Hacking Ez flash iv. Save problem on certain games

[Dan1990bcfc]

hi I've just got ez flash iv and am having a save problem with a few games, mainly tony Hawks and mario bros 3. The games save, then when I load another game, and go back to tony hawk or Mario, the save is gone. I've googled the problem and no solutions work. Just wondering if anyone has any solutions. Most games save and old fine.

 

[FAST6191]

You tried 8:3 naming (up to 8 characters for the name, and 3 for the extension) for the game and the save for Mario and it did not work?

 

[codezer0]

The Super Mario Advance series especially is very fussy about the length of the savefile. I still don't understand why, but the DOS-style 8:3 filename for the ROM and SAV file is the only way to get it to work without it throwing up an error.

That said, I can at least state that with latest firmware flashed onto the EZ4, and using the ezgba homebrew to patch the game to work on the cart, the save still throws up an error, but it does work. Go figure.

 

[Dan1990bcfc]

Thanks for the reply. Will try this now

 

[Dan1990bcfc]

You tried 8:3 naming (up to 8 characters for the name, and 3 for the extension) for the game and the save for Mario and it did not work?

I've heard of this but am unsure what you'd rename the game too?

 

[FAST6191]

Whatever you like -- as long as the name of the game matches the save you are fine (no need to worry about serials or name databases or whatever). For mario most tended to opt for smb3 or sma4 or whatever it was you were playing.

 

[Gyron_Oldvic]

Whatever you like -- as long as the name of the game matches the save you are fine (no need to worry about serials or name databases or whatever). For mario most tended to opt for smb3 or sma4 or whatever it was you were playing.

Was this not fixed in newer kernels? Mine is named 'Super Mario Advance 4 - Super Mario Bros. 3 (U)(v1.1).gba' and saves fine.

 

[Dan1990bcfc]

Was this not fixed in newer kernels? Mine is named 'Super Mario Advance 4 - Super Mario Bros. 3 (U)(v1.1).gba' and saves fine.

What's the newest kernal?

 

[Gyron_Oldvic]

What's the newest kernal?

v1.77

 

[Deleted User]

I never had any problems with Marios, but there are a few problematic games (microSD model v1.77):

- Chu chu Rocket (white screen with exclamation mark)
- Defender of the Crown ("buy army" sub menu never opens - only ingame bug I have ever encountered)
- Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (no matter what I do with naming, which version, reset patch or not, save never works. THPS3 works alright)

Some games do not reset with reset patch, but that's a minor convenience anyway. I've not tried to apply sleep patch to any game, so no experience with that.

 

[Gyron_Oldvic]

I never had any problems with Marios, but there are a few problematic games (microSD model v1.77):

- Chu chu Rocket (white screen with exclamation mark)
- Defender of the Crown ("buy army" sub menu never opens - only ingame bug I have ever encountered)
- Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (no matter what I do with naming, which version, reset patch or not, save never works. THPS3 works alright)

Some games do not reset with reset patch, but that's a minor convenience anyway. I've not tried to apply sleep patch to any game, so no experience with that.

I've just tested those three games.

Defender of the Crown works fine, and the 'Buy Army' menu works too. (Soft Reset and Sleep Mode both work). Maybe a problem with your rom?

ChuChu Rocket! works fine (Soft Reset and Sleep Mode both work). The exclamation mark indicates a save problem. It should only pop up for a second or two, then the 'Language' selection screen should appear. I think Flash memory on your rom is not correctly patched to Sram. I know some versions of the EZ Client didn't correctly patch ChuChu Rocket!. Here are a couple of ips patches (attached below). One for the Euro rom, and one for the US rom. Patch to clean roms and don't attempt to run through any client. Just copy the rom straight to the Memory Card. They will also patch in Soft Reset and Sleep Mode. Enter Sleep Mode = L+R+Start. Wake Up = Select+Start. Soft Reset = L+R+Select+Start (don't forget to let go of the Soft Reset keys as soon as you press them, otherwise you may end up bypassing writing the save to the Memory Card. If you bypass save writing by accident, it's easily solved. Just turn off the GBA, then back on, and the save will write (as long as the EZ IV detects a difference in the internal Sram over the .sav currently on the Memory Card).

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 is an oddball that you can't Sram patch in the conventional way. Even though you can patch the Sram successfully, Career mode saving will still fail after you load any another rom onto the EZ IV, then reload Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, your career will be gone. Attached below is a ips patch to fix this. Apply it to a clean rom. Either Euro or US rom is fine (they're both the same CRC). Soft Reset and Sleep Mode are also patched in. Same keys as I listed above for ChuChu Rocket!. Copy the patched rom straight to your memory card (don't use a client), and you should be able to embark on a career and save successfully.

 

[Deleted User]

Defender of the Crown works fine, and the 'Buy Army' menu works too. (Soft Reset and Sleep Mode both work). Maybe a problem with your rom?

Could be, though I've tested two different roms and both worked fine with VBA. Anyhow not very important game for me, just wanted to point out that I'm having this weird behavior.

Thx for the other IPS patches, I'll probably try them out today.

[EDIT] Can confirm that both IPS patches seemed to work. Thank you!

 

[Dan1990bcfc]

Could be, though I've tested two different roms and both worked fine with VBA. Anyhow not very important game for me, just wanted to point out that I'm having this weird behavior.

Thx for the other IPS patches, I'll probably try them out today.

[EDIT] Can confirm that both IPS patches seemed to work. Thank you!

I've just tested those three games.

Defender of the Crown works fine, and the 'Buy Army' menu works too. (Soft Reset and Sleep Mode both work). Maybe a problem with your rom?

ChuChu Rocket! works fine (Soft Reset and Sleep Mode both work). The exclamation mark indicates a save problem. It should only pop up for a second or two, then the 'Language' selection screen should appear. I think Flash memory on your rom is not correctly patched to Sram. I know some versions of the EZ Client didn't correctly patch ChuChu Rocket!. Here are a couple of ips patches (attached below). One for the Euro rom, and one for the US rom. Patch to clean roms and don't attempt to run through any client. Just copy the rom straight to the Memory Card. They will also patch in Soft Reset and Sleep Mode. Enter Sleep Mode = L+R+Start. Wake Up = Select+Start. Soft Reset = L+R+Select+Start (don't forget to let go of the Soft Reset keys as soon as you press them, otherwise you may end up bypassing writing the save to the Memory Card. If you bypass save writing by accident, it's easily solved. Just turn off the GBA, then back on, and the save will write (as long as the EZ IV detects a difference in the internal Sram over the .sav currently on the Memory Card).

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 is an oddball that you can't Sram patch in the conventional way. Even though you can patch the Sram successfully, Career mode saving will still fail after you load any another rom onto the EZ IV, then reload Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, your career will be gone. Attached below is a ips patch to fix this. Apply it to a clean rom. Either Euro or US rom is fine (they're both the same CRC). Soft Reset and Sleep Mode are also patched in. Same keys as I listed above for ChuChu Rocket!. Copy the patched rom straight to your memory card (don't use a client), and you should be able to embark on a career and save successfully.

Just wondering if you've found a save patch for smb3? I don't understand how the 8:3 naming works

 

[Gyron_Oldvic]

Just wondering if you've found a save patch for smb3? I don't understand how the 8:3 naming works

8+3 naming is basically up to 8 characters for the filename, and up to 3 characters for the extension. So an acceptable name would be 'Sma4smb3.gba'.

With regard to a patch, try the attached ips patch on a clean 'Super Mario Advance 4 - Smb3 (v1.1 aka Rev 1)' US rom (crc: 88DAB27F).
It will patch:
- EZ IV bytes.
- Flash1M to Sram.
- Soft Reset back to EZ IV Menu (L+R+Select+Start). Note: If you use this, don't forget to let go of the Soft Reset keys as soon as you press them to avoid bypassing saving. Otherwise turn off, then on.
- Fix for Auto+Easy Sleep (option accessed from game selection screen), and In-game sleep (accessed from pause menu).
- 38 e-Reader levels from the Virtual Console Edition.

The other patch which says 'no voice' is the same apart from, it also removes all voices and adds the death sound back from the SNES version for both Mario and Luigi (thanks Mangaman3000).

The blank 128k save attached, rename it to the same filename as your rom and copy it to your 'Saver' folder. eg:
Sma4smb3.gba
Sma4smb3.sav

 

[Dan1990bcfc]

Thanks for the links. Unfortunately I had the same problem. Smb3 wouldn't save Properly

 

[Gyron_Oldvic]

Thanks for the links. Unfortunately I had the same problem. Smb3 wouldn't save Properly

When you say 'wouldn't save properly', can you elaborate on that. In Smb3 you have to 'save and quit' from the in-game Menu otherwise the continue option won't be there the next time you boot. You would have to start from the beginning of that particular world if you didn't save. When you look at the save slots do you see the word 'World' on any of them (like the one you last used), or do they all say 'New'?
When you switch on your GBA after playing do you see the brief message on-screen to indicate the save is being written?
What did you use to apply the ips patch, and can you give me the CRC of the smb3 rom after you have patched it. It should be '8D000759' for the regular patch, and 'D441C2EB' for the 'no voice' patch. These patches are only for the (v1.1 aka Rev 1) revision of the Smb3 rom.

 

[Dan1990bcfc]

Just an update. It's working. Thanks again for the patch

 

[Gyron_Oldvic]

Just an update. It's working. Thanks again for the patch

Good to hear. I did test it, albeit only briefly.

 

[MarioMasta64]

i have this problem alot with games too (often times they fail to save properly and write a blank savefile to only one save :o (example: dbz buus fury)

 

[Deleted User]

Btw, found the problem I had with Defender of the Crown: If patched with ezflash software and reset-patch applied, the popup dialog for buying units would not work. Moving the game to SD with Ezflash software without reset patch made it work fine.