Cartridge Battery Life?
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- Опубліковано 18 тра 2023
- Lots of old school game cartridges have save batteries in them, including some of the biggest and best known games of all time. From The Legend of Zelda to the Pokémon series, but how long do they last? How long before they run out and your save disappears? I did some measurements, ran some numbers and did some investigating to find out.
/ sharopolis - Ігри
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I still have the gold cart copy of The Legend of Zelda I got for my birthday in 1987 with the OG battery in it, and it still works just fine. I was even able to play my last save from 1991, and I'm still just as crap at that game as I used tio be.
Got mine same year, it still loads & saves. I guess they were using plutonium cells in that first production run. I can still beat the first quest with no potions; my poor wife can't even kill the first Octorock
got dragon warrior on NES (1989) from a thrift shop last year. had a good chuckle when I saw the save game still there!
It will be a sad day when used games come without their old saves. I love seeing where people left off, character names, etc.
Like tears in rain.
I remember renting Mario Paint from the local Blockbuster store (it also came with the mouse and plastic mousepad) and it was great seeing what stuff other kids (or adults) had created the week prior! No massive phallus depictions that I can recall over the 2 or 3 times I rented this out for $6 a pop for the week!
Second generation of Pokemon games (Gold, Silver, Crystal) contained the CR2025 battery, because they have real-time clocks that run constantly, and those cartridges die even more quickly than others. Some of the earliest GBA games had the battery-powered SRAM (I saw a copy of Wario Land 4 that had it), but there aren't many of these. Also, Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald on GBA had batteries, but only to power the real-time clocks. The save data in those games does not rely on the battery at all.
I agree, I used to have a copy of Pokemon Crystal and Silver for the GBC, and I had sooo much progress saved on 'em. It was in storage for a while then brought it out to play it again only to find out the game save was gone! So I played it enough to save it, then powered it off and then on again and the save was deleted. Then i knew the battery was dead.
In regards to the GBA versions of pokemon, when the battery for the clock is dead it will say "The internal battery has run dry. The game can be played, however clock based events will no longer occur." I was like, eh whatever.
I lost my save file on pokemon Gold with a complete pokedex it died about a year ago. That battery only lasted 3 years. The battery I used was too small 😭 first it stopped keeping the time, so I traded a ton of pokemon to my copy of crystal, this pokedex was completed how nintendo intended 300 hours gone on just gold I don't know if my copy of silver is dead yet.
@@Magicofoxio I have a copy of Gold, in which two batteries have died. But I wasn't the one playing it, it was someone else. It really is hard to retain the save data after a battery swap, unless you have a way of externally backing up the file. Actually, out of any battery-powered GameBoy games that I've ever had, every single one of them has died by now... Except one, Wario Land 4.
Yea by this point all 2nd gen Pokémon games have lost their saves
My SNES Super Mario World saves died over 7 years ago. The funny thing was up until that point I never even gave it a thought that there was an actual battery inside the cart?🤭
Or your ram memory just died, its one of those.
Really fascinating, I’d definitely love to see a follow up on N64 and Megadrive games. Maybe you can also solve the mystery of why Dreamcast VMU battery life feels like it should be measured in minutes! 😉
The Dreamcast VMU uses non-volatile memory so it would NOT require power to keep the game save data. Just like the memory cards for the PS1 for example. The only reason the VMU would need the battery is for it's internal clock and the mini games that certain games can load onto it.
@@Lerod_Driger oh yeah I know it keeps the save, it just seems like within days of putting a new battery in it goes flat! 😅 Then you get the annoying chorus of beeps (one for every VMU plugged in) whenever you switch the DC on. 😂
@@dreamcastfan yeah, the power draw for the Dreamcast was not optimized. I would certainly mod one in some way to have a rechargeable battery in it that would save tons of money today. However I bet it was a concept in its initial development, but production costs and consumer costs would have been too high to be viable back in 1999.
The odd bit is that lots of N64 games use flash storage in the cart, but the official Controller Pak memory card uses SRAM and a battery. I wonder how much current the Rumble Pak uses when Star Fox is hammering on it. Can't be that much, since folks have successfully rewired them to use the controller's internal power line.
@@ThetaReactor Crazy that Controller Pak's use a battery! I never knew this til reading your post! Cheers for the info!
I would like an update video for pokemon gold, silver, and crystal because the real time clock and the save data, its known that the battery gets eaten up by these games. Also red blue and yellow these days very frequently have dead batteries despite no real time clock.
Fantastic video!
My red and blue carts are still saving, and those batteries have never been changed.
Al my G/R/B/Y cards also work fine on og batteries..
On the RTC supported games the RTC needs to be powered all the time, so it can count time and adjust ingame time whenever you turn on the rom again. Therefore there isnt anything else possible to do then replacing a more energy efficient RTC, or upgrade to a bigger battery.
Yep, as you pointed out in the final couple minutes of the video, those figures are _best case,_ and do not account for any number of possible environmental or design factors. So it always pays to be prepared!
Next week I get the parts I ordered to build my own Open Source Cartridge Reader, so I can back up all my Super Famicom cart saves... (I mean, I _could_ already do it with my trusty old magicom, but holy jeez that'd be so slow!) 😃
You can of course replace the battery without wiping the data if you just connect 3V in parallel while you make the swap, but backing up is always the safer and wiser course.
@@geekehUK Yeah. Always better not to chance it if possible, though. All it takes is a poor connection or some mishap, and it's gone.
That's where measuring current with a 6.5 digit agilent multimeter shines, normally that's where I use them for checking standby currents or leakages on devices, with lithium batteries there's also the internal resistance, self discharge and environmental, I'm guessing if the cartridge always stays powered the battery doesn't even get used during the powered up phase only while it's powered down the battery is used.
Hey man!
I have a Super Mario World and a Donkey Kong 3 whose batteries have already died.
I once had a DK1 like that, so I took an old pc's Motherboarb and removed its battery "slot" and soldered it to the DK's board. Then I put a new battery in it and it started saving again.
I traded it with a friend, and it seems to be working to this day... and hopefully will still do so for like... 20+ more years!
The best part about it is: When it ever does die, it will be really simple to replace it...
Nice video, man... cheers!
Good thing you can get devices to copy these saves on/off cartridges while you replace the battery.
Quite an original concept for a video, and pretty interesting results, too. Well done, sir.
Neat to see the data breakdown and how long they can last. They truly did build these things with quality (a general thing with electronics in that time period). Please do continue to expand on this as it's worth exploring.
My super mario land 2 cartridge battery has a date code of 9/92. It has a CR1616 battery so it’s one of the small ones. Still saving games just fine. I already backed it up for when I decide to replace it.
Strangely, I once found a copy of Yoshi's Island with a dead battery- it can't have been more than about 10 years old at the time. My current copy is still perfectly fine.
Pokemon Red and Gold both had dead batteries when I got them, also about 10 years after release. Replaced the batteries with oversized 2032s (they just barely fit), and Red is still going strong to this day, close to 15 years later. Meanwhile, Gold has already died again!
Besides those examples, I've mostly had good results: Pokemon Yellow, Dragon Warrior, and even The Legend of Zelda are still working fine.
a big thing about pokemon games, generation 1 just uses battery backed ram with no "extras", just your save. I have a copy of pokemon green that when I got it still had its original save and battery, and this was like in 2022, while the game itself was from 1995.
Generation 2's battery lasts the least amount of time because on top of keeping your save data, it also powers the game's Real Time Clock for time of day and day of the week. you might get "maybe" 10-ish years out of Gen 2.
Gen 3 is interesting because they changed the save "hardware" so to speak, the save itself is kept on ram that doesn't need power, whereas the RTC for these games is powered by the battery, which is why Gen 3 will save without the battery but in game events won't happen.
As a lot of people are stating, the Second Generation Pokémon games, (Gold, Silver, and Crystal) are pretty much dead by now, even if their Gen 1 equivalents are not, all because they feature Real Time Clock chips in addition to standard SRAM to keep track of time. Possibly, the same is true for the Gen 3 games on GBA, again because of the RTC, as well as any other game that might've used one. (Though I don't know if any games outside of Pokémon ever used an RTC chip.)
Last I checked, my copy of Pokémon Yellow had its save while Gold didn't. I even found some of the grainy old pictures I took on my old Game Boy Camera!
Your channel continues to be one of the best gaming channels on YT. Really enjoy your stuff, man!
Thank you!
Haha that meg resistor IS limiting the current somewhat, and the quiescent draw of the SRAM IC is going to be lower at the lower apparent voltage as well, with that half a volt falling on the resistor! So i think both measurements on the multimeter current range and on the resistor are both super valid and agree with each other more so than it first seems! But also to be kept in mind that the resulting voltage better be above the data retention voltage threshold of the SRAM, else you might not get a reading at all, for good reason :D I wonder if you ran into this issue with Gameboy cartridge?
Quality content though; appreciated.
Thats an amazing lifetime. It seems like 1980's CMOS tech was the high-water mark of battery life in consumer electronics. The Li Ion may have superior energy density, but they become spicy pillows just sitting on a shelf, unlike those game carts..
Very apt description, spicy pillows.
While a dead battery can easily be replaced, if a form of non volatile ram like flash or eeprom died the cart would likely be toast if replacements aren't made. I have been interested in the way rewritable data is stored on carts for a while now and would love to see you cover carts with non battery save mechanisms to see if their lifespan can truly be measured.
I haven't heard anything about old EEPROM / flash chips failing. I think they are mostly permanent. (Though even every form of storage will lose data eventually. I once heard about a special form of CD made out of glass which would last for centuries.)
When I replace batteries in carts, I sometimes install a battery holder to make the next guys repair easier. It's especially handy on a GameBoy Camera's photo ram bat. That thing runs down all the time!
I have a copy of _Pokemon Red_ that still functions, but my copy of _Pokemon Gold_ crashes on start up. I'm pretty sure that this is because _Pokemon Gold_ as a real-time clock built-in, and I think this was a constant drain on the poor battery.
Sharopolis, I know nobody else on UA-cam does, but I thought that somebody as thorough as you would make the distinction between "retro" and "old". Retro gamers like old games. They also like retro games, which are new games in the style of old games. I guess that sounds pedantic but I feel like the distinction is important.
I'm too tired of peeving about this. I call them classic games myself to make a distinction from retro productions which are from today's era. But i think it's a little unfair to demand this of anyone else. I'm sure someone else would take an objection on me calling the Gameboy version of Mortal Kombat a "classic". :D
lol the nintendo/sega seal of quality mostly related to stress testing of the equipment (making sure the nintendo wont burn down your house after being on for 7 days, kind of thing), this feels like the first time that seal actually had any actual meaning to me. It seems like a lot of the old save carts from sega and nintendo were well made.
I have Golden Axe Warrior on sms that works fine but all my n64 memory paks have run flat long ago.
This was really interesting. From my experience, the time I’ve mostly come across drained batteries are those with real time clocks, like the GBC Pokemon games and the Boktai games on GBA. Oh, and the GameCube console battery for its clock.
Strangely my copy of Wario Land 1 for the GB has a drained battery, I don’t think that uses it for anything special other than saving games.
I'm guessing games that use the battery for a real-time clock (like Pokemon) draw more power?
Great post love it. I could look into this as I’ve kept my stuff. I have a launch era/day/week? Zelda cart and it still retain that save quite well. That’s august 87 but would have been assembled weeks or months earlier.
I've discovered a lot of lost saves from NES aren't feom the battery going bad but feom the frequent resets while trying to set the cartridge into the front loader while trying to get good contact. It's better to just leave a game genie just shoved inthere to maintain the good contact in my experience.
A few weeks ago I was watching tutorials on replacing N64 game pak and controller pak batteries thinking I'd need to be doing this after 25 years. I'll not bother after seeing the results here. My three SRAM games and two controller paks are still working fine, and if it ain't broke!
Eh you can always take them apart and just carefully measure the voltage across the battery; if it's started dipping below 2.9V, i think replacement is par for the course; otherwise you can just keep it.
35 years and counting, for my Legend Of Zelda cart. Still saves, as of a few months ago
Just casually dropping Withnail and I, up in here.
The only battery that I've had no other choice to replace was the one in my Gamecube for the real time clock, my game carts all seem to have been going fine but I changed the batteries in them anyway.
My guess is that since newer games are generally bigger / more complex, they probably have larger or more S-RAM chips (especially if any games used it as work ram). This would surely mean a higher drain. It'd be interesting to know, which will die first, even if some are a decade or more newer?
did you take into account the dropoff voltage? i.e it cannot use it's full capacity and when it gets to a low level will become un-useable
Yeah I did, I might have got it wrong but most SRAM chips seem to be able to retain data down to two volts and that is also what is considered 'dead' for these cells. The 220 mAh capacity of these batteries is what it has down to 2 volts.
I've actually always wondered this between my nes, snes, gb/c/a titles, as well as ds, 3ds carts.
DS/3DS carts don't actually have batteries, they keep the save data on flash memory, like a modern SD card. The amount of time that will last varies based on how often you read/write to it, so I'd be curious what those lifespans will end up looking like
DS/3DS/Switch games use flash storage. Flash storage is rated for about 30 years at room temprature, but it might be more.
DS/3DS shouldn't have batteries usuaully.
I'm aware of the 3ds/ds using flash...but flash isn't infallible, and has a threshold before it also goes bad. I've read how many rewrites it's supposed to support but never really knew if it was true / put into practice
Excellent and educational!
All my Super Famicom and N64 cartridges were still fine last time I checked (and some still with saves from the original Japanese owners) but Golden Axe Warrior for the Sega Master System needed a new battery. I haven't pulled out the Famicom for a while but I'm sure I've got some ancient carts with batteries in them I could check.
The problem of this analysis is the powerdraw on read/write commands. By saving frequently or loading repeatidly, you may drain your battery quicker, for obvious reasons.
I don't think you have to be concerned at all. Observe a diode D1 on the PCB in vicinity of the battery! If the battery was directly connected to SRAM's VCC terminal with nothing else, no diode would be needed. Instead, SRAM VCC is connected to 5V pin of the cartridge (usually via diode D2, near SRAM), which provides higher than the battery voltage and overrides it when the cartridge is powered, so no current flows from the battery into the circuit when the cartridge is powered on. The battery is connected via the diode D1 to SRAM VCC as well, so it holds up a data retention voltage only when the cartridge is unpowered. The diode D1 prevents the power from the console from flowing into the battery and making it pop.
There can be variance in how much the battery lasts. For one, it experiences chemical degradation, and it's only rated for 10 years of life! Of course it's a conservative rating, and they are generally known to survive above 20 years and often much longer, but what's not guaranteed isn't guaranteed.
Furthermore if your cartridge pins are dirty and you have some sort of mildly conductive gunk across them, moist atmosphere permeating the substrate, or if you leave it unpowered but connected to the console and the console creates a quiescent draw on the SRAM IC in this situation, this can create real power draw across the SRAM IC which can eat into the battery's capacity. Small stray currents can make a large difference with these sorts of things. At least the diode D2 prevents the battery from attempting to backpower the console directly, but there can still be a little power through the SRAM IC when the console is off.
Something else that might have an influence is the power on and off cycles. The 4148 standard silicon diode is a little slow; so when power comes on, there is a little jolt to the battery which, i don't know how well they take it, obviously charging the battery is kind of bad, so they can't possibly survive an infinite number of these little jolts, but who knows how many really.
@@SianaGearz are you ok bro, do I need to call a hospital for you?
@@ClosestNearUtopia I don't know, are YOU OK pontificating about power draw of read write commands when the cartridge is designed specifically so it cannot matter?
@@SianaGearz idk, but my blood pressure shows absolutely no dilation. 🙂
I 'back up' games I 'own' to a flash cart and play them all that way, so this is less of a problem for me.
My original copy of links awakenings battery has died a couple of years ago roughly 25 /6 years after i got it so they don't all last 30 years. It could of lost charge even sooner it had been years before I had played the game last before checked it to find the saves gone and that it would not save.
food for thought for people in the comments: games with a real-time clock (Pokemon Gold and Silver for GB, the Pokemon GBA games, many others) will draw a lot more power when not in use than a standard game with SRAM!
Mario Paint and a Mad Catz N64 Controller Pak are the only save batteries that have failed on me. I guess they drain quicker than the rest due to the size of the data stored in the SRAM. The Controller Pak only lasts for around 9 years. Mario Paint died last summer.
Aren't battery deaths already becoming common for NES, SNES, GB and GBA carts? I thought it was a major current issue.
I think the variability might make the tests and calculations kind of pointless aside from giving a theoretical maximum lifespan if the battery has no defects and is never exposed to poor conditions.
He has a point. The death of the battery is generally not about its capacity being exhausted due to current draw, which is demonstrated very well, but the inevitable chemical degradation from passage of time. They are guaranteed to last 10 years, beyond that i think 20 years is a reasonable expectation in normal cases, then things can start to go hit or miss.
Super video !
On current AAA games your save will only last until the publisher decides to release the next game and shut down the one you are playing. Prob a year?
Very interesting. Super impressive technology.
And now we have the pleasure of purchasing smartphones designed to last 50 months. Some of which cost more than a GB, a GBC, a GBA and a DS combined.
Technology is incredible :o)
Loool
Any idea why some cartridges will lose one or more save files, but then keep working fine after that?
Is it an environmental thing, like lower temperatures cause the voltage to slump just enough to corrupt the data?
Issues with the cartridge connector can also prevent the saves from loading, but I wonder if any games do a load and then save during initialization (seems unnecessary).
From what I understand the SRAM these games use is just access like any other memory the CPU has access too, it's not like modern flash which requires a special saving procedure, it just stores data there like it's normal RAM. They do run through a checksum when the game boots, if it doesn't find what it thinks is sensible data it won't recognise the save. I've looked through a commented disassembly of the Legend of Zelda and it checks though the save and formats it if it doesn't find good save data, so your game is gone if there is any kind of issue.
I think like you say environmental changes can cause the data to be corrupted especially if the battery is on the edge of dying. The currents involved are so tiny I bet is doesn't take much to mess it up.
It's really hard to find good info about saves anywhere, there's probably some electronics engineer out there who could tell you all about it, but it's an obscure topic.
@@Sharopolis Thanks for the reply!
I only recently learned that the ROM and SRAM on cartridges is basically treated like extra memory, and it seems I sometimes forget that. :P (It's a different way of thinking about things, compared to the whole business of "loading", like with a CD.)
That's interesting, yet harsh, how LoZ formats the save... all it would take is some dirt on the connector. N64 games ask for confirmation first, allowing the player to pull the cart out and try again.
I wonder if any games use multiple SRAM chips, the way they use multiple ROM chips. It seems unlikely, but it would explain how one file can go missing, while the others stay intact! (I might have to look into it.)
I have an OG Copy of FF1 that still saves to this day.
3:57 I am also from March 1987 and I feel like my battery is running out.
You are probably not even halfway done yet.
Man, and I sold of all my NES and SNES games (well, My parents did to pay for Nintendo 64 and I agreed at the time because that's how my shortsighted younger self rolled) yet have kept a number of my original Game Boy games... concern is multiplying for their batteries. Perhaps I should just focus on enjoying the moment and hope they last as longas they can...
All of my Generation 1 Pokemon cartridges still have working batteries, wheras my Gen 2 cartridges all needed to be replaced about 10 years ago. Not sure what that's about.
Maybe the newer games have more current draw, or cheaper batteries.
That has been my experience too whenever I pick up Gold and Silver they almost always need new batteries.
Someone else commented it is probably because they have a real time clock so perhaps need to use more power.
@@goatbone OH that totally makes sense! Can't believe I never made that connection before.
This is why the only game saves that matter to me now are the ones I've made through an emulator.
Yep my n64 cartridge batteries and snes and gameboy saves are still working.
Yes. Very cool. I was wondering myself.
do they recharge any when the game is running?
I remember that in 2003 sometimes when i started up supermarioworld,all my save files get’s erased eventrough it was only 11 years old because mine one is pal,
However i still could save my progress once i was playing it again,
Same proplem happens with supermario allstars,once i start it up,it often wipes out 3 of my save files in each game or sometimes all 4 of each game but then after replaying those games i can still save my progress on it,
Why is it that sometimes after 3 attempts of starting up those games,most or all save files do get’s erased?
Yeah i do clean those games often times with alcohol sothat i can start them up with 1 try but that wouldn’t get my lost save files back,
I wonder why batteries do sometimes randomly fail???
Same problem with those donkeykong country games,especially the first one,
On the gameboy side i actually never had such problem except that in donkeykong land 3 a glitch on the overworld map happens everytime i start up that game wich makes me wonder,is the battery dying or is the sram about to die???
For need for speed underground on the GBA,all my data get’s wiped out everytime i want to play it because everytime i start it up i have to constandly reenter my name wich i normally didn’t had to do otherwise,BUT i guess that more has to do with th e unreliable eeprom chip wich only has a limited rewrite cycly of atleast 40.000 cycles,after that it will degrade to the point that even save data will be permantly lost,same problem with my homebrew atari lynx games wich uses eeprom chip for save data,but guess what even after playing those lynx games just a few times,all that data went lost because i had to re’enter my name to start it all up,
Man am glad nintendo never used eeprom chips for their games,phew,
However i heard that also nandrom chips do have a limited lifecycle as they do store data on it just like ssd drives do and if they can only last for 20+ years that will be something to really really worry about,especially for those switch games,why nintendo why🥲🥲
Be interesting to measure batteries used for systems bios. I think you will have done well if you havnt changed the original saturn battery for instance. Some of these machines must be a ball ache to change the battery on
My launch day Panasonic fz1 3d0 still has all my saves from the mid 90`s despite only being switched on every 5 years or so for the last 2 decades. Pretty good considering it uses one of those leaky varta ones. The entire system is built like a tank so I imagine it will outlast me.
Some Philips cdi consoles had the battery embeded in the rtc chip and the system wont boot when it dies. The only way of reviving it is to grind the top off the chip and wire up a battery holder to replace the dead onboard one. Absolute pain to do but a very cheap way of getting the console as most will be dead by now and people will be binning them or selling them as broken very cheaply.
@@meetoo594 Normally those Dallas RTC chips are expected to be socketed; furthermore they are manufactured for decades since there are military and other important devices which need them serviced. So when that battery runs out, you're supposed to yank that Dallas RTC and put in a new one. They do cost upwards of $7 even in good old times and private consumers are not supplied at priority, so availability can be hit or miss.
But there can be compatibility issues, where new versions of the compatible Dallas are not quite the same for software, due to newly introduced or fixed bugs in the respin. I don't think it affects the CDI, but it does affect some devices.
And i know CDI hasn't socketed their RTC for cost or maybe out of spite, which makes the service more annoying than necessary. Grinding or biting into the top of the RTC package tends to be a safe and relatively convenient way to service it, with the advantage that the battery is easy and cheap to service in the future. The resin bond is often not quite ideal there, which helps! The access to chip pins is bad particularly in some revisions, normally you would just bite it off at the legs, and then suck leg remnants out and install a socket, so you can replace the Dallas normally in the future, but it tends to be a little inconvenient and dicey on these boards. Desoldering also has its risks, since the chip is quite large and the CDI PCB draws quite a bit of heat as well, not a happy combination.
@Siana Gearz ahh, that's interesting, I thought the chip was unique to the cdi with custom code onboard and not those dallas things. That does give a few more options when it comes to replacing the battery. Thanks for the info good sir.
@@meetoo594 Most of the chips as found in the CDI are the versions second-sourced by ST but yeah they're standard chips.
The only dead battery i have in a game is my copy of Tetris for the Game Boy, other than that i just have Dead clock batteries in my Gamecube and Dreamcast
My Super Mario World SNES cart and Pokemon GBA carts had their batteries die quite a number of yers back sadly.
There a couple 8 bit games that lose their saves if I wait days, or months to start playing them again. Phantasy Star lasts about a month without play. Zelda 1 and 2 last a couple days at most. I haven't had that problem with 16 bit games and after. I've had bad saves reformatting memory cards though.
Cool, really cool :) thank you :)
Hm, guess my shining force saves are still intact then. :D
If I buy an unused copy of an old game, will the battery last much longer?
well i had to solder in a battery into donky kong country last week. snes.
There is a mistake in the graphics where you are dividing capacity by current. 0.00005 uA (50 pA) and 0.00002 uA (20 pA) seems a bit low. You are saying it right though.
oops, well spotted I added an extra zero didn't I? Thanks for pointing that out
Those batteries are built different.
Losing my precious memories of David O'Leary is my main fear of developing Alzheimer's.
The memories of him managing Leeds (especially one specific defeat to them) can be happily eaten up by Alzheimer's
My Pokemon red save is still there, blue is gone already and won't keep new saves. silver is also long gone.... thanks RTC! >:(
Would you make a video on games that pushed the Nintendo DS? :)
I am working on that right now.
Wish the creators of Gen 2 Pokemon games would have though through the issue with an internal clock on ther cartridge. Those have been dying for a decade already.
Got a couple of cartridges with dead battery's. My Pokemon Ruby and Emerald use flash for save storage so only the RTC does not work any more. I am more saddend by the death of the battery of my Pokemon Crystal Cartridge. Got 200+ hours on it. Rest in peace my dear pokemon 😭.
backup devices are around 50 bucks and work great these days! GSC really take on a new form when you can backup your saves! I love shiny hunting in these games where as before theres is NO way I would ever knowing the battery would die.
Easier said than done when those 200+ hours where made when i was about 7 to 10 years old. Fast forward couple of years even 50 euro's(other side of the pond) and a place where creditcard's are rather unpopular in favor of debit cards still made then impossible, especially for a student. And i know know better of course 😉.
I do have the tech for backing up my the save files of my GBA cartridges using some NDS homebrew at least i have that.
Aww now you have to make another one checking Sega's systems and any other obscure carts. How about a battery in consoles, like my PS2? Last time i checked was about 2019... It was still alive. I'm hankering to clear the dust off and turn it on to see if those ps2 intro blocks have gained sentience.
Interesting. 🤔
moar ritta shooogi
Gameboy saves been starting to fail in the last 10 years. so gameboy will be the true test!
About to watch this ...
Placing a bet on some good advice like "Don't alcohol wipe the edge connector of your battery backed SRAM carts or you might short them out and lose the data"
Let's see! 😁
*edit* Not that kind of video - very thorough and interesting. Cheers!
Actually no, that tip isn't there, but it would be if I had realised that was the case!
@@Sharopolis It could also be completely apocryphal or a rare occurence caused by an overabundance of applied fluid - seems odd that battery power traces would be exposed on the edge connector ... but then, these old machines were nothing if not odd 😁
15 years ago i did this to a sonic and knuckles cart and it wiped all the saves 😅😅😅
Games with an in game calendar like the 2nd gen Pokémon games don't last long at all. maybe 10 years at best all my copies don't save .
Analyse GBC, GBA & N64 batery please
🙏🙏😁
How long will your CAPCOM arcade machine's suicide battery last? CAPCOM obviously doesn't care.
Or your original Xbox, Ps2 and Gamecube.
Oh my god... The CPS2 suicide battery is such an _aggressively corporate_ idea of copy protection... As with all anti-piracy measures it hurts at least as many paying customers as it does pirates. Just shoot yourself in the junk why don't you, Capcom? 🤦♂
It'd be like creating an anti-theft clothing tag which causes a garment to _burst into flames_ if removed from the store without paying for it... But it _also_ just spontaneously bursts into flames fifteen years after you buy it, because who gives a fuck and what even is property and ownership anyway? How did Capcom not get sued by arcade operators is my question.
Fanycom