So I was playing Sonic R earlier tonight, I'd say for at least a good hour or two. The moment I passed the finish line on Radiant Emerald; my Saturn randomly cut the video feed. I restarted the Saturn (I have an Action Replay 4M+ to play imports such as Sonic R), start up the game again, and it greets me with some RAM issue in Japanese. My next plan of action was to check the Saturn's system memory, which was ultimately wiped. So I popped the battery out, booted Sonic R without it, got the same message. So I waited a few minutes (had everything unplugged, probably wouldn't matter anyway), Threw the battery back in, launched the game via AR4M+, and it worked. Before you say anything about replacing the backup battery; I just replaced it about two weeks ago. Voltage and number matches up. It seems to still be fully functional even after troubleshooting. The few reasons I can think of this happening could be: I had AR codes on, I dunno why it would immediately kill the video feed. (Stupid shit like 999 rings and 5 Sonic coins because I cba to unlock everything a second time) :v:/> My Saturn was feeling a bit warm, but most consoles give off some sort of warmth after an exponential amount of time. Something had moved, yet, my Saturn is stationary at all times. Battery is likely defective(?) Thankfully, I backed up the majority of my saves just the other night. Help is greatly appreciated.
I don't see any possible reason for using cheats in Sonic R unless your bored as Hell and trying to break the game. Sonic R takes about 30 minutes to beat and unlock everything, now if it was Sonic Adventure 2, you have to call the SWAT team in if I lost that save (super frustrating and takes weeks to months to do with a reward that isn't worth it).
You forget that Sonic R controls terribly and unlocking everything can be a chore to people that don't master the slipppery controls and massive maps.
I think I might know why my Saturn randomly crashed. In Radiant Emerald, are are no Sonic coins. Collecting five of them in any level grants you to race with an unlockable character. Seeing as Radiant Emerald has absolutely nothing in terms of collectibles, the game has no idea what to do and crashes.
The game crashed while writing to the memory and corrupted the filesystem, forcing you to format it. Sonic R is indeed easy, just unlock all the emeralds and then go for the coins with supersonic. Since he can complete any course a minute faster than the rest of the cast, you'll have an easy time. Oddly I never had control problems with Sonic R. Just use both turning and the corresponding side break (L and R shift for left and right breaks) together; it allows you to turn around way faster.
Mod your system manually to play imports. Play imports without using potentially flaky third-party peripherals. Profit.
Also remember to always copy your saves from your system to a memory cartridge so it doesn't happen again. And don't save directly to your specific memory cartridge that is used for backup save copies. That way you don't risk getting it corrupted if a scratch on a disc causes a game to crash while the data is writing. It happened to me once in Sonic Jam and I was furious about having to format my memory cartridge. Shouldn't have been saving directly to it.
I don't think the AR+ 4M carts allow you to save directly to them (if this is the one he has), so it's not really an option, but you have to manually copy your files into the cart while on the Action Replay menu. If you're like me and have a Saturn that wipes itself every time it turns off (read: too lazy to stick a new CR2032 in there), that means resetting your console when you're done playing and doing the back up. You can just flash the saves back onto the system RAM on next boot up.
While this is an old thread, regarding an unrelated game to my case. I do want to present my case here instead of starting a new thread because it is very...peculiar. Years ago, I got myself a Model 2 SEGA Saturn, alongside an official SEGA Saturn Backup Cartridge, and a number of games. The game that I want to bring up though is Virtua Racing. Keep in mind, European version specifically, with a European Saturn and a European Backup Cartridge (if it matters). I found out while playing Grand Prix mode that if you save to the official Backup Cartridge, this will cause the game to crash, and (possibly, this doesn't always happen from my tests) corrupt the Backup Cartridge. The first time this happened, I just thought it was a one time thing, until the same thing happened again, with no crashes happening when saving to the battery. By that point, I had narrowed it down to either the game or the Cartridge in question. Years later, I got myself a 2nd Saturn, and a 2nd official Backup Cartridge, and proceeded to test this exact setup again. And...it resulted in a crash once again. You'd think by this point, I'd be 100% sure it's the game that's the issue. But to make things even stranger. When dumping my disc to the PC, and testing that exact same setup on an emulator (Mednafen I believe) that didn't result in a crash. So...any clue on what may possibly be the cause? I do like Virtua Racing, but I'm honestly not even comfortable playing Grand Prix mode nowadays because of that issue lol.
I don't know how complete this list is, but: https://segaretro.org/Category:Saturn_Backup_Memory-compatible_games Virtua Racing doesn't appear to be on the list. It's weird that it (presumably) allows you to select the backup cartridge as a save location though. The cartridge slot itself is notoriously fragile. Perhaps you've just been unlucky...twice?
That list is most definitely incomplete, I can say for certain Daytona USA for example does support saving to the Backup Cartridge, but it isn't listed here. I compiled a list years ago off of my own collection, I will see if I can find it. That said, for Virtua Racing I doubt I just got unlucky because, well...while I tested this on two different systems and Backup Cartridges. It actually happened (the crash) almost every single time I actually tested it on real hardware. To the point where I actually recorded this entire setup and all. I do also want to note one more thing. The crash doesn't occur when saving the regular game's contents (Time Attack records for example) to the Backup Cartridge. Rather it occurs specifically when saving Grand Prix Mode progress. P.S I found the list I documented "Games that can load directly from Backup Cartridge 1.Sonic Jam Confirmed (Creates Save File In Internal Battery But Will Also Load From Cartridge If Moved There) 2.Sonic R Confirmed (But Sonic R Can Create A Save On the Internal Battery) 3.Daytona USA Confirmed (Creates Save File In Internal Battery But Can Load From Cartridge) 4.Sega Rally Championship Confirmed 5.Virtua Fighter Confirmed 6.Virtua Fighter Remix Confirmed 7.Sim City 2000 Confirmed 8.Virtua Racing (Options And Arcade) Confirmed (DO NOT EVER SAVE IN GRAND PRIX MODE IT WILL CORRUPT BACKUP CARTRIDGE, EVEN WHEN SAVED TO BATTERY, AND WHEN SAVED TO CARTRIDGE DIRECTLY THE GAME WILL CRASH) 9.Guardian Heroes Confirmed 10.Sega Ages (Normally Will Save In Internal Battery Even If Cartridge Is Inserted However If you Move The Save File To The Cartridge And Delete It From The Internal Battery It Will Start Loading And Saving From The Cartridge) 11.Virtua Fighter Kids Confirmed ??.Resident Evil (Unknown It Saved To The Internal Battery But I Cant Pick Load Game Whether I am Loading From A Cartridge Or The Internal Battery) 12.Daytona USA CCE Confirmed 13.Sega Touring Car Confirmed 14.Panzer Dragoon Zwei Confirmed (Created Save File On Internal Battery However It Did Load From The Cartridge After Moving It There) 15.Steep Slope Sliders Confirmed (You can Pick where you save Your game) 16.Pebble Beach Golf Links Confirmed (You Can Pick Where to save your game) 17.Virtual On (It Will save to internal battery initially but if moved to cartridge loads from there) 18.Last Bronx Confirmed (You can pick Where to save) 19.Destruction Derby Confirmed 20.Manx TT Superbike Confirmed 21.Fighting Vipers Confirmed (It Will Create a save file in battery if a save wasn't available in a cartridge) 22.Impact Racing (You can Pick where to save your High Score) 23.Christmas Nights Confirmed 24.Tempest 2000 Confirmed (Allows you to pick between saving to the Backup Cartridge or the Battery) 25.Grid Run Confirmed (Saves To Both The Cartridge And Battery But I wasn't able to figure out how to load) 26.Croc:Legend Of the Gobbos (You Can Pick Between Cartridge Or Battery) 27.Mass Destruction (You Can Pick Between Cartridge And Battery) 28.Nights Into Dreams Confirmed Games that dont load from the backup Cartridge but load from the Battery. 1.Wipeout Confirmed 2.FIFA 96 Confirmed 3 Bug Confirmed 4.The Need For Speed Confirmed 5.Crimewave Confirmed 6.Sky Target Confirmed (Changed The Option Screen Setting And Only Loaded From The Battery) 7.Dragonball Z:Legends Confirmed 8.Wipeout 2097 Confirmed 9.Sega Worldwide Soccer 97 (Has a pretty impressive Save Data Manager for all the games But I can never figure out how to load from the cartridge) 10.FIFA 1997 (If There is no Save File Present In Battery It Will Load Up From The Cartridge But It Will Save Back To The Battery Even If There is A Save File Present In The Cartridge)"
