How Is Your SNES Gaming Going?

[Xeogred]

Dude that cover is awesome.

But you better ditch photobucket ASAP. I thought people were joking or maybe wrong about the new $399 premium price, but it's freaking real. lmfao, what a joke.

[Tanooki]

I ditched it last week for google photos. They can suck it. I wish someone though did their organizing like PB did. Seems asinine you can't sort by file name.

Anyway, I'm back in here as I got that Super Everdrive v2 in the mail today, DSP enabled as well, and got a nice (DSP-less) loaded SD card coming from mas which I traded him a few nice little items he wanted (tv games) awhile back.

Planning to start using my system again since the price problem is out of the way now. Not sure what I'll start. Also waiting on some replacement batteries. I finally had my first self bought game die on me after all these years, not even a GB or NES game, no it was my first SNES title from launch -- ActRaiser. I wanted to play it a couple week ago and my data was gone so I know it choked.

[Ziggy]

I wanted to play it a couple week ago and my data was gone so I know it choked.

Lost saves does not automatically mean dead battery. Replace it if you want, but it may be a waste of time and money if the battery isn't actually dead.

[Tanooki]

Well if it's not dead, then what? I tried the game after the fact and left it on a bit, tried a new save, and it was gone once I flipped it off.

[marurun]

Well if it's not dead, then what? I tried the game after the fact and left it on a bit, tried a new save, and it was gone once I flipped it off.

If that's what it's doing it actually makes perfect sense to start with the battery. I don't know what else you would check.

[o.pwuaioc]

Well if it's not dead, then what? I tried the game after the fact and left it on a bit, tried a new save, and it was gone once I flipped it off.

A lost game save does not by itself mean a bad battery, but if it continues then yeah, battery it is.

[ElkinFencer10]

It's too bad the game itself looks terrible. I almost ordered it, but just can't get past the low frame rate and slow pace of the game.

I haven't played it yet - been Witchering all day - but I figured I'd give it a shot for the novelty of a new SNES game.

Oi, nevermind, everything you said is true. It's like Shaq Fu without the awesome quirkiness of Shaq in a fighting game.

Dude that cover is awesome.

But you better ditch photobucket ASAP. I thought people were joking or maybe wrong about the new $399 premium price, but it's freaking real. lmfao, what a joke.

Thanks! And damn, I hadn't heard about that. I never used their premium stuff anyway, and I don't usually use Photobucket at all, but I'll definitely be switching over to Google for what I do use.

[Ziggy]

Well if it's not dead, then what? I tried the game after the fact and left it on a bit, tried a new save, and it was gone once I flipped it off.

A lost game save does not by itself mean a bad battery, but if it continues then yeah, battery it is.

This.

But yeah, if you wanna take the guess work out, it's very easy. Get a multimeter if you don't already own one (any hardware or auto parts store should have one, the cheapest digital meter is fine, just don't get analog). Put the meter on the DC volts setting. Touch the red probe to the positive leg of the battery, and the black probe to the negative (getting this wrong wont blow anything up, you'll just get a negative reading on your meter which is fine). New batteries of this type should be around 3.3v, but rule of thumb is anything over 3v and the battery is good. Anything under 3v and the battery is dead. I say rule of thumb because if the voltage level is over 3v, but approaching it (say, 3.05v for example) it isn't dead but no one would blame you for swapping in a fresh one.

There could be many reasons for lost saves with a battery that isn't dead, but the most common is probably corruption. Blank/empty save slots doesn't necessarily mean the saves were lost. Save files that were corrupted may show up as blank save files (or possibly the game wipes them after a sanity check). There's a few ways this can happen, but the easiest to avoid is making sure the cart and cart slot is clean.

Knocking into a console while a game is powered is a good way to lose your saves as well (I've had this happen to me a few times). I've had all sorts of weird things happen on the SNES. SimCity froze once and when I reset, the save for one city was gone but all other save data remained. I had a FF2 do the strangest thing once. It dropped my save file on slot 1 and restored a save to slot 2 that I erased. My LttP cart dropped all three saves after sitting on a shelf for years. Battery was strong so I didn't replace it. Played all the way through the game just fine without replacing the battery, the save is still there years later. And my All-Stars cart drops all saves whenever it feels like it, although it's been good this past decade.

[Tanooki]

Actually I found one of them finally maybe a month or to ago for a few bucks at the flea market, figured it maybe helpful with batteries or the pinball or neo geo machines if they ever had a problem in the future.

I probably should unscrew it and figure it out, but I'll have my 10pk of batteries along with a couple other items on Thursday. I have to do some GBC and GBA plastic surgery. Kid broke her GBC shell on accident cracking it badly enough the side popped off and batteries slid out so I ordered a berry one. I have a really rough grape colored gba, bought a black shell w/glass for it.


I know the various ways a save can eat it, but ActRaiser has been stored with no use for years in its little dust clip on the shelf. It only has one save location so regardless of dead battery, being shoved or whatever if it's gone it's gone. That's why I fired it up, cleared FILLMORE, then popped it off and came back and found it gone I put the game up until I had to do an order.

I have a SimCity that's like your SMAS cart, randomly loses saves every few years/months -- just weird. I can use it a few times, eats it like once/twice...leave it alone and then 5 years later town is still there.

[Ziggy]

I have a SimCity that's like your SMAS cart, randomly loses saves every few years/months -- just weird. I can use it a few times, eats it like once/twice...leave it alone and then 5 years later town is still there.

I have no real proof, it might just be coincidence, but my experience has shown... Earlier SNES carts with SRAM used a different method to switch to battery power when you turn the console off. It looks more like NES carts, which are notorious for dropping saves. My older SimCity cart, with this older battery circuit, would constantly lose save data. I haven't had an issue with my newer SimCity cart, which uses the newer battery circuit. My FF2 cart also uses the older battery circuit. My theory, from observation alone, is that this older battery circuit can sometimes be a problem. With such carts, I hold down reset while powering off the console. I don't know if this helps in the SNES' case, but it did with the NES.

I'll have my 10pk of batteries

The biggest piece of advice I can give with game cart batteries is to make sure your replacements are brand name batteries, and even then, that they're not new old stock. No-name brands aren't worth the trouble to install them since they wont last nearly as long.