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## Pokémon Glitch Discussion

### How exactly does "over-glitching" screw up games permanently? (Or does it?) - Page 1

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#### How exactly does "over-glitching" screw up games permanently? (Or does it?)

Posted by: OtakuReborn
Date: 2012-02-10 10:30:02
Maybe I'm missing something or game boy cartridges aren't organized the way I would have thought, but I would have thought all of the game data (that is, data + instructions) resides on what is effectively a read-only area (ROM, in other words). So it's not possible to write to it under normal circumstances (i.e. not EPROM or EEPROM, and even then, that doesn't make any sense unless it somehow knows how to recreate itself). If I'm not mistaken, the only place you CAN write to is the system memory (in the game boy itself) and the SRAM chip (if it has one, which Pokemon games all have one).
I would think that any glitches you pull off would be corrupting the system memory (which is probably later written to SRAM when you save). All of this is filed under save data, however. If you were to nuke your SRAM (delete the save file), that should take out all of the glitchiness with it, right? Because, if that's the case, I don't understand how, short of physical damage to the chips, you can irreparably kill your game from glitches.
Would anyone care to enlighten me?

#### Re: How exactly does "over-glitching" screw up games permanently? (Or does it?)

Posted by: GARYM9
Date: 2012-02-10 13:48:32
You can't. The Gameboy cannot write to the ROM and the SRAM, if for some reason is causing crashing on boot, can be completely wiped by taking out the cart battery. When you take out the battery and reinstall it, it's effectively like starting with a "fresh" cartridge.

#### Re: How exactly does "over-glitching" screw up games permanently? (Or does it?)

Posted by: OtakuReborn
Date: 2012-02-10 14:45:14
Ok, so when people say that it kills their game, this is referring to the save game, I assume. I didn't think it was possible to kill your entire game cartridge like that.
Though I'm still confused on cases where people start new games, but still see glitches.

#### Re: How exactly does "over-glitching" screw up games permanently? (Or does it?)

Posted by: OwnageMuch
Date: 2012-02-10 16:57:16

> Ok, so when people say that it kills their game, this is referring to the save game, I assume. I didn't think it was possible to kill your entire game cartridge like that.
> Though I'm still confused on cases where people start new games, but still see glitches.

It can't edit the game itself, but if you didn't remove the battery and your save is "erased" by a glitch then it won't have been erased fully, hence "shadows" of your previous save can remain

#### Re: How exactly does "over-glitching" screw up games permanently? (Or does it?)

Posted by: OtakuReborn
Date: 2012-02-11 09:58:05
I see.
But that would mean the game's operation requires it to read SRAM even when starting a new game. Why would that be necessary on a new game? I can see that if you're loading an old game, then any glitchiness will be loaded into system memory and continue the glitchiness, but in the case of new games, the SRAM, even if it wasn't clean, should have been ignored.
Then again, I guess it would have to read SRAM to determine whether or not there is a game to load or not. I guess if the glitches corrupted up to that point, then they could carry over. Or if there's something before loading a game that requires save data (maybe there's an order to the pokemon that fly past in the title screen that I don't know about). I'm just guessing at this point.

#### Re: How exactly does "over-glitching" screw up games permanently? (Or does it?)

Posted by: Bent`
Date: 2012-02-12 21:07:54

> But that would mean the game's operation requires it to read SRAM even when starting a new game. Why would that be necessary on a new game?

More likely that the clear SRAM code doesnt actually clear all accessible SRAM. But I havent looked at this in detail.
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