Hacking Help with ez flash iv sdhc

[Joexv]

So I received a brand new Ez-Flash iv earlier this month and I been having pretty much nothing but trouble form it. I bought it to be able to play Gba pokemon rom hacks on the go without needing my phone's crappy emulator. But almost every game gives a white screen on start unless I patch it with their loader and then most games either refuse to save, or just bring countless bugs that arent in the game normally.

I believe I am on 1.75 firmware on the black sdhc version. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[TecXero]

Make sure you have the patcher from their website output to the root of your Micro/Mini SD. It will patch the games to work with the EZ4 and will write in the save file so the flashcart will load/write the save properly in the "Saver" folder. The save file and ROM file should have the same name, except for the extension. I do believe there's a manual that comes with the patcher. I'd suggest reading through that. Also, there's a newer patch that fixes a couple of issues on their site.

 

[Joexv]

Make sure you have the patcher from their website output to the root of your Micro/Mini SD. It will patch the games to work with the EZ4 and will write in the save file so the flashcart will load/write the save properly in the "Saver" folder. The save file and ROM file should have the same name, except for the extension. I do believe there's a manual that comes with the patcher. I'd suggest reading through that. Also, there's a newer patch that fixes a couple of issues on their site.

Ok so redownloading and updating the firware on the card did nothing in the way of compatibility. I also redownloaded the client and tried patching again, but it didn't help. Any more suggestions?

 

[TecXero]

Would you be able to give more information? Where are the ROMs stored on your Micro/Mini SD? Where are the SAV files stored? What did you use to dump your GBA games? Which games are you trying to play? What is the size of your Micro/Mini SD and what format? Stuff like that.

 

[FAST6191]

"or just bring countless bugs that arent in the game normally."
Like what? Usually it either boots, doesn't boot or doesn't save. After that any bugs are the fault of the devs or hacker. Exceptions for things like the boktai solar sensor stuff.

What are the base pokemon games as well? The games named for gems (ruby, sapphire, emerald) may also need to patch it with the real time clock fix. http://gbatemp.net/threads/buying-a-gba-flash-cart-in-2013.341203/page-18#post-4756995 should have links to patches for emerald and GBATA for the other two.

"unless I patch it with their loader"
Who said they wouldn't need some kind of patching?

 

[Joexv]

Ok so the saves are located in Saver, the current ROMs I have are(all U),Here are the ones that work with no problems Emerald, Firered, Final fantasy iv, Final fantasy i+ii dawn of souls, and zelda minish cap.

Here are the ones with new bugs not normaly in things like vba.
Pokemon Light PLatinum,--This one when loaded in psram makes the camera move super far away from the player and doesnt quite show the sprite in the correct spot, ie off the screen or a few blocks off the middle. Base Ruby(U)---I think, could be ruby(S), but idk.
Pokemon Victory Fire--- This doesnt allow saving, only boots in nor cause of 32mb size.
Pokemon Resolute----Same issue as Victory fire. Both have a base of Emerald (U)
My own Pokemon Valen---Freezees at title screen, I think its cause it uses a 256 color title screen, but Idk for sure. Base Fire Red(U)

Here are the ones that just straight up dont work
Pokemon Ash Grey--Base Fire Red(U)
My own Pokemon Blackened Night--- Wont boot at all, boots in other emulators so its not a game breaker bug.

And for the record, I did try and go through the begining coding of light platinum to see if there was a missing command to refollow the player with the camer, there was but adding it in doesnt change the issue.

I use Rudolphs gba backup tool to dump my files, andmy sd card is micro sdhc 16gb, but I tried a 8gb micro sd and there was no difference. Oh and my roms are stored in the base folder of the sd card.

 

[TecXero]

If you can try a regular Micro/Mini SD (not SDHC), it could be worth a try. The modded games I play work fine, but they're light mods, nothing drastic as a custom game. If they don't work properly after being patched, then it's probably a conflict between them. I'd ask the authors of those mods as they'll know more about their own mods than anyone.

 

[FAST6191]

Hmm. I have not seen any GBA hacks not work on hardware because they did something odd before (compared to the NES or SNES where that is common enough). Indeed the only issues I have seen have been when the hack makers conflict with the real time clock patches.


.... why do I get the feeling this is going to end with me testing out pokemon hacks.

 

[Joexv]

Well ill try a regular sd card again. Would the ez flash client not be making the save files correctly? Would it be possible to use a working save file from vba do something to maybe help the white screen?

Well since some of the games not working are ones ive made/are being made, i can personally say that there shouldnt be anything that would cause any issues like that.

 

[TecXero]

Have you made any alteration that requires a different size save file than the original game? It's possible the client isn't detecting the new size that's needed properly.

 

[Joexv]

You know I have on the Emerald bases. Those are all expanded to 32mb. How would I go about fixing issues regarding that?

PS Thanks for all the help.

 

[TecXero]

The Patcher is SUPPOSED to allow you to set a custom size, but the Patcher is a bit glitchy and most of its features don't work. You'd probably have to look into patching the ROM so it indicates to the Patcher the correct size. That would be a long term solution that could fix other potential problems in the future with saving on some emulators. There are DLDI tools that might give you an easier and quicker solution, but you might have to dig around for one that will suit your needs.

FAST6191 probably has a better idea, as I've done little with GBA modding beyond some hard mods and just dumping games to flashcarts. I'd wait for his/her feedback.

 

[FAST6191]

The size expansion of the game should have no bearing on the save, equally I am struggling to think of any GBA saves that need to be initialised (a few DS ones did but nothing for the GBA) -- most are just full of 00 until the game comes along, they could just as easily be full of random junk and the game should not care either.
Expansion of GBA games is nothing like expansion for the NES or SNES -- you add the extra on and remember to use the appropriate pointers for the ROM if you go over 16 megs.
If you have for some reason expanded the size of the save (that would probably be a first for GBA hacking by the way) then that could well pose an issue, especially with pokemon as it already uses the biggest save type in GBA games.

cory1492's dumping tools did default to 32 megabytes -- GBA games do not carry a value anywhere to indicate their ROM size so better to go high than dump low. You can delete the excess with a hex editor or you can just use the fix overdump options of http://www.no-intro.org/tools.htm

As you asked about VBA saves then yeah. Save normally in the game and then press file -> export -> battery save. You might need to change the size of it somewhere depending upon the age of the version of VBA you are using (VBA-m largely sorted VBA's very basic save support but some of the mods/forks you might be using could well be based on the older versions).

 

[TecXero]

I was sure there were some mods that required a larger save size than default, mostly to implement RTC in FireRed mods. Oh well, shows what I know on that front.

 

[FAST6191]

There might well be then. I tend not to go in for pokemon hacking (it is all mostly tool based and I still hold that the various pokemon "clones" on the GBA are better games) and could well have missed that. Not sure why they would have needed to expand the save though; if you can not find the couple of bytes needed to encode a time and date in 1024kbit then you have likely gone very wrong somewhere.

 

[TecXero]

There might well be then. I tend not to go in for pokemon hacking (it is all mostly tool based and I still hold that the various pokemon "clones" on the GBA are better games) and could well have missed that. Not sure why they would have needed to expand the save though; if you can not find the couple of bytes needed to encode a time and date in 1024kbit then you have likely gone very wrong somewhere.

I'm not big on Pokemon myself. I dabble in it simply because I have a couple of friends that are big into it. I'm just going off of an issue I had quite a while ago, when Gen II remake mods for FireRed were popular. In order for the RTC to work in VBA, you had to set the save size larger than the default. That's been quite a few years and I was an arrogant teenager at the time, so it wouldn't surprise me if I'm completely wrong.

 

[Joexv]

I'm not big on Pokemon myself. I dabble in it simply because I have a couple of friends that are big into it. I'm just going off of an issue I had quite a while ago, when Gen II remake mods for FireRed were popular. In order for the RTC to work in VBA, you had to set the save size larger than the default. That's been quite a few years and I was an arrogant teenager at the time, so it wouldn't surprise me if I'm completely wrong.

I didnt think that there were any fire red hacks that used bigger saves cause of rtc. Afaik they just used some unused blocks. But im going to try the vba saves and see if that changes anything. And im pretty sure ash grey does use the rtc so ill remove that and see if the issue is resolved.

 

[Joexv]

Ok so sorry about taking so long, got busy. But importing a vba save doesnt change much and it just says that the save file was deleted. And the after saving it will corrupt the save.