SuperFW: a custom firmware for Supercard

[Sakitoshi]

Can you check metroid fusion save plz because after change to another game I lost my save progress and it starts from beginning

are you using an og gba?
by your previous reports i would asume that being the case and that, unfortunately, you have an older model that has problems with the supercard.
there is no fix for that at the moment other than using a late og gba or gba sp and later.

 

[sam2895]

are you using an og gba?
by your previous reports i would asume that being the case and that, unfortunately, you have an older model that has problems with the supercard.
there is no fix for that at the moment other than using a late og gba or gba sp and later.

I'am using nds lite

 

[trashbytes]

@trashbytes Apotris runs fine, my settings:

Savegame options:

Save mode: SRAM
Savegame load: Load
Savegame save: On reboot

Patching options:

Patching: Patch engine
In-game menu: Disabled

Then run patch engine manually by pressing a on Patchengine - Run
Once the patching has been completed

press a on Load GBA game ROM

Did you patch Apotris with 2.71 before putting it on the GBA?
Whenever I try to launch games I patched with 2.71 using SuperFW it won't work. Disabling fast boot then reveals a garbled Nintendo logo.
Unpatched won't work either. With PatchEngine disabled it will just show a black screen and with PatchEngine using your settings it will boot but display glitched graphics and play garbled sounds.

Apotris patched with 2.71 works perfectly on stock FW.

For meteo videos, I've noticed that patching them with SuperCard V.2.71 on your pc, then running them and saying no to any proposed patching, then running works fine.

Enjoy!

Doesn't work for me. As I've said ROMs patched with 2.71 on PC will never boot using SuperFW for me, I've tried dozens. White or black screen when fast boot is enabled and garbled Nintendo logo when fast boot is disabled.

Unpatched Meteo ROMs without gbafix.exe and without PatchEngine behave similarly, but the logo is even more messed up.

Unpatched Meteo ROMs with gbafix.exe and with or without PatchEngine have a perfect Nintendo logo but will still be black after that.

Patched Meteo ROMs on stock FW run perfectly fine.

About homebrew such as Apotris. Sometimes the right way to boot them is tricky, I will try to reach out to them, but I don't really see how to patch the game. However I see that booting it with PatchEngine and using the "BIOS boot" mode (do not use Skip BIOS) works on my AGB-001. Not sure why it works on the official FW... Does it work on SCFW?

Cheers

Apotris also does not work with SCFW, only on stock FW.
Patched with 2.71 and auto patches will not boot.
Patched with 2.71 but without auto patches will also not boot.
Not patched with 2.71 but patched with built-in patches will boot but be glitchy and garbled.
Not patched with 2.71 but without auto patches will show a black screen and play an annoying sound.

It's quite similar to various different combinations of files and settings when using SuperFW.

 

[My Free Log]

hi.

I still have not installed superfw to my supercard, i'm waiting for a more mature release.

I was wondering if it's possible to "chainload" the original fw, and if you consider an option to automatically boot to original fw from sd (maybe from .superfw/fw/original.fw) while pressing a button at boot.

Thanks.

 

[Peeteris]

hi.

I still have not installed superfw to my supercard, i'm waiting for a more mature release.

I was wondering if it's possible to "chainload" the original fw, and if you consider an option to automatically boot to original fw from sd (maybe from .superfw/fw/original.fw) while pressing a button at boot.

Thanks.

What maturity are you waiting for, exactly?
This project is active for a year now and many here it uses as a daily driver for many months now. Changing version number from V0.15 to V1.0 will not magically make it better, stable or anyhing, those numbers are every developers interpretation and subjective thoughts on how to number version releases, you know.

Tl;dr - Try it out, no harm here, don't wait for mystical stable release.

 

[trashbytes]

hi.

I still have not installed superfw to my supercard, i'm waiting for a more mature release.

I was wondering if it's possible to "chainload" the original fw, and if you consider an option to automatically boot to original fw from sd (maybe from .superfw/fw/original.fw) while pressing a button at boot.

Thanks.

You don't have to install SuperFW. You can just run superfw.gba like any other ROM. Installation is optional.
You can create a backup of the original firmware inside of SuperFW, it will be placed on the SD card.

After that you can install SuperFW and manually boot into stock firmware by launching your backup or just stay on stock firmware and manually boot into SuperFW by launching superfw.gba every time.

Either way seems to work fine, though I don't know if there are any caveats.

I've installed SuperFW before. Because of issues I went back to stock by launching the latest official release of the firmware called "sd_185.bin" which has a built-in flasher.

I will keep trying SuperFW as well as SCFW to figure out how to best proceed, but for now I think I'll stay on stock fw. The ROMs I want to play immediately ran on stock but won't boot (properly) on SuperFW or SCFW. Which is sad, because the stock FW is ugly and unintuitive, SuperFW looks and feels much better.

 

[davidgf]

Hey there!

I tested Metroid Fusion on the emu and on my NDS, it saves without issues. You could have issues with your battery, see the troubleshooting docs (https://superfw.davidgf.net/docs/usermanual/troubleshooting/#bad-cart-battery). Feel free to suggest any new troubleshooting documentation if you discover any workarounds.

I think that some people have issues with Supercard and SuperFW and they cannot boot almost any games. I would recommend to run the tests (SDRAM, SRAM, etc) to ensure the cart has a working memory device. Even in that case, there's people who have reported issues with their carts and games known to work well. I would suggest you to test some of the most played GBA games (ie. the top 10) and report if those work. If those don't work, it means there's something wrong with the cart or the device, or there's some bug with SuperFW. There's a lot of people happy and a bunch of people who cannot use SuperFW successfully, unfortunately I cannot reproduce any of their issues, therefore I cannot fix them.

As it was already explained, you could chainload the firmware (SCFW has a minimal bootloader for instance) but I recommend you flashing it. You can always flash back (make a backup before though), there's a copy of it and instructions on how to do it in the documentation.

Cheers!

 

[sam2895]

Hey there!

I tested Metroid Fusion on the emu and on my NDS, it saves without issues. You could have issues with your battery, see the troubleshooting docs (https://superfw.davidgf.net/docs/usermanual/troubleshooting/#bad-cart-battery). Feel free to suggest any new troubleshooting documentation if you discover any workarounds.

I think that some people have issues with Supercard and SuperFW and they cannot boot almost any games. I would recommend to run the tests (SDRAM, SRAM, etc) to ensure the cart has a working memory device. Even in that case, there's people who have reported issues with their carts and games known to work well. I would suggest you to test some of the most played GBA games (ie. the top 10) and report if those work. If those don't work, it means there's something wrong with the cart or the device, or there's some bug with SuperFW. There's a lot of people happy and a bunch of people who cannot use SuperFW successfully, unfortunately I cannot reproduce any of their issues, therefore I cannot fix them.

As it was already explained, you could chainload the firmware (SCFW has a minimal bootloader for instance) but I recommend you flashing it. You can always flash back (make a backup before though), there's a copy of it and instructions on how to do it in the documentation.

Cheers!

Any way to convert rom from sram to eeprom?

 

[davidgf]

Any way to convert rom from sram to eeprom?

With good soldering skills ...
Is your battery dead then? Usually you use the IGM to reset and that saves the SRAM. Since the IGM doesnt work for this game, you can try resetting your device very quickly (off and on again), that works... sometimes Make sure you perform backups (settings menu).

 

[sam2895]

Hey there!

I tested Metroid Fusion on the emu and on my NDS, it saves without issues. You could have issues with your battery, see the troubleshooting docs (https://superfw.davidgf.net/docs/usermanual/troubleshooting/#bad-cart-battery). Feel free to suggest any new troubleshooting documentation if you discover any workarounds.

I think that some people have issues with Supercard and SuperFW and they cannot boot almost any games. I would recommend to run the tests (SDRAM, SRAM, etc) to ensure the cart has a working memory device. Even in that case, there's people who have reported issues with their carts and games known to work well. I would suggest you to test some of the most played GBA games (ie. the top 10) and report if those work. If those don't work, it means there's something wrong with the cart or the device, or there's some bug with SuperFW. There's a lot of people happy and a bunch of people who cannot use SuperFW successfully, unfortunately I cannot reproduce any of their issues, therefore I cannot fix them.

As it was already explained, you could chainload the firmware (SCFW has a minimal bootloader for instance) but I recommend you flashing it. You can always flash back (make a backup before though), there's a copy of it and instructions on how to do it in the documentation.

Cheers!

The supercard passed both tests sram and sdram

Hey there!

I tested Metroid Fusion on the emu and on my NDS, it saves without issues. You could have issues with your battery, see the troubleshooting docs (https://superfw.davidgf.net/docs/usermanual/troubleshooting/#bad-cart-battery). Feel free to suggest any new troubleshooting documentation if you discover any workarounds.

I think that some people have issues with Supercard and SuperFW and they cannot boot almost any games. I would recommend to run the tests (SDRAM, SRAM, etc) to ensure the cart has a working memory device. Even in that case, there's people who have reported issues with their carts and games known to work well. I would suggest you to test some of the most played GBA games (ie. the top 10) and report if those work. If those don't work, it means there's something wrong with the cart or the device, or there's some bug with SuperFW. There's a lot of people happy and a bunch of people who cannot use SuperFW successfully, unfortunately I cannot reproduce any of their issues, therefore I cannot fix them.

As it was already explained, you could chainload the firmware (SCFW has a minimal bootloader for instance) but I recommend you flashing it. You can always flash back (make a backup before though), there's a copy of it and instructions on how to do it in the documentation.

Cheers!

The supercard passed both tests (sram and sdram)
The game save but the problem is that when try to load save there is no save it starts from the beginning

Post automatically merged: Apr 28, 2025

With good soldering skills ...
Is your battery dead then? Usually you use the IGM to reset and that saves the SRAM. Since the IGM doesnt work for this game, you can try resetting your device very quickly (off and on again), that works... sometimes Make sure you perform backups (settings menu).

I have done this but the same problem no save when load

 

[trashbytes]

Hey there!

I tested Metroid Fusion on the emu and on my NDS, it saves without issues. You could have issues with your battery, see the troubleshooting docs [redacted]. Feel free to suggest any new troubleshooting documentation if you discover any workarounds.

I think that some people have issues with Supercard and SuperFW and they cannot boot almost any games. I would recommend to run the tests (SDRAM, SRAM, etc) to ensure the cart has a working memory device. Even in that case, there's people who have reported issues with their carts and games known to work well. I would suggest you to test some of the most played GBA games (ie. the top 10) and report if those work. If those don't work, it means there's something wrong with the cart or the device, or there's some bug with SuperFW. There's a lot of people happy and a bunch of people who cannot use SuperFW successfully, unfortunately I cannot reproduce any of their issues, therefore I cannot fix them.

As it was already explained, you could chainload the firmware (SCFW has a minimal bootloader for instance) but I recommend you flashing it. You can always flash back (make a backup before though), there's a copy of it and instructions on how to do it in the documentation.

Cheers!

Thanks for all your work, davidgf. Please do not interpret my experience as bickering. I'm having fun with the device and playing around with firmwares, even if it's not working as expected on my end. I love hunting down issues and if I can't solve it, so be it.

The SRAM battery test failed for me, the others passed. What does that mean? Should I return the cart? Could that be the culprit?

Does the stock firmware not use the SRAM battery?

 

[sam2895]

Thanks for all your work, davidgf. Please do not interpret my experience as bickering. I'm having fun with the device and playing around with firmwares, even if it's not working as expected on my end. I love hunting down issues and if I can't solve it, so be it.

The SRAM battery test failed for me, the others passed. What does that mean? Should I return the cart? Could that be the culprit?

Does the stock firmware not use the SRAM battery?

I Have tried some games with sram,they work great and save correct
I think the problem is igm mode, the game doesn't have time to save on micro sd card ,so I will try turn off and on quickly.

Post automatically merged: Apr 28, 2025

With good soldering skills ...
Is your battery dead then? Usually you use the IGM to reset and that saves the SRAM. Since the IGM doesnt work for this game, you can try resetting your device very quickly (off and on again), that works... sometimes Make sure you perform backups (settings menu).

You are 100% correct I've tried and it works resetting very quickly

 

[Peeteris]

Thanks for all your work, davidgf. Please do not interpret my experience as bickering. I'm having fun with the device and playing around with firmwares, even if it's not working as expected on my end. I love hunting down issues and if I can't solve it, so be it.

The SRAM battery test failed for me, the others passed. What does that mean? Should I return the cart? Could that be the culprit?

Does the stock firmware not use the SRAM battery?

I Have tried some games with sram,they work great and save correct
I think the problem is igm mode, the game doesn't have time to save on micro sd card ,so I will try turn off and on quickly.

Post automatically merged: Apr 28, 2025

You are 100% correct I've tried and it works resetting very quickly

Both of your cases mean that your supercards have dead batteries in them. That's expected, even if you bought new card from Aliexpress as they are shipping these cards with already or soon to be dead batteries in my experience.

I suggest you to either get a good quality CR1616 pre-tabbed batteries or try to solder CR1616 battery socket and put in good quality Panasonic, Renata batteries (I did this, it's a bit finnicky as plastics need to be trimmed for socket to fit in the cartridge, but at least you know what batteries you put in).

 

[trashbytes]

Both of your cases mean that your supercards have dead batteries in them. That's expected, even if you bought new card from Aliexpress as they are shipping these cards with already or soon to be dead batteries in my experience.

I suggest you to either get a good quality CR1616 pre-tabbed batteries or try to solder CR1616 battery socket and put in good quality Panasonic, Renata batteries (I did this, it's a bit finnicky as plastics need to be trimmed for socket to fit in the cartridge, but at least you know what batteries you put in).

Does a dead battery only affect saving or does it cause other issues? I don't need the ability to save for my use case. I mostly need it for Meteo videos for my son to watch.

Most of my games are on individual cartridges.

 

[Peeteris]

Does a dead battery only affect saving or does it cause other issues? I don't need the ability to save for my use case. I mostly need it for Meteo videos for my son to watch.

Most of my games are on individual cartridges.

It affects only saves, AFAIK.

If you have dead battery, on start cartridge will overwrite save file with garbage, which causes situations where save file exists, but game doesn't show any saved progress. I guess videos doesn't save any needed data, then you should be fine.

 

[Sasiccia84]

Did you patch Apotris with 2.71 before putting it on the GBA?
Whenever I try to launch games I patched with 2.71 using SuperFW it won't work. Disabling fast boot then reveals a garbled Nintendo logo.
Unpatched won't work either. With PatchEngine disabled it will just show a black screen and with PatchEngine using your settings it will boot but display glitched graphics and play garbled sounds.

Apotris patched with 2.71 works perfectly on stock FW.



Doesn't work for me. As I've said ROMs patched with 2.71 on PC will never boot using SuperFW for me, I've tried dozens. White or black screen when fast boot is enabled and garbled Nintendo logo when fast boot is disabled.

Unpatched Meteo ROMs without gbafix.exe and without PatchEngine behave similarly, but the logo is even more messed up.

Unpatched Meteo ROMs with gbafix.exe and with or without PatchEngine have a perfect Nintendo logo but will still be black after that.

Patched Meteo ROMs on stock FW run perfectly fine.



Apotris also does not work with SCFW, only on stock FW.
Patched with 2.71 and auto patches will not boot.
Patched with 2.71 but without auto patches will also not boot.
Not patched with 2.71 but patched with built-in patches will boot but be glitchy and garbled.
Not patched with 2.71 but without auto patches will show a black screen and play an annoying sound.

It's quite similar to various different combinations of files and settings when using SuperFW.

Did you patch Apotris with 2.71 before putting it on the GBA?
Whenever I try to launch games I patched with 2.71 using SuperFW it won't work. Disabling fast boot then reveals a garbled Nintendo logo.
Unpatched won't work either. With PatchEngine disabled it will just show a black screen and with PatchEngine using your settings it will boot but display glitched graphics and play garbled sounds.

Apotris patched with 2.71 works perfectly on stock FW.



Doesn't work for me. As I've said ROMs patched with 2.71 on PC will never boot using SuperFW for me, I've tried dozens. White or black screen when fast boot is enabled and garbled Nintendo logo when fast boot is disabled.

Unpatched Meteo ROMs without gbafix.exe and without PatchEngine behave similarly, but the logo is even more messed up.

Unpatched Meteo ROMs with gbafix.exe and with or without PatchEngine have a perfect Nintendo logo but will still be black after that.

Patched Meteo ROMs on stock FW run perfectly fine.



Apotris also does not work with SCFW, only on stock FW.
Patched with 2.71 and auto patches will not boot.
Patched with 2.71 but without auto patches will also not boot.
Not patched with 2.71 but patched with built-in patches will boot but be glitchy and garbled.
Not patched with 2.71 but without auto patches will show a black screen and play an annoying sound.

It's quite similar to various different combinations of files and settings when using SuperFW.

@trashbytes Apotris no prepatch, use my directions from my previous post.

Meteo, prepatched refuse patching when on the gba.

In both cases use "remember config" In game setting. So that it will save these config for you.

let me know,

Cheers.

 

[sam2895]

I Have tried some games with sram,they work great and save correct
I think the problem is igm mode, the game doesn't have time to save on micro sd card ,so I will try turn off and on quickly.

Post automatically merged: Apr 28, 2025

You are 100% correct I've tried and it works resetting very quickly

Some games like gta advance and metroid fusion need fix for igm (in-game-menu) to save correct without quickly off and on

 

[Sasiccia84]

Hey there!

It's been exactly a year since my first post, time to make the project officially open source!
Find the new v0.15 release here:

https://github.com/davidgfnet/superfw/releases/tag/v0.15

Has support for DrSMS emulator and minor changes. I might add some more emulators, but other than that it's ready.
Support for SC lite will come in the next days once I get the carts in the mail

Enjoy!

Hi @OmDRetro, now that Superfw is open source, I was wondering if you'd be interested in integrating the additional SCFW capabilities into Superfw (or SCFW, or perhaps a new fork)? I'd love to collaborate, though my programming skills are somewhat limited. If you're interested, could you reach out to me via DM so we can discuss?


Looking forward to hearing from you!

Kind Regards,

S.

 

[sam2895]

Some games like gta advance and metroid fusion need fix for igm (in-game-menu) to save correct without quickly off and on

Update:
U can disable igm in metroid fusion and save config .play until u save do quickly off/on to save .sav file from sram to sd card then enable igm again and enjoy saving without losing prograss

Post automatically merged: May 1, 2025

Hi! everyone
Advance wars 2 load nomal but when I start new game crash and glitch sound I tried to disable igm still the same problem.

Post automatically merged: May 1, 2025

cfw:superfw 0.15
nds L

Post automatically merged: May 1, 2025

cfw:superfw 0.15
nds L

 

[Tsila]

Hi, i investigated why some OG agb 001 and found out that maybe some pcb revision doesnt work (stuck on white screen when booting game).
Currently i tested on:
- AGB-CPU-01 (need confirmation from those who have one).
- AGB-CPU-02 (not working), number on back: 02 6-2
- AGB-CPU-03 (not working), number on back: 03 7-2
- AGB-CPU-04 (need confirmation from those who have one)
-AGB-CPU-10 (32 pins one, not working), number on back: 10 1-1

Note that all go in SuperFW menu and all works in menu but when loading gba game it's stuck on white screen, sometime screeching noise are heard from speaker. And note too that on original fw 1.85, it works great on the revision mentionned. Note also that some gb/c rom boot but have messed up graphics and some stay on white gb/c mode screen.

So i need help and confirmation from those saying it works on their console by giving revision version. To see revision version, on the back of the console, there is small number (like when identifiying pin number version). If it begin by 0X #-#, where # are just some number and X can be between 1 to 4. Thanks