Hacking can only load 4megabyte or smaller GBA roms

[kroyza]

Does someone know specs on this m3 movie player 3rd? It seems like it only runs 4MB or smaller GBA roms, how come? I havent tried NDS roms but i guess its loaded to the same memory the same way?

 

[FAST6191]

I am not good at iding my m3s but if it only goes that high for GBA then there were models that did that. GBA games required fast memory, which is expensive (or was at the time), where DS games do not need the really fast stuff and can load from SD cards so most of the flash cart makers released ones aimed at people only wanting to play DS games and with limited size or no GBA support. To that end DS games should not be a problem, give or take that the M3 GBA line probably stopped updating some time in 2008 (EZFlash and Supercard were the last and stopped in early/mid 2009) and compatibility for GBA slot devices was heavily dependent upon updates. Not to mention you will need either to run flashme on your DS/DS lite to allow it to boot from the GBA slot, or use a DS slot nopass or hope your DS slot flash cart still has the functionality (many dropped it and I am not sure if there are any homebrew options).

 

[kroyza]

Does anyone know if there is any memory limitations of GBA rom sizes to this card?

 

[migles]

Does anyone know if there is any memory limitations of GBA rom sizes to this card?

In the cart it's written "mainly for nds and nds lite"
You can only play gba ROMS of 4MB in this card. This is the known pro version. It was "mainly" used for Nds games and homebrew..

If the label on the card said for gba (and others I don't remember which systems exactly) , it would be the perfect version that works with gba games up to 32MB

 

[kroyza]

Thank you very much for this information, now i know why it only can load roms of size 4MB or smaller, is it possible to trim larger roms so they fit?

 

[migles]

Thank you very much for this information, now i know why it only can load roms of size 4MB or smaller, is it possible to trim larger roms so they fit?

Probably, but not sure if it's that effective...

Well if you don't have a slot 1 card like a R4 or ds two, but can run that thing in Nds mode through a pass card or flash me..
There is a gba emulator for ds, so it's a matter to launch the emulator in Nds mode and try it...
Iirc, there are now 2 gba emulators for nds.. Don't get your hopes high, they barely work but I guess you can play some games like Pokémon with that...
It's a matter of trial and error to use them..

 

[kroyza]

Aha! Thats a neat solution if the emulators would be good and work, how about GBC emulators?.

 

[migles]

Aha! Thats a neat solution if the emulators would be good and work, how about GBC emulators?.

I think the gba trimmer was gbata or something like that @FAST6191 knows better on that matter

As for the gba emulator for nds, here is one
https://gbatemp.net/threads/gbaemu4ds-gba-emulator-for-ds-i-dsi-entry.281715/
I don't remember what the other one was called.. This is a hit and miss, maybe you can play some games with it but don't get much hopes...
You are better in loading this using a slot 1 card if you have it.

If you really want a card for gba, I suggest a everdrive, expensive but it's the best card now... You can also go with a ez iv, also works wonderfully.

If you have a 3ds,you can use virtual console, or gba emulators for 3ds

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Aha! Thats a neat solution if the emulators would be good and work, how about GBC emulators?.

As for GBC emulators, you can use gomba in gba mode, Iirc you can make small ROMS with just a few games
There is gameyob for Nds mode, works wonderfully
Fun fact, you can use M3 game manager to make a gomba file ready to your card

 

[FAST6191]

GBA trimmers merely take a ROM and trim any unused space off the end. As no sensible dev would use chip sizes beyond that they needed it is never going to go below 4 megs if it did not start there.

Theoretically I guess you could slice up a ROM and reduce its size, however there is no file system like there is on the DS so it would be a nightmare project to do and nobody will probably ever do one (and if they do it will be if the ROM is otherwise conducive to it).