Hacking Some questions about getting an EZ-Flash today

[apoptygma]

I see the official website is still up, unfortunately the resellers in my region are closed so I'll need to import. So I just wanted to know a few things:
This is for a GBA(SP) - i want the full-size cart right? Not the lite.
Will it play gb or gbc roms?
Which specific varient allows all roms (ie. Mother 3 etc) to be played and are these still produced or available?
Is therw possibly a better cart to buy (another brand) for my purposes? Most info says the EZ4 is the best but a lot is outdated.

 

[apoptygma]

Just realised there's still GBA forums on gbatemp so that might have been a better spot to post. Is this the card I want? http://www.3ds-flashcart.com/buy-cheap-ezflash-iv-with-free-shipping-p-269.html

 

[cracker]

Yes, that is the EZ Flash cart you will want. Note that you will need miniSD and not microSD for this cart which are kind of hard to come by now.

 

[apoptygma]

Also found this site selling them at 1/2 the price. http://www.r4seller.com/ezflash-iv-...multimedia-flash-card-for-gba-spnds_p453.html not sure how reputable they are...

 

[TecXero]

Yes, that is the EZ Flash cart you will want. Note that you will need miniSD and not microSD for this cart which are kind of hard to come by now.

Most newer adapters work fine. I haven't had a single problem with my adapter from SanDisk.

 

[apoptygma]

The sd shouldn't be a huge issue. I'm just wondering if I'm going to be able to get one any cheaper than the 50 dollars most sites list it at. Are they no longer produced or just in very small quantities?

 

[TecXero]

The sd shouldn't be a huge issue. I'm just wondering if I'm going to be able to get one any cheaper than the 50 dollars most sites list it at. Are they no longer produced or just in very small quantities?

I do believe EZ is transitioning to a different version of the card, one that natively uses Micro SD. It might be worth waiting for a few weeks.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

It looks to be transitioning to a microSDHC at least since miniSD was a standard nobody seems to use. Hopefully it will be cheaper to get over the miniSD version that seems to be creeping ever higher in price.

 

[apoptygma]

It would be likely to be a small cart designed for a DS wouldn't it? Do these fit in a regular GBA SP?

 

[TecXero]

It would be likely to be a small cart designed for a DS wouldn't it? Do these fit in a regular GBA SP?

Their new model is still an EZ4 for GBA, it's just that it's designed for Micro SD instead.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

As tecXero said, it works in a GBA/SP/micro.

This is what a 3in1 and EZ-IV lites for the DSL looks like.

 

[apoptygma]

I just ran the EZ_Client 1.03 to get a feel for it, is there a 'list file' somewhere that can auto-select the required settings (ie. which games need save-patch , save size etc)
Also do you use this tool for GB/GBC roms or is that done some other way?

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

For the GB/C, this might help you: http://gbatemp.net/threads/release-ez-flash-iv-aio.370132/

I use Offline list for GBA rom information, this helps me determine if I have to patch it or not: http://offlinelist.free.fr/
Offline list doesn't tell you if you need to patch it, you have to make that judgement call on it, Offline list is a reference guide in this case.
After the first use of it, you will likely forget about it afterwards.

If you haven't seen a EZ-Flash IV guide to use yet: http://gbatemp.net/threads/ez-flash-iv.291109/

 

[emmanu888]

What's the difference between the miniSD and the microSDHC versions besides the cards it uses?

 

[TecXero]

What's the difference between the miniSD and the microSDHC versions besides the cards it uses?

I haven't heard of any differences. The NOR, PSRAM, and everything should be the same. I just have a Micro SD adapter in mine, and it works fine, so it should essentially be the same thing. Though, I do believe someone mentioned the soldering not being that great on the new version, and a new battery being used.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

absolutely nothing except for a firmware update.

 

[emmanu888]

Didn't the SDHC firmware broke compatibility on certain games? I'm not updating my EZ4 till those bugs are fixed honestly.

 

[FAST6191]

Didn't the SDHC firmware broke compatibility on certain games? I'm not updating my EZ4 till those bugs are fixed honestly.

I did not break compatibility for anything as far as I am aware, however previously people were using a version of the firmware (normally a hacked version) that forced hard reset and then launch (ostensibly to work around a bug introduced in some later versions and in described http://problemkaputt.de/gbatek.htm#dsbackwardscompatiblegbamode ), being a new official one this opted for soft rest by default and that broke a few things for people. You can still hard reset though (hold L and press A to launch) and that seems to have fixed whatever issues there might have been for those few games that do not work with soft reset.

The main change from where I sit, other than SDHC, is that it now lacks a DS version of the loader and will not boot DS mode on a flashme DS. GBA mode is pretty speedy these days but it was nice for DS game/save dumping homebrew.

If you do not want SDHC (and the good games of the GBA library is not the most space consuming collection) then there is very little reason to update

 

[apoptygma]

The cart came today and works great! The skin is pretty nasty though, Is there anywhere I'm going to be able to get something a bit easier to read? From what I can tell the skin is embedded in the bin file? Does that mean I need to find one that's a '1.75' skin then flash it as an update?

All I could find was this post from about 7 hours ago http://ezflash4.tumblr.com/

 

[FAST6191]

You could build a skin against 1.75 but the clearlooks skin that many people seem to enjoy was remade as SDHC compatible and I have tested it on my new EZ4.
http://filetrip.net/gba-downloads/c...shiv-1-75-with-clearlooks-v5-1-75-f33030.html