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GBA Current best flashcard?

FluffyLunamoth

FluffyLunamoth

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Looking to get a GBA flashcard to play some Pokémon romhacks on my Pocket, but need one that supports RTC.

Whats currently the better of the two between Everdrive GBA Mini and the EZFlash Omega DE? Can only find reviews on the GBA X5, nothing on the Mini.
 
EZ-Flash Omega DE is by far the better option. The flashcart has a much better battery life, saving your savestates isn't a problem that doesnt require waiting a few seconds before powering off, rumble support for games that use it, and a larger NOR flash to run games that are larger than 64MB in size.

The price can range from $90-$110 depending on where you order them from.
 
SylverReZ said:
EZ-Flash Omega DE is by far the better option. The flashcart has a much better battery life, saving your savestates isn't a problem that doesnt require waiting a few seconds before powering off, rumble support for games that use it, and a larger NOR flash to run games that are larger than 64MB in size.

The price can range from $90-$110 depending on where you order them from.
Click to expand...
I regularly see these carts for cheaper than that on Aliexpress. I just spent 30 seconds looking and found one for $70.
 
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I'm going to be the contrarian and recommend the EDGBAmini. You can buy it for $79 right now.

Save states are the one big feature the EZFlash has over the EDGBAmini. And while I recognize the utility of save states, I stopped using them a long time ago. It's cheating and it dilutes the achievement of beating a game. Just my opinion, YMMV.

Power draw on the GBA mini is about half of the EZFlash. I play on a real GBA (modded with laminated ITA screen) and get about 10 hours from a recharge on nimh AA's. With the EZFlash I'd get 5-6 hours, at least according to everything I've read comparing them.
 
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Hanafuda said:
Power draw on the GBA mini is about half of the EZFlash. I play on a real GBA (modded with laminated ITA screen) and get about 10 hours from a recharge on nimh AA's. With the EZFlash I'd get 5-6 hours, at least according to everything I've read comparing them.
Click to expand...
 
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mnk3_ said:
Click to expand...


Interesting. This is the only instance I've seen of someone claiming (and apparently backing up that claim) of relative power draw parity between them though. Go google for comparisons/reviews of them both and just about every source you find will say the EZFlash draws more power.
 
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Hanafuda said:
Interesting. This is the only instance I've seen of someone claiming (and apparently backing up that claim) of relative power draw parity between them though. Go google for comparisons/reviews of them both and just about every source you find will say the EZFlash draws more power.
Click to expand...
Those comparisons are older and use the EZ Flash ODE Revision A.
Revision B is newer and uses a more efficient FPGA, which is responsible for the power draw advantage over the Everdrive. The comparison posted by @mnk3_ is much newer, and if you pause the video at the correct frame, you can see that a Revision B card is under test.
All EZ Flash ODE carts on the market since early 2022 are Revision B.
 
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Been out of the loop for a while. For reference I only have an ezflazh 4 for the GBA. Works good enough, I guess. Thing is, I want to at least get a new one to give the wife for her GBA, maybe a second for myself so I can leave this ez4 in the gb player.

I also presume I will need a gb(c) flash cart for playing the s/gb/c games. Even there, I might well want two. But don't know what to get or where from.
 
codezer0 said:
Been out of the loop for a while. For reference I only have an ezflazh 4 for the GBA. Works good enough, I guess. Thing is, I want to at least get a new one [...]
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Since then, well, the EZ-Reform was made (for a short while) which is pretty much the last direct evolution of the EZ-4, and various modern-style flashcards that can "easily" run roms without prepatching* came out (the Everdrive X5, the EZ-Omega, the EZ-Omega Definitive)
I wrote the details at https://consolemods.org/wiki/GBA:Flash_Carts#The_return_of_EZ-Flash but basically, those 3 I named are respectively: most reliable, best value, most features - in other words, each has its strengths and defects

* the EZ-4 miniSD/microSD/Reform can, with the newest updates, also patch roms on their own, but is fairly slow at that AFAIK

codezer0 said:
I also presume I will need a gb(c) flash cart for playing the s/gb/c games. Even there, I might well want two.
Click to expand...
Depends on what you mean by "need", Goomba and variants do a reasonable job of emulating the GB/C despite being inaccurate and not too compatible - but any single GB/C flashcard will not be the ultimate option either: the top of the line Everdrive X7 is in fact rather limited in mapper support, the EZ-Junior (or frankly any non-GBA product of theirs) has a poor reputation for console compatibility and quality/support, most every other one is discontinued and/or a traditional flashcard (externally programmed and not particularly multi-game friendly)

In fact on a GC you can probably do those better with software emulation (emGBA)...
 
I've never been able to get any kind of emulation to work from the ez4, at all.

And I'd been craving a way to (re)play the fan fixed mm2gb on real hardware. Rather sad, that one can't get the fixed soundtrack without it going to require a gbc, but that's neither here nor there.

Also, just as a means of having the whole library either on a gb(c) or on the super game boy.
 
The Chinese Everdrive GB clones from AliExpress are good value and work well as long as you don't need RTC. Generally accepted wisdom says to not use the microSD card that comes with them, as it may well fail, but the cart itself is a reliable way to play GB/C games.
 
I you wanted RTC and GB/C support for Pokemon titles and trading are there any decent cheap carts out there?
 

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