ToToTek Snes and Mega Drive Flash Cards

TechnoFreek

I've been researching these for a while now and they seem like the only real flash card contenders for the SNES and Mega Drive.

http://www.tototek.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_6_20&products_id=67

I'm interested in getting one per for each console but a little vit wary at the same time.

HAs anyone got one of these? what are they like? easy to use etc.

All information welcome.

Tallon

don't have one myself but a good idea all the same
They're crazy money though!

CiDeRmAn

Honestly, It sounds like a complete waste of money, you can only store a handful of games on them at any time and do yo realise how many Megadrive games you can get on eBay for $85?
Same for the Snes one, that's even more expensive, $100 will get you pretty much every Snes game you must own, so why bother with a crappy flash card.

The flash cards I own are one for the GBA, one for the Vectrex and one for the Virtual Boy, the GBA one lets me play every GB and GBC game off of one cart, not to mention the rarer late Jap releases on the GBA, the Vectrex flash card lets me play everything ever released on the system, including the excellent homebrew, off of one card, and the Virtual Boy flash card lets me play the handful of titles I cannot hope to afford, like Space Invaders, although I already own a pretty complete cart set for the machine.

The Megadrive and Snes carts have none of those advantages and I honestly can't think of a reason to own one.
Once again a trip to ebay with the cash instead, but a region convertor cart for the Snes and buy the original carts of the games you're after.

Retr0gamer

You can play the Shin Megami Tensei games the way they should be but with a translated rom. Same with other fan translated games. Also there are plenty of very rare and expensive SNES games.

Myrddin

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Honestly, It sounds like a complete waste of money, you can only store a handful of games on them at any time and do yo realise how many Megadrive games you can get on eBay for $85?
Same for the Snes one, that's even more expensive, $100 will get you pretty much every Snes game you must own, so why bother with a crappy flash card.

The flash cards I own are one for the GBA, one for the Vectrex and one for the Virtual Boy, the GBA one lets me play every GB and GBC game off of one cart, not to mention the rarer late Jap releases on the GBA, the Vectrex flash card lets me play everything ever released on the system, including the excellent homebrew, off of one card, and the Virtual Boy flash card lets me play the handful of titles I cannot hope to afford, like Space Invaders, although I already own a pretty complete cart set for the machine.

The Megadrive and Snes carts have none of those advantages and I honestly can't think of a reason to own one.
Once again a trip to ebay with the cash instead, but a region convertor cart for the Snes and buy the original carts of the games you're after.

Completely disagree. As stated above, there are MANY rare games for the snes - and damned expensive ones too! I have three flash cards from Tototek (Snes, Megadrive, Mastersystem) - I find them brilliant, good quality product, and obviously when coupled with a romset....there are literally hundreds of games available to you. Maybe you wanna try out one of the rare games before you actually fork out to buy it? Well with these you can...how is that a bad thing?

Im ALL for owning original hardware/software. Hell I wont buy the rare stuff unless its boxed & complete (yes I know its a sickness), and I cant tell you how many games Ive bought because Ive played them via my flashcart. Yes for the money you could buy quite a few real carts, but then again, not everyone likes all the cheap plentiful mainstream games.

Myrddin

Also, forgot to mention - if you do decide to go ahead and buy one - be sure your rig has a parrallel port. The cart programmers are powered via a usb lead, but the actual data is sent through the parrallel cable.

CiDeRmAn

EnterNow wrote: »

Completely disagree. As stated above, there are MANY rare games for the snes - and damned expensive ones too! I have three flash cards from Tototek (Snes, Megadrive, Mastersystem) - I find them brilliant, good quality product, and obviously when coupled with a romset....there are literally hundreds of games available to you. Maybe you wanna try out one of the rare games before you actually fork out to buy it? Well with these you can...how is that a bad thing?

Im ALL for owning original hardware/software. Hell I wont buy the rare stuff unless its boxed & complete (yes I know its a sickness), and I cant tell you how many games Ive bought because Ive played them via my flashcart. Yes for the money you could buy quite a few real carts, but then again, not everyone likes all the cheap plentiful mainstream games.

The try before you buy thing is a bit of a non issue, seeing as you can try everything on your PC via emu anyway.
As for the rare stuff, I find it hard to be bothered with the bulk of the Japanese releases seeing as they are mostly beatemups and RPGs, the latter of which are unplayable with no english text and the former being rather obscure.
The greater number of US only releases can surely be simply bought from ebay cheaply, not necessarily a mere few cheap carts.
And if you want to play rare stuff that comes with boxes and instructions the flash cart is no help.
I could go for a decent large capacity cart for the MasterSystem or even Nes, but I own pretty much everything I want for the Snes and Megadrive/Genesis by picking them over the years and not worrying about mint boxes or the like.

I simply think, for the consoles you specified the flash carts are not such good value.

Retr0gamer

A lot of SNES RPGs go for silly money such as chrono trigger, earthbound and evo. There's a lot more rare and highly sought after games on the SNES than there are on the megadrive.

Myrddin

Also if you plan on paying out big dollars for a rare title, playing it via emu is not the be all and end all. I dont care what anyone says, emulators dont provide the same "feel", as playing it on the original hardware (yes I know a flash cart isnt original hardware, but the snes thinks it is so thats good enough for me).

There are also a lot of fan translations as retro has said, which will allow you to play games which simple arnt available on genuine carts. I dont know Ill guess we will agree to disagree, but I feel a nice warmth, knowing Ive the complete snes romset and a flash cart. Ive bought a lot of genuine carts from really enjoying it via the cart, therefore getting the box and manual and getting the whole package.

There are of course special chip snes games which simply have to be bought (cant be played on used with flash carts (Super Mario RGP etc)), but you can count on one hand how many of these are actually worth buying. And most people, arnt die hard collectors, and after playing the games on the flash cart can simply delete them and play some different ones.

All in all I think if you want to play games on an actual snes/mg/ms, without actually forking out, its an ideal solution. Different strokes.

CiDeRmAn

An Atari 2600 and a Colecovision Flash cart, I know an enthusiast who made them for his own use in the US, refuses to make any more though, they'd be cool because you could dump the entire catalogue of the systems games onto it with space to spare, nice.
Also, the serial thing is a drag, my Vecflash Vectrex cart is a serial model, more recent ones are USB but the older ones require the appropriate cable and socket, happily my bro had a serial to usb convertor and it all worked well, and also, because the Vecflash holds everything ever made for the vectrex, I only had to use it the once.

Myrddin

Yeah the Atari 2600 one would be class, as cider sais you could dump the entire romset onto the one cart. You'd think they would be ten a penny in this day and age

Although the NES one is the holy grail - so many mappers, so I dont think its technically viable to produce one?

Id like to see an Atari Jag one as well....

Retr0gamer

NES one wouldn't be worth it, you couldn't play jap games since that console had extra pins that were used for extra sound channels and other things.

TechnoFreek

thanks for the input guys, although it seems to be a very mixed response to the idea.

i much prefer playing retro games on the original console as opposed to emulation, all about the feel of it etc

I only got my hands on a snes a few years ago but got about 20 games with it and those 20 probably represent some of the better games released during the consoles lifespan.

I know I can pick up an odd game off ebay here and there as i need but i could could easily spend 80-100 quid on ebay but only have a fraction of the games available should i choose the flash cart route.

EnterNow, you stated that you have some of these carts. i'm running vista and my mobo has a parallel port. is that enough?

also, i'm slightly confused as the what I need to run the snes flash cart on a euro snes. flash cart, t-connector, cic chip etc. can you clarify?

Myrddin

Ok assuming your SNES is unmodified, to run the flash cart you will need:

Flash Cart & Programer
PAL CIC Chip (from a spare game, crap game, game you have twice) This must be soldered into the flash cart, to make your snes think the game is form the same region.

If you dont want the CIC Chip, you can use the Super T Connector - this is used to play games which require the DSP1 special chip also.. You need one original PAL cart with this chip (super mario kart), to plug into the connector at the back, then your flash cart goes on top, then it simply plugs into the snes like a cart.

It sounds messy but its quite straightforeward. If your soldering skills are any way good, you might also consider modding your snes with a region switch and 50/60hz switch. That way you can run us,jap games also. With the added bonus of running them in full screen 60hz.

The megadrive and mastersystem games have no hardware variations, so just flash whatever games you want onto the cart, and run them on the megadrive. Also well worth modding your megadrive for region and disply. Quite easy to do.

o1s1n

Do you know if the megadrive one supports 32X games? I think I read it does, but it would be nice to hear from someone who owns one.

Wouldn't mind being able to give Darxide a go on my console without forking out a few grand :pac:

Myrddin

o1s1n wrote: »

Do you know if the megadrive one supports 32X games? I think I read it does, but it would be nice to hear from someone who owns one.

Wouldn't mind being able to give Darxide a go on my console without forking out a few grand :pac:

It does indeed. Ive played numerous 32X titles on it. As Ive said above, I cant fault the product at all. Just getting back to compatability, I use mine off an old Dell laptop with a parallel port, as my main rig doesnt have one. The laptop has XP on it and I can vouch success there. Im not sure about Vista, perhaps run the flash program in compatability mode if there are problems. Also you could ask in the Tototek forum, the lads there will tell you straight away.

o1s1n

Nice one thanks!

I decided not to buy one a while back as I thought it would destroy collecting for me. However I think I'll get one just for those super rare/proto games that I'll never be able to/stupid enough to buy.

Myrddin

O1s1n - if you want to preserve your collecting habits, then vow to buy any game you deem worthy enough to play/own.

Although, you wont have to, if your strong enough to only stick to rarities/protos

Enjoy!

KeRbDoG

More expensive but USB based: http://www.ic2005.com/shop/product.php?productid=33&cat=0&page=1

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CiDeRmAn

I want one of those Kerbdog!
But I can't have one!
My credit card would explode!