Homebrew SCFW: Custom Firmware & Kernel for Supercard

[litheum]

I just ordered this device off amazon after seeing the progress improving it on here. however I didn't realize until it after I ordered that mine doesn't include the memory card. and I cant seem to find any 2gb Micro SD cards but have a ton of other sizes from 4gb and up.

just wondering how cooked im gonna be really
Is there anyway i could format an SD card to be only a 2gb fat16 that will work?
I'm also gonna have to source the stock firmware it seems

 

[Janni9009]

Is there anyway i could format an SD card to be only a 2gb fat16 that will work?

No. That doesn't magically make it a byte-addressed SDSC card.

If you have a DS and a Slot-1 cart, you can use SCKILL to flash it (place it, and the latest firmware.frm from the main SCFW repo, on the root of the Slot-1 cart's microSD/NAND)

 

[litheum]

@Janni9009
I do have a DS and slot 1 card.
So if im understanding correctly, can I use SCKILL to flash the Supercard without it having an SD card in it with SCFW which will allow me to use my SDHC 4GB card with the Supercard?

Edit: or is that how i would go about restoring firmware whenever i source a 2gb sd card?

 

[Sasiccia84]

Hi! How does SuperFW compare to SCFW? Is there a discord?

 

[Vingue]

Thank you so much! My gameplay experience is much better now. Paying $70 on another card isn’t really an option here in Brazil, where the minimum wage is around $170.

 

[Hirugaru]

Thank you so much! My gameplay experience is much better now. Paying $70 on another card isn’t really an option here in Brazil, where the minimum wage is around $170.

I can relate, nice to see another fellow BR here
This really levels up the experience and also is somewhat accessible for our currency.

 

[Rain_Evil]

I still keep my supercard and I just learned from here that it got firmware updated. I had never known about it

 

[Borgle_god_of_beans]

I got a question.
Do i need to patch it every time i load it or after the first patvh can i disable it and just load

 

[Xyvir]

I got a question.
Do i need to patch it every time i load it or after the first patvh can i disable it and just load

It patches 'on the fly' and doesn't actually write the patches to the romdata. So unless you manually pre patch the roms yourself, you will have to patch them each launch.

 

[Hirugaru]

Is there anyway to convert save files to be compatible with SCFW or SuperFW from emulators?
The saves from the supercard are 65,5kb and the saves from emulators are 32,8kb (for a GBC game)
I've tried renaming then, converting using online tools but the supercard wont open then.
Anyone tried this?

 

[GGTA]

Hello, I have a GBA SP and want to ask you guys if I can use this card to play some Pokémon games.
I’ve checked all the 26 pages here and got some useful info:
- there are 2 or more firmware’s in these cards by default
- there is a fake one also been sold, someone posted an image of both of them
- it is a bit more difficult to make it work on gba but for my case gba sp it should be ok

I have a few questions tho.
- the cards are all upgradable to the new scfw?
- updating and using the new scfw allow me to save games?
- can I use an sd card with more than 2GB id I use the scfw?
- reading the docs I just need to format the sd card and drop the scfw there is that right?

Please let me know about this

 

[sam2895]

C

SCFW is a custom firmware and kernel for the Supercard SD.
Currently it is in a preview state with minimum functionality.

Installation
Download the current release and copy the scfw folder to the root of your SD card.
That's it! You can now use the kernel by loading scfw/kernel.gba from the official firmware.
You can also select the firmware.frm file from within the kernel to flash SCFW to the Supercard's firmware. Because the firmware is minimal and the kernel is loaded from the SD card, updates to the firmware should be rare. You can enjoy kernel updates without updating the firmware.

Current features

• Can browse files
• Can load a GBA ROM
• Can flash a Supercard firmware.
• Automatic SRAM, waitstate, and prefetch patching (buggy)
• Automatic SRAM loading & saving
• Manual SRAM management
• SDHC
• Soft reset patch

Planned features

• Nicer file browser
• Support for more filetypes with builtin goomba/pocketnes etc.
• NDS mode
• Code cleanup, lots of it.
• Cache patches after creating them to increase loading speed
• Faster loading speeds
• Cheats(?)
• Save states(?)

Links
Sources: https://github.com/metroid-maniac/SCFW
Binaries: https://github.com/metroid-maniac/SCFW/releases

Related threads:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/try-to-make-a-custom-loader-for-supercard-sd.646837/
https://gbatemp.net/threads/trying-to-make-the-supercard-suck-less-in-2022.624099/

Credits

• @metroid maniac - Main developer
• @Archeychen - Early development into another loader, SDHC support
• @RocketRobz - Twilightmenu++ "gbapatcher" code for patching Supercard ROMs
• SiliconExarch - Finding an old DevkitARM release with a functioning Supercard SD driver

Can scfw use the 4 mb psram of nds to make games run fast a little bit

 

[OmDRetro]

Is there anyway to convert save files to be compatible with SCFW or SuperFW from emulators?
The saves from the supercard are 65,5kb and the saves from emulators are 32,8kb (for a GBC game)
I've tried renaming then, converting using online tools but the supercard wont open then.
Anyone tried this?

Not really conversion. More of extracting and replacing the save data (Should work on any firmware). I spent some time looking it up, but I haven't made use of it yet. When the time allows I'll check GoombaSav and provide a tutorial once I'm familiar with it.

Hello, I have a GBA SP and want to ask you guys if I can use this card to play some Pokémon games.
I’ve checked all the 26 pages here and got some useful info:
- there are 2 or more firmware’s in these cards by default
- there is a fake one also been sold, someone posted an image of both of them
- it is a bit more difficult to make it work on gba but for my case gba sp it should be ok

I have a few questions tho.
- the cards are all upgradable to the new scfw?
- updating and using the new scfw allow me to save games?
- can I use an sd card with more than 2GB id I use the scfw?
- reading the docs I just need to format the sd card and drop the scfw there is that right?

Please let me know about this

• Yes, you can replace the firmware - but at this point I recommend you install edo9300's SCSFW and load the SCFW kernel. With that bootloader, you have both DS mode and GBA mode. If you're dead set on having just GBA mode then you can use SCFW's bootloader.
• Saving is done automatically via soft reset or QPC (Quick power cycle). It is the only saving modes available far for this project.
• Yes, Up to 2TB sdcards are actually supported but it has to be formatted with FAT32.
• Yes.

 

[akumanoyokai]

is in this fw a RTC mod?

 

[Peeteris]

is in this fw a RTC mod?

No, but for that you can check out SuperFW.

 

[GGTA]

• Yes, you can replace the firmware - but at this point I recommend you install edo9300's and load the SCFW kernel. With that bootloader, you have both DS mode and GBA mode. If you're dead set on having just GBA mode then you can use SCFW's bootloader.
• Saving is done automatically via soft reset or QPC (Quick power cycle). It is the only saving modes available far for this project.
• Yes, Up to 2TB sdcards are actually supported but it has to be formatted with FAT32.
• Yes.

Thank you for all the details.
One thing I am not getting is the save game bit.
So this will create something similar to save states or will it also have a .sav file what we can extract at any point?

Post automatically merged: May 16, 2025

I have downloaded the last version of
SCFW: Custom Firmware & Kernel for Supercard
Then moved the scfw folder to the root of the sd card.
Have download 2 different gba games and added to the card as well.
Turned the console on, went to scfw/kernel.gba.
After that selected the game I added. A few things started to happen and after a while it "restarted" like was trying to load the game.
One of them I got a blank screen and the other one a dark screen.
Am I doing something wrong?

 

[GGTA]

Update:
Now after starting the SCFW and then selecting a gba game, it starts patching and all that and the games start and I am able to play them.
While playing I can save the game, for example playing Pokémon and saving the game normally in the start menu.

But once I turn the console of I need to do all again. It takes a minute or two to start a game.
Is this the right way of loading the games?

 

[Gamemaster2022]

Update:
Now after starting the SCFW and then selecting a gba game, it starts patching and all that and the games start and I am able to play them.
While playing I can save the game, for example playing Pokémon and saving the game normally in the start menu.

But once I turn the console of I need to do all again. It takes a minute or two to start a game.
Is this the right way of loading the games?

Yes. You have to repeat this process because Supercard uses a RAM (SDRAM) chip that keeps data stored if it's powered. Once the power is shut down all data get erased. SCFW has to do the process of loading and patching the game again.

The other custom firmware - SuperFW found a way to keep patches in a different folder and loads them at the same time as the ROM. This actualy makes the loading much faster.

 

[Hirugaru]

Not really conversion. More of extracting and replacing the save data (Should work on any firmware). I spent some time looking it up, but I haven't made use of it yet. When the time allows I'll check GoombaSav and provide a tutorial once I'm familiar with it.

Thanks for the answer @OmDRetro
All the problems with save files were resolved by just replacing the Battery from the cartridge. It seems that mine was dead from day one. Can't really trust them to be healthy from China anyway, hope the memory chips at least hold on for a while.

 

[Xyvir]

Thanks for the answer @OmDRetro
All the problems with save files were resolved by just replacing the Battery from the cartridge. It seems that mine was dead from day one. Can't really trust them to be healthy from China anyway, hope the memory chips at least hold on for a while.

you mean like the pack-in micro SD cards? I would recommend just pre-emptively replacing those, they are worse than garbage.