Hacking 3 in 1 questions

[PKGINGO]

So I have a whole try before you buy deal going on here. My friend lent me his 3 in 1 to try with my setup (DS-X, gba exploader).

Have an interesting problem. Just to try it, I loaded Minish cap to the NOR memory. Worked like a charm after some time. However, randomly, most notably when there is no action to do (IE cant access menu early in the game, watching first time shrinking video for area, etc), if I press start, the game freezes. Reflashing the game fixed a specific instance of it, then it did it again, also when I pressed start.

If it makes a difference, this is GBA sized. I obviously have a few questions.

1) Is this normal?
2) Could this cart be giving off odd interrupts the game can't handle?
3) Is there a way to verify NOR integrity?

If the NOR is bad, that's too bad. he might need to borrow mine for Mother 3 lol.
I will try the game in PSRAM a bit later, but if anyone can get me any insight, I would appreciate it. Thanks.

 

[Destructobot]

1. No.

2. The EZ-IV and the 3-in-1 both have a hardware bug that gives off interupts when it shouldn't, but the only problem it causes is it prevents the in-game sleep mode from working. You can still patch the games for sleep mode though.

3. You could use a dumping tool to dump the contents of the NOR, and then use a hex editor to compare that file to the original. Rudolph's GBA Backup tool will probably work for this, and GBALdr will also work.

4. If the problem persists, and it happens with the same game in both NOR and PSRAM mode, the DS-X's memory may be corrupted. Reformatting it should fix this.

 

[PKGINGO]

1. No.

2. The EZ-IV and the 3-in-1 both have a hardware bug that gives off interupts when it shouldn't, but the only problem it causes is it prevents the in-game sleep mode from working. You can still patch the games for sleep mode though.

3. You could use a dumping tool to dump the contents of the NOR, and then use a hex editor to compare that file to the original. Rudolph's GBA Backup tool will probably work for this, and GBALdr will also work.

4. If the problem persists, and it happens with the same game in both NOR and PSRAM mode, the DS-X's memory may be corrupted. Reformatting it should fix this.

Thank you

. It's nice to get a technical answer when I need one. I will give the dumper and compare a try

.

 

[PKGINGO]

I compared the 2 ROMs, a clean one and a dump from gbaldr. Seems like the stuff that was changed pertained to SRAM.....

 

[Destructobot]

That would be normal for GBA ExpLoader, as it automatically SRAM patches games when it copies them to the 3-in-1.

Does this happen on any other games? Also, what version of GBA ExpLoader are you using? The current version is v0.57.

 

[PKGINGO]

I am using version 0.57. After testing the ROM in PSRAM, no issues. I'll try some other games once I dump them, it takes it a while to do that.

 

[PKGINGO]

I think I figured it out. Fragmentation messes with the games. I cleared everything off, formatted, and recopied and ti works swell. Thanks for your help earlier

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