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[olimario]

Animal Crossing on the GCN uses the full 59 blocks of the memory card to store the entire town's information. From location of trees to that Cow's furnishings, it saves it ALL!

Will the DS be able to save and keep track of everything in Animal Crossing DS? Will you be able to save your entire town, your current clothing designs, your house, etc...?
It's something I'm very worried about. I'd hate to see features removed because of the lack of save space.


also...
THIS IS WHAT I THINK ANIMAL CROSSING DS NEEDS
Mini Games
The town should have a tennis court, baseball diamond, basketball court, etc...
You should be able to play these sports against town members.
When you encounter another player wirelessly you should have the option to play them in these sports.

 

[Memles]

I know that a similar if also dissimilar title in Harvest Moon GC has implemented these minigames into the basic design of the title. I'd say that minigames would make sense for AC, if only because they seem to have gotten rid of the requirement to have the dangerously pointy hats.

 

[Lionheart]

It'll all be saved online!

 

[achilles]

After all the cleaning of Grace's car, you should be able to drive it.
Or there should be more nocturnal animals/activities.

 

[monkeyrun]

I believe Animal Crossing is less than 100 MB in size, so I don't think storage would be a problem.

 

[Gattsu25]

I believe Animal Crossing is less than 100 MB in size, so I don't think storage would be a problem.

Even when you need to save the position and state of every single interactable object in the game because they can all be removed/changed?

 

[NWO]

Animal Crossing on the GCN uses the full 59 blocks of the memory card to store the entire town's information. From location of trees to that Cow's furnishings, it saves it ALL!

I always thought AC took up that much space because you could play it for something like 30 years or something. So it needed that space if you were going to play for all that time.

Also the new Game Informer has some details about Animal Crossing DS. Its not much but its better than no info I guess.

"This cult hit for the Gamecube makes special use of the DS's second screen, allowing you to draw on it. Also, the Wi-Fi capability of the system lets four players meet up and chat in the same village."

 

[olimario]

I believe Animal Crossing is less than 100 MB in size, so I don't think storage would be a problem.

The DS carts only have a certain amount of space where data can be saved.

 

[trilobyte]

.

 

[snapty00]

Animal Crossing itself was probably only about 32 megabytes or so.

Anyway, regarding the save data: I'm thinking that instead of saving it for four people, it'll simply save for one person, which would require about 128 kilobytes of space if it saves the exact same way that the GameCube version saved and saves the exact same type of data.

 

[The Faceless Master]

animal crossing was less than however much RAM the gamecube has, since you can take the disk out after the game boots and play the game and never get a please insert the disk message...

though, the save file is 456K... (57 blocks x 8KB), and i assume most of that space is for the actual item/etc placement and not much of it is for individual characters, since you can only have so many items in your inventory/house vs all the other spaces in the entire world...

what's the largest GBA save file, 128K?

then again, who knows what kind of save method DS carts use...

 

[sykoex]

This game also came out on N64 remember?

 

[Hans]

then again, who knows what kind of save method DS carts use...

The size of the save RAM in Nintendo DS games will be equivalent to what's already available on the Game Boy Advance: 4 kilobits (half a kilobyte) for starters, with sizes all the way up to 512 kilobits (64 kilobytes) and beyond made available to games that require it. Naturally, the larger the storage capacity, the more expensive the cartridge's manufacturing price.

http://ds.ign.com/articles/550/550120p1.html?fromint=1

 

[Haibane]

First of all... the save chip is separate and has nothing to do with the size of the data on the romchip.

The GBA has three different save types, EEPROM, SRAM and FLASH.

The DS so far only seem to be using EEPROM.

The tiny little chip up there is the EEPROM save chip.

Compare this with the insides of a GBA cart with EEPROM:

The EEPROM save chips for GBA are either 0.5kilobytes or 4kilobytes.

GBA also has two save types that in their current versions uses chips that are too big to fit into a DS card:

SRAM is 32kilobytes and needs a big honking battery.

FLASH is 64 or 128kilobytes, but the chips are huge.

So, somehow Nintendo are gonna have to deviate from the GBA save types to get bigger saves onto DS cards.
My guess would be smaller flash chips, which would a bit be more expensive.

 

[PkunkFury]

How about including a memory card type device that plugs into the GBA slot?

 

[AndoCalrissian]

I believe Animal Crossing is less than 100 MB in size, so I don't think storage would be a problem.

It was on the N64, where the biggest cartridge (that I've heard of) was 64 MB. I'm sure saving will be fine.

 

[Kon Tiki]

THIS IS WHAT I THINK ANIMAL CROSSING DS NEEDS
Mini Games

I see the brainwashing was a success.

 

[snapty00]

First of all... the save chip is separate and has nothing to do with the size of the data on the romchip.

The GBA has three different save types, EEPROM, SRAM and FLASH.

The DS so far only seem to be using EEPROM.

The tiny little chip up there is the EEPROM save chip.

Compare this with the insides of a GBA cart with EEPROM:

The EEPROM save chips for GBA are either 0.5kilobytes or 4kilobytes.

GBA also has two save types that in their current versions uses chips that are too big to fit into a DS card:

SRAM is 32kilobytes and needs a big honking battery.

FLASH is 64 or 128kilobytes, but the chips are huge.

So, somehow Nintendo are gonna have to deviate from the GBA save types to get bigger saves onto DS cards.
My guess would be smaller flash chips, which would a bit be more expensive.

For the flash chips, isn't a lot of that just the interface, though? In other words, I don't think even a megabyte would be significantly larger than a 128-kilobyte version, would it?

 

[AndoCalrissian]

It's not as if the other animals rearrange their houses all that often (read: at all). The game records if the animal lives in your town, and where the house is, and then it just reads the permanent data from the game card and there you are.

The game saves your town layout (including tree status and holes), your player data, your house layout (which is probably just a simple matrix with a different number for each object) and decor (wallpaper/floor), any music/designs that you do, and what bugs/fossils you have found or caught. I'm trying to think if there is anything else that I can recall would need saving.

 

[Haibane]

OK I looked it up. Seems there is a lot that needs to be saved. 59 blocks is 512kilobytes. Four times bigger than the biggest saves on GBA carts. This will be interesting indeed

snapty00: far as I know there's no interface at all. these are just raw chips accessed directly. And the bigger chips are physically bigger. Compare:

64 kilobytes flash (flash chip on the right)

128 kilobytes flash (flash chip on the left)

 

[Do The Mario]

THIS IS WHAT I THINK ANIMAL CROSSING DS NEEDS
Mini Games
The town should have a tennis court, baseball diamond, basketball court, etc...
You should be able to play these sports against town members.
When you encounter another player wirelessly you should have the option to play them in these sports.

I wanted such events aswell!

I was thinking about every weekend “depending on the season” your town’s sporting team would take on another town in a simple soccer, Basketball, Tennis, Rowing etc.. Mini game!

There could be a ladder and if your town wins you can have a big parade and bag a good NES game!

 

[snapty00]

OK I looked it up. Seems there is a lot that needs to be saved. 59 blocks is 512kilobytes. Four times bigger than the biggest saves on GBA carts. This will be interesting indeed

snapty00: far as I know there's no interface at all. these are just raw chips accessed directly. And the bigger chips are physically bigger. Compare:

64 kilobytes flash (flash chip on the right)

128 kilobytes flash (flash chip on the left)

That's incredibly strange. I have to wonder why this is. If that rate of increase held steady, megabytes of flash storage would be several inches or feet in length!

 

[Haibane]

Hehe, there are different kinds of flash (I could go on a rant here, but I'll spare you ^_^).
Also, smaller denser chips usually cost more.
I don't really think it's a problem technically to fit enough save memory into a ds card, but it could turn out quite expensive. Or, in the very least they'd have to start using different tech. I hope they do, cause I'm not very fond of puny EEPROM saves. No interrupt save in games like Mr Driller kinda sucks.
At first when Nintendo announced that all DS games will have saves it sounded pretty sweet. But if it turns out all, or almost all, will only be using eeprom it's pretty sad. EEPROM pretty much means no state/interrupt save, only level/high score saves. It's good enough for certain games, but I really, really like having the ability to save anywhere on portables. I guess they think sleep mode is an adequate replacement. *sigh*

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Animal Crossing itself was probably only about 32 megabytes or so.

Anyway, regarding the save data: I'm thinking that instead of saving it for four people, it'll simply save for one person, which would require about 128 kilobytes of space if it saves the exact same way that the GameCube version saved and saves the exact same type of data.

I doubt that would make a HUGE difference. Sure, it would save the stuff necessary for 3 houses and each character's personal patterns, but there's still the entire layout of the town and what's in every square which could account for so much more. Thousands of places where there could possibly be a tree, flower, one of hundreds of items sitting, one of hundreds of items buried... certainly if ACDS keeps track of as much as its console predecessors it will use one of the largest built-in portable saves yet.

 

[The Faceless Master]

OK I looked it up. Seems there is a lot that needs to be saved. 59 blocks is 512kilobytes. Four times bigger than the biggest saves on GBA carts. This will be interesting indeed

59 blocks is 472KB
40KB (5 blocks) on the card is used for filesystem
AC's save is 57 blocks

 

[Zilch]

Hehe, there are different kinds of flash (I could go on a rant here, but I'll spare you ^_^).
Also, smaller denser chips usually cost more.
I don't really think it's a problem technically to fit enough save memory into a ds card, but it could turn out quite expensive. Or, in the very least they'd have to start using different tech. I hope they do, cause I'm not very fond of puny EEPROM saves. No interrupt save in games like Mr Driller kinda sucks.
At first when Nintendo announced that all DS games will have saves it sounded pretty sweet. But if it turns out all, or almost all, will only be using eeprom it's pretty sad. EEPROM pretty much means no state/interrupt save, only level/high score saves. It's good enough for certain games, but I really, really like having the ability to save anywhere on portables. I guess they think sleep mode is an adequate replacement. *sigh*

So you're saying when I save in the Pokemon DS games, I WON'T be standing on the exact same tile in the exact same place when i turn my game back on?

 

[The Faceless Master]

I doubt that would make a HUGE difference. Sure, it would save the stuff necessary for 3 houses and each character's personal patterns, but there's still the entire layout of the town and what's in every square which could account for so much more. Thousands of places where there could possibly be a tree, flower, one of hundreds of items sitting, one of hundreds of items buried... certainly if ACDS keeps track of as much as its console predecessors it will use one of the largest built-in portable saves yet.

yeah, exactly...

unique data: character design, items stored, items/etc found, house info for stuff on every floor, etc

shared data: every square of land in the town (game saves if theres nothing, a tree, weed, seashell, basically any item or buried item there, and what that item is for every square), post office stuff, museum, lost & found

i probably missed some stuff, but i'd bet that the shared data is bigger than a single character's unique data, and probably bigger than all 4 characters conbined

 

[snapty00]

Hehe, there are different kinds of flash (I could go on a rant here, but I'll spare you ^_^).
Also, smaller denser chips usually cost more.
I don't really think it's a problem technically to fit enough save memory into a ds card, but it could turn out quite expensive. Or, in the very least they'd have to start using different tech. I hope they do, cause I'm not very fond of puny EEPROM saves. No interrupt save in games like Mr Driller kinda sucks.
At first when Nintendo announced that all DS games will have saves it sounded pretty sweet. But if it turns out all, or almost all, will only be using eeprom it's pretty sad. EEPROM pretty much means no state/interrupt save, only level/high score saves. It's good enough for certain games, but I really, really like having the ability to save anywhere on portables. I guess they think sleep mode is an adequate replacement. *sigh*

Hmm...what storage types are similar in size to a DS card and what is the approximate megabyte/dollar ratio of the storage? Do you know? It'd be interesting to see.

 

[sc0la]

If the game is online Ill buy 2, and two DSs.

JSloan probably remembers some of my ideas of what an online animal crossing could be.

its all in the execution.

I miss their hats already =/ I hope you can still get hats as an item or as an option like the umbrella was

 

[Do The Mario]

Am I the only person who wants to be an Animal in Animal Crossing?

I would love to be able to create my own animal, you could be an owl, dog, cat, house, Lion, Tiger, Penguin, bear, hawk, cow/bull, frog, snake etc…

Select your own style and colours for each different animal type!

You could a pink husky dog or a yellow fox.

It would be awesome!

You should also be able to accessorize with eye patch’s, different hat styles etc..

You could dress like a pirate!

 

[Haibane]

59 blocks is 472KB
40KB (5 blocks) on the card is used for filesystem
AC's save is 57 blocks

Ah thanks. I'm not really down with GC tech.

So you're saying when I save in the Pokemon DS games, I WON'T be standing on the exact same tile in the exact same place when i turn my game back on?

Naw, I'm saying that Nintendo will have to use some different technology from what they have been using so far to achieve that. Pokemon doesn't seem to be right around the corner anyway, but it seems like all the games released so far has been using EEPROM, and probably will in the near future as well.

Hmm...what storage types are similar in size to a DS card and what is the approximate megabyte/dollar ratio of the storage? Do you know? It'd be interesting to see.

It's kinda hard to find useful prices for memory chips. Right now they are using NOR chips for the GBA saves, but they are huge even for NOR chips.
There are 128megabyte NOR flash cards that are the same size as a gba cart, but they cost a pretty penny, $150-$200.
They could also use NAND flash, that's what's in Memory Stick, Compact Flash, SD, most console memory cards etc. The problem is nand needs a controller, and as you say, controllers take space. But the actual NAND chips are much smaller for the same amount of memory.
I wonder whatever became of that fancy 3D matrix memory they were supposed to be using. Complete vapourware it seems.

 

[Deku]

Keep in mind that the GC Animal Crossing has a lot of duplication.

Since your town supports 4 players, the memory card needs to have enough space to store 4 sets of textures. That's including the patterns you save at the sewing store. 4 sets of diaries. 4 sets of letters to be saved at the post office. 4 sets of houses/furniture data (what you have or don't have) and arrangement etc.

Correct me if i'm wrong as I don't have access to AC as i'm typing this so I can't fact check all the stuff i just said. I'd venture to guess that if the AC DS is designed as a one player game where only 1 player can ever exist in a town (which would make sense since it is a portable version) all else equal, Nintendo could probably get away with having a much smaller save chip inside the cartridge.

I wonder whatever became of that fancy 3D matrix memory they were supposed to be using. Complete vapourware it seems.

The Matrix 3D website was vague as to what exactly they were producing. From reading their descriptions back several months ago, I was sure of 2 things. Their miniaturized chips apply to the ROMs and that these chips have a special feature of being write once, which allows for better inventory management.

There was some vague mention of the same process being applied to memory storage chips, but I was never sure if they meant re-writables or the write once ROM chips.

What was confusing was that Matrix's founder, or one of the technology guys was touting this write once feature as possibly being something they could be commercialized as a kind of digital film canisters, whereby consumers buy a blank chip, write data to it and either keep it or transfer the data to somewhere else and throw away the chip. I don't recall much mention of a rewritable memory medium. I accessed the interview from campus using one of the data mining university databases. ABI inform, EBSCO or one of those.

 

[Jonnyram]

Isn't it possible that the whole card will be writeable, like flash cards you use in digital cameras? I think it's similar technology.

 

[The Faceless Master]

4 sets of letters to be saved at the post office.

actually, there's only one set of letters at the post office... the space is shared...

 

[The Faceless Master]

Isn't it possible that the whole card will be writeable, like flash cards you use in digital cameras? I think it's similar technology.

it's possible... that's how NGPC cards were...

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Keep in mind that the GC Animal Crossing has a lot of duplication.

Since your town supports 4 players, the memory card needs to have enough space to store 4 sets of textures. That's including the patterns you save at the sewing store. 4 sets of diaries. 4 sets of letters to be saved at the post office. 4 sets of houses/furniture data (what you have or don't have) and arrangement etc.

Correct me if i'm wrong as I don't have access to AC as i'm typing this so I can't fact check all the stuff i just said.

Not all you mention is duplicated. The letters stored at the post office and the patterns stored at the tailors' shop are communal for everyone in town.

For reference, I believe each 32x32x16-color pattern plus name would come to about 528 bytes.

 

[Mr. Lemming]

Is there an item limit in AC on the Cube? Like... can I only throw 99 objects on the ground, and bury 99 things in holes, and can there only be 255 trees... stuff like that... so instead of having to save what is in every individual square, it could just save the positions of X objects.

 

[monkeyrun]

Isn't it possible that the whole card will be writeable, like flash cards you use in digital cameras? I think it's similar technology.

That's what I think, it should just be a proprietary flash memory card.

 

[The Faceless Master]

Is there an item limit in AC on the Cube? Like... can I only throw 99 objects on the ground, and bury 99 things in holes, and can there only be 255 trees... stuff like that... so instead of having to save what is in every individual square, it could just save the positions of X objects.

no

people actually tried it a few years ago

it records what's in every square

 

[Deku]

For reference, I believe each 32x32x16-color pattern plus name would come to about 528 bytes.

512bytes for every texture?

Edit:

And regarding on-line play, I've suggested the following before when there was talk of AC2 but I'll suggest it again.

AC online's option doesnt have to be a persistent world ala an MMORPG, what I think would be supremely doable if Nintendo would get off their ass and put some money into a few servers is a kind of trading depot system whereby players 'log-in' to their Animal Community server. On this server they can display their custom textures, and their house layout/furniture data can be uploaded to the server and other players and visit a 'replica' house complete with a town map.

This would make collection the town features like trees, trailroad track and houses even more fun since one of the on-line options would be for players to build their replica town for all to see , but they would have to collect their items.

Most important players can trade furiture and even texture patterns online.

This server can also act as a place where Nintendo offer new texture downloads and offer to unlock hidden 'exclusive' furniture. This gets around the whole code system that had hacked and official codes of hard of find furniture plastered all over GameFAQs destroying a lot of incentive for people to actually work for those items.

The kind of data that's being transfered would be miniscule here in comparison to a persistent MMORPG and would be closer to free services like Blizzard's battlenet servers.

Why Nintendo won't do something like this is beyond me.