GCN Separate JAP/USA memory cards still needed?

[cearp]

Does Swiss help at all with this, make any difference? Or is it still the best idea to have separate memory cards for Japanese games?
I read some Japanese games don't like to display text if your console isn't Japanese, but Swiss can help with that - but I guess you'll still need a separate memory card right?

I'm going to be modding a gamecube soon and I'm just planning stuff out at the moment.
I want to do the region mod, it's pretty easy, and was thinking I could also have an internal memory card for each region, so when I set to Japan, the memory card for Japanese games is inserted, when the switch is on USA, it's a different memory card.
All of that should be doable with just one DPTP switch.
With that, there wouldn't be any chance of problems because each region has a separate memory card.
But... that's only useful if your console isn't hacked, since if you have a modchip or gcloader, your console is region free anyway. And you can play USA games even if your switch is set to 'Japan'.

Maybe this idea of mine is 15 years too late

(PS - In my plan, there would also be a second switch, to turn off the internal memory cards and let the normal memory card in slot A be read)

 

[Lumstar]

Making the region mod also change the inserted memory card should help.

Yeah hacking complicates matters. Some things like modchips (or Freeloader) let foreign games play in the wrong region, causing glitches for some games.

I'm not familiar with Swiss. But I think it can override the region.
That'd be especially good for PAL users, a switch won't set PAL consoles to Japan.

 

[Stwert]

Interesting question actually, I’ll have to run some tests but so far I’ve been using only one memory card for everything. Though I can’t recall off the top of my head if I’ve run any Japanese games as of yet, hence why I’d have to check. But certainly curious.

 

[Lumstar]

Interesting question actually, I’ll have to run some tests but so far I’ve been using only one memory card for everything. Though I can’t recall off the top of my head if I’ve run any Japanese games as of yet, hence why I’d have to check. But certainly curious.

When playing Japanese games without changing region, they'll attempt to save onto a non-Japanese memory card. Some games may ignore this and save anyway (garbled text in the memory manager doesn't really matter). Other games will do bad stuff like erase the card!

If an actual Japanese format memory card is inserted, the system won't be able to read its contents.

 

[Stwert]

When playing Japanese games without changing region, they'll attempt to save onto a non-Japanese memory card. Some games may ignore this and save anyway (garbled text in the memory manager doesn't really matter). Other games will do bad stuff like erase the card!

If an actual Japanese format memory card is inserted, the system won't be able to read its contents.

I knew in the dark days that there was incompatibility with them, I’d just rather hoped tools like Swiss would have finally gotten around this. I’d always just assumed it’d be something to do with Kanji/Kana and English interoperability, considering there’s no problem with USA/EU saves. But you know what they say about assumptions

 

[eyeliner]

Use multi mem cards. Most games destroy the info if the region of the saves is different:

Yours truly learnt from experience. Not a pleasing one.

 

[cearp]

Ok, so, is it enough to have a JP formatted card in slot A and US in slot B?
Or, is there a possibility of corruption of the 'other card' when the game loads and it tries to check both slots?
There must be some games that this idea wouldn't play nicely with.
This idea seems to easy I think...

Any maybe too easy to pick the wrong memory card and corrupt stuff...
That's the benefit of Dolphin, the mc regions are separate and it just works. Maybe nintendont too, but never used it.

 

[Lumstar]

I knew in the dark days that there was incompatibility with them, I’d just rather hoped tools like Swiss would have finally gotten around this. I’d always just assumed it’d be something to do with Kanji/Kana and English interoperability, considering there’s no problem with USA/EU saves. But you know what they say about assumptions

Well if you were to play USA/EU games on a Japanese system, they'd be trying to save to a Japanese memory card.

 

[Stwert]

Well if you were to play USA/EU games on a Japanese system, they'd be trying to save to a Japanese memory card.

Same happens regardless, well it does for my GC (PAL) If I want to save a JP game, I need to format as such. Then it would have to be reformatted to use the same card for PAL/US games.

Fortunately I have plenty of memory cards. But, all I meant was that it’s a limitation which should surely be able to be circumvented with a hack. Not that I’ve had time to pour over the Swiss source code, to be fair, I doubt I’ll have time period and those guys are doing a bang up job without me getting involved. Hell up until yesterday’s good news I was on too much of a downer to concentrate on anything much regardless.

 

[Lumstar]

Same happens regardless, well it does for my GC (PAL) If I want to save a JP game, I need to format as such. Then it would have to be reformatted to use the same card for PAL/US games.

Fortunately I have plenty of memory cards. But, all I meant was that it’s a limitation which should surely be able to be circumvented with a hack. Not that I’ve had time to pour over the Swiss source code, to be fair, I doubt I’ll have time period and those guys are doing a bang up job without me getting involved. Hell up until yesterday’s good news I was on too much of a downer to concentrate on anything much regardless.

It's simple enough to test. Get a blank memory card, save a JP game on a PAL/US console, then go the memory manager.
If the game's saved data is visible in the PAL/US memory manager, that proves the memory card is not Japanese formatted.

 

[Ryccardo]

Yes, Swiss can force memory card region - you have to change the game's encoding option from Auto to ANSI (international), SJIS (Japanese), or off (spoof to firmware region, yes it can be not very intuitive)

Of course the names of the foreign saves will not make sense in the firmware

 

[cearp]

Yes, Swiss can force memory card region - you have to change the game's encoding option from Auto to ANSI (international), SJIS (Japanese), or off (spoof to firmware region, yes it can be not very intuitive)

Of course the names of the foreign saves will not make sense in the firmware

huh so with swiss it solves everything (once set up per game), and let's us use just one memory card...? that sounds fantastic.

 

[Ryccardo]

huh so with swiss it solves everything (once set up per game), and let's us use just one memory card...? that sounds fantastic.

I guess it's not 100% compatible, but that's the idea - and it gets the Japanese Animal Crossing games right so what else matters

You could also set the default charset to ansi instead of auto!

 

[Lumstar]

Yes, Swiss can force memory card region - you have to change the game's encoding option from Auto to ANSI (international), SJIS (Japanese), or off (spoof to firmware region, yes it can be not very intuitive)

Of course the names of the foreign saves will not make sense in the firmware

The only problem with that is Nintendo's memory card manager. While in the memory manager, Swiss won't be running to spoof the region.

Like I said the US firmware cannot read SJIS format memory cards.

 

[R0B0T0]

You could also set the default charset to ansi instead of auto!

Do you mean setting the default to ANSI would handle both Japanese and US games properly?

The only problem with that is Nintendo's memory card manager. While in the memory manager, Swiss won't be running to spoof the region.

Like I said the US firmware cannot read SJIS format memory cards.

I guess using GCMM to manage memory cards would get around this?

 

[Ryccardo]

Do you mean setting the default to ANSI would handle both Japanese and US games properly?

A memory card can be formatted for ansi or shift-jis filenames; as long as all titles you want to save on it implement the correct encoding (whether naturally or through this patch), they will access the memory card correctly!

This of course doesn't mean the names will look right to a software designed for the other charset (the console's builtin file manager is no exception) - but it's not a huge deal, since it will still operate on them correctly and you can identify files anyway by icon, banner, and date

 

[R0B0T0]

Thanks, I just installed a GCLoader into my cube and trying to figure out the best method to play both US & Japanese games without issues (which includes using a shared memory card if possible).

The problem is that write support hasn't been added yet for the GCLoader, so I can't test the Swiss features right now to see how they work.

 

[Lumstar]

Thanks, I just installed a GCLoader into my cube and trying to figure out the best method to play both US & Japanese games without issues (which includes using a shared memory card if possible).

The problem is that write support hasn't been added yet for the GCLoader, so I can't test the Swiss features right now to see how they work.

Try setting the default to SJIS and use a shared memory card. I don't know if any US games have trouble saving in Japanese settings. One little quirk is the US version of Star Fox Adventures will display Japanese text, but that can be avoided with the European version.

 

[R0B0T0]

Try setting the default to SJIS and use a shared memory card. I don't know if any US games have trouble saving in Japanese settings. One little quirk is the US version of Star Fox Adventures will display Japanese text, but that can be avoided with the European version.

Thanks, I’ll try that (once GCLoader gains write access). in fact I would prefer if everything was in Japanese, as I mostly play the Japanese versions of games. I was looking into doing a hard region mod, but not sure if that is unnecessary with my GCLoader/Swiss setup. I still have some US region games so those would need to work as well.

(I’m coming from a Nintendont/Wii setup, where every game can have its own virtual memory card, so these issues are new to me.)

 

[Lumstar]

Thanks, I’ll try that (once GCLoader gains write access). in fact I would prefer if everything was in Japanese, as I mostly play the Japanese versions of games. I was looking into doing a hard region mod, but not sure if that is unnecessary with my GCLoader/Swiss setup. I still have some US region games so those would need to work as well.

(I’m coming from a Nintendont/Wii setup, where every game can have its own virtual memory card, so these issues are new to me.)

A region switch transforms the entire console to Japanese. Down to all system menus and the default memory card format.
Completely different from any other mod.

If you're just curious, it's possible to temporarily change region without modification. Like by using a loose wire to bridge points on the board.