Hacking EZ-FLASH OMEGA test flight

EZ-Flash2

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@EZ-Flash2 Question

Would it be possible to remove the direct save to SD card feature through a firmware update?
Isn't the firmware that controls it? Or is it the circuitry on the FPGA?

no, there is no battery - sram save circuit design on the board.

the card is desiged for NO-BATTERY SAVE at the beginning.
 
Last edited by EZ-Flash2,

hippy dave

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I haven't actually used the Omega yet (mine FINALLY landed in my country today), but I realised maybe it freezes while it's saving, so you wouldn't be able to quit while that was happening. Makes sense that way.
 

bibliomon

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no, it won't freeze on saving.

I believe the previous comment was asking if there is an in-system indication that 1-2 seconds have passed (maybe a 'ding' sound OR a pop-up message) that is implemented in the firmware.

If not, could it be considered in the next update perhaps?
 

Localhorst86

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@EZ-Flash2 I think I found a particular issue with the game "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance" in regards to saving.

affected title:
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It)
MD5: 6EA5FC0E4B56A232AC3CBDAB4B4A6BCD
(possibly other regions).

I have noticed on my particular GBA hardware that I can see when the EZFlash omega cartridge saves to the SD card by looking at the devices power LED. When saving, it does flicker ever so slightly. I have observed the LED to be pretty much flickering the entire time when in battle.

From what I understand, the Omegas FPGA monitors the save memory area (0xE000000) and if any changes occur, the FPGA will initiate the write process to the SD, is that correct?

I have opened the ROM in mgba and fired up the memory viewer to look at the flash memory area for the title and noticed the contents "flickering" - i.e. some bytes in the area are changed for a split second, then being changed back by the game.

Could this be a cause for some people having issues/lost saves and would a workaround (similar to the one implemented in K104 FW6 for the "Fire Emblem" games) be possible?
For your convenience, I have attached a save file for the game so you don't have to sit through the 20min intro. All you have to do is enter a battle from the map screen.
 

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  • Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It).zip
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:-infern:

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1. GBA Original
2. 7
3. 1.07
4. Sandisk MicroSD 64GB
5. exFat
6. 128kb
7. Folders and files are missing
8. Just copied some roms to my sd card on windows, most of them wont appear in the Omega

The files are not read-only, they are not marked for archive. I checked in a linux machine and the file permissions are all identical, yet some files show and some dont.

Edit: I got them all to work by using linux, moving whole folder of files off my sd card then moving it back to the same place. This means that there are issues with the Omega reading files copied from a windows system.
 
Last edited by :-infern:, , Reason: fixed issue
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:-infern:

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3. 1.07
4. Sandisk MicroSD 64GB
5. exFat
6. 128kb
7. Cant play 64MB rom files
8. Says file too big, e.g. game boy advance video files
 

EZ-Flash2

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Edit: I got them all to work by using linux, moving whole folder of files off my sd card then moving it back to the same place. This means that there are issues with the Omega reading files copied from a windows system.

I'm glad you found your own solution.

1. GBA Original
2. 7
3. 1.07
4. Sandisk MicroSD 64GB
5. exFat
6. 128kb
7. Cant play 64MB rom files
8. Says file too big, e.g. game boy advance video files

I'm curious as to which flash card on the market can run a 64MB video ROM.
 

:-infern:

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I'm glad you found your own solution.



I'm curious as to which flash card on the market can run a 64MB video ROM.

I had thought the major two flash carts would have done given the GBA is using 19 year old technology. just searched as the everdrive x5 doesnt either because it only has 32mb of flash ram, didnt know flash was so expensive
 

Localhorst86

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I had thought the major two flash carts would have done given the GBA is using 19 year old technology. just searched as the everdrive x5 doesnt either because it only has 32mb of flash ram, didnt know flash was so expensive
It's not really an issue with the cost of flash storage. Afaik the chip used in the omega actually does have 512Mbit/64Mbyte.
The issue is that the GBA can only address 256Mbit. The 512Mbit Video ROMs available for the GBA have specialized bank switching hardware that has only been reverse engineered in the last few years - mGBA is afaik currently the only emulator able to run these titles.
For a flashcard manufacturer this would mean they'd have to reverse engineer and reimplement the bank switching hardware. This would be a huge effort (on top of intrudocing cost for additional hardware) and the payoff of being able to run 7(*) ROMs that are just novelty would be incredibly low (There are better ways to meme shrek on the GBA)

*we're talking about 7 individual roms, at least two of these are just a "revision" or compilation of the other video titles.
 
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