Hacking Battery inside the SCDS-1?

[Searinox]

I just placed an order for a SCDS-1 and I saw on the GBAtemp review that it has a battery inside, though nobody explained its purpose. What does it do, and how long does it last?

 

[raulpica]

It was used when the cart did save on the SRAM and then saved the file on the microSD on the next reset.

Now it directly saves to microSD, so it's not needed anymore.

 

[helpme]

Now it directly saves to microSD, so it's not needed anymore.

its still needed if you run your roms in clean mode (patch off)

 

[Searinox]

Wait... the SCDS has two modes? This is new. What's the differrence between em? Also, is the battery ONLY needed for clean mode? And how long's it last?

 

[TheWingless]

Wait... the SCDS has two modes? This is new. What's the differrence between em?

I think one saves directly to the Micro SD while the other still uses the SRAM? I beleive there was an option in the patcher menu for cheat patching and other options.

 

[Searinox]

SRAM save is the only differrence between clean mode and umm... "dirty" mode? O.=.o; But original NDS carts don't even save to SRAM anymore...

 

[ojsinnerz.]

I never actually used games with the clean mode so far. I've tried around 80 games, and all of them have worked so far, no problem. And did you read the old review? There's a new one. I've also wrote one last month. It's on my blog here.

 

[gratefulbuddy]

While in clean mode, all patches are off. This includes:
Speed (for uSD)
Cheats
Saver (this is the bit about SRAM saves)
Soft-Reset
In-Game guide
D/L play
RTS

But all these can be toggled individually as well. I personally have never had to use the "clean" mode.

 

[Minox]

While in clean mode, all patches are off. This includes:
Speed (for uSD)
Cheats
Saver (this is the bit about SRAM saves)
Soft-Reset
In-Game guide
D/L play
RTS

But all these can be toggled individually as well. I personally have never had to use the "clean" mode.

I've used it once before the Arm7 problems were solved.

 

[helpme]

over the life time of the scdsone there has been several games that have not worked in patch mode & have had to use clean mode until they were fixed
i dont know what they are of the top of my head but im sure if you read the change logs of the older loaders it will tell you

EDIT
a quick look at the supercard site give these games would not work in patch mode
0174,0176,0636,0664,0193,0223,0390,0743,1081,1235,1279,1435,1437,2203

 

[Searinox]

So clean mode just means all patches OFF? Every cart can do that, I'm just shocked that the SCDS-1 goes as far as even trying to emulate the save chip with a battery-backed SRAM, I mean is that even necessary? Like... are there games which will not work if they don't save on SRAM?

 

[Minox]

So clean mode just means all patches OFF? Every cart can do that, I'm just shocked that the SCDS-1 goes as far as even trying to emulate the save chip with a battery-backed SRAM, I mean is that even necessary? Like... are there games which will not work if they don't save on SRAM?

The capacitor is just there to allow saving without patching the rom.

 

[gratefulbuddy]

So clean mode just means all patches OFF? Every cart can do that

There is no way to disable all of the Cyclo's patches.

 

[Searinox]

Kind of useless for all the efffort and money that goes into adding a battery into the cart... oh well.

 

[Destructobot]

Keep in mind that the SCDS1 was released at about the same time as the R4, and up until the R4 every flashcart wrote saves to a seperate chip and then copied them to the .sav file next time it was booted up. The EZ-V has a seperate save chip as well, which is is no longer needed for the same reason.

 

[arctic_flame]

There isn't a battery in the SCDS1. There's a round capacitor that looks very much like a battery, but IIRC it isn't one.

 

[DanTheManMS]

There isn't a battery in the SCDS1. There's a round capacitor that looks very much like a battery, but IIRC it isn't one.

Exactly what I was about to say. I thought it was confirmed that it was a capacitor, not a battery, which also helps explain why it failed so often (causing many complaints against the SCDS before the firmware update that allowed it to save directly to the microSD card).

DS games don't even use SRAM. Not enough room in the cartridges to put the battery. They use EEPROM or FLASH if I remember correctly.

 

[Searinox]

This pretty much looks like a battery to me. http://jph.gbatemp.net/SCDS1Insides1Large.png

 

[Destructobot]

The internal structure of batteries and capacitors is fairly similar, so it should not come as a surprise that the casing can look quite similar as well.

 

[Searinox]

...so that's still a capacitator? XD