I got a Sega Saturn today and I saw that some of the games I want to get first require 4MB RAM expansion. I figured I could search this whole site, but I decided not to, only for the fact that opinions could change. Or products could be taken out of production. So as of October 2013, what is the best 4MB cartridge, in your opinion.
Well, a guy at the game shop that I bought it from told me I should get one of the "Action Replay" carts. Simply for the fact that it can be either a 1MB or a 4MB, be a save cart, and run cheats from it and that he's been satisfied with it for years. But if someone knew of anything better, or maybe knew that the "Action Replay" cart was garbage, I'd trust you on this site. Way more than a random person.
Why is this so hard? I acknowledged the reply "they all work equally well" and I understood that. So I revised the question to get a better answer for what I needed to know. I clearly didn't get one, so now I have to revise it to be even more precise. To utilize my money in the best fashion possible, I need to know the following. Which expansion cart is the most feature rich and is also good on price? Is the Action Replay the only one that does a multitude of things and the rest are just RAM expansion? Are the ones that have a lot of features more expensive? Or are they all along the same price point? Do all cartridges have multifunctions? These are the things I need to know. If someone could please just answer them, I'll give them a virtual pat on the back (and some +REP).
Most meaningful thing to keep in mind, other than potential slot wear, is the inconvenience that Action Replay can only backup saves. Not directly save or load while playing. Import enabler carts don't toggle 50/60hz but that only matters on PAL consoles.
The Action Replay only functions as a 4mb cart. Most 1mb games work with 4mb carts, except for a few SNK titles. Satakore.com has a list for those. It can also boot imports, do cheat codes, and has an external backup memory into which you can copy saves manually (no ingame saving). Downside is that it sometimes fail and needs reflashing (which destroys your savegames and custom codes), and you have to go through the action replay menu every time you boot a game. Normal 4mb cart has no fuss, boots straight, but only functions as a 4mb cart and nothing else.
Wonder how difficult it would be to clone the RAM carts. I had a Datel cart intended purely for saving games to and it was a pair of ST PLCC flash and some other IC, surely relatively easy to clone on it's own but I'd be more interested in RAM carts or perhaps an extended AR cart.
The original Sega 1mb ram expansions have a custom IC on them in addition to the memory. It's probably just some simple memory controller, but who really knows? I haven't seen what is inside the 4mb carts yet. The KOF95/Ultraman rom carts, and the backup ram cart would be easier to clone as they use off the shelf parts.
i'd go for this: get an official sega save card for game saves, get a copy of KOF / whatever with the 4MB card included, then buy anything else as and when needed. if you need to play imports either modify the console (unibios) or get an action replay card.
Thank you synrgy87! That sounds like a good idea. And based off of my research that I've done over the last couple days, it appears as though plenty of people do that. In that case, SO WILL I!