Gaming Forums => Nintendo Gaming => Topic started by: Kytim89 on May 28, 2011, 10:06:03 PM
Title: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: Kytim89 on May 28, 2011, 10:06:03 PM
Can anyone refer me to a site that lists the file, or memory, size for its games from the NES, SNES, TG16, Neo Geo, N64, Commodore 64, Saturn, Dreamcast, Master System, Gamecube and Genesis? I am working on a project, and it does not involve piracy or homebrew.
Title: Re: Game File Sizes
Post by: broodwars on May 28, 2011, 10:18:59 PM
I'm not sure how one would do that without violating several forum rules, because the only sites I know of would have that information are ROM sites.
Title: Re: Game File Sizes
Post by: UncleBob on May 28, 2011, 10:23:39 PM
Wikipedia?
Title: Re: Game File Sizes
Post by: broodwars on May 28, 2011, 10:35:07 PM
Title: Re: Game File Sizes
Post by: Kytim89 on May 29, 2011, 02:34:52 AM
Is it possible to save a single Virtual Console title to an SD card? If so, my plan is to save each of my VC games onto invidual SD cards and then make cases for them with mini DVD cases and game labels printed from the Cover Project.
Check out this Super Mario Brothers box art. Once I have placed the VC title onto an SD card it will then go into a case with this lable inside the cover.
Also, if you want to know how many Megabytes each VC and Wiiware title is check out this formula:
8 blocks equal 1 Megabyte
So if Ocarina of Time is approxitmatly 286 blocks. So, divide that by eight and you get 35.75 Megabytes. So if my project works then I will need an SD card to fit that onto, right?
Title: Re: Game File Sizes
Post by: Mop it up on May 29, 2011, 03:45:40 AM
Is it possible to save a single Virtual Console title to an SD card? If so, my plan is to save each of my VC games onto invidual SD cards and then make cases for them with mini DVD cases and game labels printed from the Cover Project.
UncleBob, is this you?
Title: Re: Game File Sizes
Post by: UncleBob on May 29, 2011, 11:08:58 AM
lol - no. :D
The only issue with your idea, Kytim, is that there's a very limited number of VC covers available on TCP. I know most of my downloads aren't up there.
Aside from that, it's entirely possible. You could probably get a lot of 64MB or below SD cards from eBay or somewhere for cheap for this idea.
Another idea that was thrown around TCP was making one cover for each system and storing the games for each system on a single card. The cover would be in the Wii style and for "artwork" would have rectangular boxes similar to the Wii Channels on the main menu that covered the front and back of the cover, each channel being the title screen to one of the games you, personally, own. The down side of this is that A) You'd have to make the cover yourself and B) You'd have to remake the cover every time you downloaded something new.
Title: Re: Game File Sizes
Post by: Chozo Ghost on May 29, 2011, 11:20:26 AM
Just use the cover art for the games when they were originally released on their respective consoles. For example, if you have a genesis game from the VC, then use the cover art for the Genesis game. Right?
Title: Re: Game File Sizes
Post by: UncleBob on May 29, 2011, 11:51:53 AM
Just use the cover art for the games when they were originally released on their respective consoles. For example, if you have a genesis game from the VC, then use the cover art for the Genesis game. Right?
Possible - but the art for NES, SNES, Genesis, etc. games hosted on TCP is going to be formatted for Universal Game Cases - which take up quite a bit of space on the shelf. Something to keep in mind.
Title: Re: Game File Sizes
Post by: Kytim89 on May 29, 2011, 12:10:22 PM
Just use the cover art for the games when they were originally released on their respective consoles. For example, if you have a genesis game from the VC, then use the cover art for the Genesis game. Right?
Possible - but the art for NES, SNES, Genesis, etc. games hosted on TCP is going to be formatted for Universal Game Cases - which take up quite a bit of space on the shelf. Something to keep in mind.
Do you need a specieal printer and paper to download and print these labels?
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: ShyGuy on May 29, 2011, 03:17:07 PM
They used to advertise megabit size on some Video Game ads during the 16 bit era. Phantasy Star was 6 megabits, Strider was 8 megabits.
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: BranDonk Kong on May 29, 2011, 04:53:48 PM
You can probably find a ROM manager program that will tell you the game sizes. Could be wrong, don't think you actually need the ROMs, just the list.
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: Kytim89 on May 29, 2011, 05:16:58 PM
Figute out how many blocks each VC title is an divide by eight and that should give you the abount of memory in Megabytes.
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: BranDonk Kong on May 29, 2011, 06:12:01 PM
No it shouldn't, the VC games have the emulators (and instruction manuals) built in and are larger than the ROM sizes for just the games. If you're just doing this for VC, then I think you're onto something, but if you're trying to get the actual size of just the games, then this isn't the way to do it. Technically every Dreamcast game is 1.2GB (per disc), but most of them have "garbage" data, so the actual size of the needed information is much smaller, and all Saturn games would technically be 650MB (per disc, or close to it), again, with padding, etc.
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: Kytim89 on May 29, 2011, 07:29:49 PM
All I wanted to do was to have each of my individual VC titles on their own SD cards. Of course I would want them in the eight to sixy-four Megabye range for this project.
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: broodwars on May 29, 2011, 07:49:18 PM
All I wanted to do was to have each of my individual VC titles on their own SD cards. Of course I would want them in the eight to sixy-four Megabye range for this project.
And why, exactly, do you want to do this needlessly-costly endeavor? You'd rather have to swap out SD cards every time you want to play something than just have everything on one card sorted so you can select from at will, all for the sake of nostalgia? Well, whatever float your boat, I guess.
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: Kytim89 on May 29, 2011, 08:41:43 PM
All I wanted to do was to have each of my individual VC titles on their own SD cards. Of course I would want them in the eight to sixy-four Megabye range for this project.
And why, exactly, do you want to do this needlessly-costly endeavor? You'd rather have to swap out SD cards every time you want to play something than just have everything on one card sorted so you can select from at will, all for the sake of nostalgia? Well, whatever float your boat, I guess.
Check out this cool box art for Rondo of Blood and tell me that your sense of nostalgia does not increase. Also, it may appear to be costly, but most of the SD cards that I want to use are only a few dollars a piece, so the most expensive thing is the cases, which I will need to hold SD cards.
About fourty, which would be about $80 for the SD cards. I could double my collection with that kind of money. Damn!
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: Lithium on May 29, 2011, 08:51:32 PM
well im pretty sure that the DS cart holder in a DS game case are the perfect size for SD cards (since they're more or less the same thing) here you go (http://cgi.ebay.com/Black-Nintendo-DS-Replacement-Cases-Boxes-New-Game-x-50-/160501964209?pt=Video_Games_Accessories&hash=item255ea99db1)
sounds impractical but who am i to tell you how to spend you money
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: Chozo Ghost on May 30, 2011, 02:13:14 AM
Just get one really large capacity card and then put everything on that. Then print a VC logo thing for it. There, problem solved.
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: broodwars on May 30, 2011, 02:18:06 AM
Check out this cool box art for Rondo of Blood and tell me that your sense of nostalgia does not increase.
Actually, it doesn't. I don't know if you've noticed, but that box art's all in Japanese. Maybe you grew up in Japan, but I didn't so I can't have nostalgia over box art from another country with text I can't read. :P:
I just have all my Wii digital games on one fairly-large SD card, sorted in the following order: WiiWare -> N64 -> TurboGrafix16 -> Genesis -> SNES -> NES. It's not quite in reverse technological order, but close enough for my tastes. When I get a new game, I just move everything around to keep it all nice and neat.
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: ThePerm on May 30, 2011, 08:24:06 AM
well n64 games got up to 64mb, so all we need to know is that whatever came before it was less then that.
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: ejamer on May 30, 2011, 08:54:44 AM
I have all my games on a single SD card for convenience... but this sounds like an awesome project if you ask me.
Having cases for each game would be really cool and give a better sense of ownership. Switching SD cards wouldn't be that bad because I usually focus on playing through one or two games at a time anyway.
The only real downside (for me) is cost - I'd rather use that money to increase the size of my VC collection than to pimp out how those games are stored.
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: Mop it up on June 01, 2011, 12:30:43 AM
well n64 games got up to 64mb, so all we need to know is that whatever came before it was less then that.
I'm sure that the VC follows the same 40MB limit that WiiWare has, so even if companies wanted to put up the three Nintendo 64 games that used 64MB cartridges, they couldn't.
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: Kytim89 on June 01, 2011, 01:11:42 AM
I would really like to see an idea like this come to frutition because it would be a quick and easy to have cartridge games without all the hassle of the games taking up space. They would be easier to store and carry around on the go.
Here is a step by step process of what I imagine this project would be developed:
First, save and store each VC title to its own SD card. Each SD card mustbe big enough to store the game, but small enough that massive amounts of storage is not wasted in the process. For example, suppose Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Genesis is 12.5 Megabytes, put it on a 16 MB SD card.
Secondly, get a hold of a collection of slim DVD cases modified to hold SD cards.
Lastly, Print your labels for each VC title and place them into individual slim DVD cases modified to hold SD cards. Now the project is complete.
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: Chozo Ghost on June 01, 2011, 08:08:01 AM
Secondly, get a hold of a collection of slim DVD cases modified to hold SD cards.
Why don't you just use cases specifically designed for SD cards? You are worried about wasting space on the SD cards, so you must realize that a DVD case is much larger and much more of a waste just to hold a tiny SD card.
Also, do you realize that VC games can only be played on the system they were downloaded for? You cannot play these SD cards on any other Wii than the one you got them on.
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: Ceric on June 01, 2011, 09:35:34 AM
You know I think this whole thing is sort of silly and here's why. The appeal here is to have the visual presentation of the case for display purposes. I understand that but, I personally would think it be a better use of the case to instead of having the game in their have a little reproduction of the manual and a scrap book of what makes the game worthy of such a position. Especially since all the games can live on 1 SD card in your Wii.
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: Stogi on June 01, 2011, 11:38:02 AM
Agreed. Having several hundred SD cards is delusional.
You should instead write some homebrew code that visually organizes your games in digital shelves. So you can go and pick one, look at it's manual and then play.
Title: Re: How to Return to Cartridge Gaming
Post by: Kytim89 on June 01, 2011, 01:28:29 PM
This is what I hope Nintendo does with the Virtual Console for the Super Wii. Emulate game manuals and box art. If any of you are familiar with iTunes then you should know the option in the Podcast and music files that allows you to scroll through each album on the screen. I want a similar system for the Super Wii where the actual box art scrolls across the screen with the option of accessing the game's manual on the side. Reading the manual would be like reading a digital novel or scrapbook.
