How To Save Your Pokemon Cart
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ต.ค. 2023
- Game Boy and Game Boy Color games use a CR2025 or CR1616 horizontal mount "Surface Mount" battery (CR2025 batteries will normally fit fine in games made for a CR1616 battery and will last longer)
Game Boy Advance games use a CR1616 horizontal mount "Surface Mount" battery and will need a "triwing" screwdriver to open them.
Most non-portable console games use a CR2032 horizontal mount "through hole" battery but it is worth having a look before you order anything.
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The way I did it was far more risky, leave the game turned on in a GBA while swapping the battery, if your game freezes then game over
Ahaha that’s pretty good
ah yes fire hazard simulator
It should be fine even if the game crashes, so long as the system, and by extension, the cartridge, is still turned on. Even if the cartridge disconnects for a split second, the RAM does take a bit of time to fade before it's unrecoverable.
IIRC that's exactly what I ended up doing for a school project about a decade ago. The weird thing is I don't remember having done any soldering, so either I'm magneto or I'm very forgetful.
I've recently done a similar thing when soldering the headphone wires to the jack while the jack is plugged into my phone. It made perfect sense at the start since I could hear whether I soldered the wires in correctly. But as I went on I realised what a dumb thing I was doing. The phone is fine though.
The appearance of the portable SNES was a welcome surprise.
Finally, a way to play game boy games on the go!
@@sammoore2242kek
@@sammoore2242 yes finally there couldn't possibly be any other way
@@fourtymedia really big missed opportunity on Nintendo's end
@@Schnort I know right
My head cannon is that the little drum lick in the background of these videos is actually Wade playing in the corner live while James is making these.
I wouldn't be surprised if Wade made a little track specifically for James to put on his videos :D
This is genuinely a really good quick and dirty "how to solder" tutorial.
FRAM is pretty amazing for small amount of non-volatile memory, I hope they get it working. The F stands for Ferroelectric, which basically means that it has virtually infinite write endurance at room temperature. Usually the datasheets will list some finite write endurance but only at like constant 100 celcius operation, it's insane. Also they can read/write fairly fast, can max out most SPI bus, so the only downsides are their price and the limited size options.
The tech for FRAM works fine. The issue is its never been popular enough to get the sort of funding needed to get densities competitive with flash. Lots of flash alternatives have had that issue, actually. And yes, it's ferroelectric. What's cool about it is that certain atoms in it's crystal lattice move around to store a 1 or a 0 One of the pioneering companies was a company called Ramtron. Their HQ was in the city I live in, Colorado Springs, and one of their founders was a professor I had at UCCS (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs).
@@ccoder4953 What I really like about FRAM is that usually the datasheets have no ideas what the true limits of their product are. They put some big numbers in there but in reality it has never been tested to destruction so there's always a bunch of text and asterisks to explain where those numbers come from. If FRAM can become more common and cheaper, long term storage will become really amazing.
It was used in the Sonic 3 cartridges, at least in the US
Even if we can only get these into the megabytes of capacity per module, they will still be great for long-term robust storage
I've seen them used in ripoff GBC games. Or something to that effect at least. Got Pokemon Crystal for 1€ off eBay, everything works fine except the real time clock doesn't work when the console is off and the item duplication glitch also doesn't work.
Using that SNES portable from the earlier video to test the games was gold. I was expecting a backlit modded GBC/taco GBA or an SP to test them, or maybe even a Game Boy Light since James is a collector. I think Gold and Silver work fine in the GBL, while Crystal requires a GBC (could be wrong, I lost the Crystal game I had years ago and have never tested one in my GBL).
XD
You’re right about crystal! It didn’t work in the super game boy either
Grey carts are Gameboy carts, black carts are GBC enhanced carts, (you get full color if you play on a GBC) and transparent carts are GBC only. (Yes of course they work on a GBA)
@@schmoople-Eh60m yep, there are a few gbc enhanced games with other coloured plastic too like pokemon gold and silver and I think yellow too
One life hack if you don't have the right screwdriver bit: take the front of a ballpoint pen, remove the actual pen bit so you only have the plastic shell. Heat the tip with a lighter or similar until it gets soft, then press it firmly onto the screw on the cartridge and wait until the heated part gets cold. The soft, heated plastic will form a mold, and if it's strong enough after it cools down you can actually re-use it on other cartridges.
I've heard of that, but how long would it last? I can't imagine that not stripping after a few uses.
@@TechnicalJimActual for me it's lasting for probably 10 years and counting. Usually the plastic of a ballpoint pen is pretty hard, and the screws on game boy cartridges are not that tight
I backed up all my saves using the Memories feature on the Analogue Pocket-it saves a savestate and the save data to the SD card. A bit more expensive way of doing it but you get a whole fpga and multicart system!
I had a copy of Gold that had it’s battery die and me and a buddy had no clue how to replace the battery so we got a Watch battery in which we put in the cart via electrical tape and it worked… though the cart looked a bit… bloated lol.
Would love to see James do a video like this for replacing control sticks.
Yeah, not ideal haha
@@Games_for_James made getting the cart out of the system a pain but it worked, eventually did get the watch battery replaced with an actual GB battery
James is the guy that makes me think "I should get a soldering kit... Maybe I'll be productive, but most likely I'll just muck around every now and then". I've never even touched a solder in my life but the doors that it would open are endless (stares at the Xbox controller with the torn vibrator motor)
A much easier way to source batteries is to install a CR2025 holder. Preferably a shorter one.
Untabbed batteries are easier to find at regular stores. Plus it removes a soldering step for batteries.
Still need to do the bypass though.
you can also cut up some sheet metal and make the plates yourself
@@TorutheRedFoxwhat? The tabs are welded on with a special machine, you can't just solder them on. Same as those 18650 cells that are fused into packs.
it obviously won't hold as good as a weld but it'll still work
@@TorutheRedFox it really won't, soldering takes time, meaning a lot of heat which causes the battery to blow up in your face. Speaking from experience.
I tried cheapening out when replacing a ThinkPad BIOS battery and nearly lost my eyesight. It is not worth the risk.
i managed to do it just fine with my gamecube
Videos like this are a great reminder of how good we have it these days
We can now just store saves so easily without needing to worry about a battery or a device that loses power or becomes bricked, especially with cloud saves.
Well, it's not that sunshine and rainbows. I once lost 5 hours of playtime because i played offline and then cloud saves wiped all i did. Sure, i could use some local backup, i just didn't expect that thing to happen
The "cloud" is not a backup.
Flash memory works by trapping electrons. Due to some annoying quantum physics, the electrons tend to escape, so the bit registers as a 0 instead of a 1.
In practice, this means that stored data on flash memory can only reliably last about 10 years without being powered on and refreshed. Even our "magical" modern tech isn't actually all that magical.
@@masterkamen371 modern flash got error correction built in and operated on controller level. But eventually, error becomes so big that it's no longer correctable.
@@vadnegru Indeed. I mean, the average user probably won't forget about their laptop with valuable data for 15 years.
However, as flash memory gets older, it might start to happen. For example, someone might have a PS2 from their childhood and when they plug it in after 10+ years in storage, the memory card might be corrupted.
A good tool to have when replacing the battery without worrying about the save being deleted is to get a GB Operator from Epilogue or G01 Game Cart Reader from Submodule, you can rip your saves with them to your PC/Mac/Linux device, replace the battery, and then upload the save right back to the cartridge, plus you can also rip the games (And Gameboy Camera photos) and play them on emulators.
Or good ol’ Aussie mate BennVenn’s GB Joey Jr, or InsideGadgets’ GBxCart RW. There’s a ton of GB cart readers/writers out there.
He says that at 1:40
He said that at the beginning
@@chrissss696 Yeah I'm aware, but these devices are really cheap to get and can save you time and back up your games in case one of them dies since these are over 20 years old at this point, GB Operator/G01 is 40 USD (around 62 AUD)
Ill need to look into those. I got a old hame boy camera i would like to get operatinal again and would be nice if i could save the photos
I was not ready for that Super Game Boy... You'd think after watching that NES cartridge video I would have been ready, but I wasn't.
Thanks for sharing, doing this was my gateway into learning soldering and more advanced repair projects! The videos on doing this are a very mixed bag, I'm glad you made it look simple and approachable for more people.
Glad to help!
This reminds me of George Costanza and frogger cabinet.
i remember having a hand-me-down copy of Gold that had a dead battery in like 2007, i didnt understand the problem because I was 9 and I replayed the intro up to the point of naming the rival probably 15 times before giving up, i cannot believe i was so patient as a kid.
Another approach would be to install a low-profile battery holder into the cartridge. My friend had me install them into a couple dozen of his cartridges and it worked quite well. I was a bit concerned that there might be some clearance issues, particularly on his GameBoy carts, but to my surprise everything went back together without a hitch.
Soldering a temporary battery is actually genius and not something I ever thought to do. Hopefully I can just back up my save somewhere before I have to replace my Crystal battery again though
Even smarter is to back it up to a PC beforehand using a cartridge dumper/flasher and then not having to worry about the wires of the temporary battery at all.
Good news James, in Gen 1 and 2, “ruining” a pokemon doesn’t actually happen. As the game recalculates stat experience when you box them, without the need for a level up, it’s fine. Unlike Gen 3 and 4, level 100 pokemon are still able to gain additional EVs.
Is that what he meant? I thought it was ruined as he hacked the game ruining its validity.
@@Slash0mega while that might be what he meant, I find it unlikely, as the game itself has no way of knowing if leveling was done by candy or not, even on a competitive meta data level. Paired with that fact that it was a common playground myth that using any rare candies at all would make a pokemon weaker at level 100, I think my interpretation is more likely. Could be either way though.
Totalphantasm understood what I meant. I always thought a level up via rare candy did not improve a pokemon as much as a level up through battling. Was that not true in gen 1? It was definitely an accepted “fact” at my school
@@Games_for_James Yes and no.
Basically your Pokémon gains extra stats based on what wild Pokémon it defeats. So a pokemon leveled up to 100 by candies vs a Pokémon leveled by battling will be weaker.
However in every generation except for 3 and 4, you can continue to get these extra stats even once your Pokémon is level 100 if you keep battling wild Pokémon with it.
Im not gonna tell James how to solder cos he's clearly got more experience than me, but for anyone trying this at home, please cover the contacts at the bottom of the cartridge with kapton tape while you solder! If you get solder on the contacts, (which is easier than you might think if something slips or moves) the whole cartidge is basically useless.
if that does happen can you remove it with desoldering braid and have the cartridge still function?
not really, its really easy to clean them off. I cleaned off my contacts on the bottom of the board by adding solder, then removing it. Worked far better when i was done
the cartridge connector uses little spring contact fingers that are perfectly capable of making a connection on solder, it works fine what are you on about
You can clean the solder off the contacts, but you'll never really be able to get it all off again and get back to the gold plate. If you clean the contacts carefully, with solder braid, you can still use the cartridge, but solder does tend to corrode more than gold does, so you may have to clean the contacts more frequently. But yes, not a bad idea to use kapton to cover the contacts - we do that at work all the time to protect gold plated contacts during board assembly.
@@ccoder4953 thanks for the info bro
He saved a bird and is a Pokemon fan. Perfection :P
Wow, you got the very first "event Pokemon" and still have the save file? That's impressive.
I did a battery swap in Pokemon Ruby GBA. In that one, the battery only powers the clock. The save file can survive a dead/disconnected battery.
Long life to James the Genius, his adorable cat and all these pocket monsters trapped on colorful plastic squares
I'm so happy to see the portable SNES getting use
always love it when a new James video comes out
It's a bit more expensive but a far more foolproof way is to have a cart reader.
Another awesome vid! I hope the homemade gameboy continues to make appearances because it fills me with joy when I see it!
Very helpful tutorial and nice collection, would love to see a video on the gamecube demo kiosk
i cant believe you finally found a way to play game boy games on the go, what a legend
5:17 Ahhh.. James, that Mew is likley worth some real change.
James and his cat makes me so happy
just before the pandemic I got back into retro games, nothing much, but scored amazing deals on Yellow, Silver (my first pokemon) and Ruby. It's been on my mind lately about losing my saves. I've going to have to look into this!
Thanks James!
Buy a cartridge dumper/flasher, then you'll never need to worry! Those allow you to do backups of your save file and if you do that regularly, you can just restore your save whenever the battery runs dry. No need to preemptively replace batteries and risk losing the save file in the process!
I recommend the Joey Jr. from BennVenn, as it requires no software on your PC to function, so software support into the future is no worry, unlike with most other dumpers/flashers
glad to see you’re getting into the groove with content. i like watching your videos in the morning before work a lot
Glad you enjoy it!
Its always a good day when james uploads
I must have missed that you had a Patreon! Gave you some support, seeing all of your hauls is super awesome lol
Playing the games on the protable Super Nintendo from your first video was really the cherry on top
I watched this when it came out because I found it fascinating, rewatched it today because I found out my Blue cartridge did the thing...
I got my older brothers GB Pokémon games, I had no idea about this! Thanks for the help James!
I always forget about the end cat and it's always a pleasant surprise
It brought such a smile to my face to see that abominable masterpiece of a SNES you made again 😂🖤👌🏽
I know how to do this. I have even done it before. I still watched it because I love your videos.
Congratulations on 120K subscribers James! Dank would be proud! (probably)
🎉
If Gamer Nexus is tech jesus then that makes you tech god. You are really knowledgeable about electronics.
oh wow a legitimate '99 mew. those are rare.
ok i had no idea about those battery in those catridges lol, and the way you changed them so easy it's just funny. it must be sad to try an old game and find out all your savings were lost.
Nice work James!
Thanks!
You can get a cheap spot welder, then add tabs to real good quality coin cells.
I probably should do this
My James senses were tingling. I load up yt and I see his vedio straight away. Love ya videos! They are amazing 🌟
Thanks!!
I wish I had a friend like James.
I smiled as soon as I saw that Lv 243 Marowak, because I know exactly what you did to get it that high 😆
I subscribed to your patreon because I appreciate your videos
Thanks very much!
I dont have a Gameboy, soldering iron, or pokemon games, but I for some reason watched this video in its entirety.
I love your Chanel because you’re very nice and knowledgeable
I appreciate that!
Did Wade make that background beat? its lovely
I had an old copy of Silver that I had the replace the battery on. Brings me back
If you see this, does this same trick work for other carts with battery backup? Like Sega Genesis/MegaDrive or SNES?
Yes, it works for any backup battery
n64 as well?
he says at the end, "the same method works on other cartridges, even for other consoles"
Any games that use a physical battery will work this way. So Sonic 3 or Phantasy Star 4, for instance, would have one of these types of batteries in it.
On some other consoles (mainly N64 and GBA), games save to flash memory. Any game that features a realtime clock would have a battery on the cartridge for it, but replacement should pose no threat to the saves, and the RTC should pick back up from the moment it died.
Its gonna be a good day when James returns.
James thanks you i got couple pokemon games and you are a great source of i formation and i love you and your mates content
don't have any Nintendo stuff but still enjoy watching old mate nerd out
What all do you do honestly this man a hero he do everything cars games saves a bird this is the true James!!!!!!!!
I have a RetroFreak, I've been going through all my carts and 'backing up' all of them
Love the rock and roll racing insert
It’s like red dank 😂… also franks a cat o.o that’s one heck of an orange dog.
Honestly though this was still such a great video James. I love that you started your own channel. It’s very much a great learning experience and quite entertaining 😊
Glad you enjoyed!
The gameboy startup sound is stuck in my head ._. anyway great video (entertaining and educational)
crazy that you got an NA pokemon red as your childhood copy, thanks for sharing!
OMG and a legit NAL mew!
My Pokémon Blue cartridge still has the original save data. I have no way to back it up so I was concerned about losing my data when changing the battery. Thanks for this video mate
I love how you pulled out the portable snes just to play a gameboy game. the portable nintendo sysren
Aw yeah, James video on my birthday!
Happy birthday!
My mod to make this work permanently: look online for your nearest nuclear material supplier, construct a portable reactor, attach it to the game cartridge. Congrats, you now never have to change the battery again!
nice instruction vid
OMG JAMES
I legit followed you only cuz of The Car Thing
BUT YOU FUCKIN' REVIVED MY FIRE RED COPY, i had no clue that's what the issue was
Thank you
a few years ago i got a Game Boy from my big brother and played a lot of Pokemon Red, a few months ago the save got corrupted and i lost motivation but once i saw this video i instantly tried it and it works! thank you a lot! (btw for me it was a bit easier, instead of the gamebit screw there was a normal phillips-head screw and the battery was a normal CR2032 in a holder or whatever theyre called heh)
Sounds like a fake cartridge? Or it has been modded by your brother already.
Many newer fakes don't let you save the game after the Hall of Fame, but the newer ones also don't need batteries, so... Guess you're fine?
@@LRM12o8 I’m not sure if it’s a fake, it’s from the very early 2000’s or even late 90’s. It might be different from the USA ones because it was bought in Finland :-)
I think it might be cool to see a soldering tutorial with this same laid back James vibe
I can’t believe that they sold non pal cartridges here in aus! Also I remember getting mew in primary school from some kid and I always wondered where he got it.
Hahaha this is like doing an operation. You have to keep the patient alive while you work. Interesting video.
Nice, I've been worried about this...
0:37 YOOO, Rock’n’roll Racing! SMD version was my childhood favorite. “Let the carnage begin!”
Back then, Blizzard wasn’t a villain.
Just me watching an Australian man do something that I've known how to do for almost a decade, and somehow still enjoying it.
So this explains why my Ocarina of Time cartridge doesn't hold a save when the system is turned off, but it does if I just hit the reset button. I have a v1.1 cartridge, and it was super neat to see Ganondorf spit red blood at the end, but I had to play through the whole game in one sitting in order to see it.
I never knew there were different versions!
You can definitely change the battery in that.
@@Games_for_James oh yeah, most copies are v1.2, I think a little more than half. Another big difference is the music for the Fire Temple, you can definitely find the original music on TH-cam. I think the only difference is between 1.0 and 1.1 are some bug fixes.
Homie just showed up with a DIY handheld SNES to test gameboy games on it like it's nothing 💀
The hero we all needed
James and the pods are top
Your a good man James! I know these games have gotten very expensive wish I would have kept mine but I played these games so much I don’t wanna play them again lol
James, what is your favourite pocket monster that isn’t a starter or legendary?
Ohhh, I’m not sure! I always said Mew was my favourite because I’m biased towards cats and oddities but you’ve ruled out legendaries.. I’ll have to think about it
@@Games_for_James mew isn't a legendary it's a mythical
@@primemeow bro it is
@@primemeow I didn’t know that was a different thing?
@@Games_for_Jamesit’s heavily debated but mythicals are just rarer because you usually can only get them from distributions
I'm starting to suspect that James and Wade might actually be giant nerds that have cleverly disguised themselves as cool guys on the TH-cams.
Shh don’t tell anyone!
@@Games_for_Jamesnah wade is decently sized
I used electrical tape to fix my copy of crystal back in 2015 by wrapping the replacement battery in it while attaching the positive and negative terminals to the connectors it still works perfectly now
Seeing only 4 top tier patreons is so funny when you're used to seeing all of Wade's patreons scrolling through. But you're probably way more grateful to each of them individually than wade (Not saying that wade isn't grateful, just that Wade won't think "I'm so happy CanadianSombrero123 became a top tier patreon")
Congrats for 100k subs btw
Hahaha yeah I thought the same
What I've been experimenting with is putting in a battery mount so swaps can be done without needing to solder. I then have a 3d printed half front case that I can screw on but still allow access to the battery port. So every year or so I can swap on the half cover, plug the game into a gameboy, turn it on and live swap the battery. It being plugged into the gameboy keeps the save chip powered and the half shell giving access to the battery whilst it's secure in the system. It obviously sacrifices some battery capacity due to the size of the holder etc but it allows for high quality batteries to be used and easily swapped without losing your saves or heat cycling the board. Hence the yearly changes even though I know I could go longer.
Still sounds more cumbersome than spending 40 bucks on a cartridge dumper/flasher to make regular backups
Alright. In college I had a friend who was tired of his crystal resetting but would keep leaving it on. We had the crazy idea that went like this-
1: frantically unscrew and stop half way to turn the game back on.
2: after getting the cover off we had access to the battery WHILE IT IS ON
3: Solder WHILE IT WAS LIVE
4: Save and pray
It actually worked, and we did all this for a 12 hour save.
Haha yeah that can work too! I didn’t think it would until someone else commented the same thing. I think the key is saving again when the battery has been changed.
@@Games_for_James I don't think you need to save again after changing the battery, I believe the MBC has a diode-OR so the SRAM runs off the 5v supply whenever the Game Boy is on.
Nice, you remind me that I have a GBA and SNES cartridge that need new batteries. Assume a lot of my Gameboy stuff would too.
Is that Dank playing the drums in the background of the video?
Great video!
Love the special ductape edition gameboy 😂
Very nice to see you kept the portable SNES lmao
I assumed you'd take everything that's usable and throw out the rest
I love your videos james
And garbage time
And danc pods
When we getting James's aftershow
The tutorial was very clear thanks for that.
I don't have a use for it for now though as I don't own any cartridges (or handheld consoles) aside from a bootleg Pokemon Blue that was given to me by a sibling that was given to them by a cousin if my understanding is right. The board design is interesting as the battery is a CR2032 and it just has a battery slot on the board with no need to solder or anything.
Only cartridge type thing I may need to replace the battery at some point is an EZ-Flash Omega which has a battery, but have no console for yet LOL.
To James, a question what's the soldering iron you use? I ask as I've only tried the cheap 40/70/80 watt ones and the tips are crap and don't heat that well.
A vintage Mew, now that's awesome
This is the most straightforward and comprehensive video on the subject, thank you so much! I actually looked into doing this for myself, but the it was cheaper to purchase a reproduction cartridge and has the added convenience of not having to deal with batteries. Unfortunately, those do not work with Stadium, which is very relevant for Gens 1 & 2.
Also, I really approve of your Eeveelution choice. Kid-you knew what was up :'D