Super Everdrive vs. SD2SNES: What are the main differences?

I'm trying to decide whether or not to purchase the Super Everdrive or the SD2SNES on Stone Age Gamer. I have read the descriptions numerous times but I am still unsure what the main differences are. I understand that both versions already have the DSP-1 so DPS-1 games will work. I also understand FX games will not work. But is there a list in layman's terms that describe the main differences? For example a list of games that work on SD2SNES but not on Super Everdrive? Or other features that SD2SNES has that are important the Super Everdrive does not?

Basically what I am doing here is trying to see if it's worth it to spend $100.00 for features I may not even need. If I could get the cheap version because I want less than $100.00 in games that use those chips then that would be ideal. As I do prefer collecting real games.

So are there any huge differences between the two models? And are there any vital games I would miss out on playing with the standard Super Everdrive like possible Star Ocean?

I have looked at the chip list wiki but i'm still confused because there are a lot of DSP chips, and other chips I do not see listed.

 

There´s Super Road Blaster, Megaman X2, Megaman X3 and all the satellaview games, you can find a list of satellaview games: http://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Satellaview_games

additionally with sd2snes there is potential for superfx games to work with a future firmware update.

 

star ocean isn't possible with super everdrive afaik. it can be played via sd2snes.

 

I'm not a fan of the load/erase times on the Super Everdrive, otherwise it's a great value.

 

I take it that there are future plans to upgrade to FX and maybe FX2 potential on the SD2NES? I am eventually going to get one of these but want to make sure that I will be able to play the games I want this for. Most of the RPG's is what I want it for.

 

I wouldn't hold my breath. I read somewhere that Ikari got a girlfriend and you know how that demands time.

 

There is no such thing as FX2. Super FX support was planned and I believe in development at some point. It might someday be supported. However very few games were ever made using this chip. The most often desired game is Star Fox 2 as it was unreleased. There have been other chips mentioned but there is certainly no time table or estimate for when any new chips will be supported, if ever. SD2SNES and other cartridges support 99% of SNES games. A rather short list of incompatible games is around. The most popular games unsupported by most flash carts are: Mega Man X2 & X3 (Cx4), Kirby's Dreamland 3, Kirby's Superstar, Super Mario RPG (SA-1), Star Fox 2 (SuperFX), Star Ocean & Street Fighter Alpha 2 (SDD-1). There are other games that are less known or less popular, but those are probably the most desired games you can't generally play on Flash Carts. Star Ocean is playable on some though. The Mega Man X games are playable on SD2SNES and another flash cart that I forget the name of.

 

http://sd2snes.de/blog/ if you want to bug the guy (and most likely decrease his efforts towards Super FX) or just have first hand news whenever he updates the blog.

 

Truthfully I think the programming requirements have overwhelmed him. Not to say that he can't do it, but the actual implementation has surprised him and turned out to be way more difficult than first imagined. If you read his most recent update, sounds pretty daunting. It's really unfortunate, because we all had such high hopes to get Super FX and/or SA-1 chip support added. Now it seems less and less likely. He was supposed to release a fix for a "BS memory mapping bug" but that was 2 months ago.

Honestly, if you can't afford SD2SNES as I said, the Super Everdrive or SNES Power Pak are worthy and much cheaper. The Super PowerPak is not currently in stock, but it loads games instantaneously unlike the slow Super Everdrive.

 

Out of all the games it can not play yet, Super Mario RPG is the one I want the most. Is there a list somewhere that shows the difference in comparability between the 2 options for the SNES?
Thanks

 

Yeah, I'm having this kind of feeling that flash cartridge developers are trying to do too much at the same time.

Besides the N64 flash cartridge system all others fail on quite a numerous games.

I'm not even counting the ones I can honestly say are a piece of garbage like the skunkboard for the atari jaguar and that one for the atari lynx that don't even have a selection screen for games.
I think the world lacks of people interested in entering the flash cartridge business and we still get products that are 90% ready.

Maybe it's today's world technology, maybe FPGA needs to become cheaper and easier to work with.. who knows.

As for SNES, I believe it will be a few years from now till we see a full library support.

 

The Mega Everdrive for the genesis is 99.9999% compatible with the genesis games and from what I know almost perfect for master system also. I have one and have yet to play a game that does not work well with the drive, and the only one that I know of that does not work with it has a 32X version that plays better and will work. I think the SNES is an issue because of all the chips or whatever all that was put in the cartridges that in order to make it 100% compatible it will take a long time.

 

I think so. genesis and master system are up there.
For those who'd like to all content of some games without a region switch or rom hacks, I don't know about a cart that easily patches language mode.

 

NES PowerPak plays pretty much everything, as does the SD flash carts by Atari Max for 5200 and Colecovision, and the 2600 Harmony cart. The SNES special chips make it that much harder. N64 didn't have them, so it's much easier to do on FPGA.

 

I don't think people should be so quick to assume FX implementation will not happen or lose confidence in Ikari's ability to complete it. Maybe a little encouragement or some even some programming help would be better. I'm sure he is overwhelmed by it, the fact his creation has been bootlegged by a Chinese company probably doesn't help either, the last thing he would want to read is people saying it won't happen.

Be patient.

 

But is he still developing? Is there any word on him that he's still on track?

As far as I heard here he's silent about keeping up.

 

You're confused. It's not a lack of focus for why various flash carts aren't 100% compatible with every single game. Infact the lack of a sole focus is good as there are now many systems with nice flash carts that support most games. You don't seem to understand the "FPGA" business either. The reason that Super FX, SA-1, etc. aren't support even though "magical" FPGAs exist is because it is still very complex and a large amount of work to clone one of these chips.

The exact same thing about "a few years from now till we see a full library support" was being talked about 10 years ago. Yes it would be nice if a single device could support every single game. But this is mainly alot of moaning and groaning over a handful of games that aren't that expensive.

 

The NES powerpak only plays the entire library because of Loopy's unofficial mappers. I don't think bunnyboy would do it otherwise. So it's not official.

I'm not pointing fingers and I expressed that I don't know how FPGA really works.

The thing I was referring is that if I'm going to build tons of flash cartridges for tons of different systems I wouldn't do it so fast. That's my point of view of doing something hardware based.
As I said the overall game working ratio I believe it's about 90% it you take all the flash cartridges unsupported game by it's library and divide all them together.

The thing is, it's rare to see updates towards unsupported games. Maybe because they aren't expensive maybe because it's a lot of work, I really don't know and I believe this changes from one developer to another.

And I expressed my point of view not pointing fingers towards the everdrive series, as I said I point finger to garbage devices like the skunkboard and many others.
Just to illustrate this example, the skunkboard had 3 runs.
Not a single upgrade between them. I believe this is because people would buy it either way.
After all there's no competition.
Even the Atari 2600 and the Odyssey have GUI to select games and the Jaguar that is open source does not.

This same goes to the NGPC, Atari Lynx, GameBoy and probably many more still on sale flash cartridges.
This is laziness to me.

And I do believe flash cartridges are way more possible today than it was back than, for obvious reasons and I think it will be easier in the future to develop full library flash cartridges but only time will tell.

 

Wait a minute. You're unhappy that bunnyboy allowed loopy to make additional mappers, but then are equally upset that Krikzz doesn't allow the same on his stuff? The point you're missing is the complexity and individuality of each console. The NES flash carts can use mappers to play games because that's how the NES worked! SNES is far more complicated than that. In Krikzz case, several of his Everdrives don't have the hardware needed for extensive GUI's. Would I like to see Krikzz allow for menu development or other outside enhancements to his carts, yes, but that's his call. He has fixed almost all bugs on his carts though.

I won't comment on the Jaguar as it's a system I have zero interest in, but the lack of flash carts for those handhelds is not laziness. They're not simple, and require a ton of time. It's a miracle Krikzz develops so quickly, but also a result of his working with a small group of people. These flash carts are technological marvels, and sometimes the creator only has enough time/energy/patience/willpower to get it to run and nothing more.

Is ikari looking for collaboration, hasn't seemed that way. Like Krikzz he would have to open up his code for assistance and I doubt will want to do that. And that clone is a piece of trash anyway. As for completion, I hope he can do it but his latest report sounded like he's still far from a solution, and like I said, he went from fixing a bug in a week or two to several months and no fix, so clearly he's busy with other things.

 

I never said that. I'll repeat myself again, not one of my comments is aimed to Krikzz. I'm a huge fan of the Everdrive series and not remotely aimed my comments to his work.
My point was why moving to another project or develop something new if you could make your project that is 98% bulletproof go 99% or even 100%.

My point of view about Bunnyboy is the same, it's not his work. We are very fortunate that loopy took the bull by the horn but that's it, if we would expect him doing it we wouldn't get it.
An example of that is his work on the HDMI NES. He has the entire knowledge to develop RGB NES but he chooses not to and will sell only complete systems with HDMI, no upgrade chips. I wounder why not boxed systems only that way he could charge more.

Either way it's his choice but the world is an awesome place and things like the universal ppu project exist.