Omnimaga
General Discussion => Technology and Development => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: DJ Omnimaga on July 07, 2010, 10:49:00 pm
-
I wonder if this is real or fake? ::)
-
Seems legitimate. As long as the connectors and ROM weren't seriously damaged, it should still work.
Nintendo used to sell a cleaning kit that required a small, felt stick be dampened and rubbed against connectors; so liquid really doesn't damage them. Maybe long-term exposure to water would cause corrosion, though.
The main problem with NES systems was bad connectors in the system itself. I think they were too susceptible to atmospheric damage over time. Often, people had to slightly adjust the cartridge while inserting it to align the connectors. The top-loading NES models fixed this problem.
GameBoy cartridges probably have the same level of durability, I imagine.
-
Yeah true. For my NES, SNES and N64, it's so hard to get games to boot because the cartridge slot went loose. Seems like back then they did stuff more resistant, though :P. Today they seem to do stuff partially purposely to break after a few years to make us buy new ones.
-
As I understand, it's just cheaper to produce CD mediums than cartridges. This is why N64 games were claimed to be so expensive, at least.
On the other hand, I thought PSP games had a nice design: The disc within a case ordeal. Why didn't we think of that when we made standard audio CDs? They'd never get scratched or scuffed! :P
-
Yeah I guess so, and yeah I like those PSP CDs. Now I wonder if they'll ever go back to cartridges since they can hold more info? It would be much less loading time than CDs, too.
-
Nintendo DS uses Flash cards to store its games. Not sure how expensive they are to produce, so I'm not sure if it would be cost-effective for console games, which would require a lot of memory.
At least the good thing about carts / Flash memory now is that it comes in pretty large capacities. NDS games have enough space to feature full cinematics. Back in the N64 days, this wasn't feasible because storage was more restricted then.
I think the first system to actually store games on Flash memory cards was WonderSwan. Their carts are basically like NDS games, but slightly larger.
-
flash cards might be a good idea, idk. Maybe in a few years they'll be compacted enough and cheap enough to allow the usage of flash carts of the size of old GB cartridges for consoles and pack a few GB of stuff in them. Again, tho, they seems to slowly head towards blu-ray discs now.
And wow I wish the Wonderswarn version of FFIII came out on the PS1. I loved FFOrigins, which was ports of the Wonderswarn versions of FF1 and 2 but it missed the 3rd
-
Those PSP CDs reminds me of Zip and Jaz drives made by Iomega, those are like an actual hard drive inside a floppy disk case. If only someone used something like that for game cartridges...
-
Damn, i guess they dont make em like they used to eh?
-
Those PSP CDs reminds me of Zip and Jaz drives made by Iomega, those are like an actual hard drive inside a floppy disk case. If only someone used something like that for game cartridges...
yeah I remember Iomega zips, we used them at Cegep.
-
That's a really cool video, but I wished they did something completely radical, like putting it in a fire or something. ;D
-
And wow I wish the Wonderswarn version of FFIII came out on the PS1. I loved FFOrigins, which was ports of the Wonderswarn versions of FF1 and 2 but it missed the 3rd
I know. FFIII really could have used a good 2D remake. The WonderSwan version was never completed, unfortunately. I can't remember why they stopped development, but I think it had something to do with hardware limitations. Ironically, they later ported Final Fantasy IV to the system. :P
-
And wow I wish the Wonderswarn version of FFIII came out on the PS1. I loved FFOrigins, which was ports of the Wonderswarn versions of FF1 and 2 but it missed the 3rd
I know. FFIII really could have used a good 2D remake. The WonderSwan version was never completed, unfortunately. I can't remember why they stopped development, but I think it had something to do with hardware limitations. Ironically, they later ported Final Fantasy IV to the system. :P
Oh it wasn't finished? Too bad, I saw screenies before and it looked quite cool.
I didn't knew there was a FFIV one, though. I wonder if the graphics are similar to the GBA remake
-
That was a really cool vid. Nice find! =)
-
Nice! Yeah, there are MicroSD cards w/32 GB capacity; I don't think Blu-Ray has that storage density. :)
Are the discs cheaper for capacity?
-
I'm not sure about bluray, but for 4.7 GB DVDs, it's still possible to get packs of 50 for $30 here pretty often, sometimes lower. That makes 235 GB of storage for $30, but it's not as convenient to store stuff on them as it is with SD cards.
I wonder if the lifespan of a SD card is better than a DVD-RW?
-
Flash memory is okay as a read-only memory, but it has pretty finite write cycles. The more you write data to it, the more it gradually wears down.
Optical mediums are estimated to retain data for some 500 years, in ideal conditions.
... and damn. There are 32 GB MicroSDs now? It's a wonder those little things can hold that much data. Mine only stores 1 GB; but I just use it for music. :P
-
I think my friend has a 1 TB microSD o.O
-
Flash memory is okay as a read-only memory, but it has pretty finite write cycles. The more you write data to it, the more it gradually wears down.
Optical mediums are estimated to retain data for some 500 years, in ideal conditions.
How many rewrites a DVD-RW can sustain, though? I always wondered if it was higher than flash memory. For flash memory, the 83+ can apparently sustain 100000 rewrites, but it might just be an urban legend. Maybe it is shorter, maybe it is longer.
-
100,000 cycles is accurate. That's the most common estimation.
Solid-state disks usually employ write-wearing to make sure data is evenly distributed across the disk, and prolong its overall lifespan. I'm not sure if this is necessarily true of memory cards and FlashDrives, but it could be. That said, I do think Flash memory is really stable as compared to some other storage. HDs with moving parts are much more likely to fail. I think this is especially true USB hard drives.
I'm not sure how many times optical mediums can be rewritten. I imagine much less, since they're mostly intended for "write once, ready many" storage. I never bother to rewrite discs, or add new data at a later time. I just burn it all at once and close the session. I'm too worried adding or editing data will corrupt some sectors and cause a cyclic data redundancy error upon trying to read it again. Then again, I'm paranoid when it comes to backing-up my data. :P
-
Yeah usually I just make my data not overwritable. Just scratches are enough to break it. Imagine the disc getting used with the time due to too many rewrites x.x
Normally, I backup my stuff on a USB jumpdrive, my external harddrive, my current harddrive and occasionally online or my old computer. In Omnimaga case, I backed it up on all my hard drives. I no longer have access, though, so I hope eeems, BBoy or Ztrumpet does backups pretty often x.x (of the database, at least)