Hacking Some EZ Flash IV micro-SD questions

[Sendoh]

1) Is it possible to write 2 games to NOR as long as they constitute less than 32mb?

2) How's the battery life of the SRAM battery compared to the 3in1? I had the latter and I had to constantly change its battery.

3) Do I have to do any soldering to change the battery?

4) Does the EZ Flash IV affect the GBA's battery life as compared to regular retail carts?

 

[codezer0]

Possible to have more than one game on NOR? Yes. Recommended? No. Here's why: if you want to use any kind of cross-game functionality with a game on the EZ4, it is possible, but it basically requires loading a particular game onto its NOR first. If you have more than one, it's likely going to get confused, and at best the function won't work, and at worst, it'll crash and/or corrupt anything that is involved in the process.

I can't speak for the 3in1, but it is no secret that flash carts usually do use some more battery power than a genuine ROM cartridge.

My original miniSD's internal battery is still going strong, impressively. I suppose soldering will be necessary eventually. But if you replace it for the kind of socket-ed button-cell battery, it would be much easier to deal with in the future.

I can only speak with experience from my miniSD model, but on the same firmware, I fail to see any material difference between it and the microSD models, other than simply just needing an appropriate adapter.

 

[Sendoh]

...cross-game functionality...

Thanks for the quick reply!

Just a follow-up up about cross-game functionality, do you mean features like the Pal Park in Pokemon? So if I don't care about features like that, there's no issue with flashing two games to NOR?

 

[migles]

2) How's the battery life of the SRAM battery compared to the 3in1? I had the latter and I had to constantly change its battery.

brobably you did go after cheap ones?
i changed the battery on pokemon games, less than 1 month they were empty, i used a cheap brand...
while the original ones lasted maybe 10 years...

 

[Sendoh]

brobably you did go after cheap ones?
i changed the battery on pokemon games, less than 1 month they were empty, i used a cheap brand...
while the original ones lasted maybe 10 years...

Maybe, but the battery the 3in1 came with was really shoddy too. I've had two of them, and even had to exchange one that came with a defective battery straight.

 

[Kayleea]

About your question NO.1 , I have done some testing recently. I am using the new EZ Flash IV MicroSD version on my DS lite.
After using the EZ4_Client to write the gba roms into the TF card, I choose to write two games into NOR (the NOR need to be formatted firstly).--- The two gba roms are "Densetsu no Stafy" and the "Advance Wars 2 Black Hole Rising", and these two games add up to about 23-24MB. I play the two games crossingly--- first play one and then play the other so see if they save properly.
I have tried with different methods. Firstly, playing the Advance Wars 2 first, and when play to some stage, I choose to save it. Then I turned off my console, and then power on and play the Densetsu no Stafy, and in the middle I press START button to save this game. Later on I play the Advance Wars 2 again and find that my previous game saving still exists and can continue to play. Again I power off the console and then power on to play Densetsu no Stafy, which also can be continued to play.

Here is my conclusion/ suggestion:
IN ALL, because the different methods of saving with different games(such as Densetsu no Stafy saves by press the START button and power off, while Advance Wars 2 saves by press A button during the game and then choose to save following the hint ), every time you are about to stop playing you should choose to save the gamestatus before you play the other game. Once you forget to save the game, I have to say it's a big tragedy for some games (For example, Densetsu no Stafy which saves by press the START button ) as you need to play from the very beginning again. While for other games like Advance Wars 2 (save method referred to above) , you may get a little lucky since its first save still exists and you can continue to play.

 

[Sendoh]

...

I have done my own tests since, and have had up to 4 games (<8mb) flashed into NOR at one point without any problems. I don't think what you mentioned has any bearing on flashing multiple games to NOR, because everytime you load up the EZ4 it overwrites the SD card save file of the previous game you've played, and when you load a new game it loads up the save file from the SD card again. So regardless of how the game saves in-game as long as you remember to save (just like in any other game on PSRAM or NOR or otherwise) it should be fine writing multiple games to NOR.