GBA flasher and linker

[Rubyheart]

I'm looking for a way to play GBA roms on an actual GBA, and more importantly, read/write saves to my from/to my existing GBA games. This is mainly for backing up and modding pokemon saves, so the gen4 games would need to see the save as a valid gen3 pokemon game. I found this, but all the links redirect to the same site, and they don't have it listed anywhere. Does anyone know where I can find one, or something similar?

http://www.gameboy-advance.net/flash_set/256M.htm

 

[FAST6191]

To the best of my knowledge no GBA flash cart of any vintage will appear as legit to a DS game for save purposes, some of the older stuff will work for the basic cart detection/GBA slot bonus stuff but pokemon is not that. You can patch the DS ROM (and later transfer saves around) or grab the save for use with an emulator (desmume has some options here). Beyond that finding vintage gear like you describe is a hard game these days.

If it is just link cable stuff then it should not matter, not to mention you can just eject the save and use an emulator.

If you have a DS flash cart and a DS/DS lite then that is by far the easiest way of firing GBA saves to and from real carts. http://gbatemp.net/threads/legal-way-to-extract-gba-roms-from-carts.363718/ though it also has some links to that and the other save dumping options.

 

[Rubyheart]

I guess I knew I was going to need the actual cartridges, I was going to get the pokemon ones anyway, I had planned on also connecting to the Gamecube/Wii to grab stuff from pokemon Box, I was just hoping to get some of the other goodies in linked games like the tiny chao garden in sonic adventure 2. If I can put saves on the retail cart and everything still sees it as a retail cart with the DSR4 or similar, I'll look into that

 

[FAST6191]

You can do pretty much everything with flash carts if you are willing to fiddle for about 4 minutes per type of transfer you want to do.

GC/Wii hookups are a different story though.

Also be wary of fakes if you are going after original copies, quite a few people out there make clone copies of pokemon as pokemon fans seem to be inclined to pay the prices there.

 

[Rubyheart]

I've been burned with fake pokemon carts before, I remember I won an auction for a penny and got Ruby and Fire Red together. Fire Red was real but Ruby turned out to be a fake.

My main concern is the conectivity between other games/systems, because I could just use an emulator if I only wanted to play the game. If I get a retail cart, and make sure it can connect, I can throw a save on it with the R4 and it'll still be able to connect, right?

 

[FAST6191]

You can usually get a link cable to work between the same systems with flash carts in the mix (though it may take a tiny bit of fiddling) and wireless between any combination of DS flash cart and real cart. Likewise yeah you can rip an original save, mod it or use it in an emulator and chuck it either to a flash cart or back to the original.

About the only thing you will struggle to do is connect a flash cart to something like pokemon stadium* and the like (handheld to home console, though a flash cart will work fine in a GB player). To use pal park on the DS you will need to run a ROM and patch that (again you can put the relevant save wherever you need it, it is slightly outside the possibility for using a cheat engine I believe) or grab the save and use an emulator.

*just the other night someone replied to a thread over at romhacking.net saying they were working on Stadium 2 with rental pokemon already being editable. That and similar patches to things like pal park for the later games should also be possible but nobody has bothered yet.

 

[Rubyheart]

I can trade with a rom of a gen4 game on the R4 and an actual retail gen4 game? That's about all I need to hear now. I should have bought one ages ago.

Thanks so much for your help!

 

[Rubyheart]

Alright so, It's been 9 days since I ordered an R4 from http://www.r4igold3ds.com/ They say they ship within 48 hours, but it's still tagged as "Awaiting Shipment". I've tried to contact them three times, but they haven't responded. Slow, or scam?

I also put in an order for an R4i Gold from http://www.3dsdeluxe.com/ that I linked to through the forum's shop site here, this one says it's a US based seller, and since it's been a weekend, I only ordered it Friday, I haven't been too worried. However, can this site really be trusted? Mousing over or clicking on the live chat heading does nothing, even though there's an arrow that seems like there should be a drop down. It says " Your rank: 注册用户 ,you need 10000 points to reach next level vip" And it seems odd that a US based seller would have user ranks in Chinese.

 

[physicallyinsane]

Alright so, It's been 9 days since I ordered an R4 from http://www.r4igold3ds.com/ They say they ship within 48 hours, but it's still tagged as "Awaiting Shipment". I've tried to contact them three times, but they haven't responded. Slow, or scam?

I also put in an order for an R4i Gold from http://www.3dsdeluxe.com/ that I linked to through the forum's shop site here, this one says it's a US based seller, and since it's been a weekend, I only ordered it Friday, I haven't been too worried. However, can this site really be trusted? Mousing over or clicking on the live chat heading does nothing, even though there's an arrow that seems like there should be a drop down. It says " Your rank: 注册用户 ,you need 10000 points to reach next level vip" And it seems odd that a US based seller would have user ranks in Chinese.

I know this thread is almost a year old, but how did your order turn out? Did you receive it? I'm debating on whether or not to buy from r4igold3ds.

 

[Rubyheart]

It's hard for me to remember the specifics, but I don't remember anything major going wrong. Since then I've used 3dsdeluxe for most of my other flash carts, and aside from some mislabeled shipping info, no major problems there.