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If my N64 can pick up where I left off, surely a newer piece of hardware should be expected to and well (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 weeks ago by to c/microblogmemes@lemmy.world
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[–] 29 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

Pokemon Emerald's battery is only there for real time clock functions. Saves remain intact even after the battery runs dry.

Gen I and II games used the battery for save data, however.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago* (1 child)

    Yeah you’re right. Bad example.

    Looking at the list on Console Mods I’m actually surprised how many GBA games do use a save battery when a lot of games clearly didn’t need it for saves. Did the battery allow for faster saving, or maybe just cheaper cartridges?

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  • [–] 11 points 2 weeks ago*

    It was a cost/availability thing. SRAM was used all over the place prior to the GBA (and for some early GBA games) because FRAM and flash memory was expensive at the capacities needed.

    Funnily enough, most games that use SRAM can have the chip swapped out for an FRAM chip, and they will no longer need a battery. (Actually you move the ROM chip from the SRAM board to the FRAM board) The two types of RAM present identically to the game's software, so it just works.

    The Pokemon games use Flash RAM with 2x-4x the capacity of the SRAM and FRAM chips most other games used. There was also EEPROM for games with small save files.

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