Please can someone explain the benefits of flash carts like the Darksoft MVS multi or the CPS-2 multi over a regular multi-game cart?
I'm not criticizing the approach. I think it is fantastic that Darksoft (and others) are creating ways for us to experience rare games on original hardware. I just don't understand why it is better to flash one game at a time into rom instead of having enough memory for all the games?
In the 80's and early 90's, the cost of rom and other types of memory was high and most of the cheaper alternatives were slow but things are different now. There are a number of options for fast high speed storage. Those 161 in 1 MVS carts show how it is possible to make carts with a lot of games for very little money.
It's unfortunate that someone decided to fill those MVS 161 in 1 carts with a bunch of bootlegs that nobody cares about and 20 too many King of Fighters versions but, it shows that it wouldn't be too hard or expensive for someone to create a multi-cart with every official Neo Geo game and another with every CPS2 game etc. I was kinda hoping that someone would have found a way to hack one of the 161 in 1 carts to replace bootlegs with the genuine missing titles like Fatal Fury Special and Art of Fighting 3.
So, what is the reason for flashing one game at a time when the main purpose of these flash carts is to allow people to play the entire library of a platform on real hardware?
Is there a limitation with the Neo Geo and CPS hardware that would prevent it ever being possible to load games straight from a hard drive or from RAM, or from a Network like the Naomi / Raspberry PI set-ups?
I'm not criticizing the approach. I think it is fantastic that Darksoft (and others) are creating ways for us to experience rare games on original hardware. I just don't understand why it is better to flash one game at a time into rom instead of having enough memory for all the games?
In the 80's and early 90's, the cost of rom and other types of memory was high and most of the cheaper alternatives were slow but things are different now. There are a number of options for fast high speed storage. Those 161 in 1 MVS carts show how it is possible to make carts with a lot of games for very little money.
It's unfortunate that someone decided to fill those MVS 161 in 1 carts with a bunch of bootlegs that nobody cares about and 20 too many King of Fighters versions but, it shows that it wouldn't be too hard or expensive for someone to create a multi-cart with every official Neo Geo game and another with every CPS2 game etc. I was kinda hoping that someone would have found a way to hack one of the 161 in 1 carts to replace bootlegs with the genuine missing titles like Fatal Fury Special and Art of Fighting 3.
So, what is the reason for flashing one game at a time when the main purpose of these flash carts is to allow people to play the entire library of a platform on real hardware?
Is there a limitation with the Neo Geo and CPS hardware that would prevent it ever being possible to load games straight from a hard drive or from RAM, or from a Network like the Naomi / Raspberry PI set-ups?