SNES Cartmod -> Live A Live on World Cup 94 wont save

Snoot · Post by **Snoot** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 4:27 am

Hi, i soldered a translated Live A Live on a World Cup 94. The Game works perfectly but it wont save. When i try to save i get the message "game saved" but the save-slot remains blank.

i tried changing the battery, but without success.

maybe you can give me some sort of advice?

Update: i also found out that the game will only work with an import adapter. its a pal cartridge and i tried it in my us snes result: no signal
in my pal snes i get the "not designed for your console" message.

the whole stuff sounds a bit messed up, is there a way to fix this? thanks!

thank you!

MottZilla · Post by **MottZilla** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 6:04 am

It's possible the game uses non standard SRAM mapping or a SRAM mapping that is just different than your donor cartridge. You'd need to investigate that.

Snoot · Post by **Snoot** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 7:57 am

mh, mh there seems to be no difference..... this thing is driving me crazy

mic_ · Post by **mic_** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 8:04 am

I'm guessing that you used a US/JAP ROM image. The reason why you get the "not designed for your console" message is that the game checks if your console is PAL or NTSC by reading a PPU register. You can remove those checks with SNESTool before burning the game to the memory chip.

And the reason why you need an import adapter to run the game on your US SNES is that the PAL donor cart contains a PAL CIC, which prevents it from working on an un-modded NTSC SNES without an import adapter.

Snoot · Post by **Snoot** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 8:49 am

heya, thanks for your response!

at least i got the game to work on a ntsc machine. i swapped the pal cic with an ntsc cic and now the game runs on my ntsc super nintendo.

but it still wont save.... and i don't really get the sram mapping stuff.

does anyone has a solution for this?

MottZilla · Post by **MottZilla** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 1:06 pm

Well for example one of the Ys games uses non standard SRAM mapping and still doesn't work on the PowerPAK and may not work on other flash carts either. It all depends exactly how the circuitry decodes SRAM and ROM enable signals. If you had the actual Live A Live cartridge PCB to look at, this could be determined. Otherwise you'd need to watch the game in a debugger for SRAM access.

Snoot · Post by **Snoot** » Sun Mar 18, 2012 2:39 am

aw shit :/ that's a bit to difficult for me.... guess ill have to put the game aside

thanks for the help though!

Bregalad · Post by **Bregalad** » Sun Mar 18, 2012 3:00 am

Live a Live works fine on my powepak, it's just I have to use the adapter that makes the game belives my console is NTSC

Snoot · Post by **Snoot** » Sun Mar 18, 2012 1:09 pm

it works on my super ufo too.

but not on my repro :/

Snoot · Post by **Snoot** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 4:41 pm

salute!

seems like world cup 94 really does have a different mapping than needed.

i desoldered the eproms and soldered them piggyback onto nhl95 and now the game is working like a charm. Well i had to use a 139 decoder since soldering oe1/oe2 to mad 1/16 directly wasnt working. but here i go, a working game :p

thanks for your help guys