Hacking Is it possible to trade Pokemon from EZFlash IV to legit cartridge? (GBA)

[dany4president]

Hi everyone. Could the listed method actually work?

1) Move a Pokemon GBA .rom (e.g. Fire Red) and its .sav into an EZFlash IV
2) Load the EZFlash on a GBA
3) Load a legit game on another GBA
4) Trade between them using link cable

Thanks in advance!

 

[Deleted User]

Uh, yeah? Why wouldn't it?

 

[dany4president]

Wow! Blazing fast answer! Thanks.

I'm simply afraid that trading from a .rom to a legit cartridge could break the legit save. If you say that there won't be any problems I'll buy an EZFlash IV and apply the method! Is this the best GBA cartridge for quality/price?

 

[AyanamiRei0]

Yeah it should work just fine as the game will just think it's connected to a Gen 3 Pokemon game

 

[FAST6191]

You might need a standalone patch for linking
https://ezflash.sosuke.com/viewtopic.php?t=17714 has them, if you need others ask and if I am around I will make some for other regions.

Otherwise it is like a normal game. The only things you won't be able to do are link with the gamecube pokemon games and link with DS games for pal park and the like off the bat, you can however link with DS games if you patch the DS game using https://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/rom-hacks/download-pokepatch-4-2-f27240.html . Or you can use an emulator if you want (desmume has options for such things).

Best cart? There are three good options right now.
1) EZ4
2) EZ 3 in 1 if you have a DS/DS lite and DS slot flash cart to manage it
3) Everdrive just released a GBA flash cart.

You might find a fire card or a supercard GBA slot device. Don't do it. Similarly don't do an EZ4 lite compact if you find one of those as they are not designed to load larger GBA games.

The everdrive has only just arrived at GBAtemp ( http://gbatemp.net/threads/everdrive-gba-is-finally-a-reality.431193/ has more for now) but is looking very good. It does also have a real time clock which the other two lack and pokemon ruby, sapphire and emerald (the ones named for gem stones) are the main game that uses it which people care about. It is however twice the price of an EZ4, if not more. There are patches for the real time clock (game time advances when you play the game rather than as a clock) so consider it how you will. http://gbatemp.net/threads/buying-a-gba-flash-cart-in-2013.341203/page-18#post-4756995 has links to patches and workarounds for those few trouble games on the GBA.

 

[dany4president]

Thanks both for the answers!

@FAST6191

I'd like to be able to trade to my legit Leaf Green with all the remaining 4 Pokemon GBA versions. As I can read on the topic you linked, you already made almost all Pokemon patches for US versions. If it's possibile to trade from US roms to italian legit game as my Leaf Green is I won't need patches for IT versions.

By the way, I just want to trade between GBA versions, not DS or Gamecube. I also read that the new Everdrive for GBA is basically perfect but it costs 99$. RTC as I remember is useful, but not necessary except for berries. I found a brand new EZFlash IV for 25€ only. Should I get it?

 

[FAST6191]

You can link shops unless they want to sell ROM packs or something. Only reason not to would be if they are limited amounts and you want to make sure nobody else snaffles them up. There has never been a clone EZ4 as far as I know. If it says it is microSD(HC) then it is the new type. If it is miniSD then it is either an older one or one of the so called new batch. Still a great cart but I would be slightly wary of that if you don't have a miniSD (try shops selling old mobile phones and cameras) as the micro to mini adapters are not great.
If it is an EZ4 lite compact then don't do it, if it is an EZ4 lite deluxe then definitely do it as they are great and if it is an EZ4 lite then be aware that you might have to change the battery but otherwise get one if you want but for any of the lite models you will have to mod the case to use in anything other than a DS lite.

Cross region trading should be fine -- once you have the patch in place (it seems to be mainly be about save game and reset patches changing latencies rather than ensuring unique trainer ids or telltale signs of flash cart origination if that is what you were thinking) it will be like a normal cart.

 

[Deleted-379826]

@FAST6191 pretty much his posts

Also slightly off topic but kind of on the matter what makes that flashcart worth that price????? Also this is probably actually off topic but what is the cheapest flashcart out there just wanted to know?

 

[FAST6191]

Something is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it.

I could also link up


The everdrive has the ability to drag and drop (vs using a simple program/one of a selection of programs to patch), has faster loading (seconds), not sure about save emulation (the reason why pokepatch exists -- the patching changes games to use SRAM vs EEPROM or flash which they might have used instead) and real time clock (mainly a concern for pokemon fans). That is better than the alternatives presently available so it at least does not fail out of the gate by being more expensive and offering less. There has been some question as to the quality of newer EZ4 batches, mine has been fine but I was sent it by the team so I can't rule out being cherry picked one. My original EZ4 is good however many years on this is (I got it shortly after it was launched) and my EZ2 is also good.

In the end it is up to you. You ask whether you can play basically all GBA games ( http://gbatemp.net/threads/buying-a-gba-flash-cart-in-2013.341203/page-18#post-4756995 is the whole list of trouble games and workarounds) with the EZ4 and yes is the answer. There is not an awful lot to GBA flash carts unlike say the SNES which has all the special chips to deal with.

Anyway GBA flash carts that you will find out in the world.

New
EZ4. I don't want to go over the types again right now but EZ4 original, EZ4 lite, EZ4 lite compact (limited GBA support, don't get it for GBA), EZ4 lite deluxe (256Mbit of PSRAM and 384 of NOR, great little device if you can find one but it will likely not be cheap), EZ4 new batch (basically the same as EZ4 original) and EZ4 microSD which is the same as the original but has a microSD slot instead of a miniSD one.
Everdrive. See thread linked before.
EZ 3 in 1, which really needs a DS and DS slot flash cart to manage. Of the useful ones this will be the cheapest if you want the DS lite sized one. The repro makers and some electronics people rinsed the world of normal GBA cart sized ones so what is out there in GBA size is more expensive whenever I see it.

You can still find fire cards. These are old NOR carts and when they say 128MBit they mean it and you only have 16 megabytes of space. There are 256Mbit ones available but they are even harder to come by. Most find these occasionally on aliexpress and the like. These are likely the cheapest out there.
You can still find supercards. These have not been made in years as far as I know but they have lousy GBA compatibility and slowdowns and urgh. As DS carts they were supported for longer but nobody uses GBA slot carts for DS games any more so that is why they are still around.

Occasionally you might see some neoflash carts of various forms (the originals were rebaged XG2 GBA flash carts and actually not bad at GBA if you can get it sorted), some m3 expansion pack carts (not as flexible as the 3 in 1 if you don't have the m3 that it works with, though you can still play GBA games on it, if you do have the M3 DS real I think it was then you have some real time clock and more) and very rarely you might find an old GBA era thing for sale on wherever you find second hand stuff.

 

[Deleted-379826]

Something is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it.

I could also link up


The everdrive has the ability to drag and drop (vs using a simple program/one of a selection of programs to patch), has faster loading (seconds), not sure about save emulation (the reason why pokepatch exists -- the patching changes games to use SRAM vs EEPROM or flash which they might have used instead) and real time clock (mainly a concern for pokemon fans). That is better than the alternatives presently available so it at least does not fail out of the gate by being more expensive and offering less. There has been some question as to the quality of newer EZ4 batches, mine has been fine but I was sent it by the team so I can't rule out being cherry picked one. My original EZ4 is good however many years on this is (I got it shortly after it was launched) and my EZ2 is also good.

In the end it is up to you. You ask whether you can play basically all GBA games ( http://gbatemp.net/threads/buying-a-gba-flash-cart-in-2013.341203/page-18#post-4756995 is the whole list of trouble games and workarounds) with the EZ4 and yes is the answer. There is not an awful lot to GBA flash carts unlike say the SNES which has all the special chips to deal with.

Anyway GBA flash carts that you will find out in the world.

New
EZ4. I don't want to go over the types again right now but EZ4 original, EZ4 lite, EZ4 lite compact (limited GBA support, don't get it for GBA), EZ4 lite deluxe (256Mbit of PSRAM and 384 of NOR, great little device if you can find one but it will likely not be cheap), EZ4 new batch (basically the same as EZ4 original) and EZ4 microSD which is the same as the original but has a microSD slot instead of a miniSD one.
Everdrive. See thread linked before.
EZ 3 in 1, which really needs a DS and DS slot flash cart to manage. Of the useful ones this will be the cheapest if you want the DS lite sized one. The repro makers and some electronics people rinsed the world of normal GBA cart sized ones so what is out there in GBA size is more expensive whenever I see it.

You can still find fire cards. These are old NOR carts and when they say 128MBit they mean it and you only have 16 megabytes of space. There are 256Mbit ones available but they are even harder to come by. Most find these occasionally on aliexpress and the like. These are likely the cheapest out there.
You can still find supercards. These have not been made in years as far as I know but they have lousy GBA compatibility and slowdowns and urgh. As DS carts they were supported for longer but nobody uses GBA slot carts for DS games any more so that is why they are still around.

Occasionally you might see some neoflash carts of various forms (the originals were rebaged XG2 GBA flash carts and actually not bad at GBA if you can get it sorted), some m3 expansion pack carts (not as flexible as the 3 in 1 if you don't have the m3 that it works with, though you can still play GBA games on it, if you do have the M3 DS real I think it was then you have some real time clock and more) and very rarely you might find an old GBA era thing for sale on wherever you find second hand stuff.

So EZ3 in 1 is most likely what I should get if I want to go cheapest for the DS, right? What about for a gba? (Entry if you fit it in there probably missed it) also what is a good seller?

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Looked on ndscard.com and 42 dollars for a gba flashcart????? Anything cheaper O.o

 

[FAST6191]

If you are more used to DS flash cart prices then yeah other flash carts will be expensive -- DS flash carts are comparatively simple and produced in massive batches, everything else tends to be made in smaller batches and require more specialist gear.

You can flash a game to the 3 in 1 NOR and play it on a GBA (or GB player, or another DS) but you only have the one game. Theoretically multirom could happen but the EZTeam ditched it when they realised they would just get the pokemon fans flooding support (pokemon uses a large save and thus you can't use two pokemon games or certain other combos if you want to save, no matter that they fit otherwise) and I think rudolph tried it once but gave up as it was annoying to do.
If you have a DS lite one you will have to mod the case (mainly chop the tag off and sand it down a bit, also add some ribbon or something so you can pull it back out the GBA when you are done) to use in things with a full size GBA slot.

No idea what sites we are suggesting these days. I have not really purchased flash carts for a while.

 

[dany4president]

I read all the off-topic part but I still prefer to stick to the EZFlash, I can manage troubleshooting for problems. 99$ is too much for me.

This is the cartridge I found on the shop:

So as you said I can guess it's the new type one. I'll buy it for 26,8€ (30$) including shipping, if someone needs the link to the shop feel free to ask.

So, at this point, this should be the method to use:

1) Patch (I'll use GBATA as you suggested on the other topic) a Pokemon GBA US rom with one of the patches you already made in the specific topic (I found Emerald, Sapphire and Leaf Green. Ruby link doesn't work anymore and I didn't find Fire Red patch)
2) Copy it together with the .sav into the EZFlash (should the patching occur before or after the .sav extraction?)
3) Load the EZFlash on a GBA, the legit game on another one and trade between them

Is it correct? Should I know something I have to pay attention to? Especially regarding the extracting of the .sav (I'd use VBA as emulator) and the patching of the rom. I read that a common error is the "Save has been deleted" one. How to deal with it?

Meanwhile I'll wait for the EZFlash to arrive, unfortunately I'm sure it will take some time Thanks for your help!

 

[kutteke]

Bought the ez flash IV microsd about a half year ago. Can recommend it. The build quality of the cart isn't great but good enough. Runs about everything you throw at it. The ez flash patcher to add games to the sd is kindof annoying but works. and gb/gbc/nes/sms/gg emulation is great, only the nes and sms give some graphical issues being higher resolution than the screen. you can't do better for the money.

 

[dany4president]

Given the positive feedback you left, I bought an EZFlash IV with 1.77 kernel. Can't wait for it to arrive! Meanwhile, can someone answer to my last post's questions? Thanks!

 

[kmno]

Hey FAST, read the thread you linked to, I think the patch to FireRed is missing, could you provide one if you could? In the mean time I'll try to test with a LeafGreen ROM and try to trade to my legit LeafGreen.