Does the SNES read memory from a different place for certain levels in games?

HochiKongCountry

Apologies if this is the wrong section.



I noticed that SNES game levels with specific hazards seem way, way more likely to freeze, not work or delete save files even on cartridges where the rest of the game works perfectly. I noticed this on Lockjaw's Locker in DKC 2 and Stop and Go station in DKC 1 both of which have a particular aspect that changes the level (water rising and the stop/go barrels). I had this also happen on other games but I can't remember well enough to cite specific levels or anything, just that it seems to always be particularly complex levels with a non-constant hazard of some kind (if that makes any sense).



Someone said it can be triggered by bad SRAM chips, but in cases where it works on one console and not another I have no idea what the problem is. I was just wondering if anyone with sufficient understanding of how the software works knew what causes this?

Nes Freak

when a stage is loaded the ram acsesses the game rom and loads new memory data in to it wile overwriting the old data. so im not sure how the ram work exactly but if your game is acting glitchy its most likly the s ram gone bad if its just on that one console

Guntz

Issues like this can be caused by a bad ROM chip in the cartridge, bad SRAM in the cartridge if it's used as a CPU scratchpad, or the SRAM in the console. If it's just your DKC cart that acts like this in different SNES consoles, then the cart is suspect. If a bunch of games have similar issues on your one SNES console, then it's probably the source of the problem.

HochiKongCountry

Thanks a lot guys. Seems like it was mostly an issue of dirt, but one console in particular potentially has a crappy SRAM in it.