Virtua Racing 32X

I have had a pal copy of vr for the 32x for ages now... one of the things i hate about it is when you turn of the game you loose any fast lap time and any cups you have got from winning races(in normal mode), ok recently got a jap version of the same game, great love it. but turned it of, went back to it a day or so later.... games saved. Did any one else know that the jap version had battery backup??? Does the us version?? Also the SEGA logo is not the same, and some of the level select screens have diff colours? and parts of one track are diff too.. Great, still getting excited about 15 year old games.. in 2009!!! How sad?? :lol:

 

Perhaps the backup battery (provided it doesn't use EEPROM) is simply dead?

 

That makes perfect sense, but this is the third PAL copy of VR32X ive owned, including the one i bought when the console launched. and it didnt work then either.. i think there are prolly a few things we dont know about the 32x as its life was so short..

 

I did not even know that VR had any saving features

 

A few pics

Here are a few pics of the PAL and JAP game internals



JAP Close up!!




PAL Close up!!



As you can see they are both made in 1994 and both in Japan.. and both different.. Could the "RAMTRON" chip on the Jap game be flash.. what do you think... Because it def saves and the Pal def dont.:-(


UPDATE: The cartridge has a small amount of non-volatile RAM built into it, in the form of a Ramtron FM1208S-200CC CMOS module.
so cool.. it is flash. going to check my other jap games to see how many support the save function.
Another example of how the PAL regions got shafted while the home market (Japan) got the good stuff.. (Im not bitter honest)

 

I've never played the PAL version. Could you point out what Track details are different between that and the Japanese version?

yakumo

 

Yeah - they even stiffed you when stamping "Sega" on the chips... The Japanese cartridge has nice Sega Logo stamping... :110:

 

That Ramtron chip is a FRAM chip, and that is where the data is saved. No need for battery or more. Only catch is that when you read a byte, you have to write it back...

 

Pretty cool. I didn't know they were using flash for saving that long ago.

 

its not flash, its ferro-electric memory... EEPROM would be flash

 

Wow, great It's nice to see how Sega did remove features for euro/usa releases.


Can you post pics about "lso the SEGA logo is not the same, and some of the level select screens have diff colours? and parts of one track are diff too.."
?


Thanks a ton.

 

Diffs

Here are the only track diffs i could find. Its Sandpark..


PAL Reverse.. then Jap..



JAP..

PAL..

 

Logo and Menu's

JAP


PAL..


JAP...

PAL.. Again.

The JAP SEGA Logo sweeps in from left to right with music not the engine noise from the PAL/US..

 

it manages address decoding for the 2 ROM chips.... its either that or a 74xx00... I guess Sega had surplus of 74xx139 chips

I'd like to see the other side of the JP cart board, I'm quite sure there's at least 2 more chips...

 

Game like NBA Jam with saving feature has RAMTRON chip too. (PAL)

 

Thanks for the screen shots. From looking at them it would seem that the PAL version is earlier build.

Yakumo

 

Well the Japanese Super 32X did come ouit way after the Sega Saturn as some kind of after thought...

 

That's true. Makes you wonder why, doesn't it? If Sega never brought the Multimega (officially) or the Nomad to Japan then why the hell bring the 32X after the Saturn had already been released? They must have been smoking some serious shit when they came up with that decision :033: :033: .

 

TmEE, mind elaborating on this FRAM tech? Never heard of it!