Hacking EZ Flash IV 2.0 Kernel Release - No more patching

[Gyron_Oldvic]

OK，the loading speed will be improved, at the second launch moment.

some one can give me an anti-piracy game list? with release number. I'd lost lots of stuffs in the past of time.

more functions will come back again.

Some problem games:

0727 - Rocky (U) - Doesn't boot.
1862 - Rocky (E) - Doesn't boot.
1906 - Top Gun - Combat Zones (U) - Can't press any button at Main Menu.
0033 - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (UE) - Saving doesn't work.

All the above games can be easily patched to work, but the clean roms of 'Rocky' and 'Top Gun - Combat Zones' don't work.
With regards to 'Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2', even though it will appear like you have saved successfully, after you load another rom onto the EZ IV, then reload 'Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2', your career will be gone. Even the EZ Client can't Sram patch this game correctly either. It has to be done manually.

Some things you might want to look into:
Possibly create a 512 bytes dummy .sav file before the chosen rom boots if no .sav is present on the SD Card. The reason I suggest this is because if no .sav is present when you boot certain games, the options in the game can be messed up, rather than the original default settings. For instance, 'Lego Racers 2' starts completely silent without music and sound effects, and 'Lode Runner' starts with the wrong default option settings. This can be solved by just having a 512 bytes dummy .sav in the Saver folder when you boot these games for the first time. Obviously, the 512 bytes .sav gets overwritten by the correct size .sav on reboot, but the options are already set correctly just from the dummy .sav being there in the first place.

Maybe create an option in the EZ IV menu to disable the 'on-the-fly' save patching routine for those of us who have already patched our game collection from previous years. This could make for better booting times like in the kernels previous to v2.00.

Mother 3 (clean Japanese rom and English translation patched rom) don't work on EZ IV Micro SD (revision 0217). A number of users on here have reported this, and I have tested it myself on this batch and can confirm it doesn't boot (it passes the 'Game Boy Player' logo, then freezes on a white screen with static audio).

There are some batches (two that I'm aware of) of the EZ IV Micro SD where it is very easy to accidentally wipe the firmware if you pressed 'R' on boot regardless of whether the "ezfla_up.bin" update file is on the Micro SD or not. It causes the kernel to be wiped every time you do a soft reset too. I don't know whether this could be fixed via the kernel for these revisions, but it would be nice if it could.

For anyone who wants the 'Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2' save fix, I posted it here a year ago.

btw, do you still need to drop the .sav files or the cart now automatically create them?

I would recommend it, for the reason I outlined above. You can use foobar's 'ezgba-v0.2.0a-2' to batch create 512 bytes dummy .sav files for all your games very quickly.

 

[Essometer]

You need to hold R on boot to flash the ezfla_up.bin. You should see a black screen with a yellow bar and an progress indicator.

I knew that, but thanks anyway.
Apparently I needed an MiniSD to MicroSD adapter and a microSD Card that is not an SDHC Card. Updated worked now on my Mini EZ4

 

[EZ-Flash2]

Comparison of PSRAM loading times:

           1.78:            2.00:
32Mbit     16 seconds       28 seconds
64Mbit     25 seconds       57 seconds
128Mbit    52 seconds      115 seconds

As you can see, 2.00 is considerably slower in PSRAM Loading than 1.78

we got great improvement in the new patch engine benchmark.

32Mbit 1st run: 27 seconds 2nd run: 9 seconds
64Mbit 1st run: 51 seconds 2nd run: 18 seconds
128Mbit 1st run: 100 seconds 2nd run: 33 seconds
256Mbit 1st run: 851 seconds 2nd run: 652 seconds

 

[t3hbutt3rs]

Thank you EZ-Flash2! Went to the download page to download 2.01 and it comes back 404 page not found. 2.00 downloads fine.

Also, just wanted to add, I bought my EZ Flash IV from levitech-retail on eBay http://r.ebay.com/rttTUT The cart arrived to my home in Michigan within 10 days of ordering. Great price, fast shipping, and the microSD is spring loaded! Seller says they work direct with the EZ Flash team. I love it! Thank you!

 

[Localhorst86]

we got great improvement in the new patch engine benchmark.

32Mbit 1st run: 27 seconds 2nd run: 9 seconds
64Mbit 1st run: 51 seconds 2nd run: 18 seconds
128Mbit 1st run: 100 seconds 2nd run: 33 seconds
256Mbit 1st run: 851 seconds 2nd run: 652 seconds

Looking forward to try this. I assume the 256Mbit times are the NOR flashing times, right?

 

[EZ-Flash2]

Thank you EZ-Flash2! Went to the download page to download 2.01 and it comes back 404 page not found. 2.00 downloads fine.

Also, just wanted to add, I bought my EZ Flash IV from levitech-retail on eBay http://r.ebay.com/rttTUT The cart arrived to my home in Michigan within 10 days of ordering. Great price, fast shipping, and the microSD is spring loaded! Seller says they work direct with the EZ Flash team. I love it! Thank you!

hey, the download link was fixed!

 

[tiduscrying]

hey, the download link was fixed!

Thank you so much for the update! Any chance of a future update adding a global reset patch? That is the only thing I will miss from manual patching!

 

[kuwanger]

Through a lot of testing, the character limit was 49 IIRC (50 if you include the automatically added 'nul' to terminate a string, but obviously that's not something to count). As for the 8.3 limit, I know people who have experienced it but haven't myself. My guess is either (1) it only effects other regions than US or (2) it's related to LFN corruption as either the old EZIV kernels were corrupting the filesystem or it's a side effect of using the MicroSD->MiniSD adapter. All I know for certain is that every once in a while I'd run fsck.vfat and see it fixing errors (usually the first and second FAT being inconsistent and garbage filenames). Haven't actually ran fsck in a long time, though, because so long as you weren't adding new files, those corruptions didn't seem to meaningful effect things.

tl;dr 8.3 was safe because SFN seem to always be safe

 

[Localhorst86]

I gave this a quick test with a few roms and I can confirm that the games load considerably faster using 2.01 when loaded a second time. The EZ-Flash creates a .pat file in a PATCH folder for the ROMs you load, presumably noting down the offsets the patch needs to be applied in the futur. For the first boot, the games stay on "Loading 100%" for some time, but I think this is due to the SD Card I am using which seems to be rather slow at writing the .pat file (or .sav files for that matter). If you're using a better microSD than I do, your results are probably faster.

I am currently fiddling arround with updating my EZ-Flat Skin to 2.01

 

[Deleted-236924]

If this gets an universal, integrated soft-reset patch that works 100% with every game, this will be like a dream come true.

That being said, does this newer kernel work with the older batches of EZIV? The original miniSD ones. I seem to remember something about some of the newer kernels only being compatible with the new revisions of the card, not sure if that's the case here (I could be wrong too.)

Though I'm on 1.72RESET and have all my games working fine w/ EZ4 reset patch so I probably shouldn't fix what isn't broken for very little gain, but if an universal reset patch works properly for every single game that would be a very big gain. Who knows what other games I might want to add in the future for which reset patch doesn't work properly.

 

[raulpica]

The everdrive may also have some patches built in for the classic nes and dragon ball z games

Yup, I can confirm the ED X5 has got those built-in.

Haven't actually considered the Everdrive yet, because it is so expensive.. yes, the built-in clock is a big pre, but I don't think the Everdrive has the gyroscopic hardware for Wario Ware: Twisted (arguably one of the best GBA games), Yoshi's Universal Gravitation, Kirby Tilt n Tumble; nor photometric hardware for the Boktai games.

You are correct, no gyro. That's a shame, imho, it should've been doable and they're pretty small to put on the PCB. I suppose it all comes down to cost. Maybe for a future ED GBA X7?

 

[GreatCrippler]

I can't seem to get the EZskinner to work with the newer builds. Is that an OS issue, or an issue with the .bin files?

 

[Localhorst86]

Yup, I can confirm the ED X5 has got those built-in.


You are correct, no gyro. That's a shame, imho, it should've been doable and they're pretty small to put on the PCB. I suppose it all comes down to cost. Maybe for a future ED GBA X7?

2.01 seems to have AP Patches built in as well. Top Gun - Combat Zones can be played as can the Classic NES Series.

I can't seem to get the EZskinner to work with the newer builds. Is that an OS issue, or an issue with the .bin files?

What skinning tool are you trying to use? I am using "EZ4_v1.76_Skin_v2+Builder_by_draxoon" and replacing the Rombuildpro.rom with the kernel I am extracting from the ezfla_up.bin - works fine for me

 

[GreatCrippler]

2.01 seems to have AP Patches built in as well. Top Gun - Combat Zones can be played as can the Classic NES Series.



What skinning tool are you trying to use? I am using "EZ4_v1.76_Skin_v2+Builder_by_draxoon" and replacing the Rombuildpro.rom with the kernel I am extracting from the ezfla_up.bin - works fine for me

Been trying the old EZskinner ap (Had it on an external HD from about 5 years ago, but hadn't use it in forever) I will try the one you are using.

Edit: Hmmm, getting a "msvcr120d.dll is missing" Error

 

[Tarmfot]

A sleep patch would be great.

 

[Onepunchbruh]

What are the keys to change game in EZ 2.01?

 

[Hanafuda]

If this gets an universal, integrated soft-reset patch that works 100% with every game, this will be like a dream come true.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean, most GBA games have that anyway. If you mean reset to the EZIV menu though, yeah absolutely.

 

[sweis12]

On 2.00 I loaded 16,384 kb Doom II in 24.74 seconds. On 2.01 it was 24.36 :/

 

[Onepunchbruh]

Any way to load different game on EZIV 2.01 without shutting down the console?

 

[sweis12]

Any way to load different game on EZIV 2.01 without shutting down the console?

Use the windows program patcher and apply the reset patch.