Flash2Advance and GB Bridge combo

[thaddius]

One thing I noticed about the F2A GB bridge and some of the GB multi 101 game carts is that the GB games have messed up color palettes when played on a SP or GBC. I'm thinking that the GB bios is only interpreting color for one game.

That happens with my Bung GBC flash cart sometimes. One game that has always given me grief is Megaman IV for GB. The colours are often reversed. I don't really know why it happens, but I'm sure that how_do_i_do_that could explain it.

 

[thaddius]

I'll be adding the Flash Linker files sometime today, just for kicks.

And so I have! Here it is.

 

[raulpica]

One thing I noticed about the F2A GB bridge and some of the GB multi 101 game carts is that the GB games have messed up color palettes when played on a SP or GBC. I'm thinking that the GB bios is only interpreting color for one game.

That happens with my Bung GBC flash cart sometimes. One game that has always given me grief is Megaman IV for GB. The colours are often reversed. I don't really know why it happens, but I'm sure that how_do_i_do_that could explain it.

Probably the flashcart software messes with some header stuff? I know for certain that the GBC bios assigns the built-in colour palettes for GB reading the game header.

 

[DigitalDeviant]

Wow I checked this thread just now and see how helpful my fellow tempers have been! Thanks to dickfour and thaddius for sharing their linker/flash cart software on filetrip. I will check them out on an XP machine as soon as I can and post my results right here.

---

 

[Another World]

i pulled this link out of my favorites archive. does it help you at all? it has some info on what files you need, etc.

http://home.comcast.net/~gbatools/GBBridge.html

-another world

 

[Smiths]

http://home.comcast.net/~gbatools/

Believe PogoShell was supported on F2a. I had FAPro. Still love that my old link and homepage for programs is valid.

I shall one-up Another world for posting my documentation! And just post it ALL HERE!

Spoiler

Terminology:
Padded Pogo : the results of testing show that a Pogoshell ROM needs to be padded to the nearest 32kb in order to function with the GB Bridge; this term refers to a Pogoshell ROM that has been padded
GBC games : The total size of all the GBC games you wish to flash
Compilation : The combination of a Padded Pogo and GBC games
loader : GBC2GBA.GB, the preboot file Visoly distributed with Flash Advance Writer 3.2
Here we go:
First off, using Pogoshell & GBBridge on cards lower than 256mb is far more simple than on a 256mb card
*64 mbit card : seems to be not possible due to loader's expected location & PogoShell's handling of these smaller cards
*128 mbit card : Compilation must be less than or equal to 16,744,448 bytes
On a 256mb card, there are two possible methods for using Pogoshell & GBBridge:
1) Compilation is less than or equal to 16,744,448 bytes
2) Compilation is greater than 16,777,216 bytes and Padded Pogo is less than or equal to 16,744,448 bytes
Explanation:
The 256mb card is seen as two 128mb cards. Therefore, if Compilation goes over 128mbit, it must be split between the two "cards".
This is accomplished by placing the loader in the final 32kb of the first 128mbit (beginning at 0xff8000), and having GBC games begin at the beginning of the second 128mbit.
Therefore, if your Padded Pogo is greater than 16,744,448 bytes, there is no room for the loader before moving the GBC games to the second 128mbit section, and therefore is not possible to flash.
Alternate Loader Possibilities
It is possible, since all combinations use a loader placed in the final 32kb of the first 128mbit of space.
Compiling On Your Own:
An automated tool would have to do the following:
1) Create a Pogoshell ROM (e.g. - create.bat)
2) Pad the Pogoshell ROM to the nearest 32kb
3) Compile all wanted GBC roms into one file
4) Check what the size of Step 2 + Step 3 is
5) Follow the above-mentioned procedure for determining how to pad before loader is placed
6a) If Compilation is greater than 16,777,216 bytes, pad the Pogoshell ROM to 16,744,448, and add the loader and GBC games .
6b) If Compilation is less than or equal to 16,744,448 bytes, combine Step 2 + Step 3 and add loader to final 32kb of file
7) Flash the resulting combined file using whatever program you wish
Please note that this description only created a fully usable Compilation that can be created and flashed by means other than Flash Advance Writer. This procedure does not alter how saves are handled, but can possibly be used during the compiling to sort the GBC roms in such a way that they will utilize the 64kb of save bank 1 in the most effective manner.
I hope this did not go over everyone's head, but like i said at the beginning, I believe this is the most detailed report of exactly how the GBBridge functions in relation to a flash cartridge.

 

[kuwanger]

Ah, good old Pogoshell and the GB Bridge. There's actually something called Pogobridge, released by Newbie that was an interesting take on the idea of merging Pogoshell and GB Bridge in a less-hacky way. Much, much later, I ended up merging the functionality into my fork of Pogoshell v2.0b3. I tried to make the process as pain-free as possible, although I'll admit that my documentation is probably lacking since there's a lot to it all. :/ Also, I made a hack of GBC2GBA, the GBC loader used with the GB Bridge, to have more color control as well as tweak the above mentioned glitchy colors (it happens with SML too, IIRC); I have no idea on the cause, btw. I also really considered trying to import the whole GBC bios palette loading thing into GBC2GBA (as the GB Bridge appears to the GBC/GBA as a GBC and hence the GBC bios can't load a game's palette), but that's a good bit of hassle I haven't gotten around to doing.

In any case, if you are interested in going that route and have problems with the otherwise rather bare details, please let me know.

 

[eastbayarb]

Ah, good old Pogoshell and the GB Bridge. There's actually something called Pogobridge, released by Newbie that was an interesting take on the idea of merging Pogoshell and GB Bridge in a less-hacky way. Much, much later, I ended up merging the functionality into my fork of Pogoshell v2.0b3. I tried to make the process as pain-free as possible, although I'll admit that my documentation is probably lacking since there's a lot to it all. :/ Also, I made a hack of GBC2GBA, the GBC loader used with the GB Bridge, to have more color control as well as tweak the above mentioned glitchy colors (it happens with SML too, IIRC); I have no idea on the cause, btw. I also really considered trying to import the whole GBC bios palette loading thing into GBC2GBA (as the GB Bridge appears to the GBC/GBA as a GBC and hence the GBC bios can't load a game's palette), but that's a good bit of hassle I haven't gotten around to doing.

In any case, if you are interested in going that route and have problems with the otherwise rather bare details, please let me know.

I am so happy someone is talking about this kind of thing in 2012! I have a GB Bridge and three 256mb carts. I was wondering, how many games that use SRAM can you save on one cart at a time?

 

[Arm73]

I also have a GB bridge and a F2A pro 256mb. The flashcart itslef doesn't hold saves anymore, that's why I stopped using that to play GBA games back in the day in favor of an M3 perfect mini SD. But it still works for gb games, as most games didn't save at all but used passwords.
But GB mono games look wrong for me as well. So I just put GB colors games on it.
But I'd like to give it another shot and try it again.
By the way, I also have a USB linker, which should be easier to handle then the paraller port one, I'll see what I'll find out. Once I really wanted to play GB games on my GBA SP2........

 

[eastbayarb]

I also have a GB bridge and a F2A pro 256mb. The flashcart itslef doesn't hold saves anymore, that's why I stopped using that to play GBA games back in the day in favor of an M3 perfect mini SD. But it still works for gb games, as most games didn't save at all but used passwords.
But GB mono games look wrong for me as well. So I just put GB colors games on it.
But I'd like to give it another shot and try it again.
By the way, I also have a USB linker, which should be easier to handle then the paraller port one, I'll see what I'll find out. Once I really wanted to play GB games on my GBA SP2........

Kuwanger,

I would like to try out that pogoshell of yours. I really like how DoctorGB carts (I have three 64mb carts)can make use of a loader called DGBmax, which gives you a lot of different color pallates to choose from for GB Mono games. Perhaps you can look into something like this for the GB Bridge?

 

[Another World]

you could try installing the xp drivers and see if you can get one of the software writers to recognize it. i've had good luck with win7 backwards compatibility.

these links might help:
http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/flashcart-files/download-f2a-usb-linker-xp-driver-setup-f447.html
http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/flashcart-files/download-flash2advance-usb-writer-11-f3746.html
http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/flashcart-files/download-flash2advance-usb-driver-f3747.html

-another world

 

[kuwanger]

@[member='eastbayarb']:

Under [Unofficial] Pogoshell - Gameboy Bridge Support:

Finally, you're going to have to make some consideration about the Gameboy [Color] games saves. The Gameboy Bridge allocates for the first 8 games 8KB each for saves (ie up to 64KB total). If a game actually requires 32KB of saves, you'll need to put 3 games (ie 24KB) of space between it and the next games that saves. To faciliate this, makefs.py will sort how games are added based on their filename. So, you can manually sort games to your liking by renaming them appropriate (eg "largesave.gbx" can become "00 largesave.gbx", "nosave1.gbx" can become "01 nosave1.gbx", etc). Unless you're trying to use a game with a large save, have a lot of (ie over 8) Gameboy [Color] games you want to use with the Gameboy Bridge, or just want to keep the order static in case you add games later, all of this is probably a non-issue for you.

 

[eastbayarb]

Someone that has an f2a/gb bridge working needs to post a youtube vid of the process. It sounds confusing...I decided to start using my Fujitsu Stylistic C-500 LT old school tablet again (dual booting Windows

98 and 2000

 

[DigitalDeviant]

you could try installing the xp drivers and see if you can get one of the software writers to recognize it. i've had good luck with win7 backwards compatibility.

these links might help:
http://filetrip.net/...setup-f447.html
http://filetrip.net/...r-11-f3746.html
http://filetrip.net/...iver-f3747.html

-another world

Perhaps I'm misreading this but are you saying it may be possible to run the gb-bridge/f2a on Windows 7?

 

[eastbayarb]

I read about win7 possibilities, but to avoid any troubles, I just started using my Fujitsu Stylistic C-500 LT tablet again, running 98/2000. It isn't worth the headache to use old school game copier stuff on anything after XP.

 

[eastbayarb]

I finally got pogoshell to work and write games onto my 256mb f2a cart using my game wallet. Now I can create a 128mb file, but I cannot seem to make a 256mb file that works with the gb bridge. Pogoshell's readme file suggests some things on this issue, but has anyone been able to fill up a 256mb f2a cart for use with the gb bridge?

 

[machinoman]

Someone that has an f2a/gb bridge working needs to post a youtube vid of the process. It sounds confusing...I decided to start using my Fujitsu Stylistic C-500 LT old school tablet again (dual booting Windows

98 and 2000

super necro bump!!!!!!!

I got a GB Bridge finally!!! Playing around with it right now. Its relatively easy to set up even without a linker, provided you have a 256Mb F2A flashcart, a DS R4 card (or something like the same), a DS compatible with GBA cards, and a GB Bridge.

The steps I took -

1. On any platform that supports Python 2, install Python 2.
2. Download this file. It is kuwanger's Pogoshell fork mentioned above, but with the necessary GB Bridge settings he mentions on his site already made.
3. Extract the zip file to a folder and put any GB or GBC files you like into its root/Games directory. Change the extension of each game to .gbx, but leave gbc2gba.gb as it is.
4. Navigate to the folder you unzipped in in step 3 in a terminal window. Type makefs.py -b pogo_visoly_xg1.gba root toFlash.bin. This generates a file named toFlash.bin in that folder.
5. Follow Chrushev's guide from step 7 forward.

 

[XC-3730C]

Damn, now I gotta dig mine out from the grave in my garage! I have 3 or 4 or those 256gb F2A carts!

 

[machinoman]

Damn, now I gotta dig mine out from the grave in my garage! I have 3 or 4 or those 256gb F2A carts!

You have a GB Bridge? Bridge Nation!!

 

[xs4all]

super necro bump!!!!!!!

I got a GB Bridge finally!!! Playing around with it right now. Its relatively easy to set up even without a linker, provided you have a 256Mb F2A flashcart, a DS R4 card (or something like the same), a DS compatible with GBA cards, and a GB Bridge.

The steps I took -

1. On any platform that supports Python 2, install Python 2.
2. Download this file. It is kuwanger's Pogoshell fork mentioned above, but with the necessary GB Bridge settings he mentions on his site already made.
3. Extract the zip file to a folder and put any GB or GBC files you like into its root/Games directory. Change the extension of each game to .gbx, but leave gbc2gba.gb as it is.
4. Navigate to the folder you unzipped in in step 3 in a terminal window. Type makefs.py -b pogo_visoly_xg1.gba root toFlash.bin. This generates a file named toFlash.bin in that folder.
5. Follow Chrushev's guide from step 7 forward.

This device brings back memories, I still have the GB Bridge and the 256M F2A cart and the old school parallel Linker device, your steps will come in handy if I want to update my games.
I preloaded the 256M cart ages when I was still rocking WinXP, nothing better than using this on the original GB, GB Pocket and GB Color which I still have and funny enough my worm light that connects to the EXT port still works!