Laughs in ROMs
this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
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This does emphasize why ROMs are legal in the first place: as backups.
You can’t make rom backups we here at Nintendo say their unnecessary.
If you crack open the battery-driven memory carts, the battery itself is usually pretty easy to replace. Losing your game saves sucks though. I lost my Link save which was a kick to the nostalgia. That’s when you boot up the ROM save on your computer or Steam Deck like I do lol.
You don't lose your data if you replace the battery faster than the electrons can move.
The article is about 3DS carts.
It mentions other carts and their resilience too.
Which emulator do you use on the Deck? I don't like retroarchs ui, and the other emulators I've tried need a cursor, which is fine but I'd ideally use something else.
I use Emudeck. It works well and it was easy to setup.
I think Bazzite suggests using Emudeck, should also work in SteamOS
I think Batocera uses EmulationStation, which is what Emudeck installs?
I have to look into that. I haven't tried it yet.
Thanks
Neither of those are actual emulators, just unified front ends for ROM management/emulation. Emudeck is essentially an installer and (in)sane config preset tool, emulation station is the frontend you use to boot the ROMs you want to play, in place of opening an individual emulator.
For emulation station you still need to install the emulators to a location it can see them.
Emudeck does that for you, with the exception of citra and the Nintendo Switch emulators.
You can replace the battery while the game is running to preserve the save. Need to have a few customized pieces though.
That sounds sketch asf. Just dump the save file with a flasher. That RAM chip is writeable from the cart pins or it wouldn't work as save data. Cheap flashers come in at ~$25. Dump, solder, reupload.
Why? The battery is just a current, and while the gameboy is on, it’s supplying the current instead.
What you’re suggesting is far more work and steps, and any transfer can corrupt.
There’s no way this can go wrong unless you turn the power off or disconnect the cartridges pins from the mount. Which can happen while using the transfers as well….
You don’t even need a computer, just the cart and a gameboy, and a screwdriver. It’s funny what people think is easier while including a dozen unnecessary extra steps that introduce issues at each step. And costs money.
IIRC from various board schematics at a previous job, typically you have the battery connected into the relevant voltage supply with a diode. So when that Vcc line for your memory module or real time clock is powered externally, the battery just sits idle since there's no voltage drop across the diode to get current flowing from the battery.
It works well because it's analog and fast and solid state. And yeah as long as you don't bump other parts or break something, if you swapped the battery on a powered system it should be fine.
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Or you can just run some software on your 3ds and have it done instantly, without opening any cartridges or buying any products. Need help getting it running? Here you go.
How does that replace the battery?
The person I responded to is talking about gameboy carts that have a cmos that needs to be replaced once in a while.
So those programs aren’t even for what the person wants.
Thread's about the 3ds. For GBA you need DS homebrew and a Phat/Lite console. For GB you need a custom device or an n64 with transfer pak and flashcart.
This is part of why physical copies are not preservationist, by the way. Turning that physical copy into a preservable, emulated-accurately ROM is the end point. The only value physical copies have are as collectible knickknacks (which hey! Collectible knickknacks rule!)
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This is why everyone should mod their 3DS and backup their entire library of physical games.
my copy of pokémon y had gotten more and more unplayable over the years. at first, it would crash when viewing specific models. then, it would crash in more and more places. last year, when i last used it, it was straight up unplayable, the game would simply not boot.
thankfully, only the ROM was corrupted, i was able to salvage the save data using a hacked console, and now it's sitting on my computer, backed up, but still... be careful, everyone.
if you have a 3DS, games with saves that matter to you, and some time to kill, make backups. 3DSes are easy to hack, and with online services being shut down, you don't have to worry about being banned.
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You just need to remember to blow the dust out.
No that leads to more corrosion.
Then you just need to blow it again, duh!
You don't have to use your cakehole.
Instructions unclear, used my fartbox and now there's even more corrosion than using my cakehole.
This is why I was always laughing at people who were kept telling me to buy cheap external SSDs instead of more permanent forms of archival.
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