Hacking Is the Supercard Mini SD any good?

Randall402

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I was gonna buy one but I have a few questions about it...

1) Is the slow down bad in games? I've seen some reviews and , they all showed slow down in certain games

2) Can you use AR/GS codes for games? I heard it can but it's really buggy

3) Is there any special software for it to transfer and patch games , like the EZ- Flash Client



EDIT: Wow, thank you guys for all the great replies. I already have an EZ Flash 4 ,so I'm not in dire need of a Supercard Mini SD. I just wanted to know if they're worth the price since they're going for about $20-$25 on Ebay
 

FAST6191

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1) It depends how you look at it- pretty much every GBA cart out there that is not a supercard (or supercard clone like some of the early cyclo hardware), one of the cut down cards made during the days of the DS (supercard rumble, EZ4 lite compact and m3 lite professional) which were made to allow people to have DS compatibility without the expense of the necessary GBA hardware or something made in the first few months after the GBA was released will be able to run everything near flawlessly. This casts the supercards in a very bad light and I do not suggest them for precisely that reason (they are usually not a lot cheaper than something like an EZ4 anyway). Owing to the way it works saves are also a pain on the supercard where others handle it all for you once the games are patched. However you can play a half decent chunk of the GBA library (even if the omissions do include some of the best the GBA has to offer) so if a mate offers to sell one to you for a token sum it could be worth it.

2) Compared to the better DS AR/GS engines- not even close and I would not even think about comparing it to an emulator. Among the GBA until you use something like GBAATM then it is probably one of the better ones. That said anything can use a ROM patched with GBAATM.

3) Every present GBA cart needs special patching software after a fashion. That said as long as it is a SD card of some form most of the patching programs are simple enough that they can be run with WINE and such very easily (GBA patching amounts to searching for the save stamp and placing a prebuilt patch which is the same for all ROM images that use that save type at a location relative to that stamp- hard to do on the GBA but trivial for a PC). If you are lumped with a cradle and USB then most virtual machines have a pretty good passthrough option these days anyway.

Very short version- if you have a DS and do not need hundreds of games at once (say 30 or so) then a 3 in 1 will probably do well for you.
If you want it for a GBA or want the ability to have a fully fledged GBA cart then your only real option nowadays is the EZ4 (or I guess one of those GBA clone devices you can put games on).
Anything else is probably junk, something only of interest to those collecting GBA hardware (you can still find fire cards and old neoflash gear in some places) or very rare indeed.

Edit- Friday 23rd- I forgot to mention the cut down DS cards which you can still find in places.
I will second Arm73 as well- the M3 series were great but they are very much the very rare/hard to find (and usually expensive when you do) things these days. By similar token if you can find an older EZFlash cart (EZ2 or EZ3 mainly) then they are highly sought after as well.
 

Arm73

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I've been around for a long time, and I tried almost every GBA flashcart known to man, and at the end , I settled with an M3 Perfect MiniSD.
I also have an M3 Perfect SD, but that sticks out a little so I prefer the Mini SD one.
Performance is flawless. And the Mini SD storage and transfer might be a given today but a few years ago most flashcarts came with dodgy and very slow USB linkers that either aren't compatible with newer operating systems or just plain don't work anymore.
I couldn't settle with anything else but a drag and drop ( mini ) SD transfer.

Now , I've been a huge fan and supporter of the original GBA Supercard SD, but sadly it's true, there is lag and slow down in many, many games, and it almost feels like you are running them on an unfinished emulator rather then the real hardware !
Ironically, once I flashed my first DS lite with flashme, I was able to use the SC to play DS games, and amazingly compatibility was 99% ore more and every game played flawlessly !

So as much as I love it, I wouldn't recommend a Supercard for GBA games.
If you find it, try to get and M3 Perfect SD( don't get the M3 pro, because it has the GBA hardware removed and it only plays DS games ! ) or, if you are very lucky as me , an M3 Perfect MiniSD which fits flush in your GBA.

I just dusted it off a few days ago to play GBA games on the bus, and I can confirm that it still works, and even the game manager ( application that you need in order to patch your games with RTS ) works in Windows 7 and 8.
 
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wolffangalchemist

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i have had a Supercard mini sd for around a week now there are slowdowns but so far nothing major Mother 3 plays pretty good on it and you can save in game if you patch the games save type with Gbata first ( a few games i tried played fine but needed this if you don't want yoto use Real Time Save including Tales of Phantasia and Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis among others with certain sram types)
only had bad slow down on one game Lunar Legend and it's not really worth playing compared to other versions of the game.
only games i tried that didn't work where the USA releases for Breath of Fire 1 and 2 i had to find the European release to play them not to big of a deal.
i got mine cheap like $15 as i didn't have the money for a EZflash4
i can recommend it as out of the 34 games i tried only 2 didn't work and it was a simple finding the working Roms that fixed it also most of the games had little to no slowdown.
the software for games is easy and even works on Linux with Wine installed i can't say for the cheat function as i haven't used it my self as i don't really want to.
if you don't have the money for a ez4 get the SCminiSD it's an ok cart, but if you have $30 or so go for the EZ4.
 
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Lemmy Koopa

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Supercard is apparently known for it's slowdowns. Back when I was considering purchasing the new SD-slot flashcarts I considered this, but heard about this and found out about M3 which was the same thing but with the games running perfectly.

Both the Supercard and M3 are very rare now these days though, since they're no longer produced. Anyone who has them here still probably won't let go of them if they're into GBA gaming.

There are EZflash4 carts being made to this day though, and they are very solid cards. They don't have as much perks as the M3 and Supercard with their movie/music/image features, RTC, and 32MB (at least for the M3, don't know how much the SC has) but they are completely great for running GBA games, at least that's what I heard.
 
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raulpica

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1) Yes, FF5 runs something like 80% of its speed all the time. Very annoying. Also happens in other games.
2) Yep, but they're really buggy
3) Yep, SC software.

Keep in mind that saving doesn't happen automatically, but you have to reset your Supercard very quickly to let it store the save. If you forget to do that, you'll lose your progress.
 
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Lemmy Koopa

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1) Yes, FF5 runs something like 80% of its speed all the time. Very annoying. Also happens in other games.
2) Yep, but they're really buggy
3) Yep, SC software.

Keep in mind that saving doesn't happen automatically, but you have to reset your Supercard very quickly to let it store the save. If you forget to do that, you'll lose your progress.

Probably have a deadish battery, like so many others. That's the RTC's fault for constantly using it to keep time.
 

BAHIM Z 360

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Almost all of the GBA games have slow-downs on the Super Card mini SD (Anyone remember playing Kingdom Hearts Chains of Memories?)
But to be honest,I had fun with it back in 2007 :yaysp:

Get it if you're into collecting flash carts as these are rare now!
 

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