Flash Cart Review Central: RetroZone SNES PowerPak Super Nintendo Flash Cart Review

Flash Cart Review Central review of the...

Manufactured by: RetroZone
Manufactured in the USA
Review samples supplied by: RetroZone

By The Technologist - 17th December 2013
Review Contents & Index:

Introduction

Over the years, we have seen many different devices for playing back up copies of games on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Most devices have loaded games from a floppy drive or parallel port. Lately there has been a push for flash ram based cartridges.
With the introduction of flash ram to the SNES console, there has been a few issues: limited space, low speed, and lack of features such as Game Genie or Action Replay support. The end user has been accustomed to slow devices but with many nice features for saves, real time saving, and support for cheat codes. Now, with the introduction of a viable removable flash ram storage medium, many of these features can come back and the transfer speed for storing the ROM images is finally resolved.
The RetroZone SNES PowerPak allows ultra fast transfer of games due to it using a 16bit flash memory type (CompactFlash, or CF card), full Game Genie code support, save support with the ability to transfer the SRAM directly to the CF card, and full compatibility with the entire library of games and homebrew. This is excluding all special chips except for DSP-1 and uncompressed SDD-1 games.
In this review, various ROMs will be tested, however the ones on the incompatibility list will not be due to the fact that this device was not intended to promise support for those ROMs and should live up to the promises of what is offered.
This is the only commercially available SNES cartridge that supports a common, reliable flash ram media that can be picked up at nearly any corner drug store.

This review will show how to install, configure, and operate the cart as well as go into detail about which ROM images work and how to troubleshoot any issues encountered when programming the CF card.
SNES PowerPak Features:

On Screen SNES Menu System with Multiple ROM Image Support
Supports CompactFlash (CF) Memory Cards
Supports Clean, Trained, and Homebrew SNES (Super Nintendo) and SFC (Super Famicom) ROMs
CompactFlash Slot (For Storing ROMs On Flash RAM and Expandability of Storage)
Automatically Detect Save Type and ROM Type from Header Information
Multiple Region Lockout Chip Support
Supports All (SRAM) Save Types
Built In DSP-1 Micro Chip (Boot DSP-1 Games)
Built In Lockout Chip (No Cartridge Being Used as a Dongle/Daughter Board)

Packaging and Contents
The SNES PowerPak package was delivered via USPS Priority mail in a pink anti-static re-sealable bubble wrap package. This sample also came with another package containing the optional USB 2.0 multiple card reader and a 2 gigabyte Dane-Elec CF-1 card. The main unit itself carries 128 megabit of onboard SDRAM, a DSP-1 micro chip, and a NTSC lockout chip. These features enable the device to play nearly the entire SNES library along with ROM images up to 1024 megabits and not need an external port for plugging in a cartridge for use of its internal DSP-1 or lockout chip.

Inside are the following items:

Cart Design
A beautiful choice in transparent red plastic was used for the cartridge case with a printed color label on the front side.
The SNES PowerPak resembles a Japanese Super Famicom or PAL SNES cartridge in shape, but easily fits in any North American NTSC console without any modification.

On the top side is a CompactFlash Type 1 slot for the CF card.

The back of the case shows the RetroUSB branding and web site url.

Setting Up & Using
Installation - Hardware

This is the SNES PowerPak cart with and without the 2GB CF card inserted. Not too much to say here since the device is so simple and has everything else built in. It is ready to run any standard or DSP-1 ROM that has been copied onto the CF card.

A comparison between the different regions of cartridges and the SNES PowerPak shows that the housing is similar to a Super Famicom cartridge, but much different from a North American cartridge with the exception of the slots on the bottom of the back and the cartridge's thickness.
Installation - SNES PowerPak Menu
This sample was shipped with a preconfigured CF card, so it was not necessary to go to the manufacturer's web site and download the menu software. If it is necessary to acquire the latest version or just copy the current version onto a different CF card, the software can be downloaded from the same place as the ordering page which is http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=24&products_id=84 and the current menu software as of this review which is version 1.04 is contained in the following link: http://www.retrousb.com/downloads/POWERPAK133104.zip

Installation - CompactFlash USB Reader Connection to PC

This sample shipped with a multiple card reader which is compatible with CompactFlash memory cards. To install this, turn on the PC and boot into Windows. Then plug the CF card into the reader and the USB mini A cable into the reader and the USB A plug into any available USB port on the PC. This reader should be compatible with USB 1.1 and USB 2.0. Make sure that you use a USB 2.0 port on the PC to get the high speed 480Mbit data transfer capability for copying ROM images to the CF card.
Transferring ROMs
Simply find the CF card drive letter in Windows Explorer and drag/drop or copy/paste the ROM images to the CF card like a normal drive. The SNES PowerPak cart is compatible with sub directories, so those can be created if the user wants to organize ROMs into different folders.

Some ROMs may need to be padded or HiROM/LoROM changed in order to work. This will be discussed later on under ROM compatibility. These will be small ROMs under 4Mbit and some homebrew of non standard sizes. Most ROMs will not need any configuration, so most people will not need to do any extra work.
Usage - General

The SNES PowerPak cart is very simple to assemble. Just insert the CF card into the SNES PowerPak cart and then plug it into the SNES deck. Now the system is ready to be powered on.

Once the SNES is turned on, the SNES PowerPak cart's internal red LED lights up. This is helpful in case the user is worried about forgetting to turn off the system when not using it. It also illuminates most of the cartridge.
On the television screen, displayed first is the title logo of the cartridge. After pressing a button, this disappears and the list of folders and ROMs are displayed on the screen in a simple white on black text. From here, the user can browse folders and select which ROM to load into the cartridge's memory.
When the ROM is selected using the d-pad or L+R shoulder buttons, it is launched by pressing the A button. The next screen will allow the user to input up to 5 Game Genie codes and then use the d-pad to navigate to "Start Game" and press A to launch. After the game is loaded, it works virtually the same as a commercial video game cartridge. The reset button restarts the game but does not take the user back to the SNES PowerPak cart's menu. In order to get back to the menu, the system needs to be powered off. After turning the system back on, it will bring up the game loading screen with the code selection menu and allow you to launch the previous game that was loaded in memory. To go back to the main menu, press Y and then you can select a different ROM to load.
To test the cartridge's internal components, turn on the SNES and then press the "Select" button. This will launch and internal test and show the 128Mbit of SDRAM being verified. If this is accidentally pressed and the user wants to exit, he will have to power down the system and turn it back on.
Usage - Super Nintendo Games & Homebrew
I tested various ROMs and noticed no visual clarity issues. Once a game is loaded, it does not suffer from radio wave interference aside from what the console's own cables may show. The picture is clean and crisp on a standard CRT television set. Games run fine and have no issues with saving.
Games that are hard coded to be region locked do still behave in that manner. The SNES PowerPak menu does not have any fixes built in to convert PAL to NTSC or vice versa. Currently, the only ways to change region protections are to either apply an IPS fix for the game that was made by an experienced programmer or use a tool such as Ucon, Ucon64, or SNESTool to convert and de-protect the games. It is much easier to get the appropriate region game for the SNES and matching region lockout chip cartridge or pre-cracked ROM image and play that one instead.
Also games that were copy protected in the past are no longer are an issue. Any game that had copy protection not related to region locking will run as long as it is a clean dump. Cracked ROMs will not necessarily boot up on the SNES PowerPak and can black screen while region cracked/fixed ROMs and clean dumps will work fine.
The SNES PowerPak cart comes with 128Mbit of SDRAM internally which can load the largest commercial and hacked ROM images. Externally, the cart supports very large CompactFlash cards. The largest commercial SNES game without a special chip, which is a hack of a SDD-1 ROM, was 96Mbit in size so this should not pose as a problem and the largest homebrew ROMs always were under 32Mbit. Also the translated versions of this ROM do run fine, as none exceed 96Mbit.
Usage - Super Nintendo Cartridges and Expansions
This cartridge will fit on expansions, but they may not be compatible with it. This will be discussed later on in further detail. There is no expansion port on the unit, so there is no way to add anything special such as Super Game Boy, Capcom C4, Super FX, Super FX2, DSP2, DSP3, DPS4, OBC-1, Seta DSP, SA-1, and SDD-1. Thankfully, this cartridge has DSP-1 built in along with a lockout chip so there is really no need for the expansion slot to be built into the cartridge.
SNES PowerPak (Menu)
When you turn on the SNES, a title screen appears.

This is soon followed by the list of games on the CF card.

Pressing the down button on the D-Pad will scroll down to the next ROM on the list. Holding RB will scroll down faster and holding LB will scroll back up.

Internal RAM Test - The select button is used to test the internal RAM and finishes at 128Mbit. Photos above are near finishing the test and at test finish. If all is OK, it will display OK as the status.

At the main menu, press Y twice to load the ROM shown on the screen. Here is Killer Instinct (32Mbit) in action. Notice the first screen that appears after launching the game allows Game Genie codes to be input with the control pad.

This is Super Famicom Wars. I did not see an English translation of this game, but it is very playable in Japanese. This is part of the series people may remember from Advance Wars on GBA and Advance Wars Dual Strike on Nintendo DS.

This is not Epic Mickey, but the sleeper hit titled Mickey Mania works as well. It's still true that there are annoying delays between scenes in the game, but that is the programmer's fault. I loathed every time Mickey had to look at his watch and there's no way to skip that intermission scene. It still is a beautiful game for the SNES.

Here is what happens when a game that is under 4Mbit is run. Padding the ROM and applying a CRC fix generally resolves this issue.

Space Invaders and Ms. Pac-Man started out as 2Mbit ROMs but would not run. They had to be padded to 4Mbit in order to work. Ucon64 was used to perform this task and the games functioned normally.

Translations work fine. Front Mission Gun Hazard is a fine example of a translated game running on the RetroUSB SNES cart. This ROM was translated to English by AGTP.

Larger ROMs also work. This 48Mbit ROM is Tales of Phantasia with the DeJap V1.2 lowercase English translation patch.

The largest ROM currently available is the uncompressed patched copy of Star Ocean. Originally using the S-DD1 chip to handle compression, the ROM has been expanded from 48Mbit in size to 96Mbit. The RetroUSB SNES cart has 128Mbit of internal RAM which allows this large of a ROM to be played.

This is Choplifter III (4Mbit) in action. With every ROM tested 4Mbit and above, there were really no issues.

Uniracers with its ray traced graphics is still fun to play. The game runs fine and at full speed.

Wild Guns is one of the most entertaining games on the SNES. Although it does not use the Super Scope 6, the controls work out very well and it runs perfectly on the RetroUSB SNES cart.

Here we have the first Donkey Kong Country. The RetroUSB cart bypasses all the copy protection on Rare games.

Donkey Kong Country 2 with the Night Fall trainer works fine. The unlimited lives option works as selectable, but can not be turned off within the game if set to YES.

Unfortunately one game I really wanted to test, BS Excitebike, did not work. It has no internal header. NSRT and Ucon64 were unable to fix it. This is what the error screen looks like when this occurs and it logs the event to LOG.TXT within the POWERPAK subdirectory.

On the bright side, BS Zelda works fine. Here is the game in action.

With the 2GB Dane-Elec CF card, Pilotwings failed to load. It ran perfect from a Sandisk 1GB CF card.

Here is Pilotwings (DSP-1 LoROM) in action. As said above, a different CF card was necessary for this game to run and it plays all the way through from beginning to end.

All DSP-1 games work fine. Here are a few more in action: Ace Combat, Battle Racers, and Super Mario Kart.
Trainers function as well. This is Actraiser +3 trainer by Elitendo. As with other modern flash carts for SNES, most trainers are always on even if the options are not selected to be turned on. This caused some games, such as Mickey Mania with trainer, to malfunction and not be able to progress.
Performance
Of the games I tested, all ROM only, ROM with save, and ROM with DSP-1 worked near flawlessly. The only issues I came across were: Pilotwings (PAL) caused a slight graphics glitch when diving on the first level of the game, but it did not cause it to freeze and the game ran like normal beyond that and Prehistorik Man (PAL) came up with the region lockout screen which was alleviated by using the NTSC/U version or the ROM with the region lockout crack and trainer.
The problems I encountered were very minimal. Trainers can not be turned off in most games that have them. All trainer options are always locked to on even if the intro says they are off or if the trainer's disable buttons are pressed during game play. Also games that were under 4Mbit needed to be padded to that size in order to work and games that were other various odd sizes needed to be padded to the next multiple of 4Mbit.
I also found that the sample 2 gigabyte CF card that shipped with the SNES PowerPak cart refused to load Pilotwings. I found this strange not only because every other game I tried to load from it worked, but also no other device I have had any problem with this game. I eventually formatted a regular 1 gigabyte Sandisk CF card and the game loaded and played fine. In fact, the game plays all the way through on every level with no problem at all.
This device did not like my 8 megabyte Kodak CF card which shipped with my first digital camera. It failed to detect the card.
ROM Compatibility

PASS:
Game plays just as it should on a real game card.

FAIL:
Game doesn't even load or freezes before game play.

PROBLEMS:
Game works but with issues.
The ROM only and ROM with SRAM games I tested worked flawlessly and are:

Actraiser (NTSC/U) - PASS
Actraiser +1 Trainer (NTSC/U) - PASS
Animaniacs (NTSC/U) - PASS
Bahamut Lagoon English Translated 1.3 Copier and Emulator variants (NTSC/J) - PASS
Beavis and Butt-head (NTSC/U) - PASS
Bio Metal (NTSC/U) - PASS
Breath of Fire (NTSC/U) - PASS
Breath of Fire II (NTSC/U) - PASS
Brutal - Paws of Fury (NTSC/U) - PASS
BS Excitebike Bun Bun Mario Battle Stadium 1-4 (NTSC/J) - FAIL Invalid internal header error. Could not fix with NSRT or UCON64
BS Dr. Mario (NTSC/J) - PASS
BS Super Famicom Wars (NTSC/J) - PASS
BS Zelda no Densetsu Remix (NTSC/J) (English translation) - PASS
Choplifter III (NTSC/U) (304545) - PASS
Choplifter III (PAL) - PASS
Chrono Trigger (NTSC/U) - PASS
Civilization (NTSC/U) - PASS
Clay Fighter (NTSC/U) - PASS
Columns (NTSC/J) - PASS
Contra III - The Alien Wars (NTSC/U) (+1 Trainer) - PASS
Darius Twin (NTSC/U) - PASS
D-Force (NTSC/U) - PASS
Donkey Kong Country (NTSC/U) (V1.0) (Clean dump) - PASS
Donkey Kong Country 2 (NTSC/U) (V1.1) (Clean dump) - PASS
Donkey Kong Country 2 (NTSC/U) (+1 Trainer) - PASS trainer can be enabled or disabled but not turned off in-game
Donkey Kong Country 3 (NTSC/U) (Clean dump) -
PASS
Dragon Ball Z - La Legende Saien English Translation (PAL) - PASS
Dragon Ball Z - Super Butouden English Translation (PAL) - PASS
Dragon Ball Z - Ultimate Menace English Translation (PAL) - PASS
Dragon Quest VI - Maboroshi no Daichi English Translation DeJap (NTSC/J) - PASS
Drakkhen (NTSC/U) - PASS
Dream TV (NTSC/U) - PASS
F-Zero (PAL, NTSC/U, NTSC/J) - PASS
Final Fantasy VI English Translation 1.2 RPGOne(NTSC/J) - PASS
Fire Emblem - Thraki 776 (NTSC/J) - PASS
Front Mission - Gun Hazard (NTSC/J) (English Translated AGTP V1.01) - PASS
Gradius III (NTSC/U) - PASS
Home Alone (NTSC/U) -PASS
Home Alone 2 - Lost in New York (NTSC/U) - PASS
Hook (NTSC/U) (2648 & 29252) - PASS
Imperium (NTSC/U) - PASS
Itchy & Scratchy The Game (NTSC/U) - PASS
Killer Instinct (NTSC/U) (V1.0 & V1.1) (Clean dump) - PASS
Krusty's Super Fun House (NTSC/U) - PASS
Lemmings (NTSC/U) - PASS
Lemmings 2 - The Tribes (NTSC/U) - PASS
Magical Drop English Translation 0.95b AGTP (NTSC/J) - PASS
Magical Drop 2 (NTSC/J) - PASS
Mickey Mania (NTSC/U) - PASS
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (NTSC/U) - PASS
Mr. Do! (NTSC/U) (+1 Trainer) - PASS trainer is always on and was already padded to 4Mbit
Ms. Pac-Man (NTSC/U) - PASS after padding to 4Mbit
NBA Jam (NTSC/U) - PASS
P-Man (NTSC/J) - PASS
Paperboy 2 (NTSC/U) - PASS
Picross NP Vol. 1-8 (NTSC/J) - PASS
Pirates of Dark Water (NTSC/U) - PASS
Prehistorik Man (NTSC/U) (+1 Trainer) - PASS trainer is always on. This game is PAL with a region fix.
Prehistorik Man (PAL) - FAIL Region protection screen comes up. Easily solved by using the +1 Trainer ROM instead, but trainer can not be turned off
Q-Bert 3 (NTSC/U) - PASS
R-Type III (NTSC/U) - PASS
Race Drivin' (NTSC/U) - PASS
Revolution X (NTSC/U) - PASS
Road Riot 4WD (NTSC/U) - PASS
Road Runner's Death Valley Rally (NTSC/U) - PASS
Road Runner vs Wyle E Coyote (NTSC/J) - PASS
Rocketeer (NTSC/U) - PASS
Rockman & Forte (NTSC/J) (English Translated RMF AGTP V1.00) - PASS
Rocky Rodent (NTSC/U) - PASS
Space Invaders (NTSC/U) - PASS after padding to 4Mbit
Super Chase H.Q. (NTSC/U) - PASS
Super Famicom Wars (Nintendo Power) (NTSC/J) - PASS
Tales of Phantasia (NTSC/J) (English Translated Lowercase DeJap V1.2) (48Mbit) - PASS
True Lies (NTSC/U) - PASS
Ultraman - Towards the Future (NTSC/U) - PASS
VS. Collection (NTSC/J) - PASS
Wild Guns (NTSC/U) - PASS
Wrecking Crew (NTSC/J) - PASS

I still find it amazing that on these modern flash RAM based devices, none of the games required a cracked version to run and only a few PAL needed a proper region fix. All ROMs function properly with the exception of a bad dump and a few requiring their respective region lockout chip or simply replacing the ROM with one for the lockout chips in use.
All Bandai Sufami Turbo games worked as long as using the ROM with the ST Bios already applied/hacked in as well as most needing to use the over dumped pre-padded version of the ROM. The games that were odd Mbit sizes required padding or else they would merely black screen before or after the Sufami Turbo boot up screen. After padding though, they just showed instructions on how to load games in the original Bandai Sufami Turbo device so I just used the proper over dump variants of the ROMs found in GoodSNES and everything worked perfectly fine. The over dumps contained the ST Bios and were 12Mbit each. Running the ROM alone without any bios applied or padding will result in a black screen of course since the games originally required additional hardware.
Bandai Sufami Turbo

Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon S - Fuwa Fuwa Panic 2 - PASS

Crayon Shin-Chan - Nagagutsu Dobon!! - PASS use overdump

Gegege no Kitarou - Youkai Donjara - PASS use overdump

Poi Poi Ninja World - PASS use overdump

SD Gundam Generations - PASS all pass using overdump

SD Ultra Battle - Seven & Ultraman - PASS

SD Ultra Battle - Ultraman & Seven - PASS

SD Ultra Battle - PASS use overdump

The official incompatibility list linked here: http://www.retrozone.com/incompatibility.html shows the entire list of games that will not run on this cartridge. There is no reason to test these since they are already well documented to not be compatible.
Here is the list of DSP-1 ROMs I tested and the results:
DSP-1
Each DSP-1 game works fine. NTSC/J/U/E games tested all working on NTSC console with the exception of the Pilotwings hack/alternate dump that works on floppy disk based copiers with a HiROM DSP-1 cartridge or DSP-1 add on chip. Also I noticed some strange graphics glitch on the airport graphics when sky diving on the first mission of Pilotwings (PAL) but not in the NTSC and NTSC/J versions while running on an NTSC console. This glitch was evident on the previous cartridge I tested from Team NeoFlash as well.

Ace wo Nerae! - PASS

Armored Trooper Votoms - PASS

Ballz 3D / 3 Jigen Kakutou Ballz - PASS

Battle Racers - PASS

Drift King Shutokou Battle '94 - PASS

Drift King Shutokou Battle 2 - PASS

Final Stretch - PASS

Hashiriya Kon - PASS

Korean League - PASS

Lock On - PASS

Michael Andretti's Indy Car Challenge - PASS

Pilotwings LoROM - PASS did not work on supplied CF card, but worked fine on Sandisk 1GB FAT32

Pilotwings alternate dump (HiROM fix for regular DSP1) - FAIL this was a HiROM fix hacked ROM for regular DSP1 on old copiers

Super 3D Baseball - PASS

Super Air Diver - PASS

Super Air Diver 2 - PASS

Super Bases Loaded II - PASS

Super F1 Circus Gaiden - PASS

Super Mario Kart - PASS

Suzuka 8 Hours - PASS

S-DD1

Star Ocean (NTSC/J) (This ROM is originally 48Mbit) - PASS Patched English translated ROM to decompress S-DD1 code to 96Mbit

As you can see from the above, the only games that fail are bad dumps and hacks. Games that use special chips other than DSP-1 are already officially documented to not work. Calculating these results versus the entire library of ROMs gives us a staggering 99% ROM compatibility of the complete set.
On a side note, the author of the cartridge emailed me and let me know that the uncompressed Star Ocean ROM mentioned above works and shows working as tested in this review sample. At 96Mbit in size, it is the largest ROM that would be programmed onto a backup device and also leaves 32Mbit of RAM to spare from the total 128Mbit available. By SNES standards, 32Mbit is already an enormous amount of program memory space and this ROM far exceeds that by being at triple the size.
Homebrew Support
I found that homebrew ROMs needed to be set to LoROM and padded to at least 4Mbit if they are not already at that size. These worked flawlessly with these settings, but the trainers could not be turned off in the NES Hack games.

Anthrox - 3d Demo PASS
Anthrox - Christmas Demo PASS
Galaga (NES Hack) PASS
Lode Runner (NES Hack) PASS
Magical Demo PASS
Mappy (NES Hack) PASS
Mario Bros. (NES Hack) PASS
Napalm - Laughing Skull Intro PASS
Nuts & Milk (NES Hack) PASS

It is amazing that every homebrew ROM thrown at this device passes with some only requiring minor tweaks. I expected to run into more problems since most of these were developed for older backup units. This furthers the ROM compatibility and keeps it in line with the near 100% ROM compatibility as stated in the previous section. Also no homebrew ROM requires special chips from retail cartridges, so there is no issue there. Of course it is to be expected that some backup unit BIOS images will not work still since some of them are not in a format that any SNES backup device or emulator can run.
Again, don't get confused about what you see in this section. I tested the NES Hack ROMs that are included in GoodSNES to see if anything that obscure would work. This cartridge will not run standard NES ROM images (*.nes will not work, but the SNES PowerPak cart is available for the original NES console for that) and the menu software is not capable of converting NES to SNES format. These ROMs were already converted and programmed to run from old backup units a long time ago.
Additional Features
The SNES PowerPak has the same appearance as a regular cartridge, so it makes sense to test it with typical expansions. The only expansion I had available for testing was the original Galoob Game Genie.

Game Genie - FAIL plugged into the bottom of the cartridge causes an I/O error

This is not be a problem since the menu system of the SNES PowerPak has Game Genie support built in.
Conclusion
The SNES PowerPak cart, the latest SNES flash cart released, is a very impressive unit. Being able to create folders and drag and drop ROMs directly onto a high speed flash card is very convenient and a lot less time consuming than the other cartridges currently available. Also it is very easy to obtain CF cards and they are very cheap these days.
While this cartridge has issues with ROMs that are of odd sizes and particularly had problems with 2Mbit games, it will make you wonder why you would need to own an old floppy/parallel port based backup unit. There aren't very many popular games under 4Mbit and being able to store large quantities of games on the flash memory CF card makes it very simple to store all the games you want to play quickly and in one location. The CF card will program as fast as its speed rating, meaning that you can use high speed CF cards and lower the amount of time it takes to copy games onto it. The loading times of the ROMs to the SNES PowerPak cart's internal SDRAM is also very minimal.
Although not flashy, the GUI is very simple and offers a few nice features. ROMs can be organized into folders, there is an internal test, and Game Genie codes are fully supported.
Over all, the best feature of this cartridge is that it supports a large flash memory capacity. I had no problems at all with a 2 gigabyte CF card as well as a smaller 1 gigabyte card. With this amount of storage capacity, I was able to select every ROM I wanted to test without worrying about running out of space or how long it would take to program it. Everything was drag and drop through USB 2.0 directly to the CF card. To put it in perspective, 2 gigabytes is 16,384 megabits which is 16 gigabits and the largest commercial games for the SNES typically were 32 megabit (0.03125 gigabit).
At last a near perfect solution for running ROMs on an original SNES console. This product can run all of the games that it promised to and there is a clear exception list posted on their page which are all special chip games. It has been discussed on various forums that most special games need the special microchips behind the ROM onboard the cartridge. This cart has the DSP-1 and lockout chip built in and is a very compact, well designed device.
I would highly recommend anyone to purchase the SNES PowerPak cart over any older floppy based unit available. One thing to keep in mind about the devices from the 1990s is that they are old and most of them were not made with very high grade components inside so they are prone to failure. This device is made in the USA and has all brand new components inside. Also it is a lot more user friendly than the old backup units, although an application is still necessary to pad the small games so that they will run.
I would like to thank RetroZone and for providing the sample for review.
Pros
+ Easily fits in any SNES/SFC console without any modification
+ Built in lockout chip
+ Simple user interface and intuitive to use on the console
+ Free updates by mail to the internal core for the lifetime of the product
+ 128 Megabit of SDRAM which is more than the largest commercial game
+ DSP-1 micro chip built in and its ROMs are fully supported
+ No PC software to fuss with. Everything is drag and drop to CF.
+ Supports all ROM-only games of the region corresponding to the console
+ Supports all different SRAM methods for saved games
+ Supports copying SRAM directly to CF
+ Supports homebrew ROMs
+ CF card is quickly programmed via USB 2.0
+ Games load very quickly from the CF card onto the SNES PowerPak
+ The SNES PowerPak remembers which game was previously loaded when the SNES is powered down
+ No floppy disks to swap in and out and worry about getting scratched or corrupt
+ Supports multiple ROMs up to the capacity of the CF card
+ Clean, crisp display when playing games and no noise/interference
+ Removable CF card for more storage and cheap, simple replacement
+ ROMs are stored indefinitely until flash RAM is erased or overwritten
+ Continued menu, firmware, GUI, and hardware development support
+ High quality printed circuit board and onboard components
+ Low solid state part count compared to old floppy based copiers
+ Does not use external power supply or require batteries
+ Does not plug into a PC for anything
+ Free updating of the core programming (requires sending the unit back to the manufacturer)
Cons
- Not compatible with most special chip games
- No external cheat device support (Is this a con? Game Genie is built in.)
- No real time save
- No built in region fix (Just use the appropriate region ROM or region fixed ROM)
- Most trained games always have all trainer options on and can not be turned off
- Somewhat picky about what CF card is used
- 2Mbit commercial ROMs need padding from a third party software
- Homebrew ROMs that are under 4Mbit need to be padded
External Links:
-Official RetroZone Website
-Official RetroZone Product Page
Where to buy?:
-Official RetroZone Product Page
This review was written for Flash Cart Review Central ONLY. The article and all included photos are property of Flash Cart Review Central
If you see this review on any other site please let me know via reply to this blog.

Flash Cart Review Central

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

RetroZone SNES PowerPak Super Nintendo Flash Cart Review

1 comment: