered into even smaller groups. It's not worth the trouble. DSP-1 throws people off because it was designed in a way that actually made it very simple for copiers to support. But it is the only chip that can be reasonably supported. Super FX or SA-1 could be supported by a copier using the original chips if they were removed from working game cartridges and intergrated into a copier design. But this could have happened at anytime and it never has again for the previous stated reasons, in addition to cost.

Treasure Hunter G doesn't use any additional chips as I recall.

 

Hmm perhaps, then why not make separate dsp type carts that goes under the copier like those blue colored ones?

 

Because the pin out is different depending on the cartridge.

 

You can't make a cartridge to do Super FX or SA-1, no adapter or anything. As I told you, DSP is different. It's like this.

The Cartridge Connector is connected with the ROM Chip AND DSP chip in a game using DSP.
The Cartridge Connector is connected to the SA-1 chip in a game using the SA-1. The ROM does not connect to the Cartridge Connector in a SA-1 game.

So you can easily connect the DSP to the cartridge connector so a game loaded on a copier can use it. But with Super FX or SA-1, the connections for the game ROM do not come out of the cartridge. They are inside only, connecting to the MaskROM. Even if you wanted to connect things, you'd need to worry about the copier's DRAM refresh, how you go about loading the rom and managing when the SA-1/Super FX is to be used or not used, etc.

If this was simple don't you think someone would have already done it?

 

True, so your saying is even if Super Mario RPG, or Rockman X1 & X2, Starfox, or Stunt Racer FX was in the main copier cart (where you can load the choice of game in) could load the floopy game that requires it? Btw, is it possible to load BS-X rom dumps off from the copier as well right? And another is, can i restore a .sram file of the game i played from SNES9X emulator and put that onto the copier via Dram or to cart easily? Because, i'm buying a ton of super famicom games and i want to be able to restore my saves to the cart without having to start over.

 

Some copiers support reading and writing the SRAM in the cartridge with data you loaded from a disk. The Game Doctor series can do this, but it is cryptic on how to do it.

I have no idea your question about the SA-1 and Cx4. The answer is no, you can't play these games from the copier. It would require serious engineering and/or hacking of an existing copier to create something to play these games. It is worth noting that Cx4 can be played by the SD2SNES. You should realize these questions about playing SNES games with extra hardware in them have been around since they were first released. So it's been decades. The cost-benefit comparison makes it not worth it. The only way it might happen would be for someone with all the needed skills to have also the time and interest in doing something. Even then they may only be interested in it for themselves and not any sort of public sale.

You can always use emulation.

You can play certain BS-X titles on various copiers or flash carts but results will vary. Some work, some don't. Some need patches, some need the BS-X hardware simulated or actually present. Some won't work because they need the actual BS-X service that no longer exists and only existed in Japan anyway.

 

I see, do you know anyone that has the skills to solder the chips inside the copier and create a custom bios for it? I personally just don't get why it isn't important to do it since most people still has these units plus it's way cheaper than that SD2SNES cart? And also we can always add a USB floppy emulator drive or SD card one (if there is one) I'll be a win-win for everyone! Not all snes owners likes flashcarts & emulators like you guys do.

 

Realistically at that point, I would just buy the real cart.... but I do love my SF7 copier. I added a usb flash drive, so now all my games and saves are done that way.

 

Simply put, the easiest way to get these special chips is from the carts themselves...using a flashcart is honestly no different than a copier these days.

 

Yeah exactly! lol but, i don't see what's hard about adding special chips to a single copier? i know it's too much work to be put on old hardware & it's not like it's very very difficult to buy a couple of cheap copies of Super Mario RPG & Starfox then opening them up and adding it there! Has getting super ridiculous expensive flashcarts ruined much chances for some?? Ya act like it's very easy to buy one but yet impossible to get off of Amazon/Ebay or the likes.

 

It's pretty obvious that you "don't see what's hard". It's not a matter of getting materials and just sticking them together.

The easiest part is getting the original chips. The harder part is going to be removing the chip from the cartridge intact. But that's not the hardest part at all. Then you can't just "add it in there". There's nowhere to "add it". No copier or flashcart was designed to run those games. To add it could require alot of trickery wiring, or designing an entirely new pcb and migrating every single component over to the new pcb. Can you design a new PCB and get it produced? Can you do surface mount desoldering and soldering?

Next you can't just make a new PCB if you don't also understand the existing hardware of the copier and can build on that to expand it to handle these chips in your new design. You will need new control logic to facilitate enabling and disabling these chips. Another issue AGAIN is the DRAM that is being used in these copiers. They were designed to simulate normal SNES cartridges. But SA-1 isn't normal, ROM may infact be accessed faster or just differently enough that the DRAM refresh may conflict with it. I'm not an electrical engineering expert, but I know this isn't some simple task you seem to believe it is.

Believe me, if it was so easy it would have been done 10 years ago.

 

ahh, now i get it i'm terribly sorry i thought the chips were separate from the burnt maskrom or whatever so technically it is impossible to get it out normally without messing up the SA-1, SDD-1 or so. If that was the case then how Krizz was able to add all of that into his cartridge while everyone else had a super hard time getting one for their flashcarts & backup copiers? And btw, should i instead just stick to getting a Super UFO pro 8 then and whatever game i wanna play "backup" including Fan Translations while having a bought copy of said game i wanna play and leave it in?

 

I wasn't very impressed with my Super UFO 8. Reasons being:

'Deathgrip' cartridge connector
Poor compatibility
Advertised functions don't seem to work (real time save, cartridge dumping)
8.3 char limit on filenames

Personally I would look at getting something else.

Not sure what you mean, but the only enhancement chip add-on I've seen that has been supported I've seen has been the DSP-1, which for reasons listed above isn't as tricky as something like the Super-FX

If the game has enhancement chips, this won't work due to the reasons listed above.

 

@Sonny_Jim I meant the game compatibility with the Super UFO pro 8 with having carts in the flashcart itself. I just want a backup copier that has it all or some at least with able to grab my save files and possibly transfer them over to one of my Super Famicom carts that i own.

 

I did not say that it's impossible to remove the SA-1 or other chips from cartridges. It can be done, but it requires skills and tools for the job. You can't just buy a $15 radioshack soldering iron. The other point is that it's not a matter of just sticking the chip into your copier. You basically need the skills to make your own copier in the first place before you can consider the challenges to trying to add SA-1 or another chip into the design.

You should buy whatever Flash Cart you like. PowerPAK, Super EverDrive, SD2SNES, whatever. You can either buy the cartridges of games with these chips or emulate them. Remember that it's a small minority of SNES games that have these chips.

 

oh, i thought it was possible using an existing game doctor motherboard okay now i get it lol never knew you had to create your own board and then make a customized bios having these chips installed on-board. Makes perfect sense now speaking of using my owning carts to patch & etc.. what utility device should i buy to be able to do that without having to buy a flashcart? like transferring my SRAM & patching fan translations without messing up my cart completely?

 

Transferring SRAM data can be done with various devices. The Game Doctor SF7 I think you just need to enter a "code" in the menu to trigger it to copy SRAM from the GDSF's internal SRAM to the Cartridge or vice versa. That would let you put whatever you want onto your original cartridges. Fan translations, if you mean something like Secret of Mana 2, you can't "patch" your Japanese cartridges. But any backup device can dump the rom which you can then put on your PC to patch if you wanted to do so. No device currently works in realtime with an original cartridge to run the translations or other rom hacks.

 

The Super UFO 8 is supposed to be able to transfer saves, but again I found it was very hit and miss