Hacking A GBA and devices to play GB & GBC on it

[sfg]

Hello,

I own a DS on which I can play GBA games with a 3 in 1, but GB & GBC only through emulation which is far from perfect and many of the games I want to play either don't work at all or have glitches.
So, I would like to get a GBA and I want to know what is good setup, or even if it's possible to play GB and GBC roms on it, without any emulation.

My questions are:

- as above, if this is possible
- which version of GBA is recommended? I assume Micro is out since it has no support for GB and GBC?
- what cart should I get? Is this good: http://www.realhotstuff.com/ezflash-size-p-294.html ?
- does this involve anything else besides dropping the roms on your card? Any patching or something else required?

Thank you.

One more thing: If the cart could be also used on a DS Lite to play homebrew which doesn't have slot1 support (dsHeretic for example) it would be great.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

You need a GB Bridge and a Flash2Advance 256, especially if you don't want to play with an emulator.

Niether of which is made or sold anymore, niether is the company that made it. Try looking on ebay or the trading section here. As for the trading section here, ALL RESTRICTIONS APPLY.

 

[FAST6191]

Can I get a quick list of non working games, emulation has always been fairly solid for me (right from goomba (color) to lameboy and everything in between.

Still GB/GBC runs at a different voltage and so required a distinct cart (GBA carts could not do it without emulation), there was a so called GBA bridge that could convert an F2A I think it was into a GB/GBC cart but both are incredibly rare these days.

Note that the GBC hardware level emulation was not perfect on the GBA and a few games suffered palette issues.

That is the EZ4 (GBA size aka fat aka original model), the features listed are however for the EZ4 lite deluxe (only comes in DS lite size but it works if you can make it fit).
Patching is required, the application is called EZ4client which amounts to opening the rom (can be left in a zip/rar file) and pressing send.
Homebrew will require DLDI patching (no autopatching on the EZ4) and yes it will work on most homebrew not geared for the DS slot devices save the really really old stuff that never got a DLDI patch/EZ4 rebuild and most of that has better equivalents (it was mainly rom dumpers and save dumpers which have both been taken care of by rudolph's dumpers).

Naturally to run DS code you will need a flashed DS or a nopass (built into most DS slot carts these days), the EZ4 can also run most DS games (some of the very newest lack patches but certainly the first 3000 will be near flawless and most of the rest will work as well).

 

[sfg]

Well, to be honest most work, but in different emulators. Even so, there are graphic or sound glitches and it would simply be more convenient to have them all start from the same place and work without any problems.
Thank you for the answers, though. It seems the chance to find those devices is very slim.

One more thing, which I don't know if deserves a new topic: I'm trying to play Classic NES Bomberman, with a CycloDS and EZ 3 in 1 Plus. I've tried starting it from both SRAM and NOR, both with GBAExploader and with the Cyclo itself and the game loads, but it has a big delay between when I press a button and when it responds. Otherwise, the game runs smoothly. I managed to enter the first level and the enemies were moving at normal speed.
This is the only GBA game that caused me problems, and it did the same on my previous flash cart so I don't think the Cyclo is responsable.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

all the classic NES games for the GBA require patching to work.

 

[sfg]

Thank you, works perfectly now after I've patched it.

 

[gtmtnbiker]

I personally used Goomba Color to run a few GBC games on my GBA. It works well. The only issue for me was the lack of save states support so I ended up using Masterboy on a PSP to play my GBC games. But when I did use Goomba Color, I didn't see any issues with the few roms that I tried.

 

[Todderbert]

You could go true old school flash tech and get one of these.
http://store.kitsch-bent.com/product/usb-64m-smart-card

 

[AiMsHiT]

Cool, does it have RTS for GB/GBC?

 

[DanTheManMS]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say no. RTS was really only added to flash carts late in the GBA era.

 

[raulpica]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say no. RTS was really only added to flash carts late in the GBA era.
USB wasn't even used on most of the first GBA carts. So this cart is probably pretty new.

Official SiteImportant things to consider:

* Game *.sav file is stored in SRAM. Only one *.sav can be stored at the same time

Eww.

EDIT: It seems that nowadays GB carts are made with LSDJ support specifically on mind. That would explain the lacking of a decent multi-save support.

 

[Pliskron]

I recently scored a GB bridge and flash2advance on ebay. I think the best solution for gb and gbc would be to get the bleepbloop microsd drag and drop cart that's comming out soon.

 

[AiMsHiT]

Got any info on that bleepbloop cart?

 

[Todderbert]

Not much happening that I know of, the information was pulled from their site. I made this post about it back in November.
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=190927

Has USB support along with a SD card slot. If I remember correctly they were working on a real time save setup. Hopefully we will see this become available in a few months.

 

[sfg]

Weren't these supposed to be available from the beginning of last year?
See the last post here: http://8bitcollective.com/forums/viewtopic...id=350&p=11

Or is that something else?

 

[Todderbert]

Weren't these supposed to be available from the beginning of last year?
See the last post here: http://8bitcollective.com/forums/viewtopic...id=350&p=11

Or is that something else?

That is something else, its a usb cart no SD slot.
http://www.nonelectronics.com/catalog/inde...e45716467ac7a1b

 

[Pliskron]

I read somthing about 90 days and that was over a month ago so hopfully it'll be out soon. As intresting as that, the super game boy bios has been dummped and the guy working on it says the GBC is next on his list so I'm hoping for a good gb emulator with all the color pallets soon.

 

[DanTheManMS]

The GBC BIOS was dumped a few months ago. There's actually already an emulator out that has support for the GBC palettes, but nothing for the GBA or DS (yet). See http://www.pocketheaven.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=7047 for more info.

EDIT: Also http://www.pocketheaven.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=7112

 

[dnniwa485]

get a Supercard... it runs GB and GBC games at ease..

 

[sfg]

Yes, thank you, but I don't need shit emulators.

Anyway, I got one of those 64M Smart Cards a while ago and it's good, but too limited. This new cart that should come out soon sounds great.