I got an idea about how the Acekard RPG works.
Maybe it doesn't patch the commercial ROMs at all. It might emulate a real commercial card, and somehow have flash that it programs into one nonfragmented file. That would explain the old original Acekard RPG with its own file system - it didn't patch the games either, hence its 100% compatibility. I don't think the Acekard RPG patches games for saving either - I think it has a built-in EEPROM. This would explain why saves are only written the next time the Acekard is powered up. Fortunately, we can avoid the problem by making a ROM patcher, but as you know, these aren't always perfect. The hardware is a great fallback if necessary, and IMHO saving to EEPROM is just fine for me.
To confirm this, does anyone have some hi-res scans of the Acekard RPG internals?
Maybe it doesn't patch the commercial ROMs at all. It might emulate a real commercial card, and somehow have flash that it programs into one nonfragmented file. That would explain the old original Acekard RPG with its own file system - it didn't patch the games either, hence its 100% compatibility. I don't think the Acekard RPG patches games for saving either - I think it has a built-in EEPROM. This would explain why saves are only written the next time the Acekard is powered up. Fortunately, we can avoid the problem by making a ROM patcher, but as you know, these aren't always perfect. The hardware is a great fallback if necessary, and IMHO saving to EEPROM is just fine for me.
To confirm this, does anyone have some hi-res scans of the Acekard RPG internals?