Tutorial
Updated
Using Flash2Advance game carts in 2026
Flash2Advance 256Megabit image:
Intro:
Flash2Advance is an ancient Flash Cart. It came out when GBA was still the latest and greatest handheld. Main models came in 128 Megabit (16Mb) and 256 Megabit (32Mb) variants. It does not feature RTC, it uses SRAM for saves (original battery lasted ~15 years). But it does still play pretty much any GBA/GB(C) game you throw at it. The one huge downside, which was still problematic even back then on Windows XP, is its use of the DB25 Printer/parallel port for flashing. This port was out of date by 2005 and stopped being manufactured on computers shortly after that. Thus making flashing of Flash2Advance very problematic.
I wrote up a guide 10 years ago (in 2016) on how to do the flashing via a DS (lite), no need for drivers, no need for old ports, easy and reliable. This is more or less an update to that guide.
Requirements:
Guide:
1 - Determine how much your version of Flash2Advance can store. Take the advertised size, divide by 8 and subtract 1. For example 256/8-1 = 31. This is how many megabytes worth of games I can store on there. We need to leave 1Mb for the pogoshell, which will be our frontend. GBA games vary in sizes from 4 to 32 megabytes. This means that on a 256 Megabit cart you can store 1 to 8 games.
2 - Download F2A tools from here F2A Tools 2026. Inside you will find 4 folders.
3 - Once you have all of your .gba files (including the GB/GBC games that will now also have .gba extension). Put them all inside of the root folder in PogoShell2.0Beta4. You can put them inside of a Games folder, or organize them however you want within the root folder. I put all mine into a "Games" folder. While in root, delete the Misc and Emulation folders, its extra stuff, you can keep it if you want it, but you dont need it for run anything. Make sure you name them correctly. Whatever files are named is what will show up on GBA (anything over 27 characters will be cut off as seen in screenshot below).
4 - Run build.bat in PogoShell2.0Beta4, this will create a flashme.gba file. Make sure this file is smaller than the total capacity of your Flash2Advance (under 32Mb for 256 Megabit, under 16Mb for 128 Megabit).
5 - Place flashme.gba file from previous step into GBA folder on the root of the SD card (your Slot-1 DS Flash cart). If you do not have a folder called GBA in the root of your sd card create it and then place flashme.gba in there. And put it into your DS. Put Flash2Advance in slot 2 of your DS.
6 - Run FAS1Flasher.nds from your Slot-1 flash cart. It should find the flashme.gba file and allow you to flash it to Flash2Advance in slot 2. This is also the way you can get SRAM saves off of Flash2Advance onto your DS sd card for editing or saving permanently. Flashing process will take some time (it writes at around 5Mb per minute). After flashing is complete, power off the DS and enjoy your Flash2Advance!
Picture of the flashing process:
Picture of the menu on GBA:
Few tips:
NOTE: I have added Flash2Advance support to FAS1 and included it in a link in a post below. If the above versions dont work give that one a try.
Intro:
Flash2Advance is an ancient Flash Cart. It came out when GBA was still the latest and greatest handheld. Main models came in 128 Megabit (16Mb) and 256 Megabit (32Mb) variants. It does not feature RTC, it uses SRAM for saves (original battery lasted ~15 years). But it does still play pretty much any GBA/GB(C) game you throw at it. The one huge downside, which was still problematic even back then on Windows XP, is its use of the DB25 Printer/parallel port for flashing. This port was out of date by 2005 and stopped being manufactured on computers shortly after that. Thus making flashing of Flash2Advance very problematic.
I wrote up a guide 10 years ago (in 2016) on how to do the flashing via a DS (lite), no need for drivers, no need for old ports, easy and reliable. This is more or less an update to that guide.
Requirements:
- DS Lite or DS Original (with GBA slot)
- Flash cart for DS (any)
- Files provided in this guide
Guide:
1 - Determine how much your version of Flash2Advance can store. Take the advertised size, divide by 8 and subtract 1. For example 256/8-1 = 31. This is how many megabytes worth of games I can store on there. We need to leave 1Mb for the pogoshell, which will be our frontend. GBA games vary in sizes from 4 to 32 megabytes. This means that on a 256 Megabit cart you can store 1 to 8 games.
2 - Download F2A tools from here F2A Tools 2026. Inside you will find 4 folders.
- GBATA - Use this to trim your .gba files, this will often trim off 5-10% allowing you to fit more stuff.
- FAS1Flasher_v1.5 - This is a .nds file that you need to place on your DS flash cart (does not matter where as long as you can run it from your DS). Version FAS1 1.7b is also included; however it did not work on my particular F2A cart.
- goombacolor_2019_5_4- This allows you to wrap Gameboy and Gameboy Color games into the emulator (near 100% perfect emulation) and have them on your F2A. The emulator itself is under 100kb, so takes up very little space. This is perfect for filling in those few leftover megabytes that no GBA games will fit into.
- For GB/GBC games I recommend wrapping each game individually, this will create a better menu and make save management easier. As emulator is tiny, there is very little overhead.
- Pogoshell2.0Beta4 - This is the rockstar of the whole operation. Its the shell that will allow us to launch everything. Newer forked version pogoshell-2.0b3-mod5-beta5.10 is also included. It shouldnt matter much which to use. Up to you.
3 - Once you have all of your .gba files (including the GB/GBC games that will now also have .gba extension). Put them all inside of the root folder in PogoShell2.0Beta4. You can put them inside of a Games folder, or organize them however you want within the root folder. I put all mine into a "Games" folder. While in root, delete the Misc and Emulation folders, its extra stuff, you can keep it if you want it, but you dont need it for run anything. Make sure you name them correctly. Whatever files are named is what will show up on GBA (anything over 27 characters will be cut off as seen in screenshot below).
4 - Run build.bat in PogoShell2.0Beta4, this will create a flashme.gba file. Make sure this file is smaller than the total capacity of your Flash2Advance (under 32Mb for 256 Megabit, under 16Mb for 128 Megabit).
5 - Place flashme.gba file from previous step into GBA folder on the root of the SD card (your Slot-1 DS Flash cart). If you do not have a folder called GBA in the root of your sd card create it and then place flashme.gba in there. And put it into your DS. Put Flash2Advance in slot 2 of your DS.
6 - Run FAS1Flasher.nds from your Slot-1 flash cart. It should find the flashme.gba file and allow you to flash it to Flash2Advance in slot 2. This is also the way you can get SRAM saves off of Flash2Advance onto your DS sd card for editing or saving permanently. Flashing process will take some time (it writes at around 5Mb per minute). After flashing is complete, power off the DS and enjoy your Flash2Advance!
Picture of the flashing process:
Picture of the menu on GBA:
Few tips:
- Games will be under "Roms" (dont use cartroms folder). Saves will be under SRAM.
- Seeing how it uses SRAM for saves, after stopping playing, power off, then power back on to save the save to SRAM (it will pop up asking you), then you can power off again.
- For GameBoy (Color) games after saving you have to exit back to pogoshell (press L + R and select Exit), then it will ask if you want to save to SRAM, select yes. If you do not do this and simply power off, it will ask you next time you power on if you want to save it to SRAM, but this will be the old save you had when you loaded the game. Additionally you can use Save States (L +R and select Save/Load state). This is only for GB/GBC games. GBA games do not need this.
- Whenever you launch any game, it will ask you if you want to load SRAM save for it. If you say no, it will load the game as if there is no save. When you exit it, it will ask you if you want to save the save from it to SRAM, if at that point you say Yes, it will overwrite your existing save. So be careful with this. I always Load existing one to make sure I dont overwrite it with a blank save.
- L + Start will bring up some config options
- Select will bring up Help menu, this is context sensitive, it will give you different things depending on which folder you are in.
- L + Select allows you to switch users (this is useful for having different save files for different people that want to play on the same cartridge).
- SuperChis - Pretty much same features are Flash2Advance, no RTC, battery backed SRAM saves. But it has some advantages. Its cheap (~$20), it has auto patching for things like RTC (emulation), for F2A you have to patch the rom yourself to get the same result, and a big one, a lot more storage as it has an SD Card slot.
- Ez-Flash Air - A step up, has RTC, but still battery backed SRAM saves. Pricier, at ~$40. Has SD card slot, and great game compatibility.
- Ez-Flash Omega - Big upgrade, FRAM saves, no need for battery for saves (one is still used for RTC), but at a price, these are near ~$80
- EverDrive - Best you can get, uses FRAM, siloed RTC, and what makes them expensive is use of FPGA, its as close to a real cartridge as you can get and therefore its very expensive ~$120.
NOTE: I have added Flash2Advance support to FAS1 and included it in a link in a post below. If the above versions dont work give that one a try.
Last edited by Chrushev,
thanks for the heads up with cleaning the copper pins. but it is really clean btw. thanks for the idea.
