Everdrive GBA is finally a reality

[garbanzox]

It's here! It's finally here! Stone Age Gamer is debuting the cart at the Too Many Games convention June 24-26 in Pennsylvania, USA.

Stone Age Gamer will be accepting pre-orders July 1st. Their price is $99, which includes a clear shell and label.

Features
- All save types supported, no rom patching required
- 256Mbit PSRAM (32MByte)
- Fast Loading (Most games load within 1-2 seconds)
- Micro SD Support (SD up to 2GB, SDHC 4-32GB, SDXC 64GB+)
- Quick Boot Ability (skip most games gameboy boot screen)
- Real Time Clock Support
- Recently Played Game List
- Play Random Game Feature

 

[AyanamiRei0]

Wow that looks very nice it's got a unique case it's a sorta a cross between a GBA cart and a GBC cart

 

[DinohScene]

No nice label?
Sweet cart tho, hopefully that the compatibility is worth the price.

 

[garbanzox]

Looks like pre-orders start July 1 at SAG
https://twitter.com/StoneAgeGamer/status/743443187025477632

 

[thaddius]

Woot

 

[jefffisher]

didn't we already have good nearly perfect gba flash carts?
what is special/different about this one.

 

[ScarletDreamz]

didn't we already have good nearly perfect gba flash carts?
what is special/different about this one.

The price starting probably at 99 dollars as always.

 

[garbanzox]

It's an Everdrive. That will mean high compatibility, simple menus, no rom patching... Just load your SD card and go.

 

[FR0ZN]

Afaik EZ Flash IV (or whatever the latest is), had no RTC ... of course you can patch games to work w/o one, but a lot of people (including me) care about perfect compatability ootb w/o patching game files etc.

Price aside ... the only thing that worries me is the size. Isn't this thing bigger than a standard GBA cartridge ?? Flashcards sticking out of handheld devices are a bummer imo, esp. on GBA SP and micro

 

[dimmidice]

....what is the point of this? i am so confused.

 

[Armadillo]

So why is it bigger than a normal gba cart? Does it have extra hardware or something? or is that pic a pre-production one? The m3 lite perfect managed to stuff an msd slot and rtc into a ds lite sized case, but this is bigger than a normal gba cart?

 

[raulpica]

So why is it bigger than a normal gba cart? Does it have extra hardware or something? The m3 lite perfect managed to stuff an msd slot and rtc into a ds lite sized case, but this is bigger than a normal gba cart?

Can't see much from here but it looks like it has RTC, yeah. Since almost everything is on the front side, there could be some hidden goodies on the other side (solar sensor, maybe?)...

 

[cvskid]

Finally the everdrive gba is going to be shown. Now gameboy/color and gameboy advance have good flash carts now. No more need for ez flash anymore.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Eww, it sticks out. That's a deal breaker for me.
It'd be perfect if it wasn't for that.

 

[FAST6191]

Now gameboy/color and gameboy advance have good flash carts now. No more need for ez flash anymore.

Is the EZ4 a bad GBA flash cart then? If we considered some of the features available in the GBA era that are absent on the EZ4 then there is room for improvement, similar story for some of the things later seen on the DS and other such devices that would be theoretically possible here. However it is broadly reliable, pretty available, pretty cheap as these things go, plays all but about 5 games (maybe about 10 depending upon how you want to view certain hardware fixes http://gbatemp.net/threads/buying-a-gba-flash-cart-in-2013.341203/page-18#post-4756995 , granted some of those would be pokemon games and people seem to like those -- the GBA has far better pokemon clones in robopon and medabots but hey) and has storage enough for most people.

Anyway the sticky out thing seemed like something worth investigating. Fortunately the wiki had a shot of a GBA cart at a kind of similar angle (probably should have just done my own, and still might if I can be bothered to set up the tripod).

I suppose this means people wanting a new standalone cart to jam in a DS lite are back to hunting for an EZ4 lite deluxe too.

Still I am curious to see what goes with this. I liked some of the stuff we saw with the menu demo videos however long ago that was and would like to see the GBA world get a little kick to get moving again. I imagine we will get one here, not sure if any of the staff are still in Pa or are willing to hop across from New Jersey (it is kind of the other side of the city) to see it there though.

 

[garbanzox]

My guess is that, like all Everdrive carts I have used, you just drop ROMs on your SD card and you're good to go. No loaders that you have to run in compatibility mode when you update your OS, no patching your ROMs... This alone is worth the price of the Everdrive carts for me.

I'm not at all concerned about the size. I play on a GBA modded with an SP screen, so if the cart sticks out the top, it's no big deal. My Everdrive GB hangs out pretty far, but I can still enjoy having access to every game ever released at my fingertips. Isn't that what flash carts are all about?

 

[tatumanu]

Yummy, it looks like the good old Flash Advance cart!

 

[Grim Ripper]

That's really great, i hope it has RTC and maybe that solar sensor.

I should find the money to buy it. :/

 

[raulpica]

Moved this to USN since I bet a lot of our users will be interested in it.

Anyway, GBAtemp will be getting a review sample and we'll have a review ready ASAP - stay tuned!

 

[retrofan_k]

I'll be grabbing this to my collection of Everdrives.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Yummy, it looks like the good old Flash Advance cart!

I had one of them from lik-sang.com, which had the parallel printer port conection, slow as hell and could only handle a few games lol.