Hacking EZ Flash IV 2.0 Kernel Release - No more patching

[Opium]

Has anyone been able to make a version of it with a better skin and with the L+A hardware reset for launching games enabled by default?

 

[Localhorst86]

Has anyone been able to make a version of it with a better skin and with the L+A hardware reset for launching games enabled by default?

See my signature

 

[Harsky]

Just double checking but does 2.01 work okay with the 2007 EZIV or should I use this with the newer one?

 

[raulpica]

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

Niiice, the EZ IV is suddenly an excellent ED X5 competitor! Bravo, Team EZ!

 

[Torci2008]

See my signature

Thank you very much friend! Super skin turned out! I'm happy to have found this forum and branch =)

 

[ssaylanc]

Just double checking but does 2.01 work okay with the 2007 EZIV or should I use this with the newer one?

2.0 and 2.01 did not work for me. It reboots after update but, 2-3 seconds later I only got a red screen.

 

[Bart Lemming]

I go away for a few days (not usuall a big deal in the GBA scene) and I come back to the 2.01 update with mention of possible further improvements later on. This is great news.

I've got a new-batch EZ-Flash on the way but I've only got my old one just now. Has anyone upgraded to 2.01 using a 2GB Sandisk MiniSD? How'd it go?

GBA Master Race, FTW!

 

[Opium]

See my signature

Awesome! Thank you. That's exactly what I'm after.

 

[codezer0]

Just double checking but does 2.01 work okay with the 2007 EZIV or should I use this with the newer one?

I'm using 2.01 now. Other than needing to use a 2gb or smaller SD card to update, it's been smooth sailing here.

 

[Bart Lemming]

So, impatience got the better of me and I upgraded (using Localhorst's skinned version). It didn't work for me.

I've got a Sandisk 2GB mini SD card. The EZ IV seemed to update okay but then upon bootup the screen freezes on the EZ IV home screen and then black lines 'drip' down the screen until the whole thing sits there looking back at me with a totally black screen (?!)

Just thought I'd share my experience. I'm off to put 1.78 back on until my new cart arrives.

EDIT: Bugger. It seems I can't downgrade. Get the same outcome as above. I think I've killed my cart... RIP. She served me well.

 

[Localhorst86]

So, impatience got the better of me and I upgraded (using Localhorst's skinned version). It didn't work for me.

I've got a Sandisk 2GB mini SD card. The EZ IV seemed to update okay but then upon bootup the screen freezes on the EZ IV home screen and then black lines 'drip' down the screen until the whole thing sits there looking back at me with a totally black screen (?!)

Just thought I'd share my experience. I'm off to put 1.78 back on until my new cart arrives.

EDIT: Bugger. It seems I can't downgrade. Get the same outcome as above. I think I've killed my cart... RIP. She served me well.

No. Try a different SD card. The lines are the usual sign that the SD isn't recognized. Note that SD compatibility has changed massively with the introduction of SDHC compatibility in the 1.75 release.

EDIT: since you mentioned you had a 2GB miniSD you surely have the white EZFlash IV model. Try using a micro SD(HC) with a mini SD adapter.

 

[yamca]

I tried 2GB miniSD (my previous attempt was with a 1 GB), everything is working now.

 

[Bart Lemming]

Well, it's good to know that I haven't killed my cart. Annoyingly, I don't have a micro to mini SD adapter or another mini SD card. I think I'll just have to wait until my new cart arrives in a few days.

It's interesting that I did have FW 1.78 on the card before I updated it but now I can't go back to it though... Maybe I'll try putting on an older version and try again.

@yamca: Just wondering what brand your card is?

 

[yamca]

@yamca: Just wondering what brand your card is?

Kingston

 

[xs4all]

Just repeating what everyone has already said about kernel 2.01, I have the Micro SDHC version of this card, and yes games loads faster after the first initial loading of the game.

FYI, just throwing it out there for those that are curious, I'm using a 16GB SanDisk Ultra UHS-I Class 10 MicroSD card. I have a total of 1,193 roms, pretty much every single USA/PAL with some JAP roms I could find on the card. Yes it's overkill, yes I'd probably never going to play every single game or any for that matter, but just the thought of having every game at my disposal is pretty neat.

 

[Bart Lemming]

Kingston

Thanks for sharing.

You jogged my memory and reminded me I had an old 512MB mini SD card. I thought it was Kingston. It's actually a Kingmax card - it didn't work.

Pie in the sky thought: I wonder if the auto patching thing can be retooled to allow 'native' support for GB/GBC/NES Roms... Would that require a special build of each emu (Goomba and PocketNES)?

 

[kuwanger]

They could use something like Plugin2GBA. They certainly have my blessing to use it. The other advantage of that would be it'd support things like the jpg viewer, midi player, etc.

In any case, it'd be more complicated than what they're currently doing--copy one game and patch it in place. Even at the most basic level, a stripped down version would still be copying two files (the "patch" (with the emulator + pogoshell fake stuff) and the game). Of course the "better" way would be to have three files (the "path", the emulator, and the game). *shrug*

I'd definitely like to see it.

 

[tiduscrying]

They could use something like Plugin2GBA. They certainly have my blessing to use it. The other advantage of that would be it'd support things like the jpg viewer, midi player, etc.

In any case, it'd be more complicated than what they're currently doing--copy one game and patch it in place. Even at the most basic level, a stripped down version would still be copying two files (the "patch" (with the emulator + pogoshell fake stuff) and the game). Of course the "better" way would be to have three files (the "path", the emulator, and the game). *shrug*

I'd definitely like to see it.

Holy shit, that'd be godly. I've had the OG EZFlashIV for two years now and I always thought development has totally ceased on it since the GBA is so "old" but when the new Micro SD model came out along with the 1.7X firmwares, I was mildly excited for new stuff. Now with the 2.X firmwares, auto-patching and hopefully global IGR (and sleep, but I don't use it all that often tbh) coming soon I am hyped as all hell! If the EZ Team used your plugins to add more file support to the EZFlash browser.... man... That would just be what dreams are made of.

 

[Deleted-236924]

I for one am glad they're continuing support for the EZ4.

There was incentive to move on back in the DS days, and EZVi was nice (I still want to get one of those), but it's hard to compete against DSTwo+ and R4i Gold/AK2i right now, and 3DS is pretty much dead in terms of flashcards.

GBA on the other hand... only other option was the Everdrive which is a really good card, but it also costs an arm and a leg. Glad they recognized that and resumed making them, especially with microSD support (I've got the original miniSD model, good card, but my first miniSD failed on me and replacements are hard to come by, had to shell out like $25 for just a 2GB.)
EZ4 is super cheap and lacks some features but it's a really damn good GBA flashcard despite that. RTC I can deal without, and the required game patching was the main thing going against it but that's soon to be a thing of the past entirely.

Kind of too bad they already got my money for it years ago. I'd donate extra money for the work they've done on it since

I just hope the universal soft reset patch works with 100% compatibility. If it doesn't work on certain games and still requires manual patching then it's kinda eh.


btw, any games that require the hard reset to work properly anymore? I had issues back in the days with Yoshi's Island and someone gave me the 1.72RESET fw that does hard reset by default and that fixed it, I just hope that upgrading to 2.01 won't require me to hold L+A while loading certain games. Rather every game just work by default without having to do weird maneuvers (having hard reset be default behavior would be ideal tbh, it's only like 2-3 seconds longer when loading a game due to GBA bios logo but if it guarantees games will work properly then it's worth it.)

 

[kuwanger]

AFAIK, no, they've never gotten around to fixing the soft reset. Basically, it required a lot of trial and error to get soft reset working properly in Pogoshell (and Prince's bustamove clone was a great help because of an odd glitch), but the result is that what I've got in my Pogoshell fork should be enough to copy. Basically:

Spoiler

memset((void *)(0x02000000), 0, 256*1024);
SETW(REG_IE, 0);
SETW(REG_IF, 0);
SETW(REG_IME, 0);

SETW(REG_DISPCNT, DISP_MODE_0 | DISP_BG1_ON );
SETW(REG_BG1CNT, 0);

p = (uint32 *)0x03007FC0;
for(i=0; i<4*4; i++)
p = 0;

SETW(REG_SOUNDBIAS, 0x0200);
reset();

in asm (arm in ram)
reset:
mov r0,#0xfc
swi #0x010000
swi #0x000000

I may or may not have cut out too much stuff (IIRC, something about a bit set in the 0x3007fxx range to do with how reset functions). In fact, I think my plugin2gba also does something about resetting the scroll registers because Dwedit's goomba color makes some presumptions about their default value. Been too long to be 100% certain.

tl;dr - Getting soft reset working properly is hard.