Everdrive GBA is finally a reality

[Adrian-E-C]

Can't wait... I need to see the EZ-FLASH vs EVERDRIVE comparison to decide which one to buy

There is a comparison vid currently on youtube for the everdrive gba and Ez flash IV. The guy keeps talking about flashing his gba firmware...which either ive never heard of before...or he just is cinfused about how the Ez Flash IV works. Either way the vid itself is pretty darn informative for seeing the two cards in action. Clearly the everdrive blows the EZ out of the friggin water.

 

[biscuits99]

Yes, besides the rom patching, on mine I had to take these steps (2 to 5)
http://ez-flash-iv-review.over-blog...s-guide-on-how-to-set-up-the-ez-flash-iv.html

Admittedly I could well be using the wrong terminology, but it just seemed as though I had to update something (kernel?) in the GBA before the EZ Flash would work.

As an aside, save games seem to transfer ok from EZ Flash to ED-GBA.
And I still impressed by how much FASTER the ED-GBA is at loading the roms.

I havent got the very latest EZ Flash IV, but I'm going to be sticking with the ED-GBA - much more flexible.

 

[Adrian-E-C]

Yes, besides the rom patching, on mine I had to take these steps (2 to 5)
http://ez-flash-iv-review.over-blog...s-guide-on-how-to-set-up-the-ez-flash-iv.html

Admittedly I could well be using the wrong terminology, but it just seemed as though I had to update something (kernel?) in the GBA before the EZ Flash would work.

As an aside, save games seem to transfer ok from EZ Flash to ED-GBA.
And I still impressed by how much FASTER the ED-GBA is at loading the roms.

I havent got the very latest EZ Flash IV, but I'm going to be sticking with the ED-GBA - much more flexible.

Yeah no...you updated the firmware on the EZ flash perhaps. You would never need to update the GBA itself in any way. That was the only thing that confused me there.

Good video though...how about taking a vid of games like Boktai 2 or Max Payne or Tony hawk pro skater running on the thing. Or is you are able to...pocketnes or goombacolor.

 

[FAST6191]

Generally speaking other than on a supercard and its clones then any slowdown in games would have been there in the commercial release and increasing read speeds of your RAM/NOR (not to mention what you are seeing is increased write speed in menus which is different) is not going to be like USB loaders vs DVD on the wii or something.
Or if you prefer play it in an emulator and you will see the exact same slowdowns, you occasionally see emulators include load times (I don't know if there are c64 ones that do it but Amiga ones will be default).

With all this said I am finding the excitement kind of odd -- money no object and including rare and hard to come by legacy carts it is going to be the best on the market, however it is not like the other things the everdrive lot came in on and saw new things playable and/or massive increases in usability for.

 

[garbanzox]

...it is not like the other things the everdrive lot came in on and saw new things playable and/or massive increases in usability for.

I would call the lack of ROM patching a massive increase in usability. I never bought a GBA flash cart for that very reason.

 

[biscuits99]

Yeah no...you updated the firmware on the EZ flash perhaps. You would never need to update the GBA itself in any way. That was the only thing that confused me there.

Good video though...how about taking a vid of games like Boktai 2 or Max Payne or Tony hawk pro skater running on the thing. Or is you are able to...pocketnes or goombacolor.

Ah - yes of course! Its been a while since I did that. You're right it was the EZ Flash cart itself I updated not the GBA. I'll make another video with some more details including those games.

 

[FAST6191]

I would call the lack of ROM patching a massive increase in usability. I never bought a GBA flash cart for that very reason.

I guess it is as a great album title once read, Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death.

 

[biscuits99]

A brief update here:

 

[Adrian-E-C]

A brief update here:

This was excellent, thank you! Gives me a pretty good idea of what to expect.
If I hadn't already pre-ordered...Id say you sold me on it.

And yes...give goombacolor a go, the newest version supports save states...which is great. pretty sure the only game that really lags on it is Shante.

 

[Jayro]

Moved this to USN since I bet a lot of our users will be interested in it.

Anyway, GBAtemp will be getting a review sample and we'll have a review ready ASAP - stay tuned! [The cart has been out almost a month now... where's the GBATemp review on this thing?/QUOTE]

 

[raulpica]

The cart has been out almost a month now... where's the GBATemp review on this thing?

I've received it only 10 days or so ago, and I've got a lot of RL stuff going on.

And yes...give goombacolor a go, the newest version supports save states...which is great. pretty sure the only game that really lags on it is Shante.

No saving in homebrews at the moment. That's why you guys need to wait for the GBAtemp review instead of watching random vids

Yours truly has feature-requested save support for Goomba Color, PocketNES, PCEadvance, MSXadvance and PocketSMS. Krikzz is working on it and it should be ready by the end of August.

Anyway, I decided to expand the ED GBA vs EZ4 paragraph and rewrite it a bit. I haven't got much free time these days, but hopefully I'll submit it for proof-read tonight.

 

[migles]

@raulpica
hows the rtc, does it still have the small problem found in the m3?
in my m3 starting a new game of pokemon would reset the clock..
for example, if you played ruby for 2 or 3 days, and started a new game on emerald, ruby would prompt the battery message or clock would be wrong..
you could also notice this by, setting the clock on boktai, start a new game in pokemon and boktai would get back to default date in the 2000 year

it was kinda hard to "syncronize" the pokemon games clocks so they would match the same hour and aproximate minutes..

 

[Adrian-E-C]

I've received it only 10 days or so ago, and I've got a lot of RL stuff going on.


No saving in homebrews at the moment. That's why you guys need to wait for the GBAtemp review instead of watching random vids

Yours truly has feature-requested save support for Goomba Color, PocketNES, PCEadvance, MSXadvance and PocketSMS. Krikzz is working on it and it should be ready by the end of August.

Anyway, I decided to expand the ED GBA vs EZ4 paragraph and rewrite it a bit. I haven't got much free time these days, but hopefully I'll submit it for proof-read tonight.

Wow thats great that you requested that.
Quick question...how well does MSX advance work? Its the only one of the aforementioned emulators I have never tried. Does it emulate msx 1 and two? Basically can it play Metal Gear 1 and 2?

 

[raulpica]

@raulpica
hows the rtc, does it still have the small problem found in the m3?
in my m3 starting a new game of pokemon would reset the clock..
for example, if you played ruby for 2 or 3 days, and started a new game on emerald, ruby would prompt the battery message or clock would be wrong..
you could also notice this by, setting the clock on boktai, start a new game in pokemon and boktai would get back to default date in the 2000 year

it was kinda hard to "syncronize" the pokemon games clocks so they would match the same hour and aproximate minutes..

Yep, same "bug". It's because of how Pokémon calculates the time - it initialises the clock to 01/01/2000 00:00 and then starts counting from there. Crappiest RTC implementation ever.

Boktai instead sets the time properly. I've already warned Krikzz about this, and he's looking into a solution. Not sure if there's anything he can do, though.

Someone should write an RTC patch for Pokémon which doesn't reset the clock when you first set it, that would solve the issue.

Wow thats great that you requested that.
Quick question...how well does MSX advance work? Its the only one of the aforementioned emulators I have never tried. Does it emulate msx 1 and two? Basically can it play Metal Gear 1 and 2?

Pretty well in my testing. Just MSX1 though, which well, doesn't really have any groundbreaking games (most of them are on NES as well) :/

 

[GamingAori]

Oh okay. Because of the rtc bug I'm not interested in the everdrive I hope krikzz will fix it.

 

[raulpica]

Oh okay. Because of the rtc bug I'm not interested in the everdrive I hope krikzz will fix it.

Honestly, it's not a bug. It's just something Nintendo didn't think of when making the Pokémon games. Unless you intend to play the three different versions at the same time, you won't face any issue.

I'm not gonna subtract points for it in the review since the issue lies with the original code.

Obviously if Krikzz finds a workaround, he'll get brownie points for that

 

[GamingAori]

Honestly, it's not a bug. It's just something Nintendo didn't think of when making the Pokémon games. Unless you intend to play the three different versions at the same time, you won't face any issue.

I'm not gonna subtract points for it in the review since the issue lies with the original code.

Obviously if Krikzz finds a workaround, he'll get brownie points for that

Do you can test pokemon gaia? I want to play diffirent pokemon rom hacks at the same time so I need a working rtc I think.

 

[raulpica]

Do you can test pokemon gaia? I want to play diffirent pokemon rom hacks at the same time so I need a working rtc I think.

Sure, just get a me a list of the stuff you want tested and I'll test it for you

EDIT: Gaia uses FireRed, which doesn't use the RTC.

 

[GamingAori]

Sure, just get a me a list of the stuff you want tested and I'll test it for you

EDIT: Gaia uses FireRed, which doesn't use the RTC.

which games did you test already?

 

[raulpica]

which games did you test already?

Pretty much any major games, so expect all the stuff from Nintendo and some other famous games from other companies (Megaman EXE, Castlevania, etc.), but seriously, commercial games compatibility is like 99.9% so I expect practically everything to run on it.