If you have a compressor or know someone with one you can blow out the slot to clean it out. I usually do it with whatever console upside down so fluff, dust etc falls out with gravity after it's dislodged.

Even if the cart is clean the slot connector might be dirty.
You would think a cart would either work or not, but I've seen freezes and all sorts of weird stuff (on other consoles not Saturn) and it's usually a dirty cart or slot.

the cartridge port can get damaged. I think sometimes it has failed more than the lens. though I wish I had my 3 saturns to check but one was giving me problems a long time ago.

The Saturn cart port is crap, as I mentioned several posts back. The best thing for cleaning it is DeOxit and an original cart but in fact it has quite light gauge pins and it just isn’t reliable.

The PURPOSE of the cart slot was to make the Saturn very open ended. Sega’s official uses are the cart for backup expansion (save space, to take it from puny to nearly infinite) game ROM (used for KOF ‘95 and that Ultraman game that sucks) modems (XBand and Netlink) and RAM expansion (the 1MB expansion for SNK games and the 4MB one for Capcom stuff). Gaijin however, especially 90s kids) have a totally different impression of the cart slot since %99 of the time they just use one cart, some BS HK garbage for region conversion that usually has the 4MB in it. These carts are sometimes too thick or thin which causes problems. They are also total Chinesium crapola so they may just stop working for no reason. Most of the time, ironically, gaijin usually have fewer issues. This is because they only ever buy one cart and never take it out. People who actually switch carts are the ones with the majority of the problems. (If you pirate all your games you won’t own KOF ‘95 and therefore won’t have issues running it. If the Netlink was dead by the time you got a Saturn you never had issues with that. And of course if you’re a collectard you don’t actually play games, you won’t need a lot of save space.)

So if the cart slot hasn’t been fried from decades of arcing and the cart isn’t dead from just being a POS, then you just need Deoxit. Put a *small* amount on the cart and reinsert it a few dozen times, that will hopefully fix it.

I recommend a region switch. You put it in one time and it works forever without hogging up the cart slot with any ugly POS that smells the the interior of a 90s Harbor Freight.

Tasuke: am I crazy or are you playing Saturn games in wide? I think I want to just give you a decent TV because this is heart breaking. Years of you proudly displaying stuff that is clearly not being used properly. It’s like you’re proud that you used the potty for the first time but in fact you got stuff all over your hands and didn’t flush the toilet.

I will second deoxit. It's my go to for more stubborn carts.

Generally once you leave a cart in there aren't issues as Zeta said. My Saturn has the death star pseudo saturn cart in it. The one that does everything, so there is no reason for it to come out ever. It even finally has proper 1MB support. RPGs do fill the internal memory fast (I believe WD wanted to bundle a cart with Dragon Force because of this but wasn't able to) but unlike the Sega CD I don't think there is anything that requires a cart to be able to access. In the case of Sega CD you need it to access the bonus scenarios in Shining Force CD. I could be wrong about this, there might be some Japanese visual novel or something. I have played a few that did not but there are so many.

Does the DSSS (heh...) let you save directly to the cart? That was the only real drawback of the 4MB Pro Action Replay*. You had to go to the Saturn memory manager and swap stuff, you couldn't save directly to it like you can with a real Sega backup cart. The Saturn in general has quite a bit of save space and I don't keep my saves very long but there are some games that in some ways cannot save to internal memory because even the entire thing isn't big enough. Warcraft II for example. You can save between levels for example but not mid-scenario unless you have a backup cart.







* that and having a naff-ass DB25 sticking out of your system that you'd never use...

Playing Warcraft 2 on a console seems suboptimal in general. It is cool to know there are games that pretty much need it though. I've not tried saving directly to it because I haven't needed to. I've been playing Dragon Force 2, so I can check next time I'm playing.

I was kinda thinking Sega was trying to make the Saturn like the Master System with having two options for games since the SMS had a cartridge slot and the "Sega Card" slot. I guess with the far cheaper option of putting games on CD-ROM already built into the Saturn, they never really saw the need to use it for that though.

I've never had an issue with the cart slot on my Saturn :knocks wood:. Like you mention, I never really take the all-in-one cart out of it so it never gets corroded.

Yeah, that was the only example that came to mind. Possibly the Daisenryaku games need larger than Saturn sized saves also, World Advanced and such. In general I'd say that the best use for saving directly to a cart would be if the game required tons and tons of normal-sized saves to really enjoy like Firepro S or Sakura Wars or of course Tokimeki Memorial, the LE of which came with a nice pastel backup cart. Overall I'd say Firepro is probably the one game that really needs the cart...even though its not stated that way. An enthusiast of this game tends to create a lot of characters...which made the DC version the only game I can think of that actually took advantage of the system being able to see 8 memory cards at once.



I do have to say though that some of those PC ports, miserable as they are, have a good feature which is that they have been mapped to a pad so you don't have to click all over the place. Sim City 2000, for example, plays faster on a pad. If only you could see anything...

Region free bios mod (you can buy a kit)
Fram mod (no need to constantly backup saves to cart)
Battery holder mod (for your sanity)

Yes, it is possible to fram mod and install a battery holder. The fram mod has a slight change to keep the battery rtc circuit intact.

I believe laser units are still available, at least for some models anyway (JVC? idk).
There's are at least a couple of local guys that mod these (usually Japanese units as those are a much cheaper source).

I just noticed a Brook Wingman DC/Saturn converter available locally
New.
Price is under $50usd shipped.

I was just wondering if anyone here has used this converter and also if the price seems reasonable.
I'm not expecting it to be comparatively dirt cheap, it's hard to import anything cheaply atm.

Why would I consider such a thing?
Well, genuine DC controllers and VMU's aren't dirt cheap here and I've never come across any DC stuff at work besides a couple of near worthless games (F1 World Grand Prix & Guilty Gear X).
This converter would cover both consoles and has like 200 blocks of DC memory built in.
You can use Xbox 360, XB1 (BT), PS3/4 & Switch Pro controllers with it so plenty of options that I have already.

I have like 19 DC controllers but they aren't worth anything here so I'd rather keep them. Over the years I've had a couple wear out anyway (I played a s**t ton of DC).

I'd say go for it.

does it honestly look THAT awful?!? i guess i truly am blind...

Besides the two games I mentioned I don't have anything else, so yeah it may seem odd that I'm considering this.
The exchange rate is good right now so I'm guessing that might be why I'm seeing this a little cheaper than what I have noticed before locally (the seller is actually Hong Kong based but has some local stock of certain items).

Just thought it might be a good idea to buy one right now, I'm assuming the USD will go up sometime after McDonald Trumpet leaves.

You just like it because everyone’s bust size goes up and the eyes get wider...

It’s not that it’s “that bad”. There isn’t an extent to it and it isn’t a qualitative/moral consideration. It’s that it’s not correct. Circles are ovals. Squares are rectangles. All the people are fat, the fonts are f-ed and the moon is egg shaped. Exactly how bad is that? Does it matter? It’s clearly...wrong. Instead of 12x12 your LD jackets, when viewed on this TV, will be 12x15 or so. Does that seem right? I don’t even own this game or any copies or Moldiver but if the frame is 16:9 and it’s a Saturn or an 80s OVA you’re doing it the wrong way and even in photographs most of us notice instantly.

When the DC was new I used anything but a DC pad on games that didn’t require it. Shenmue Sakura Wars, Skies of Arcadia, etc, no problem. I used fighting sticks, steering wheels, VOOT sticks and Saturn pads whenever I didn’t need the analog or the VMU support. I love the DC and the look of the controllers but extended used of them *kills* my thumbs. The way they force your hands to turn in at that angle...is very disappointing.

I don’t know anything about that adaptor. Mine are really simple HK junk that works very well. VMU support as well as Twinstick (although you will be missing one non-essential button for VOOT).

Replacing the BIOS seems excessive just to defeat region. It’s one of the simplest mods there is. It may be different for those who want both PAL and NTSC though...but I can’t even guess why one would. If it did cool stuff like the Neo Geo UniBIOS does then I’d be excited but...that thing is awesome. Everyone with any Neo should have a UniBIOS but I don’t even know what a custom BIOS for Saturn would even do and I’m positive it’s a surface mount chip so I know is way more difficult to do than a switch.

There are different region free bios, eg you can get Japanese intro version. Or if Japanese units are cheap/easy to source put US intro/menu on it.

Some people argue that it's better than having a breadboard hack job that some people have issues getting working... yes I know you said it's simple but it's probably more simple if you have a board made up ready to go in.
Of course, yes it's a surface mount desolder/solder job so you need to be experienced.

The bios doesn't give you 50/60Hz iirc but you can also do a switchless (via reset button) video mode mod for that.
Also you may possibly need a modchip, but that isn't relevant if you have ODE.

It all might seem really excessive but you end up with no switches on case. A lot more people want that now.

Bangai-O is unplayable with a regular controller for more than like 10 minutes due to this. Really unfortunate.

I can’t even explain how disinterested I am in any of this! I already have the Saturn I want and rarely play boots. When I do I just do the old swap trick. That all sounds like a nightmare of zombie add-on b******t that will never end. When do you play the games?

Yeah besides the costs (I'm talking about for me over here) of having real controllers and DC VMU the actual DC controller bugs me. It's good that it isn't small (like N64 Hori and other small Hori controllers) but the few times I've used one I could feel it would be tiresome. Bad design.
Funnily enough I have no issue with the original Xbox Duke