Nintendo 64 memory card problems

[Tanooki]

Ive never had a OEM Nintendo one fail, but I have had a third party one here or there I got with stuff (I'd never pay for one ever) that ended up being broken garbage too that couldn't keep a save or just some saves. They were rumored garbage in the 90s and I figured it wasn't worth the hours of work lost so I've avoided them and the truth is they are junk and you're playing with fire if you find one that won't suck.

[ElkinFencer10]

Maybe that's why; all of mine are first party. I think the only third party memory cards of any kind I have are my Saturn 4-in-1 cart, a Playstation memory card, and a Dreamcast memory card (in addition to the 2 or 3 first party VMUs I have).

[bacteria]

I've bought several N64 memory cards in the past. All failed I had apart from a couple. Only ones I find work fine tend to be the dual memory card/rumble pack ones; they can still be pants but are more likely to be fine than not.

Good idea is to pop in a new memory card and try a game that gives you instant access to the memory card, eg Doom64 is one - or ones that as soon as you start a game for the first time it wants to save a file to the memory card - then if the card is rubbish you can identify it quickly and try another one.

[Tanooki]

I thought any game gave instant access. All you do is fire up the system with any game in the slot that uses it and be holding the Start button when you flip the switch. It should roll right into a menu listing every page numerically and it will show the game name and pages used top to bottom. Then you get tools to copy, erase, or format(I think) the card. It was a Nintendo tech standards requirement because it helped people who ran out of room make room on a memory card using game.

[samurai cop]

If you can see the save file on the memory card when you're in the memory card manager (hold start when turning the console on) then the battery in the memory card is probably OK.

It could be that the save file IS there, but corrupt, so the game sees it as a "new game". Can you create another game save file?

Yeah, when I went to Memory Card Manager it was there but it wouldn't load no matter what. And to be honest I haven't tried a new save file, I'd figured it would just die again so I didn't bother.

[Ziggy]

And to be honest I haven't tried a new save file, I'd figured it would
just die again so I didn't bother.

I meant that as a diagnostic test. If you can create a new game save file, and it works, then the problem is most likely a corrupt save file.