Hacking Are there any people with EZ Omega that havent had issues?

[playstays_shun]

All saves r roms r scram save patched on IV

what does that mean? Saves on reset or ?

 

[Shadow#1]

what does that mean? Saves on reset or ?

Yes

 

[playstays_shun]

I wonder why they switched it. Isn’t that a more fool proof solution?

why are the IV’s impossible to find? Is a IV superior to omega in a sense?
Also love your red button clear GBC. Looks a ton like my AGB101

 

[Shadow#1]

I wonder why they switched it. Isn’t that a more fool proof solution?

why are the IV’s impossible to find? Is a IV superior to omega in a sense?
Also love your red button clear GBC. Looks a ton like my AGB101

Omega is superior in every way to IV and thanks I love my mod alot

 

[Localhorst86]

I wonder why they switched it. Isn’t that a more fool proof solution?

why are the IV’s impossible to find? Is a IV superior to omega in a sense?
Also love your red button clear GBC. Looks a ton like my AGB101

We can only realy speculate as to why the EZFlash team switched the saving method around on the omega. One possible reason could be down to the battery inside. The omega introduced the RTC which needs a battery to keep the time. Since that clock is always running, the battery cell on the board would run dry faster than if it were to power (only) the SRAM like it does on the EZFlash IV and the EZFlash Reform. Once the battery runs dry on those cards (which can take decades), saving no longer works on the IV and Reform until you replace the battery.
So maybe they just wanted to remove the battery dependency for the saving.

Spoiler: speculation, confirmed not to be relevant, the Omega does contain an SRAM chip

Maybe it's also down to cost - I don't remember if the EZFlash Omega actually has an SRAM chip where it saves the savegame during the runtime or if they use the same storage where they run the ROMs from (one would need to closer inspect the chips on the board) - if they don't use a separate SRAM chip It looks like the Omega doesn't have an SRAM chip, that also saves them money in the manufacturing process because they don't need to buy the chips and they don't have to take it into consideration in the board design. Wether their revised saving system caused them to omit the SRAM or vice versa, we can just guess, though.

It might just be a combination of both (and/or other reasons) and they believed to have the perfect solution to this. But it also seems they learned from their mistakes as they went back to the "old" tried and true system for their EZFlash Jr. GBC flashcard.

The Omega is superior to the EZFlash IV/Reform because it has more features. The Omega has additional features like a Real Time Clock, cheats and savestates. It also loads the game instantly, whereas loading a game on the IV/Reform takes between 10 to 60 seconds (depending on the size) and takes even longer the very first time you boot a game (30 seconds to 2 minutes).

All of this doesn't mean the EZFlash IV or Reform are bad cards or that they should be avoided - they are adequate solutions that are easy to use and do their job well - if updated to a firmware above 2.01.

But since they are EOL, they are harder to find, most resellers will probably be selling the Omega.

You might have noticed me calling the predecessor "IV/Reform" - Ezflash released the "Reform" model about a year before the omega which is functionaly identical to the EZFlash IV but slightly smaller (It comes with a shell that sits flush in a DS lite, just like the Omega). Maybe you'll have more luck finding that one.

I want to upgrade to the Omega but all the issues people are having scares me. Guess I'll stick with the EZ flash IV.

If you're happy with the EZFlash IV and don't need any of the additional features of the omega, staying with the IV or Reform is a valid option.

 

[godreborn]

due to the saving problems with ez flash omega, I bought an everdrive. I tried saving then immediately turning it off to see what happens. it saved, no corruption.

 

[playstays_shun]

We can only realy speculate as to why the EZFlash team switched the saving method around on the omega. One possible reason could be down to the battery inside. The omega introduced the RTC which needs a battery to keep the time. Since that clock is always running, the battery cell on the board would run dry faster than if it were to power (only) the SRAM like it does on the EZFlash IV and the EZFlash Reform. Once the battery runs dry on those cards (which can take decades), no longer works on the IV and Reform until you replace the battery.
So maybe they just wanted to remove the battery dependency for the saving.
Maybe it's also down to cost - I don't remember if the EZFlash Omega actually has an SRAM chip where it saves the savegame during the runtime or if they use the same storage where they run the ROMs from (one would need to closer inspect the chips on the board) - if they don't use a separate SRAM chip It looks like the Omega doesn't have an SRAM chip, that also saves them money in the manufacturing process because they don't need to buy the chips and they don't have to take it into consideration in the board design. Wether their revised saving system caused them to omit the SRAM or vice versa, we can just guess, though.

It might just be a combination of both (and/or other reasons) and they believed to have the perfect solution to this. But it also seems they learned from their mistakes as they went back to the "old" tried and true system for their EZFlash Jr. GBC flashcard.

The Omega is superior to the EZFlash IV/Reform because it has more features. The Omega has additional features like a Real Time Clock, cheats and savestates. It also loads the game instantly, whereas loading a game on the IV/Reform takes between 10 to 60 seconds (depending on the size) and takes even longer the very first time you boot a game (30 seconds to 2 minutes).

All of this doesn't mean the EZFlash IV or Reform are bad cards or that they should be avoided - they are adequate solutions that are easy to use and do their job well - if updated to a firmware above 2.01.

But since they are EOL, they are harder to find, most resellers will probably be selling the Omega.

You might have noticed me calling the predecessor "IV/Reform" - Ezflash released the "Reform" model about a year before the omega which is functionaly identical to the EZFlash IV but slightly smaller (It comes with a shell that sits flush in a DS lite, just like the Omega). Maybe you'll have more luck finding that one.



If you're happy with the EZFlash IV and don't need any of the additional features of the omega, staying with the IV or Reform is a valid option.

thanks! Wow it’s still 10-60 seconds with new firmware on IV/reform?

so it’s possible if you practice safe saving methods of waiting you will never have memory card corruption?

 

[Localhorst86]

thanks! Wow it’s still 10-60 seconds with new firmware on IV/reform?

so it’s possible if you practice safe saving methods of waiting you will never have memory card corruption?

*loading* a ROM takes longer on the IV/reform because, simplified, the memory controller is much slower.
The first time you load a ROM takes even longer because the card needs to analyze the ROM before it can apply the patches it needs to achieve the near 100% compatibility (Some games went out of their way to prevent running on flashcards), once the patching process has been analized, it writes that information to the SD card and uses it next time you load the same ROM.

But still, loading the ROM from the SD card into memory can take up to 1 minute for the larger games.

Memory card corruption on the omega happens mostly due to an interrupted write operation, when you don't interrupt the writing process, you shouldn't have any issues with memory corruption. The issue is that there is no indication as to when a write process is happening, the "5-10 second rule" is just a "guess it should be done now" approach.

As I said, I haven't had any corruption following this method.

 

[realtimesave]

Ez Flash Jr just isn't fully compatible with Super Gameboy. I'm hoping they update it to work with it soon. Yes I know about pressing reset twice but you still don't get SGB borders when you do that.

 

[Xalusc]

Me. More than a full year with mine, not a single issue at all.

FAT32 is preferred. exFAT is a bad format. It's prone to corruption, not only with EZ Flash.

 

[Localhorst86]

Ez Flash Jr just isn't fully compatible with Super Gameboy. I'm hoping they update it to work with it soon. Yes I know about pressing reset twice but you still don't get SGB borders when you do that.

This is about their GBA card, the Omega, not the EZFlash Jr.

 

[realtimesave]

This is about their GBA card, the Omega, not the EZFlash Jr.

yeah, and? I see plenty posts in this thread about the Jr.

 

[playstays_shun]

Nothing wrong with discussing Jr

it’s just there are other threads for that

 

[cearp]

why are the IV’s impossible to find?

because they're old... I have one that only accept mini sd cards

 

[ghjfdtg]

We can only realy speculate as to why the EZFlash team switched the saving method around on the omega.

The reason is very simple. SRAM is not the right save type for many games. By supporting the correct save type no patches are needed which also saves time booting games.

 

[playstays_shun]

The reason is very simple. SRAM is not the right save type for many games. By supporting the correct save type no patches are needed which also saves time booting games.

but isn't this how ED GBA handles saves? on reset and specifically next launch of ROM?

and isn't that full compatibility and issue free?

I really wish EDGBA had an in game reset. thats huge to me.

if ED x5 mini was $80 (I guess Black Friday, hopefully available on amazon too for free shipping) I would be more tempted to bite.

--

its amazing (or rather interesting) how development on ODE and flashcarts come along in only recent years. Like Saturn is finally getting some love outside of Rhea and Phoebe. The MODE. Fenrir. Maybe Satiator one day.

The Omega apparently came out in fall 2018, so its not even two years old! and x5 mini is brand new (even though its functionally just a shrunk regular x5 from I think 2016)

 

[ghjfdtg]

I don't know how everdrive handles it to be honest. Either it supports all types natively or it SRAM patches automatically. My guess is probably the former.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I wonder why they switched it. Isn’t that a more fool proof solution?

why are the IV’s impossible to find? Is a IV superior to omega in a sense?
Also love your red button clear GBC. Looks a ton like my AGB101

Probably because once the battery dies it will no longer keep saves.
IVs are no longer being made I think. It's still a solid flashcart, the Omega just has a more modern feature set to compete with Everdrive.

 

[playstays_shun]

should be interesting to see if there's any newer EZ Flash or Everdrives,

I think there's no x3 or x7 in the works and not sure if the EZ flash team on here would speak about such things but

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to my original question are there any people who over a good period of time, practicing good save efforts, havent had any issues at all with their saves or otherwise?

 

[Shadow#1]

should be interesting to see if there's any newer EZ Flash or Everdrives,

I think there's no x3 or x7 in the works and not sure if the EZ flash team on here would speak about such things but

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to my original question are there any people who over a good period of time, practicing good save efforts, havent had any issues at all with their saves or otherwise?

Me