Hacking Getting started with GBA Movie Player (SD version)

[plyscho]

About six months ago I've bought a used copy of the GBA Movie Player (SD version) for a few euro.

I've never got it to work: After booting the GBA I see the "GAME BOY Nintendo" boot screen and a black screen directly afterwards. Whether I put a SD card into it's slot or not, it makes no difference.

What do I have to do to get the thing running? I've tried to put some update on the SD card that I've found on the net, the result was no different: a black screen.

Maybe someone can point me to a tutorial how to set the thing up and point me to the newest software.

A tutorial on how to set up some emulators would be cool, too. (Getting comercial games to run would be nice, but I've got a EZ-Flash IV for this.)

[Edit:]
Probably the proper title for this would be "Need help getting started ..." but I can't edit name of the thread.

 

[migles]

is this your card?

(click for zoom)

we call this card M3 card, i have it
are you using a SD card with a size less than 2 GB? this card doesn't support SDHC
it does work with fat32 but causes some issues like you can only launch games with START..

either the sd slot is not working propertly (needs cleaning etc) or the card you are trying is not compatible...

the update files you can get them from: http://linfoxdomain.com/nintendo/ds/
inside the "m3 perfect" make sure you read the document files in there...

you don't need to update it.. (it's not required to make him work)

if you can make the menu happear, then it's all good, you can put your games, however i suggest you to use the m3 game manager because it creates the save files and patches the games if they need

all the card needs to function is having a compatible sd card inside..
there is no need to update files or put games on it to make the menu appear..

 

[plyscho]

It's a similar card but not the same (see picture). I'm using a 1 GB SanDisk Ultra II card, but it also wont boot without SD card. There is always a black screen after boot, no menu at all.

Is a GBA Movie Player a variant of the M3 perfect? In that case, could I use it as Slot 2 device for my M3 Zero?

Thanks for the information, will try another (slower) SD card later.

 

[migles]

sorry, i don't know much info about that gba movie adapter...
i don't know if that was other team\other company or is the same company that we know nowadays as "M3"
1Gb sandisk card should work fine..

i suppose the card is not the same and updates for this card found for the m3 do not work... but i don't know...

maybe @how_do_i_do_that has info about this (wait for him to answer)

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

it's not about the speed, it's about how it is formatted and if it's a NON hc or HC card..
did ya try to format that sandisk card with fat16?

 

[plyscho]

Wow, formatting to FAT16 did the trick! Now I see the interface at least! Thanks a lot!

The interface looks like the attached one. Any further suggestions on how to set up the directories or what emulators to use?

 

[migles]

Wow, formatting to FAT16 did the trick! Now I see the interface at least! Thanks a lot!

The interface looks like the attached one. Any further suggestions on how to set up the directories or what emulators to use?

If the interface is like that one, then happears to use the same stuff my m3 uses...
you can update it, however it's optional.. and i am not sure if you should cuz "why fix what isn't broken".

if you plan to use that thing in GBA mode, emulatores are .gba files (it's the games+the emulator bundled togueter in a gba rom)
you need to prepair the bundle on a computer and then copy the .gba file into the sd card..

i suggest you to use m3 game manager, because it creates automatically the save files.. and also prepairs the bundle of emulator+game
this card as a flaw that it doesn't create the save files automatically.. therefore you need to create .dat files (doesn't use save) therefore using the m3 game manager makes the job much easier and straighfoward
in that website i mentioned before there is a pack of 10 dat files if you preefer, however i am not sure if yo uneed to patch roms

as for the directories, is as you like...
you can create a folder called games or "roms" or whatever, or leave the games in the root, doesn't matter
only matters is the saves, they go into 2 specific folders (GBASAVE IIRC, and NDSSAVE or something for nds games, not sure if that card has NDS mode, but since you already have a m3 in slot 1... use that one)

 

[plyscho]

Thanks again for all that info!

I think I've read somewhere that I can use ROMs without creating .gba ROMs beforehand, do you happen to know anything about it? I've used Goomba Color and PocketNES on the EZ-Flash IV but I'd prefer to put the ROMs on the SD card separetely.

[Edit:]
Reading up on PogoShell now.

 

[plyscho]

I've tested a little more... it doesn't seem to support any updates (tried updagcsd.e35 and updagcsd.g35) and also doesn't seem to support the flashable version of PocketNES. Does this mean it's a fake cart?

Also it supports a 1 GB SD card (FAT16) but not a 2 GB one (neither FAT16 or FAT32). That's strange.

Any cool stuff I can do with it? Does yours support commercial ROMs?

 

[migles]

I've tested a little more... it doesn't seem to support any updates (tried updagcsd.e35 and updagcsd.g35) and also doesn't seem to support the flashable version of PocketNES. Does this mean it's a fake cart?

Also it supports a 1 GB SD card (FAT16) but not a 2 GB one (neither FAT16 or FAT32). That's strange.

Any cool stuff I can do with it? Does yours support commercial ROMs?

Doesn't yours support commercial ROMS?
That's the purpose of my card actually..

Heh, your can't have the ROMS separately, unless you use NDS emulators and run it in NDS mode but for that you have the other M3 card for slot 1

From what I know
The only card that supports having the rom files separate without building them in a gba file is the ever drive gba.. The best gba card eight now...

 

[plyscho]

It seems it doesn't support anything bigger than 300 KB at all. That also limits the use of the emulators a lot.

I'm converting a video to try the movie feature now. Maybe this will actually work.

But I think I'll stick with the EZ-Flash IV. An Everdrive would be cool, but they are a little pricey.

(I've tested a lot of emulators for NDS, back in the days. But the GBA SP needs some emulators, too.)

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

There are 2 versions of the M3 products, the pro and perfect versions. The pro versions were made for the DS and couldn't run many GBA games because they had 4MB of RAM. The perfect had 32MB of RAM and could work running DS games and GBA games. (M3 used RAM modules instead of PSRAM like the EZ-Flash IV)

The crappy thing about M3 stuff is that both versions used the same stickers on the product. You couldn't tell without taking it apart and identifying the size of the RAM or sticking it into a DS/GBA or have the box it came in.


There were at the time several groups that labeled their stuff with the same name at the time, "Movie Player" "Movie Advance" or similar, you would have to know if yours was made by M3 or not to use the files or updates. I got a "Movie Player" that looks nothing like the M3 CF version.

 

[plyscho]

There are 2 versions of the M3 products, the pro and perfect versions. The pro versions were made for the DS and couldn't run many GBA games because they had 4MB of RAM. The perfect had 32MB of RAM and could work running DS games and GBA games. (M3 used RAM modules instead of PSRAM like the EZ-Flash IV)

The crappy thing about M3 stuff is that both versions used the same stickers on the product. You couldn't tell without taking it apart and identifying the size of the RAM or sticking it into a DS/GBA or have the box it came in.

There were at the time several groups that labeled their stuff with the same name at the time, "Movie Player" "Movie Advance" or similar, you would have to know if yours was made by M3 or not to use the files or updates. I got a "Movie Player" that looks nothing like the M3 CF version.

Thanks for that information! It seems to be the pro version, since it can't load anything bigger than 300 KB. I could get some NES and Game Boy ROMs to work with M3 Game Manager and found some Homebrew games that would run on it. Would a Slot-2 device run the same DS Homebrew or commercial games running on a Slot-1 device?

It doesn't seem to recognize any updates, I've tried .e19, .e35 and .g35. It booted up without nothing them. Maybe it's from a different group, not the M3 group. I assume there isn't much to gain from an update, anyways.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

Thanks for that information! It seems to be the pro version, since it can't load anything bigger than 300 KB. I could get some NES and Game Boy ROMs to work with M3 Game Manager and found some Homebrew games that would run on it. Would a Slot-2 device run the same DS Homebrew or commercial games running on a Slot-1 device?

It is limited in certain ways, like you will not likely be able to use things like cleat codes unless they have been patched directly to the rom, you will not likely be able to play any DS game with AP code like chrono trigger etc, and DS games with save sizes larger than a certain size.

It doesn't seem to recognize any updates, I've tried .e19, .e35 and .g35. It booted up without nothing them. Maybe it's from a different group, not the M3 group. I assume there isn't much to gain from an update, anyways.

It is not likely too important, your likely going to need to run any rom from your slot1 that you can't run from the slot2.

 

[assassinz]

You have the Movie Player, which is the version before the M3 series came out. It wasn't really made to play GBA games or NDS games. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBA_Movie_Player

It seems it doesn't support anything bigger than 300 KB at all. That also limits the use of the emulators a lot.

I'm converting a video to try the movie feature now. Maybe this will actually work.

But I think I'll stick with the EZ-Flash IV. An Everdrive would be cool, but they are a little pricey.

(I've tested a lot of emulators for NDS, back in the days. But the GBA SP needs some emulators, too.)