The EZFlash team sent GBAtemp an EZFlash Omega to play with and it turned up this morning.
For those unaware the Omega is EZFlash's new GBA flash cart, one aiming to be the be all and end all of GBA flash carts. Initial impressions are that it could well be so, and even if not it will see you presumably able to play 99% of the GBA library with some fancy features in a fairly solid little cart. One that retailers are listing for around 40 Euros, 50 USD or 35 GBP.
The full review will cover all the troublesome games and properly put it through its paces but for now.

Out of the box
Mother 3 fan translation. Boots just fine in RAM.
Pokemon Emerald (game with real time clock). Clean ROM boots fine, saves clock as offset clock from onboard time and savestates/real time save works in it.
Various other games were tested, including a handful of prepatched games. Fine too.
Menu. Very very nippy, minimal boot times and all on a nasty little 8 gigabyte cart of the class 2 persuasion. Odd menu ordering system (possibly date related) but you can go up and down very quickly, and left and right skip pages. Otherwise simple enough.
SD slot. Moved to a friction slot rather than spring loaded used by the microSDHC version. Easy enough to insert and remove, even with my not so dainty finger. It is not impossible that you could miss the slot but it should not fall into the case if you do.
Build quality. The plastic moulding is a bit rough around the injection marks and insides but the outside finish is fine. A micrometer was fetched for the curious. Measurements taken about the thickest edge just before it dips for the sticker inlay (it is the furthest point from any support and where most would pinch it to flex).

Device	Measurement (mm)
Omega GBA size	1.337
Omega DS lite	1.213
Original EZ4	1.013
EZ4 microSDHC	0.926
EZ4 lite deluxe	1.168
EZ2	0.882
Motogp	1.254

All that said thickness is but part of the story when it comes to plastics and sheet goods. In function the Omega most resembles an original GBA cart case in that it slides together and is retained by clips once there. Do note this if you are swapping between the stock GBA size case and the DS lite size case.
Said sliding clips and mid line screw make for a far sturdier case than the sometimes maligned EZ4 microSDHC offering (no EZFlash reform to compare here). Fit and finish is otherwise pretty good, not necessarily jewellery grade but more than suitable and accurate where it counts.
The Omega lacks the "shoulders" of an original cart, as do all the others in its immediate line (the EZ2 has them) but otherwise fits fine in a GBA SP, original DS and was a bit stiff to get into an original GBA (possibly caused by differences in the alignment grooves/insets on the outside) but still worked.

PCB wise possibly a bit light with the solder paste in some places but no cold joints or anything likely to fall off, BGA looked fine as well under a loupe.
Chip numbers

Spoiler

Left to right in PCB shot below.
Spansion
71gl064a08bfw0b
0651bvb
china
http://www.datasheet.hk/view_download.php?id=1270277&file=0149\s71gl064aa0-0z_1304149.pdf
Possibly a menu/

xilinx
spartan
xc3s200a
ftg256agq1517
a5059562a
A FPGA from the main maker of such things. The 200K gate model should you be concerned about such matters.
https://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/data_sheets/ds529.pdf

spansion
98ws512pe0fw003
748ppj40 g
malaysia
Possibly deprecated. A combined NOR and PSRAM chip.

Battery side
Windbond
25q16cvnig
1531
https://www.winbond.com/resource-files/da00-w25q16cvf1.pdf
Small flash memory chip. Possibly the programming/data chip for the FPGA

Silver top chip designated y1 in mask.
p24 54m 1603
Unknown

Under battery
8563s
Real time clock chip most likely
https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/data-sheet/PCF8563.pdf

8514n
unknown 2 pin device

3bqd
3 pin device
Unknown
v1 on solder mask

battery
Blocked by tab
3v
12.25mm
0.25mm inc cover and separator
1220 is most likely size. Maybe Duracell CR1220.

Pictures
Click to enlarge


You can see some videos, including those of the menu, from EZFlash's own teaser thread. They mirror what we saw in this initial test.

Official Usage guide
http://www.ezflash.cn/omega.html
EZFlash product homepage
http://www.ezflash.cn/product/omega/

 

[Nick28sl]

Can you test this? Use Pokemon platinum on a r4 flash card and on ez flash omega flashing the gba pokemon emerald to NOR memory.

Start a pokemon nds game e.g platinum and go to Pal Park (tap in main view)
here more info:
bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pal_Park

It works (can you select the pokemons)? If you need the sav file for pokemon platinum (where has you pal park function) and pokemon emerald

 

[slaphappygamer]

hey @FAST6191, is that sosuke site gonna make a comeback? perhaps gbatemp could "absorb" them? there was some great info there

 

[FAST6191]

I don't think there is going to be a concerted effort. Info wise I will help port some over if needs be.

As far as the pokemon it will have to wait until the morning, however I did test the GBA save and it went straight in -- copy, rename, load, no fiddling.

 

[Rune]

Sorry if this has already been answered, but are there any skins for this?

 

[FAST6191]

New test kernel was sent my way.

Features of it

1. multi level for exfat
2. selection can be cycled in game menu, press up go to last item.
3. file sort by alphabet
4. recently played game list
5. multiboot (says L+A on the new help screen)
6. delete file
7. press left go first item on first page. but right go last item on last page can not be implemented right now.
8. stay the same folder position on upper level when you exit the folder.
9. fixed eeprom v126 identify

Tested a few of them, most notably recently played, and seems like good stuff. Not entirely sure what the test for the multiboot feature is going to be but I will figure something out. Others seem to be working well.

The EEPROM v126 was probably the last issue GBA carts ever faced -- late 2005 it was a Harry Potter game that was the main one to cause issues ( https://gbatemp.net/threads/title-2229.28207/ ) and saw a few carts have to have hasty updates, and tools made for it for those that were not being updated ( https://gbatemp.net/threads/news-gbata-0-7-released.28277/ ).
Game list for the curious thanks to http://advanscene.com/

	2781 	Yggdra Union - We'll Never Fight Alone 	Europe 	Eeprom v126 - 64 kbit 	256 Mbit
	2770 	Harry Potter Collection 	Europe 	Eeprom v126 - 64 kbit 	256 Mbit
	2769 	The Legend of Spyro - The Eternal Night 	Europe 	Eeprom v126 - 4 kbit 	256 Mbit
	2742 	The Legend of Spyro - The Eternal Night 	USA 	Eeprom v126 - 4 kbit 	256 Mbit
	2637 	Shamu's Deep Sea Adventures 	Europe 	Eeprom v126 - 4 kbit 	256 Mbit
	2631 	Shinchan contra los Munecos de Shock Gahn 	Spain 	Eeprom v126 - 64 kbit 	128 Mbit
	2588 	My Animal Centre in Africa 	Europe 	Eeprom v126 - 64 kbit 	256 Mbit
	2573 	Yggdra Union - We'll Never Fight Alone 	USA 	Eeprom v126 - 64 kbit 	256 Mbit
	2572 	Tomb Raider - Legend 	USA 	Eeprom v126 - 4 kbit 	64 Mbit
	2570 	Happy Feet 	USA 	Eeprom v126 - 4 kbit 	256 Mbit
	2564 	Happy Feet 	Europe 	Eeprom v126 - 4 kbit 	256 Mbit
	2395 	Crash & Spyro Superpack - Ripto's Rampage + The Cortex Conspiracy 	USA 	Eeprom v126 - 4 kbit 	256 Mbit
	2341 	Crayon Shin chan - Densetsu wo Yobu Omake no Miyako Shockgaan 	Japan 	Eeprom v126 - 64 kbit 	256 Mbit
	2322 	Yggdra Union 	Japan 	Eeprom v126 - 64 kbit 	256 Mbit
	2249 	Summon Night Craft Sword Monogatari - Hajimari no Ishi 	Japan 	Eeprom v126 - 64 kbit 	256 Mbit
	2233 	Shamu's Deep Sea Adventures 	USA 	Eeprom v126 - 4 kbit 	256 Mbit
	2200 	Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire 	USA 	Eeprom v126 - 4 kbit 	256 Mbit
	2164 	Crash & Spyro - Super Pack Volume 3 	Europe 	Eeprom v126 - 64 kbit 	256 Mbit

 

[slaphappygamer]

Does this also mean that the “classic nes” series games will now properly work as well?

 

[Localhorst86]

Does this also mean that the “classic nes” series games will now properly work as well?

They already did on the EZ-Flash IV/Reform, starting from Kernel 2.03 iirc. But yes, they also seem to work on the Omega for me. Note that I didn't play them a lot, I have other consoles for NES emulation so the NES Classic Series was never of much interest to me.

 

[slaphappygamer]

Ahh ok. Must be user error here. When I load the legend of Zelda, sure the game loads, but the controller input is hit and miss.

 

[Localhorst86]

Ahh ok. Must be user error here. When I load the legend of Zelda, sure the game loads, but the controller input is hit and miss.

hm... this might be an issue though. As I said, I have not extensively tested the NES Classic series, I basically loaded up some Donkey Kong and played two or three screens. Maybe other NES Classic titles still have issues like you mentioned. We'll probably have to wait for an answer from @FAST6191 here.

 

[FAST6191]

There is some debate over the quality of the fixes released by either the Scene or that pack that wandered around, and they may cause issues over and above what was present on the original efforts (the classic nes/famicom mini series being a "good effort" rather than anything particularly substantial). The actual protections were fairly extensive if https://mgba.io/2014/12/28/classic-nes/ is anything to go by.

For the most part though
*points at HVCA* or *points at pocketNES*
are my solutions for this issue.

 

[Localhorst86]

@slaphappygamer I just finished the first dungeon of the Classic NES mini series Legend of Zelda without any controller issues using the clean No-Intro verified ROM and the Clean Boot option of the Omega. Note that I don't have the new beta kernel that @FAST6191 has, I am using the regular FW: 3, K:1.01 from the ezflash.cn homepage.

 

[kuwanger]

So far I can say:

>1. multi level for exfat

Haven't tested yet

>2. selection can be cycled in game menu, press up go to last item.

Don't know what this means? At least, in both the file list and the "clean boot" menu, pressing up doesn't do anything at the top of the list

>3. file sort by alphabet

This works fine; I would note this seem to be case sensitive

>4. recently played game list

Seems to work fine

>5. multiboot (says L+A on the new help screen)

As far as I can tell, L+A "multiboot" does a soft reset. Doesn't fix Sonic Pinball Party. Still seems to create/load a save for some reason. Oh, and you can't simple load .mb files as far as I can tell. You have to have properly patched .gba that load themselves into RAM? I might look more into this.

Edit: Some more toying around and for some reason Save Auto doesn't work, FLASH64 doesn't either (even though it's FLASH512_V131 AFAIK), but FLASH128 does boot the game.

>6. delete file

Works on fat32. Haven't tested on any others yet, but I presume it'll work on others as well.

>7. press left go first item on first page. but right go last item on last page can not be implemented right now.

Works

>8. stay the same folder position on upper level when you exit the folder.

Works, mostly. If you press A on an item (like a .bmp) that can't load, go up a folder, go to a folder with a lot of items and scroll down, go back up a folder, then go to another folder it seems to get confused on where the position of the selection bar should be and goes beyond the end of the list.

>9. fixed eeprom v126 identify

Yggdra Union loads, but it frozen in the tutorial with "Boot with Addons" Seems to work with Clean Boot.

 

[slaphappygamer]

@slaphappygamer I just finished the first dungeon of the Classic NES mini series Legend of Zelda without any controller issues using the clean No-Intro verified ROM and the Clean Boot option of the Omega. Note that I don't have the new beta kernel that @FAST6191 has, I am using the regular FW: 3, K:1.01 from the ezflash.cn homepage.

Thank you for that. I’ll redump the game and try again.....the one thing I didn’t try, lol.

 

[EZ-Flash2]

So far I can say:



>2. selection can be cycled in game menu, press up go to last item.

Don't know what this means? At least, in both the file list and the "clean boot" menu, pressing up doesn't do anything at the top of the list

end of the list.

>9. fixed eeprom v126 identify

Yggdra Union loads, but it frozen in the tutorial with "Boot with Addons" Seems to work with Clean Boot.

2. before this update. you can't go LOAD by press up while in-game menu, you have to press DOWN two times. now you just press UP one time go to LOAD.

9. I tested Yggdra Union Chinese translated version(based on JP Ver, heavily modified) with ADDON. I can finish first stage conversation and save in battleground, then popup in-game menu and reset to kernel. no freeze.

 

[EZ-Flash2]

multiboot tested by Chinese user with some memory stick things and works.

 

[kuwanger]

multiboot tested by Chinese user with some memory stick things and works.

Any chance of a video showing what that means?

9. I tested Yggdra Union Chinese translated version(based on JP Ver, heavily modified) with ADDON. I can finish first stage conversation and save in battleground, then popup in-game menu and reset to kernel. no freeze.

I played through the US version and got about halfway through the first stage with tutorials on before it froze. It might have just been a random fluke, as I didn't bother testing it a second time to try to recreate it. Edit: Tried a second time, and this time it didn't freeze, so I guess it was a random fluke.

On a slight side-note, looking further into Sonic Pinball Party US and while I can get it to load by settng Save FLASH128, it doesn't actually save. Other FLASH512_V131 games seem to load fine with Save <Auto>, and a quick test with Shining Soul and it seems to save/load properly.

Another error. Turn on the GBA and press Start, A, B, A and you get error 0. Press B, B and you go to the folder containing the Recently Used Game to select at the beginning. Clearly there's a cwd() being done to launch the game but not one back to the original folder if you cancel.

PS - Since I was having so many problems with corruption in the past, I've instituted a regular thorough check of all files using an rsync to mirror to my computer and a fsck on a regular basis. On FAT32, I've had no corruption issues. I'm beginning to think most of my corruption issues were due to my testing on ExFat, and your fat library's ExFat implementation being substantially slower than FAT32 for writes. Any chance of doing a simple benchmark of say creating 200 empty 8K save files in SAVER on FAT32 vs ExFat with the library you use with a sync() between each file?

 

[porkiewpyne]

I've been contemplating getting a GBA flashcart for years now, going back and forth between the EZ3in1 and the older EZ4 initially. The new EZ4 looked pretty decent. Then they came out with the Reform. And now we have the Omega. Possibly the closest I have been to actually getting one. Seems like it is as good as it can get, outside maybe making the battery solderless and easier to replace? Coming with both sizes is another icing on the cake.

 

[Rune]

If they could make a cart this good at half the size (to accommodate the DSLite), I'd like to see them make an even better one at the full GBA cart size.

 

[FAST6191]

If they could make a cart this good at half the size (to accommodate the DSLite), I'd like to see them make an even better one at the full GBA cart size.

What do you propose they add with the extra space?
You pretty much only have rumble, solar sensor, the various flavours of tilt sensor ( http://problemkaputt.de/gbatek.htm#gbacartridges ), ereader if you want to get really silly ( http://ereader.no-intro.org/info.php?set=Hardware ), Legendz and Plaston gate if you want to get utterly nuts and that pretty much finishes the list from https://gbatemp.net/threads/buying-a-gba-flash-cart-in-2013.341203/page-18#post-4756995 . After that you could possibly go to http://reinerziegler.de/GBA/gba.htm#great GBA hardware but why would you do that today?

Everything else is software, possibly even the Shrek video stuff (split it between the RAM and the NOR, set pages a la anything else).

I could maybe see the tilt sensor stuff be of some merit for people but I would not hold my breath.

 

[helltoast]

Can you use GBA Exploader to flash games to the Omega from slot-1?

This seems better than the old 3in1.