# n64 built in memory?



## nintyfreak (May 29, 2010)

ok all this may sound retarded but i grew up playing the n64 and i missed not having one so i bought one off ebay. anyway ive got no memory cards with it yet when i play games like pilotwings, goldeneye they are save files on there. i always thought i needed amemory card to save on the n64. i cant believe this im so shocked,  is there actually built in memory in this thing? if not how are the saves there?


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## Depravo (May 29, 2010)

Not all games needed the memory pack. Most games saved on the game cart itself.


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## nintyfreak (May 29, 2010)

Depravo said:
			
		

> Not all games needed the memory pack. Most games saved on the game cart itself.


holy smokes im such a tard, u mean all the time i could have played goldeneye but didnt as i thought i couldnt save it


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## nutella (May 29, 2010)

nintyfreak said:
			
		

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I think Goldeneye needed a memory pack.


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## nintyfreak (May 29, 2010)

nutella5600 said:
			
		

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oh cos ive got saves on my 64 with no pack lol


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## p1ngpong (May 29, 2010)

nutella5600 said:
			
		

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Goldeneye has built in memory, you can store up to four profiles if I remember correctly. A few games used memory packs, generally earlier ones.

More info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controller_Pak#Controller_Pak


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## Njrg (May 30, 2010)

Most cartridge games after the 1st Zelda allow you to save. Some games do not allow saving, and there's absolutely no reason they shouldn't. Cartridges are like memory cards, you can write, delete, copy, ect... information as one pleased. We have memory cards for CD based games because the system cannot write any new information onto a disk, so it loads the memory/saves/data from another source be it Memory Card or Hard Drive.

Though it is true some N64 games required a memory card to play, there was only a minority of them, and there was no reason they couldn't save. But the main reason for N64 memory card was copying saves from one cart to another I think or provide extra storage. Like in the game Revolt, all your progress is saved on-cart. But if you wanted to save custom tracks, you would need a memory pack.


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## VmprHntrD (May 30, 2010)

You're somewhat right with that comment.  Most is not true, just some, actually few in the big picture of NES and SNES era games (Sega, included) did NOT use a battery.  They didn't want to pony up the extra dollar for a CR2032 or like battery, nor did they want to pay more bucks for a SRAM bank that needed the battery to hold the information.  Carts up until the mid/late N64 days and the GBA era did not use FlashRAM nor did they use EEPROM so they all relied on batteries.  Since those cost money some developers who were notoriously cheap assholes, Konami was KING of them, refused to pop for a battery in this country well into the GBA days.  All their N64, most GBA if not all, and anything prior used passwords when in their own country you could get a battery.  Castlevania I feel for me was the worst as I knew in Japan not one of them used that aggravating picture based save grid, none of them.

You're right the N64 memory pack was essentially meant for transferring saves, large storage (Mario kart ghost data) and other impractical stuff into small chips within the games.  Sadly, jerkwads like Konami used it to save a buck.  Check the game list online for those who used the memory pack, Konami will popular on that list among a few other tightwads as well.


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## Njrg (May 30, 2010)

Most meaning majority. I don't have to remind you but even in 2010 we're still using cartdridge games and still may be in the future. You can't tell me a majority of every single cart since Zelda on the combined platforms of NES, SNES, N64, Master system, Genesis, Gamegear, Virtualboy, Gameboy, GBC, GBA, NDS, NeoGeo, NeoGeo Pocket, or any other format I missed. Yes there were many battery-less games but them combined are a drop in the bucket compared to the grand scheme of cartridge gaming. It would still be a minority if you included all the games prior to Zelda on Atari, Intelivision, Colecovision, ect...

I are right.


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## VmprHntrD (May 30, 2010)

I stand by my comment that most games up until the GBA and N64 on the home front screwed people into using passwords or just had nothing.  I grew up with the stuff and it drove me nuts as I hated writing down passwords or having to shut down and start over later.  Neo-Geo had saves for basically scores, and the NGPC the few games it had they all saved pretty much.  The Genesis and SMS has few games with batteries to them, most were just like a good deal of the NES and SNES games with no battery, same with GB and GBC.  NDS doesn't so much count in this, those are memory cards, they all save and don't use batteries.


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## Njrg (May 30, 2010)

No I'm right. Always.

If Pokemon remake alone is enough to sell 8 million+ copies, then there must be billions and billions of carts made over the years. If there are 5,000+ roms on NDS, and there are lets say at least 100,000 of each in existence, thats 500 million carts for just NDS, and its probably much more than that. And add all that to all the carts in the past 20-25 years... Theres no way that you can tell me that 33.3% of the seemingly tens of billions of carts have no saving features built in. I don't care how many Konami games you owned.


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## VmprHntrD (May 31, 2010)

I'm not talking about total carts on the market, Pokemon alone would make the statement true in all its versions.  I'm talking about unique games if you made a list of titles.


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## DanTheManMS (Jun 1, 2010)

Njrg said:
			
		

> Cartridges are like memory cards, you can write, delete, copy, ect... information as one pleased. We have memory cards for CD based games because the system cannot write any new information onto a disk, so it loads the memory/saves/data from another source be it Memory Card or Hard Drive.



Official cartridges for those systems (NES, SNES, N64, GBA, DS, etc) are all primarily ROM - read only memory.  Some contained a tiny extra segment of re-writeable memory used solely for save data, but the amount of space there was minuscule compared to the size of the game code itself.  This save data space could be in one of various forms, including EEPROM and SRAM just to name a few.  Some N64 games chose not to include this extra bit of save space on the cartridge, but still wanted saving capability, so they used the memory pack inserted into the controller.  With CD-based games, you simply lost the option of having the save data on the same medium as the game itself, so there it was absolutely necessary to have some external form of saving, whether that be a memory card or space on the console itself.  

Just trying to clarify there.  If game cartridges themselves were rewriteable, you could take an Ocarina of Time cartridge and reprogram it to be Goldeneye, which simply isn't the case.  However, you can manipulate the save space on the cartridges with the right hardware (like later Gameshark carts, for instance).


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## syko5150 (Jun 1, 2010)

i have a ton of N64 games and i never owned a memory pak i never came across a game that needed it...Wasn't Super Mario 64 the first game to come out for N64? and that saved to the cartridge.

the memory pak was just for optional junk on games...eg. i have a profile on a game and i want to take it to my friends house to use on his cartridge.


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## VmprHntrD (Jun 1, 2010)

Well just because you own a bunch of N64 games doesn't suddenly make it fact there's a good little pile of quality 64 titles that stupidly force the use of the memory pak to save because of some tightwad companies.  Look here's a link to a web forum that breaks down all the USA titles into groups of, save to the cart, save some data to cart, can save to cart or controller pak, those that just don't save at all, and the list of those that need the controller (memory) pak to save.  There's a LOT, lot more than I thought, and it even lists the size of the memory pages required per game.

http://s9.zetaboards.com/Nintendo_64_Forev...opic/7041206/1/

Have fun, this spells it out with names, sizes, all of it.


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