# New SNES cart. Cheap. Runs all special Chips



## Vladimir (Mar 25, 2012)

So, i found this on sale the Super UFO Pro 8, its a new SNES power cart, apparently, it handles all Special chips games... and.. its $62

http://www.focalpric...rive_White.html

This is the official site: http://www.swapmagic...ontent.asp?id=7

Here are the specs:



> *Operation Manual for Super UFO Pro 8*
> 
> 
> *Specification:*
> ...




Here's a video of it working



What do you think? The reviews on the focalprice site say it actually works pretty good.

Please excuse my english.


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## jimmyemunoz (Mar 25, 2012)

That whole list of special type chip games needs a cart on top, not just the special fx type of chip. And the price is $89 dollars, unless you have a special hook-up you want to tell us about?


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## Sappoide (Mar 25, 2012)

Does it support a snes pal too?


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## wolffangalchemist (Mar 25, 2012)

jimmyemunoz said:


> That whole list of special type chip games needs a cart on top, not just the special fx type of chip.


point taken


jimmyemunoz said:


> And the price is $89 dollars, unless you have a special hook-up you want to tell us about?


focalprice(which is in his post) says $62.82 when i look at it, so i guess when you round it off it's $63 USD but that's still no where near $89.....


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## Vladimir (Mar 25, 2012)

jimmyemunoz said:


> That whole list of special type chip games needs a cart on top, not just the special fx type of chip. And the price is $89 dollars, unless you have a special hook-up you want to tell us about?



Well, on focal price, i see it as $62!


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## raulpica (Mar 25, 2012)

jimmyemunoz said:


> That whole list of special type chip games needs a cart on top, not just the special fx type of chip.


I haven't found that written anywhere, where have you got that info? (I know that it's too good to be true anyway, but a man can hope)

Guess we'll have to wait for snes2sd.


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## vvedge (Mar 25, 2012)

You can read this in the manual : Game Cart Special Chip Support: BSX, C4, DSP, SA1, SPC7110, Super FX (*With Game Cart On Top*)

edit :
just realised that it was in your post too but that it's possible to understand it applies to the whole list or only Super FX...
I also think that it's for the whole list


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## indask8 (Mar 25, 2012)

Before considering putting my money on this I'd rather see it in action especially for the 100% chip support...

Talking about that, where's the S-DD1? The S-RTC? The OBC-1, the ST-0XX series of seta chips?

Also superfx/SA-1 by putting  cart on top? I highly doubt it, those chips are tightly tied with the ROM /Ram on their cartridge I don't think they can be accessed from the outside (only dsp1-4 can and the super everdrive already does that with the tototek t adapter).


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## Vladimir (Mar 26, 2012)

I found a review of someone who tried it at this site: http://www.center-mart.com/cool-stuff-superufo-pro-8-superdrive/

Here's what he says



> GREAT PRODUCT! I loved how it rips any game I have. There are some game roms I've downloaded that don't work on any emulator I tried, but they DO work on the real SNES when played with the SurpeUFO Pro 8. For the first time I've been able to play "homebrew" SNES games on my real SNES, not just an emulator. It's a wonderful product! It's even better than advertised. They say it can play Super FX chip based games, when I found that as long as I have a Super FX game in the cartridge slot, it will use the cartridge's Super FX chip to play the game correctly! I only have 1 SFX chip based game (Star Fox) but I have a feeling if I used that Star Fox cartridge while trying to play a backup copy of another SFX game (such a Stunt Race FX) it would work.
> 
> Overall a very good product, it does very well the things that a good copier should be able to do, but a cheat code device, a Sram game data backup, a Real time game level saver and a USB link DevKit, it should be the highest cost-performance SNES/SFC flash cart on the market. I would rate it 5 stars.


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## h8uthemost (Mar 26, 2012)

Do any of these carts offer any options like SNES9x does to make these games look a bit smoother on HDTV's? I would love to have one of these carts so I can play on my actual SNES, but these older games look pretty bad on HDTV screens.

I quickly skimmed through this carts home page but I didn't see anything like this mentioned.


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## jimmyemunoz (Mar 26, 2012)

raulpica said:


> jimmyemunoz said:
> 
> 
> > That whole list of special type chip games needs a cart on top, not just the special fx type of chip.
> ...


Common sense.



wolffangalchemist said:


> focalprice(which is in his post) says $62.82 when i look at it, so i guess when you round it off it's $63 USD but that's still no where near $89.....


He added that link to focalprice after I wrote my message, check the edited times and you will see I'm right. And I went to the only site he originally linked to which is swapmagic3 and went to the first two vendors and saw both priced it at $82. I like how *Vladimir* didn't mention that he changed his original post. Classy....


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## raulpica (Mar 26, 2012)

jimmyemunoz said:


> raulpica said:
> 
> 
> > jimmyemunoz said:
> ...


My wallet doesn't like common sense 

Oh well, snes2sd it is.


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## Vladimir (Mar 26, 2012)

jimmyemunoz said:


> raulpica said:
> 
> 
> > jimmyemunoz said:
> ...



I edited my post so i could erase another thing. The link with the $62 price tag has always been the same xD. But you're right, some shops have it for around $80-$90 .


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## YoshiInAVoid (Mar 26, 2012)

Want.


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## dilav (Mar 27, 2012)

raulpica said:


> Oh well, snes2sd it is.



Who makes/is making this?


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## raulpica (Mar 27, 2012)

dilav said:


> raulpica said:
> 
> 
> > Oh well, snes2sd it is.
> ...


Here you go: http://sd2snes.de/blog/status


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## BlueStar (Mar 30, 2012)

Really thinking of getting this to have a play around with, but I can't find anything about PAL compatibility.


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## kaputnik (Mar 31, 2012)

BlueStar said:


> Really thinking of getting this to have a play around with, but I can't find anything about PAL compatibility.



It does most certainly use the SuperCIC code, or something equivalent, so it should work fine on a PAL console too. However, there are other reasons to avoid it, one thing I really don't like is the sales pitch claiming that it runs just about every special chip game. What they fail to mention is that you, as far as I know, need to have that specific game cart plugged in to the top connector, which makes that "feature" completely pointless, unless of course you really hate swapping carts. My guess is that it only passes the data from the cart on top through.

If they can't keep straight on something like that, what are the chances that the other claims are total BS aswell?


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## jimmyemunoz (Mar 31, 2012)

Vladimir said:


> I edited my post so i could erase another thing. The link with the $62 price tag has always been the same xD. But you're right, some shops have it for around $80-$90 .


Wow, you lie about some pretty trivial things. I will remember your name for future reference.


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## BlueStar (Mar 31, 2012)

kaputnik said:


> BlueStar said:
> 
> 
> > Really thinking of getting this to have a play around with, but I can't find anything about PAL compatibility.
> ...



Thing is, it's only, what, 40 quid? It's about the price of one 3DS game. Even if it doesn't run special chip games it's still pretty neat for that price, the SNES PowerPak is more than double that and doesn't use nice cheap SD cards for storage either.  Unless there's a better alternative in the same kind of price bracket?


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## kaputnik (Mar 31, 2012)

BlueStar said:


> Thing is, it's only, what, 40 quid? It's about the price of one 3DS game. Even if it doesn't run special chip games it's still pretty neat for that price, the SNES PowerPak is more than double that and doesn't use nice cheap SD cards for storage either.  Unless there's a better alternative in the same kind of price bracket?



You absolutely got a point, I have yet to see a cheaper SNES flashcart, special chip compatibility or not. I just don't like that they downright lie about its features, it really makes me wonder what else they lie about too. I get the same impression from this as I got from all those PS3 jailbreak dongles, it was just about pushing as many of them as possible, often with false feature claims, and once they had sold enough, they dropped all kind of support. Sure, CFW made dongles more or less redundant, but still. Nowadays it's basically only the Cobra team that makes any efforts at all when it comes to customer care.

At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, as i mentioned in another thread in this forum I got a Super Everdrive, and so far I just love it. It's $87 in its bare form (you'll need to get a donor cart to take the shell from aswell, ideally a DSP-1 one so you get a chip + clock generator to transplant too), a bit more expensive than this cart perhaps, but in my subjective opinion the fact that KRIKzz keeps developing the software for his carts, heeding user suggestions, and personally helps you with any problems you might run into definitely is worth the extra money.


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## 1NOOB (Apr 4, 2012)

what about that one :http://www.retrousb....&products_id=84  , they also have a nes one : http://www.retrousb....&products_id=34
 


 also  cx4 chips video    and review http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQERDW2Wb2A&feature=related  of the superufo


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## spinal_cord (Apr 4, 2012)

h8uthemost said:


> Do any of these carts offer any options like SNES9x does to make these games look a bit smoother on HDTV's? I would love to have one of these carts so I can play on my actual SNES, but these older games look pretty bad on HDTV screens.
> 
> I quickly skimmed through this carts home page but I didn't see anything like this mentioned.



It's not the games that look bad, it's the SNES HARDWARE. There is nothing that this or any other flash cart can do to make your SNES look better on a modern TV.
You would have to mod your SNES to output s-video, which, still will only output 256x224. The best you can possibly hope for is for the screen have slightly cleaner half-inch pixels.


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## 1NOOB (Apr 4, 2012)

i was thinking to get a retron3 with a nes,snes and genesis flashcart , should it work with it ?


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## Midna (Apr 4, 2012)

kaputnik said:


> BlueStar said:
> 
> 
> > Really thinking of getting this to have a play around with, but I can't find anything about PAL compatibility.
> ...



Even if your assumption that every coprocessor needs a corresponding cartridge on top is true, the usual setup only requires you to have a cartridge with the same coprocessor, not the same game. For instance, to play Super Mario RPG, it would be acceptable to have Kirby's Dream Land 3 plugged in.

That'show it usually works anyway.


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## kaputnik (Apr 4, 2012)

Midna said:


> Even if your assumption that every coprocessor needs a corresponding cartridge on top is true, the usual setup only requires you to have a cartridge with the same coprocessor, not the same game. For instance, to play Super Mario RPG, it would be acceptable to have Kirby's Dream Land 3 plugged in. That'show it usually works anyway.



I hope I make any sense now, had a few cold ones;

Logically, that would demand that the special chip and its peripheral circuitry is more or less completely separate from the the rest of the game cart, from an electrical point of view. If there's any relevant communication whatsoever done internally between the special chip and the rest of the cart, without passing the cart connector, there's no way for the flashcart to intercept that data, and thus it would be impossible to emulate a genuine cart. I find it very improbable that it's designed that way, there's really no reason to load the cart connector with data that you can pass between the cart components internally.

You might be thinking of how the CIC chips work. That's basically a direct connection between the chip in the cart and its equivalent in the console, where all data passes the cart connector, which is possible to bypass by letting the console get the data from one cart, and talk to the CIC chip in another cart, using a T adapter. But that has nothing to do with the game itself, it's basically just a handshake between two chips to verify that it's an official cart with the right region code that's plugged in. Once the connection between the chip in the SNES and its counterpart in the cart is established, the SNES is allowed to execute the game.


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## zachtheninja (Apr 5, 2012)

raulpica said:


> jimmyemunoz said:
> 
> 
> > raulpica said:
> ...


Common Sense isn't a valid reference.
Not even for a job application at _(unnamed low quality fast food chain)_.


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## BlueStar (May 11, 2012)

One of these arrived the other day, just bought a SNES with two pads and 10 games off a mate which he's bringing round at five and I'll give it a go.  Might do a video review if you like.


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## Rydian (May 11, 2012)

Yeah everybody's wondering about the special chip compatibility.


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## indask8 (May 11, 2012)

Rydian said:


> Yeah everybody's wondering about the special chip compatibility.



I especially want to see how it works on superFX, and of course pretty much every chips, because you can't claim 100% compatibility if you don't run the seta chips/S-RTC/Super FX2/OBC-1... and I suspect them to claim S-DD1/SPC7110 compatibility with the uncompressed roms, but it's cheating.


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## BlueStar (May 11, 2012)

There's an asterisk on the back reading

* Not guaranteed to work with ALL cartridges

But in true Engrish style, I can't find anywhere on the box where the other asterisk is, the one it's referencing.  Seems well built, instructions are pretty thorough and generally understandable.  Came with a USB cable for running games directly from your PC hdd, a disc with drivers on and a microSD adapter.

Unfortunately there aren't any SuperFX games in this snes bundle I'm getting, but there's Mario Kart in there so I can test some DSP games.  There's a retro games shop in town so next time I'm up I'll try and pick up Starwing or something.

EDIT: I tell a lie, Yoshi's Island is in there which is SuperFX GSU-2, so I'll try that.


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## BlueStar (May 11, 2012)

Here's an unboxing video I made while I wait for an actual SNES to play it on


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## BlueStar (May 11, 2012)

OK, still getting my head around it a bit, most stuff works well but the menus etc are rather... Uh, unintuitive so I'm not sure how much of the stuff that's not working great is me not setting it up correctly.  Standard PAL games work fine.  Most NTSC games run fine as well, but some of them give me the region lock out message.  Sometimes this doesn't happen straight away either, I'll play for five minutes and then get the "This game is not designed for your region" thing.

It also really don't like anything with a cracktro or trainer.  Same with translation hacks, although I've managed to run two of them (Gunman's Proof and Mickey To Donald Magical Adventure 3) fine.  Most others give a 'file type' error, which I guess is similar to the 'Bad Rom' message you get in an emu when loading hacks.

Running in 'hypermode' gives you access to the slo-mo, cheats and savestates features, which are turned on and off with combinations of the shoulder buttons and select/start.

Managed to dump Yoshi's Island and play it on an emulator.  Not had much success with plugthrough, with Mario Kart on top I was able to get through the menus of Pilotwings but not into the game, with Yoshi's Island on top I tried running Doom and got a black screen.

EDIT: Fixed R-TYPE III with SNESTOOL to run without giving the region message, but I thought this thing reckoned it could patch them itself.  Unless that's an option I don't have turned on.


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## Rydian (May 11, 2012)

What games?  While many do checks on startup, some only run secondary checks within the actual game at times.


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## BlueStar (May 11, 2012)

Demon's Crest gave me the PAL error when I picked up the first power up, a hack of Super Street Fighter II Turbo gave me the message at start up, let me continue and then gave me it again mid-bout.

I think the problem with a lot of the hacks/intros is that they're trimmed and are unusual sizes, which is why the Super UFO compains about loading them to dram, so I might be able to pad them out.  Wonder if I could batch convert all the (U) roms I have which don't have (E) versions with SNES tool to pal fix them all.

EDIT: Yep, that seems to be what makes the difference, the fan translations that are listed as 8/16/32mb are fine, the ones that are like 17 or 20 give an error.


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## Armadillo (May 11, 2012)

So apart from the region patching apparently not working correctly and special chip support being questionable, it's quite nice for £40? Build quality nice? or typical cheap creaky plastic?

Also I assume a SNES fitted with a Supercic shouldn't run into any region messages?


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## BlueStar (May 11, 2012)

Yeah, mentioned in the unboxing that the build quality is good. Putting the cart in the top and taking it out again is a very tight fit though, feel like I might break something. I've not really experimented with saves yet so I'll give that a go when I'm next at home.


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## indask8 (May 14, 2012)

BlueStar said:


> with Yoshi's Island on top I tried running Doom and got a black screen.



Not gonna work, if you want to play SFX2 games (if it actually work), you'll need a donor cart with more ram...

Yoshi Island: SFX2 + 256kb sram (with battery).
Doom: SFX2 + 512kb sram... (no battery)

Not enough ram to make doom work...


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## BlueStar (May 14, 2012)

I thought sram was for savings games rather than using as "ram"? All other games are using the Super UFO's built in sram, presume if the plug through actually worked it would just be using the chip. Surely if it used the donor carts sram then you'd wipe the original cart's save?


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## spinal_cord (May 14, 2012)

From what I have read about similar carts, DSP games are probably the only games that can work using the chip from a different game plugged in. The rest communicate directly within the cart so can't be used at all. So basically, leave mariokart plugged into it and you can play all the games that the cart can possibly play.


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## BlueStar (May 14, 2012)

Next experiment: Yoshi's Island with no cart in the top - black screen.  Yoshi's Island with original Yoshi's Island in the top - gets to the Nintendo screen and does that black flicker thing when you reset the console and hangs.


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## indask8 (May 14, 2012)

BlueStar said:


> I thought sram was for savings games rather than using as "ram"? All other games are using the Super UFO's built in sram, presume if the plug through actually worked it would just be using the chip. Surely if it used the donor carts sram then you'd wipe the original cart's save?



SFX games uses the cartridge built in sram as a framebuffer (and maybe to hold parts of the program, variables etc...), this is why doom has a sram chip even if it doesn't have a battery to hold the data or a save feature inside the game.

Maybe trying SFX2 games is a bit too much, this thing is just out so maybe it's not compatible yet (or was never intended to play SFX2) ,trying a SFX1 game is maybe a better choice to start (Starwing/Starfox, Stunt Race FX, Dirt Racer, Dirt Trax FX, Vortex... are all SFX1).


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## pyromaniac123 (May 14, 2012)

@[member='BlueStar']
What do you mean you're not getting a refund from the person who sold you a snes?


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## BlueStar (May 14, 2012)

Oh, she was being a bitch and ignoring me, then giving excuses. eBay resolution centre refunded my payment.


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## BlueStar (May 15, 2012)

Is there any program that can quickly pad out a file with zeros to a certain size, without me having to manually do it with a hex editor?


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## BlueStar (May 19, 2012)

Never mind, found one.  Generally, it's pretty good although the menu is rather, uh, archaic.  Anyway, the main thing I'm wondering about is the roms it refuses to load.  It's very finicky about any non-clean roms.  I've not been able to run anything with an intro, a trainer, or any scene demos (which is a shame, because I love cracktros).  The same is true for most fan translations.  However, anything that's been hacked and translated by AGTP (http://agtp.romhack.net/) runs perfectly.  I'm trying to work out what exactly it is about AGTP hacks that allows them to run on my Super UFO, in the hope of modifying other fan translations in a similar way.  Does anyone have any idea?  I've tried fixing headers and CRCs and padding to standard rom sizes (all the ATGP translations are nice normal sizes) and I've had no joy.


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## BlueStar (May 21, 2012)

OK, I've worked out the general rule for if a translation/cracktro/trainer version of a ROM will work - if it's exactly the same size as the original.  I've tried padding out the oversized ones to the next valid mbit size, but they still don't work.  I'm assuming this is because the header still lists it as an 8mbit rom, when the filesize shows it's a 9mbit rom or whatever and so the copier doesn't know how to handle it.  The next thing I wanted to try is editing the header so that it shows a om size which is equal to the filesize, but the only program I can find to do that is SNES Explorer, which I can't get to work on Windows 7.  It gives me the error that comdlg32.ocx can't be loaded or registered, even when I've installed the VB5 runtime and registered the comctl32.ocx file that came with it.  Are there any other programs that can change headers?

EDIT: Aha!  Got it.  Used Snes Stuff 1.2.1 to expand the rom to a valid size and then add a new header and I've managed to get a load of cracktros running I wasn't able to before.  Hopefully this means I can get some previously non-working fan translations up and running as well.


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## indask8 (May 21, 2012)

BlueStar said:


> Are there any other programs that can change headers?



Maybe uCON64?
http://ucon64.sourceforge.net/ucon64/faq.html

It's a pretty known tool, works in command line but can do pretty much anything to any type of rom.


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## BlueStar (May 21, 2012)

Thanks, I'll give that a go as well. I've been using a variety of tools because I've not found one that does everything I need, so it'd be handy if I could get one that does everything


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## gamelover2 (May 22, 2012)

Anyone bought this ,any feedbacks?


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## raulpica (May 23, 2012)

Next one to continue this gets a free pass to an entire WEEK off the 'temp.


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## BlueStar (May 23, 2012)

OK, back on topic I've sorted out the plug-through system and got it working with some games.  I guessed that the game would need to be loaded into dram first and run in hypermode on the assumption that there will be some on the fly patching going on to make it use the chip in the original cart.  However, it seems like the region matters as well.  I was trying to play Mario Kart by loading it into the dram directly from my (pal) cart and it was crashing as soon as it tried to render anything mode7-y with help from the DSP chip.  Tried the NTSC version instead, and it works.  I've also managed to get the (J) version of Super Air Diver 2 and the (U) version of Final Stretch working with Mario Kart plugged into the top and the same method of loading it into DRAM and playing in hyper mode rather than just launching it off the SD.  No such luck with Pilotwings though. 

OK, ignore all that.  I've got the plug through for DPS plug through working with Mario Kart (U and E), Super Air Diver 2 (J), Final Stretch (U) and Pilotwings (U but not E). No need to load into DRAM or run in hyper mode.

I've just bought PGA Tour 96 off ebay because it was the cheapest SA-1 cart I could find over here, so I'll test that with some of the Kirby games and SMRPG.  I've already seen a video of someone on youtube being able to play Megaman X3 with an X2 cart in the top, so it looks like CX4 support is there as well.


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## Coto (May 23, 2012)

BlueStar said:


> OK, ignore all that.  I've got the plug through for DSP plug through working with Mario Kart (U and E), Super Air Diver 2 (J), Final Stretch (U) and Pilotwings (U but not E). No need to load into DRAM or run in hyper mode.
> 
> I've just bought PGA Tour 96 off ebay because it was the cheapest SA-1 cart I could find over here, so I'll test that with some of the Kirby games and SMRPG.  I've already seen a video of someone on youtube being able to play Megaman X3 with an X2 cart in the top, so it looks like CX4 support is there as well.



What about games with SuperFX chips? Yoshi's Island, Starfox 1, Stunt Race FX? They still require having 1 cart using this chip?

edit: nevermind I've just read the OP quote. It should work as long as you have one game having the required assisted chip


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## BlueStar (May 23, 2012)

Yoshi's Island uses SFX2, which is not listed as supported in the manual.  The only other game to use that chip is Doom.  I've not been able to get either Yoshi's Island (title screens work, crashes in game) or Doom (black screen) to work with an original Yoshi's Island cart in the top.  I've bid on a copy of Starwing as well, so I may be able to test SFX1 support.


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## BlueStar (May 30, 2012)

OK, SA1 tests with PGA Tour 96 - only rom I can run with this plugged in the top is PGA Tour 96, all others black screen

EDIT: Yep, same with SFX, with StarWing in the top they blackscreen apart from StarWing, which works and Stunt Race FX which has corrupted graphics.


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## mooglazer (Jun 4, 2012)

I'm pretty happy with the Super UFO Pro 8 so far, not entirely disappointed with the lack of special chip support (for the price, though mine was gifted to me).
8.3 filename limit is annoying
Startup music is annoying
Interface is really terrible
SD Card *must* be formatted FAT32
Documentation is terrible
Single SRAM slot -- potentially VERY BAD (if you're not careful) - manually back up to SD often!
Convert your emulator SRM files for this device using:




```
ucon64.exe --pad -ufos YOURFILE.SRM
```

It stinks like burned plastic when you first open it. No real need to ever use the USB connector, so don't bother with it.


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