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[Crayon]

I just broke the crusty old bitch out for some Megaman 2. Figured I'd save the ten bucks on mm9.... First nes I pulled out didn't work.... Second one did with a little of the old magic touch. I allways forget the the most yellowed-plastic one is actually the best one I have. :lol

Anyways... my NES collection is actually pretty weak but I found some suprises in that old carboard box. Namely: Dragon Quest 1 (with a manual!!), Ultima 4, The Bard's Tale (also with manual). With a NES collection numbering less than 20 carts I was suprised that I didn't actually know I owned any of these three classics.

But why would I? It's not like I could play them these days. The batteries are all long dead, riteamirite?

I pop in DQ1 just to make sure it works, and it does. When I press start, lo and behold there is a savegame in there. "JACO". The fuck? That's me. I guess I did play the game at some point in history. Loaded it up and all was well. I didn't know what I was doing or where to go. Not the foggiest. This 20 year old cartridge has a better memory than I do!

So I threw in Ultima 4. Now this is more like it... I went to start the game and all save files where empty. And surely I hadn't actually played this one before because I never new that they had japanified ultima like this. So I was starting to get into it when I realised I would not be able to save my progress. Well... just to be sure I saved at an in, powered the system down (be sure to holdeth down thy rest button even as thou switches off thy magic box lest thy journies be forgotten!) Powered up again later and there was the save game.

How long do these motherfuckers last?? I thought these batteries where supposed to be long dead by now!

Anyone have more experience with this stuff? Do I just have a couple of factory freaks on my hands or what?

 

[Red Scarlet]

None of my NES or Famicom games have dead batteries, the oldest ones being from 1987 (Zelda 1/FF1). I do have a few SNES and Super Famicom games with either dead (FF4) or wonky batteries that delete sometimes (FF6/DQ1+2/Super Metroid). So who knows, but surely longer than the supposed 5 years.

 

[Crayon]

I know you play alot of old RPGs. Do you play them mostly on the old hardware or thru other means?

If there's a chance I can play all these old games and actually use the save function then I'll throw em on the backlog!

And am I understanding correctly that you have had better luck with nes batteries than snes ones?

edit: "new"? " "in"? Holy typos this wireless keyboard makes me look like a real asshole. :lol

 

[Marvie_3]

If you take care of the games, the batteries can last a LONG time. I've only had 2 or 3 games that I've had to replace the batteries in. They seem to last longer when you have the option of deleting saved games(I.E. Zelda, Dragon Warrior).

 

[Red Scarlet]

I know you play alot of old RPGs. Do you play them mostly on the old hardware or thru other means?

If there's a chance I can play all these old games and actually use the save function then I'll throw em on the backlog!

And am I understanding correctly that you have had better luck with nes batteries than snes ones?

edit: "new"? " "in"? Holy typos this wireless keyboard makes me look like a real asshole. :lol

I play them on the old hardware.

This is quite an old picture, but you can see the Famicom FF1 cart there, which still saves, as well as the FF4 cart that had a dead battery that I operated on, and the FF6 one that would save, then the battery died I guess, then revived..it saves while the game is on/in the system, but as soon as I take it out it usually deletes the files most of the time.

Yeah, the only batteries that I've had trouble with are FF4 (SFC), FF6 (SFC), DQ1+2 (SFC), and Super Metroid (SNES). All of my other games on NES/Famicom/SNES/SFC save just fine still (or the last time I played them).

 

[Heretic Kazuma]

None of my NES or Famicom games have dead batteries, the oldest ones being from 1987 (Zelda 1/FF1). I do have a few SNES and Super Famicom games with either dead (FF4) or wonky batteries that delete sometimes (FF6/DQ1+2/Super Metroid). So who knows, but surely longer than the supposed 5 years.

Oddly enough (or maybe not?), I can say the exact same for those titles as well.

old pic

Say, Red. What system are the two carts between the PSX FF Origins and PSX FF Chronicles for?

 

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, it's weird. I recently examined which consoles use which save types, but that still leaves the question here, "So how long will those batteries last anyway?"

I've never found a good answer to this question; save batteries seem to last anywhere between five and 25 years, with nothing I can really tell to say why some last longer and some shorter, in general, within each battery type (that is, you can expect CR2016 batteries in Game Boy games and the like to not last as long as major-console CR2032 save batteries), it is really strange how some game batteries seem to last only a short time, while others last much, much longer. As far as I can tell, it seems pretty much random overall... I can't say "CR2032s will last ten years on average" or something because some last five or eight or something and others 20-plus. What's the average? I'm not sure.

My own personal experiences are as follows. First, one note -- one thing that makes things worse is that it's impossible to be absolutely sure when any one cartridge was made. The only dates available will be the initial release date, not the date of manufacture. This means that some Mario World carts are years newer than others, without the user having any way to figure out which are newer and which are older... this obviously has an important impact on how long the battery will last. "This 1990 game's battery lasted longer than that 1992 game!" ... but was that actually a later copy of the 1990 game, for games tyhat were in production for a longer period of time? How can you be sure when each was made? This makes it even harder to figure out exactly how long a game's battery has lasted or may last into the future.

CR2016

GB and GBC: I have some battery-backed GB/C games, and some are dead, some okay, and some have lost files but can still hold a save. A few are completely dead. Again, time-of-release doesn't always seem to mean much; Wario Land, which I got in 1995 or something, is still fine, but Survival Kids erased itself (though it can still hold a save), and so did Zelda: Oracle of Ages... though again, it still may be able to save, I'm not sure. The same thing happened to Kirby 2... it completely erased itself, but then a few months ago I played through the game again and it was okay. I take that to mean that the battery is perhaps fading, but isn't dead yet... while Mario Land 2, for instance, is completely dead. Overall though, I have noticed that GB and GBC games generally started to die on me before SNES and Genesis, which makes sense considering the smaller batteries. I've had a bunch of problems with GBC games in specific, with Ages erased, Mario Bros. Deluxe broken, Survival Kids and WarLocked erased... and I only have 12-15 GBC games, half of which don't have batteries! The only GBC games I have with still fully functioning batteries (I think) are Bionic Commando: Elite Forces, Heroes of Might & Magic, and Zelda Seasons, I think...

GBA: I'm not sure exactly which ones have batteries (earlier "SRAM" and maybe some others is my assumption), but none of mine that may have batteries may have had problems yet.

CR2032

NES: I have four battery-backed NES games. Three (Kirby's Adventure, Startropics, Startropics II) still have working batteries, one (Crystalis) completely dead.

SNES: I have a bunch of battery-backed SNES games (25+), and a lot of them have dead batteries, some of them completely dead and others that have just lost files on occasion. Mario World and Uniracers are completely dead, F-Zero loses parts of its save data every so often, I've lost a file in DKC2 and 3 but that was a year or two ago in both cases and nothing has happened since, Yoshi's Island wiped itself this January but is also fine since, I found NBA Jam TE empty recently... others are fine though, from Secret of Mana to Illusion of Gaia and ActRaiser and Stunt Race FX, Mario Kart, and others.

Genesis: No problems yet. I have fewer battery-backed Genesis games than SNES (maybe 8-10), and none of them have lost a file yet as far as I know, oddly. I can't explain this... they're not all newer games, I have Phantasy Star II, PS IV, Beyond Oasis, Hardball III and '94, Light Crusader, Sword of Vermillion, a few more. (Wonder Boy in Monster World has an EEPROM of course, and Sonic 3 FRAM)

N64: No problems yet in either controller paks or games with internal batteries, and I have a bunch of them -- OoT, OB64, 1080, F-Zero, etc.


Rechargable -- my Sega CD and Dreamcast internal save batteries are still fine.

 

[Crayon]

Say, Red. What system are the two carts between the PSX FF Origins and PSX FF Chronicles for?

Looks like Wonderswan? Not sure.

Nevermind, I'm looking in the wrong spot and am flat out wrong.

 

[loosus]

None of my NES or Famicom games have dead batteries, the oldest ones being from 1987 (Zelda 1/FF1). I do have a few SNES and Super Famicom games with either dead (FF4) or wonky batteries that delete sometimes (FF6/DQ1+2/Super Metroid). So who knows, but surely longer than the supposed 5 years.

Pretty much my experience, too.

Well, my Zelda no longer does save permanently, but it outlasted most of my SNES by YEARS. Hell, I had a few SNES games that were doing weird things by 1995.

And actually, my Zelda will still hold a save for about a week. Longer than that, and it'll usually be erased.

 

[Siyou]

i just came.....

but yea, ive had 1 battery die on me and that was Zelda 2

 

[Crayon]

In depth stuff.

Hey thank you for the info. I didn't think I'd get such thoutrough info but I guess that shows that it's doesn't hurt to ask! I never thought there would be such a huge varience in the lifetimes of these things.

 

[A Black Falcon]

Hey thank you for the info. I didn't think I'd get such thoutrough info but I guess that shows that it's doesn't hurt to ask! I never thought there would be such a huge varience in the lifetimes of these things.

Yeah, it's definitely strange. Without other information, I also would definitely think that things would be a lot more standardized than they seem to be...

I've definitely noticed how I have a bunch of SNES games with either dead batteries or vanishing files while my Genesis games have no problems yet, and I noticed Game Boy and GBC games losing data before any console stuff, but while battery size explains the Game Boy part, that doesn't explain why the Genesis and SNES are so different in my own experiences... just luck, I guess; I'd think they should be similar overall...

Oh, initially Nintendo said, with battery-backed NES games, that the batteries should last five years. That was likely a low estimate, but some indeed did last only that long, while others have lasted decades longer... but Nintendo's initial statement was "five years", though note that I'm pretty sure that they dropped any comments on how long they expected their save batteries to last somewhere between the NES and SNES generations.

 

[Whimsical Phil]

Say, Red. What system are the two carts between the PSX FF Origins and PSX FF Chronicles for?

Those are Famicom cartridges.

 

[A Black Falcon]

Those are Famicom cartridges.

Yeah.. those NES carts feel light because the upper half of them is filled with air.

 

[tokkun]

My FF1 cart battery died several years ago. My brother and I did play that game quite a bit when we were kids, though. I think the lifetime has more to do with how much you've used the game.

 

[Crayon]

My FF1 cart battery died several years ago. My brother and I did play that game quite a bit when we were kids, though. I think the lifetime has more to do with how much you've used the game.

That actually kind of makes sense.

Black Falcon do you know much about electronics and stuff? Would there be any reason for the batteries to fritter away more life while the power is on?

 

[Red Scarlet]

Say, Red. What system are the two carts between the PSX FF Origins and PSX FF Chronicles for?

Those are FF2 and 3 for the Famicom. Someone mentioned Wonderswan, that's what is under the FF3 cart; FF4 for the Wonderswan (you can see 1 and 2 for it next to FF1 and 2; the games are grouped together by number in the series).