Hacking What are the pros and cons of EZ Flash IV in your opinion?

[Asten]

I really want to buy one but would like to hear the goods and the bads from people who regularly use theirs. Thanks!

 

[Joe88]

Pros:
Pretty much 100% compatibility
No lag
Still failrly cheap (for gba carts anyway)
Skinable

Cons:
No RTC, RTS
Broken cheat engine
PC rom conversion software is not that great
Uses outdated MiniSD

 

[spencer5976]

I can think of only two cons. I dislike the client you have to use to transfer games, and some games can only have 8 characters in their name (I.E. Super mario advance - Super Mario Bros. 2 I labeled as SMA1SMB2). Most games you can name what you like, but with SMA1SMB2 it had problems saving with a long name.

 

[LusoPlayer]

Just received mine and the case of the cartridge is of very bad quality. And the worse thing is that I can't unscrew the damn thing...

 

[Harsky]

I'm quite an impatient guy so it really bugs me that after saving my game, I turn off and turn back on the GBA only to be greeted with a loading screen so that the EZ-Flash IV is writing the save. Saving lasts for something like 10 seconds but it feels like a lifetime. In fact, there's generally a LOT of loading going on before playing a single game.

As for the con, with a 2gb Mini SD card, it feels great to have an entire library of my favourite GBA games with me everywhere I go on my GB Micro.

 

[Jayro]

I am running the latest 1.72 firmware on mine, with the Darth Vader theme. The theme isn't too terrible, but I'd like to edit it. Is there a ROM builder available anywhere where I can customize the theme myself, like the EZ-Flash III had?

 

[spencer5976]

Here you can get some different skins, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCYQFjAA&url=http://ezflash.sosuke.com/viewforum.php?f=13&ei=QUrtUpyPAa_lygHm3oGYCQ&usg=AFQjCNESSF4c58dhwO-Iwu3-xX7pbF7mUw&bvm=bv.60444564,d.aWc I have tried to make my own skin but have had little luck with the program, It does not want to run on windows 8.

 

[zerofalcon]

You can use EZSkinner to make your own skin for the EZ4.

http://ezflash.sosuke.com/viewtopic.php?t=1590

 

[FAST6191]

Edit, I see we are replying to a thread that has basically run its course. Oh well.

Mostly what the others have said, however it is pretty much the only worthwhile GBA cart you will find.

Is it as good as modern tech could afford and still be cheap? Not even close.

Is it as good as some of the best GBA era cards? Ignoring my fondness for removable memory (it really is nice), not so much. See also Joe88's con list.

"I have a very simple to use R4/DSTwo", will it be the same. Despite the clunkiness of the client and the few fiddly things like Mario 8:3 naming it is pretty easy. However it is not as braindead easy as the likes of the R4 and DSTwo.

Can it play basically every GBA game that matters, most homebrew, ROM hacks and few more besides in a manner that is functionality indistinguishable from the original game (if you want it to be) barring things like clock patches/tilt sensors and the like? You bet.

Is there likely to be a modern cart any time soon? I am not holding my breath here and it is not enough of a money spinner to matter.

On the skinning tools. The graphical stuff was written in visual basic, it is kind of doable on windows 8 but I usually say screw it and fire up the windows XP virtual machine at this point. cory1492's original skinning tools (which were used as the backend for Cracker's EZSkinner stuff) were one of the C family though which might work better (the commands are simple enough, you can probably even use the bundled batch files).

 

[Joe88]

clearlooks v3 is the best skin imo
http://ezflash.sosuke.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=17257&sid=b24bc3881cf8199e9f621279c508c2b2

if only the m3 team still produced m3 lite perfects...

 

[Deleted-236924]

Why does it seem like I'm the only person who never had any kind of issues with Super Mario Advance 4?

Everyone's claiming that you have to use 8:3 naming for it to save properly, but I've been using long filenames since the start and it never prevented it from saving properly.

 

[spencer5976]

Why does it seem like I'm the only person who never had any kind of issues with Super Mario Advance 4?

Everyone's claiming that you have to use 8:3 naming for it to save properly, but I've been using long filenames since the start and it never prevented it from saving properly.

Super Mario Advance 1 not Super Mario Advance 4

 

[Yepi69]

In my opinion

Pros:

Fast
No lag
Loading games and saving files is fast.
Perfect for your GBA goodness
Can also run DS roms (not all) (With passme help, in my case with the help of Flashme version 2)

Cons:

No RTC
No sleep mode (I could ignore RTC but sleep mode is needed)
Uses MiniSD (only 2GB, nothing more than that, MiniSD is outdated and its hard to take it off your EZ4)

Honestly, for me its 4.5/5

Its good but... it could've been better.

 

[Deleted-236924]

Super Mario Advance 1 not Super Mario Advance 4

Haven't had trouble with any of the SMA games. I mentioned SMA4 because it was the one people always had trouble with, I suppose I just didn't read your post thoroughly enough.

 

[FAST6191]

Assuming you do not mean the DS sleep mode (which is a problem with all GBA slot devices and some DS ones too, solved by putting a compatible device in the DS slot) then http://www.kuwanger.net/gba/sleephack/ exists.

Personally sleep mode joins soft reset in the "why would I bother" side of things but there it is if you want it.

 

[Deleted-236924]

In-game soft reset is great because it allows saving properly even when the internal battery is dry.

 

[Parasite X]

I'm quite an impatient guy so it really bugs me that after saving my game, I turn off and turn back on the GBA only to be greeted with a loading screen so that the EZ-Flash IV is writing the save. Saving lasts for something like 10 seconds but it feels like a lifetime. In fact, there's generally a LOT of loading going on before playing a single game.

As for the con, with a 2gb Mini SD card, it feels great to have an entire library of my favourite GBA games with me everywhere I go on my GB Micro.

I feel bad for you the micro is too cramped

 

[Harsky]

I feel bad for you the micro is too cramped

It's the reason why I use my DS lite and the EZ Flash 3in1 instead with the R4.

 

[Parasite X]

It's the reason why I use my DS lite and the EZ Flash 3in1 instead with the R4.

Wider form factors always beat cramped form factors

 

[kuwanger]

I'm quite an impatient guy so it really bugs me that after saving my game, I turn off and turn back on the GBA only to be greeted with a loading screen so that the EZ-Flash IV is writing the save. Saving lasts for something like 10 seconds but it feels like a lifetime. In fact, there's generally a LOT of loading going on before playing a single game.

Yea, the funny thing is that about 90% of the save time is just doing a search in your saver/ folder. So, if you only have a handful of games, saves can be really fast. For me, saves ended up being closer to ~30 seconds. On the other side, well, it's a GBA clocked at 16MHz. So, loading is inherently going to be slow if it involves any sort of copying. Nice, authentic, slowness.

... some games can only have 8 characters in their name (I.E. Super mario advance - Super Mario Bros. 2 I labeled as SMA1SMB2). Most games you can name what you like, but with SMA1SMB2 it had problems saving with a long name.

The exact limit is 49 bytes, IIRC; 8.3 names are 12 bytes for a frame of reference. I don't know if internally non-ascii characters take up more space or not, but I think I've only ever had one game which had saving problems at the 49 byte limit, and I recall shorting it only a few characters more and it started saving properly. Still, yea, it's a silly annoyance to have to manually shorten the rom and sav names.

...

Cons:
...
No sleep mode (I could ignore RTC but sleep mode is needed)

Beyond sleephack, there's also the EZ-Flash Wiki on GBA sleep mode with the EZ4. Yea, it's a pain to manually patch games to work around a hardware bug, but I put it in the same scope as all the other patching one has to do thanks to the EZ4 long ago losing official support. As an almost aside, basically all the above complaints would be likely readily fixable (well, not the slow loading to PSRAM) if the source code to the client and loader were released. Still, for all its warts, it works really rather well.

Having said that, if you have the money, I'd almost recommend something like the GCW Zero. It too has its own warts (sticky button issues and not likely to ever reach 60FPS on all GBA games). If you've got a GB Player, though... I have to say, that's still one of the sweetest ways to play GBA games.