Yar har har - NESdev BBS

Yar har har
by FyberOptic on 2006-09-02 (#16850)

I thought some folks might find this of interest, so I'll crosspost:

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I finally got me a tri-wing screwdriver dirt cheap, so I thought I'd start opening everything ever that uses those silly screws. Namely, my Gamecube controller to try and fix the C stick, and some GBA cartridges.

Once upon a time, a buddy gave me his Advance Wars 2 cart, because he suspected it of being a pirate, and he wanted a real version. It's not very hard to determine the legitimacy of it, considering the back says Nintondo.

But upon opening it, it's clearly cheaply made, using big'ol epoxy splotches to cover the roms instead of using actual chips. It also uses an actual battery with some sram, instead of a nice piece of flash memory. I opened up my genuine Zero Mission cart so you can get a good idea of the difference in quality:

This company has probably taken Nintendo for hundreds of thousands of dollars selling these bootlegs, possibly millions depending on how many different carts they produce, so it's really no wonder companies like Nintendo go to so much trouble to add region checks and all that sort of stuff, in at least some small attempt at preventing everybody and their brother from producing pirated versions.

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If anyone else has any pirate or bootleg stuff, it might be cool to see as well!

by blargg on 2006-09-02 (#16851)

Quote:
But upon opening it, it's clearly cheaply made, using big'ol epoxy splotches to cover the roms instead of using actual chips. It also uses an actual battery with some sram, instead of a nice piece of flash memory.
What's cheap about epoxy? It's inexpensive, but I don't think there are any reliability problems. It's what Nintendo itself used in the really-mass-produced SMB/Duck Hunt cartridges, because it was less expensive. And battery-backed static RAM is more reliable than flash memory in terms of rewriting, though less-reliable in terms of accidental erasure and long-term retention in the face of a discharging battery. The big thing that stands out for me is the lack of gold plating on the connector edge, which increases connection resistance and oxidation rate.

Re: Yar har har
by tepples on 2006-09-02 (#16854)

FyberOptic wrote:
I thought some folks might find this of interest, so I'll crosspost:

- - -

I finally got me a tri-wing screwdriver dirt cheap, so I thought I'd start opening everything ever that uses those silly screws. Namely, my Gamecube controller to try and fix the C stick, and some GBA cartridges.

My dirt-cheap tri-wing is a di-wing made from a standard (minus shape) eyeglass screwdriver.

Quote:
It also uses an actual battery with some sram, instead of a nice piece of flash memory.

Though Advance Wars 2 uses flash memory, all these games have SRAM instead of flash. This includes Advance Rally and Advance GTA (not Grand Theft Auto you freak).

Quote:
I opened up my genuine Zero Mission cart so you can get a good idea of the difference in quality:

More images on authentic vs. counterfeit software

Quote:
If anyone else has any pirate or bootleg stuff, it might be cool to see as well!

Would In The Groove for PS2 (alleged patent infringement, currently under litigation), Tetяis: The Soviet Mind Game (trademark infringement), and every other Tengen game (copyright infringement of 10NES due to unclean hands) count?

by FyberOptic on 2006-09-02 (#16856)

blargg wrote:
What's cheap about epoxy? It's inexpensive, but I don't think there are any reliability problems. It's what Nintendo itself used in the really-mass-produced SMB/Duck Hunt cartridges, because it was less expensive.

Well epoxy might be just as good in the long run, but it certainly lacks the nicety of seeing some chips mounted in place. It just "looks" cheaper. And many times, unless the result of a mass-production run of a really popular game as mentioned, it would tend indicate a pirate version of something, based on what I've seen. What's funny about this cart that I forgot to mention is that they didn't even take off the logo screen somebody added onto the rom; it's the same rom I tried before I ever got the cart.

tepples wrote:
Though Advance Wars 2 uses flash memory, all these games have SRAM instead of flash. This includes Advance Rally and Advance GTA (not Grand Theft Auto you freak).

I tried to find another cart with storage in it to see what it looked like when I was taking the pictures, but that's all that was laying around. I tried Pitfall first, and it was even more bare than those two, using just a single chip for the rom. I just assumed they "evolved" to using flash memory to avoid batteries burning out.

That's an interesting page there on Nintendo's site showing off the pirate versions though, I wouldn't have expected them to actually show the guts of the carts. I don't believe I've ever seen inside a Tengen cart, either, so that could be interesting as well.

by tepples on 2006-09-02 (#16858)

FyberOptic wrote:
What's funny about this cart that I forgot to mention is that they didn't even take off the logo screen somebody added onto the rom; it's the same rom I tried before I ever got the cart.

You mean like the F-word in Monsters Inc. for GBA? One of the pirates used the Mode 7 release, which told people who prefer "clean dumps" (that is, those without intro animations added by a release group) to "fuck off and die".

by Bregalad on 2006-09-03 (#16864)

Wow ! I didn't exept pirates doing counterfaits SO well. Most have the exact same label, or a few details changed that doesn't look wrong. Of course the "seal of quality" is here on all pirate copies. Without open the cartridge it seems almost impossible to tell the pirate one. Only the "GameBoy advance" logo seems a little wrong on pirate carts, but I'm unsure.

Surprisingly, all pirate carts exposed were american. I'd think pirates did only care to counterfait japanese stuff.
Where are the pirate version for sale (no, it is not to buy them, it is for curiousity) ? Where was they producted (usually this is from Hong-Kong, but why would they bother with american games) ? Did they come with faked boxes as well ? Is it possible to buy them without even suspect they are pirated ?

Also, all GBA games I have use SRAM, exept for Golden Sun - The lost age. I understand now why Golden Sun takes much longer than other games to save the game.

EDIT : About the GBA database with search engine, a such database MUST be done to the NES.

by dXtr on 2006-09-03 (#16872)

personally I don't think I've ever owned any pirate carts.. but I do remember that my friends had some x-in-1 carts as a kid.

tepples wrote:
You mean like the F-word in Monsters Inc. for GBA? One of the pirates used the Mode 7 release, which told people who prefer "clean dumps" (that is, those without intro animations added by a release group) to "fuck off and die".

hahah. I remember that one ;D

by Memblers on 2006-09-03 (#16893)

One thing the epoxy blobs show is that these carts aren't made by some resourceful (but shady) person in a garage, but by a factory with some very high-precision equipment. That must be really frustrating for the game makers and Nintendo.

by Bregalad on 2006-09-04 (#16911)

Especially considering the very complex mechanical shape of GBA cartridges.

Re: Yar har har
by Dwedit on 2006-09-04 (#16912)

FyberOptic wrote:

Last time I checked, Metroid Zero Mission uses battery-backed SRAM, so something is really wrong with that photo. Where's the battery?

by FyberOptic on 2006-09-04 (#16913)

Actually I think I was wrong about it even using flash memory. If you look at the text beside the chip, it says FRAM.

But definately no battery, either way.

by Roth on 2006-09-04 (#16922)

That's odd. I cracked my copy open, and it does indeed have a battery. It's hard to make out the board name in this image, but it says AGB-E06-20.

http://roth.zhxhome.net/junk/mzmboard.jpg

Sorry about the poor quality of the scan.

by Memblers on 2006-09-04 (#16924)

FRAM is a drop-in replacement for battery-backed SRAM. They could use either on the same board. I have an FRAM chip that I tried on Squeedo, and it works. It's a shame the 5V version doesn't have infinite endurance though.

by blargg on 2006-09-04 (#16926)

Quote:
doesn't have infinite endurance

I've assumed this is the reason for using battery RAM on some games instead of flash, because there are frequent updates to saved data (F-Zero X for N64 has battery RAM, since I think the game updates stats every race). Another nice benefit of using battery RAM is that any spare space can be used as extra work memory (or you could even use a larger RAM). I think Yoshi's Island for SNES did this.

by Dwedit on 2006-09-04 (#16927)

I still think the best use of SRAM type save memory is in Pokemon Trading Card Game (GBC) or Fire Emblem (GBA). They let you power off at any time, and resume the game with no problem.

by Bregalad on 2006-09-05 (#16952)

In Fire Emblem, the game even tries to restart the game right before you loose when you did, but you'll still loose again, and again and again... Not very clever, trough the possibility to turn off the game at any time without even losing any data is really great and usefull in a handled game.

by blargg on 2006-09-05 (#16953)

Quote:
They let you power off at any time, and resume the game with no problem.

Interesting. I take it they keep two internal saves that are refreshed often, with a single byte selecting which one is the most recent. This way even if you power off in the middle of saving to one of the internal states, the other completely consistent one will be selected by this byte.

by Bregalad on 2006-09-05 (#16954)

I think so, while I've no clue how the game works internally. The manual doesn't recommand to do this though, it says to use the "suspend" comand, and precise that if the power goes off anytime the previous sate is normally "suspended", so the manual doesn't say the poweroff automatic "suspend" is reliable.
Also I think the game has its state saved each time the player have to interact, and each time an unit (player or enemy) has chosen its command, to prevent the player cheating with this if he make a big mistake. This couldn't be done if the save mode would be flash ROM, EEPROM or whathever, with very slow write times.

by Dwedit on 2006-09-05 (#16964)

Why not? There is animation on the screen, and nobody would notice if a background interrupt routine was writing to the save as fast as possible.

by Bregalad on 2006-09-06 (#16994)

If the game would almost frezee for 2 second or so each time the player choose a command and each time an ennemy begin to attack, yes, the game would be affected.
I'm unsure of this, maybe it is possible to use only a small amount of bytes and make the game frezee less long, making it look decent.