Playing on original hardware is a nice feeling, you get to play on the device the game was designed to be played. However these consoles can be hard to manage. Games came on cartridges and these now cost much more than on first release. They cost a lot more than the console itself and they can be very hard to find. In Hungary, where I reside, SNES games are rare because we mostly had knockoff consoles in the area. You can get reproduction cartridges for lower prices but they can potentially be harmful for your console.
With all that in mind I decided to buy a few original carts for my PAL Super Nintendo to get the most original setting possible and after trying it out I got the idea of buying an Everdrive. This cart lets you use an SD card that has Roms on it. These are the same roms that you can use with emulators. The Everdrive has a flash rom chip where the game rom get written into. Then the SNES just plays the game as if it was a real game cart. Same functionality.
The Everdrive itself came in a very nice box with foam padding around the cart and no additional accessories whatsoever. Not even a printed manual. Of course you can get that from the store's site.
Now although my SNES is modified for 50/60Hz switching my hdtv is not compatible with the refresh rate of the PAL Snes in NTSC mode (59.54Hz) so I'm stuck with PAL mode. The Everdrive itself is region free, but the games run differently in different regions. Running region locked (U) roms in 50Hz mode is problematic, since they work as real cartridges so you get the Region error message. You either need to play them in 60Hz mode or do the lockout chip mod (I did this and it didn't work for me). The other way is to patch the roms files and remove the region protection from them.
I used uCON64 which is a command line tool but it is fairly easy to use. Removing the region protection means that games from any region can be played on any region of snes (any state of the region switch). Now I can play all the NTSC roms in 50Hz mode too.
Using the Everdrive is really straight forward. It starts with a simple menu system, basically a file browser where you can select the game you want to flash. Select it and choose Load and Play. Then it erases the flash rom and writes the game into it. This way the game that is flashed stays there so on the next power cycle you can start that game immediately by pressing Start. No loading whatsoever. This is really cool for when you play a certain game through multiple days (doing a walkthrough).
Every game I have tried so far worked. The SD2Snes is a better cartridge (and costs a lot more) but I think the features of the Super Everdrive will be enough for me. The loading times are not bad at all and the only SuperFX game I need is Yoshi's Island and I have that cartridge so I personally don't need the extra features of the SD2Snes.
With all that in mind I decided to buy a few original carts for my PAL Super Nintendo to get the most original setting possible and after trying it out I got the idea of buying an Everdrive. This cart lets you use an SD card that has Roms on it. These are the same roms that you can use with emulators. The Everdrive has a flash rom chip where the game rom get written into. Then the SNES just plays the game as if it was a real game cart. Same functionality.
The Everdrive itself came in a very nice box with foam padding around the cart and no additional accessories whatsoever. Not even a printed manual. Of course you can get that from the store's site.
Now although my SNES is modified for 50/60Hz switching my hdtv is not compatible with the refresh rate of the PAL Snes in NTSC mode (59.54Hz) so I'm stuck with PAL mode. The Everdrive itself is region free, but the games run differently in different regions. Running region locked (U) roms in 50Hz mode is problematic, since they work as real cartridges so you get the Region error message. You either need to play them in 60Hz mode or do the lockout chip mod (I did this and it didn't work for me). The other way is to patch the roms files and remove the region protection from them.
I used uCON64 which is a command line tool but it is fairly easy to use. Removing the region protection means that games from any region can be played on any region of snes (any state of the region switch). Now I can play all the NTSC roms in 50Hz mode too.
Using the Everdrive is really straight forward. It starts with a simple menu system, basically a file browser where you can select the game you want to flash. Select it and choose Load and Play. Then it erases the flash rom and writes the game into it. This way the game that is flashed stays there so on the next power cycle you can start that game immediately by pressing Start. No loading whatsoever. This is really cool for when you play a certain game through multiple days (doing a walkthrough).
Every game I have tried so far worked. The SD2Snes is a better cartridge (and costs a lot more) but I think the features of the Super Everdrive will be enough for me. The loading times are not bad at all and the only SuperFX game I need is Yoshi's Island and I have that cartridge so I personally don't need the extra features of the SD2Snes.
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