Hardware My GBC and GBA cartridges can save data but doesn't have battery?

Creepy_629 · Aug 17, 2022

About a week ago I bought two cartridges, one of those bootleg called "369 in 1" and a Pokémon Silver repro. I've been playing for this week with both and I haven't seen any problem saving my games. The thing is that when I wanted to remove the horrible label of the "369 games" cartridge I noticed something that surprised me and freaked me out.

None batteries, at all.
Feeling the curiosity killing me I decided to see through the light of my phone the inside of the Pokémon cartridge (GBC) and it seems that seeing also through a small peephole under the cartridge doesn't have any battery either.

I know about how DS games save their files and It seems that those cartridges use the same SRAM or whatever to save games. But when looking for information about Gameboy cartridges that use this technique I haven't found anything and I was curious to see if someone could explain this to me or if someone has a similar cartridge.

KitChan · Aug 17, 2022

Creepy_629 said:
About a week ago I bought two cartridges, one of those bootleg called "369 in 1" and a Pokémon Silver repro. I've been playing for this week with both and I haven't seen any problem saving my games. The thing is that when I wanted to remove the horrible label of the "369 games" cartridge I noticed something that surprised me and freaked me out.

View attachment 322957

None batteries, at all.
Feeling the curiosity killing me I decided to see through the light of my phone the inside of the Pokémon cartridge (GBC) and it seems that seeing also through a small peephole under the cartridge doesn't have any battery either.

I know about how DS games save their files and It seems that those cartridges use the same SRAM or whatever to save games. But when looking for information about Gameboy cartridges that use this technique I haven't found anything and I was curious to see if someone could explain this to me or if someone has a similar cartridge.

Flash memory is quite commonly used in GBA cartridges and I've heard of GBC flash carts simulating SRAM using flash chips.

KleinesSinchen · Aug 17, 2022

While it is true that older games use SRAM that needs to be powered all the time for keeping data, this method has been replaced at some point with EEPROM and Flash Memory which don't require a battery.
Similar to SRAM there might be the use of FRAM. Those don't require a battery -- just like flash -- while behaving like SRAM (the legit Castlevania 2in1 GBA game has such a chip).

(S)NES, GB(C) → SRAM with battery
Early N64, early GBA → SRAM with battery
Later N64, later GBA → EEPROM/Flash/FRAM
Some N64 (mostly early as well) → No internal save at all, requiring Controller Pak (which has SRAM+battery)
DS → EEPROM/Flash (pretty big flash memory at times for storing much information – for example Art Academy storing user pictures)

A legit Pokémon GBC game definitely has a battery (for clock and SRAM)
Strange bootleg carts produced now are not likely to have SRAM (and for a "xxx in 1" there must be a place to store all the information of multiple games and a way to emulate the needed save type). Flashcarts do the same storing the information ultimately on the inserted SD.

metroid maniac · Aug 17, 2022

Bootleg GB and GBA games, including these multicarts, store the ROM on flash memory. The save file is stored permanently in the same flash memory chip. SRAM is still present for temporary storage, but it doesn't need a battery because it isn't used while the console is powered off.

The technique is pretty well understood, Lesserkuma has forks of Goomba Color and PocketNES which can save to carts like this.

Legit carts which don't use batteries use EEPROM or a dedicated flash chip instead.

Sonic Angel Knight · Aug 17, 2022

First, I wanna know more about the bootleg cart. Those are always either fun to have or fun to laugh at the people buying it cause it's just a bunch of roms that constantly repeat over and over with slight tweaks to the game. Never trust anything that has numbers that high.

Second, there is three types of save methods used in these games.
SRAM Requires functional battery to preserve data after power down because it's basically ram (And ram is temporary)
Flash Does not need battery but after too many saves become useless (like SD cards)
EEPROM Reprogrammable Rom (probably the least common method of saving)

And last but not least.
NONE (Because your game uses passwords, maybe has level select or is too short to need any reason to save)

metroid maniac · Aug 17, 2022

Sonic Angel Knight said:
First, I wanna know more about the bootleg cart. Those are always either fun to have or fun to laugh at the people buying it cause it's just a bunch of roms that constantly repeat over and over with slight tweaks to the game. Never trust anything that has numbers that high.

It's a pretty well known cart - you can find it easily online, and I own one.
There's about a dozen or so GBA games, all Pokemon or Marios, and the rest is just emulated NES games, many of them bootleg hacks. I haven't bothered to see if they repeat, but the capacity is rather large (256 megabytes) so it wouldn't be necessary.

Technicmaster0 · Sep 8, 2022

metroid maniac said:
It's a pretty well known cart - you can find it easily online, and I own one.
There's about a dozen or so GBA games, all Pokemon or Marios, and the rest is just emulated NES games, many of them bootleg hacks. I haven't bothered to see if they repeat, but the capacity is rather large (256 megabytes) so it wouldn't be necessary.

There are some repititions among the NES games with different names

trecklerzzz · Jan 4, 2024

I would like to know if you have a backup of the file for 369 in 1, I kinda need it

Jayro · Jan 4, 2024

This bootleg relies in batteryless-patched ROMs in order to save the games to the flash ROM. The large chip is 256MB in size, filled with battertless-patched ROMs. The game saves to 512K of SRAM (64KB) and then immediately flushes the SRAM save back to the unused ROM space on the flash chip. I have this cartridge along with the Zelda 7-in-1 cartridge and they behave similarly, yet different. You can flash alternative menus to the cart too. If you ever need more help, Bennvenn's Discord is a great helpful resource on the subject, and that's where I learn about this stuff as well.

SaulFabre · Jan 13, 2024

There's also a few official GBC game cartridges which used EEPROM instead of SRAM for saving.

A clear example is Kirby: Tilt 'n' Tumble, which uses a MBC7 mapper + an accelerometer.

Jayro · Jan 13, 2024

trecklerzzz said:
I would like to know if you have a backup of the file for 369 in 1, I kinda need it

I have the full ROM dump.

SylverReZ · Jan 13, 2024

trecklerzzz said:
I would like to know if you have a backup of the file for 369 in 1, I kinda need it

Warez/ROMs are not allowed.

ItsMetaKnight · Jan 13, 2024

it's batteryless save (uses sram as temp storage and then copies over into rom data)
you can even flash your own games to it with a tool called gba multimenu, look it up on google cheers

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