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Direct save to PAR cartridge...
Omni - Feb 2, 2008
  Omni Feb 2, 2008
Is it known how the PAR 4in1 or 5in1 cartridges actually access their own flash backup memory? If so, would it be possible (hypothetically) for a Saturn programmer to include routines to do so in his/her own game?


This would seem to allow use of the PAR cartridge (in homebrew Saturn games, at least) as if it was a fully functional backup RAM cartridge with direct-save capability. (It is surprisingly inconvenient that the flash RAM on those carts is not accessible directly by games, sometimes).

 ExCyber Feb 2, 2008
It should be possible, but I don't think all of the necessary pieces have been figured out. The interface to write to the flash memory is pretty straightforward, but I don't think anyone's bothered to figure out the compression or filesystem used by the AR firmwares (someone did bother to add flash emulation to Yabause, so it might be used to examine the relevant code/data).

For what it's worth, I suspect that it's even possible to create an AR firmware that would allow direct saving without specific support in the game.

 vbt Feb 9, 2008
Any way to handle it through custom saturn lib ? The access to the PAR memory may note be locked. Making a new AR firmware doesn't look to be an easy task.

 ExCyber Feb 9, 2008

vbt said:
Any way to handle it through custom saturn lib ?

My concern is that without a custom firmware, you would have to code a library that implements the same filesystem and compression as the AR firmware, otherwise it would probably happily corrupt your saves for various reasons (updating the code list, doing save management in the AR firmware, etc.)


  
	
	

		
		

			The access to the PAR memory may note be locked.

It's not "locked" beyond the standard "software data protection" scheme (which is meant to prevent writing accidentally or when there are certain hardware problems).


  
	
	

		
		

			Making a new AR firmware doesn't look to be an easy task.

It really depends on what you want it to do. Strictly speaking, you could put pretty much any Saturn program you want in there, as long as it will fit and is built to run from that address space (or do what Datel/EMS did and combine a normal RAM-based program with a small loader). Recreating the full UI and cheat engine would probably be a lot of work.